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    Gay & Lesbian History for Kids: The Century-Long Struggle for LGBT Rights, with 21 Activities
    Gay & Lesbian History for Kids: The Century-Long Struggle for LGBT Rights, with 21 Activities
    Gay & Lesbian History for Kids: The Century-Long Struggle for LGBT Rights, with 21 Activities
    Ebook356 pages4 hours

    Gay & Lesbian History for Kids: The Century-Long Struggle for LGBT Rights, with 21 Activities

    By Jerome Pohlen

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    2016 Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People List

    Lambda Literary Award Finalist

    On the Rainbow Book List

    Who transformed George Washington's demoralized troops at Valley Forge into a fighting force that defeated an empire? Who cracked Germany's Enigma code and shortened World War II? Who successfully lobbied the US Congress to outlaw child labor? And who organized the 1963 March on Washington? Ls, Gs, Bs, and Ts, that's who.

    Given today's news, it would be easy to get the impression that the campaign for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality is a recent development, but it is only the final act in a struggle that started more than a century ago. The history is told through personal stories and firsthand accounts of the movement's key events, like the 1950s "Lavender Scare," the Stonewall Inn uprising, and the AIDS crisis. Kids will learn about civil rights mavericks, like Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, founder of the first gay rights organization; Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, who turned the Daughters of Bilitis from a lesbian social club into a powerhouse for LGBT freedom; Christine Jorgensen, the nation's first famous transgender; and Harvey Milk, the first out candidate to win a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Also chronicled are the historic contributions of famous LGBT individuals, from General von Steuben and Alan Turing to Jane Addams and Bayard Rustin, among others. This up-to-date history includes the landmark Supreme Court decision making marriage equality the law of the land. Twenty-one activities enliven the history and demonstrate the spirited ways the LGBT community has pushed for positive social change.

    Kids can: write a free verse poem like Walt Whitman; learn "The Madison" line dance; remember a loved one with a quilt panel; perform a monologue from The Laramie Project; make up a song parody; and much more.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChicago Review Press
    Release dateOct 1, 2015
    ISBN9781613730850
    Gay & Lesbian History for Kids: The Century-Long Struggle for LGBT Rights, with 21 Activities

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      Gay & Lesbian History for Kids - Jerome Pohlen

      Introduction

      Two Moms

      Hold on a minute! the hospital worker said, holding up her hands. There can’t be two moms in there.

      What? Theresa Volpe was stunned. She had just raced to the hospital in an ambulance with her son Jaidon, who was dying from kidney failure. Volpe’s partner, Mercedes Santos, had followed in their car. But in the chaos of the emergency room, Mercedes ended up inside the pediatric intensive care unit with Jaidon, while Theresa was outside the unit’s entrance, pleading with a hospital worker who wouldn’t let her pass. To keep track of who was in the unit, Mercedes had been given a Mother wristband, and all that was left was a Father wristband.

      Are you the stepmother? the worker asked. We can let you in if you’re the stepmother.

      No no no no no, Theresa thought, this isn’t happening. She quickly called Mercedes on her cell phone. As much as she hated to leave Jaidon’s side, Mercedes rushed out to get Theresa, leaving her 18-month-old son with the doctors trying to save his life. Soon they were both arguing with the hospital worker, and getting nowhere.

      Theresa and Mercedes had been a couple for 19 years. They’d built a home and business together, and were now raising two children—Ava and Jaidon. But they didn’t have time to explain any further. At this moment, only one thing mattered: Jaidon needed his mothers.

      THIS CONFRONTATION DID not happen decades ago in a hospital that had never seen lesbian parents. This happened in Chicago. In 2011. There was no excuse for the way their family was being treated.

      The long, difficult struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights is filled with stories of people like Theresa and Mercedes who stood up against injustice, often after they experienced it firsthand. What happened in the hospital that day would later change the hearts of many, and eventually change laws in the state of Illinois. Theresa, Mercedes, Ava, and Jaidon would follow in a grand tradition that started more than a century ago and continues to this day.

      But before you learn what they did, it’s important to understand how they, and all of us, got to this point.

      © Braden Gunem

      1

      A Brief History

      to 1900

      And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!

      —Katharine Lee Bates

      Pikes Peak as seen from Garden of the Gods, circa 1900. Library of Congress (LC-DIG-ppmsca-17814)

      July 22, 1893 The group of professors started in a horse-drawn prairie wagon early in the morning. Halfway to the summit of Pikes Peak the drivers switched to mules, which were better in the thin air. When the wagon reached the top, everyone got out to take in the view. At 14,115 feet above sea level, it seemed as if they could see from one ocean to the other.

      Katharine Lee Bates was overcome with emotion. It was then and there, as I was looking out over the sea-like expanse of fertile country spreading away so far under those ample skies, that the opening lines of the hymn floated into my mind, she later recalled.

      O beautiful for halcyon skies…

      The rest of the words would come later. But before she headed back from the mountaintop, Bates sent a telegram to her mother back home: Greetings from Pikes Peak, gloriously dizzy. Wish you were here.

      Katharine Lee Bates, circa 1885. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University

      Though Bates’s mother was not with her that day, Katharine Coman was. The pair had traveled together from back east, invited to be guest lecturers at Colorado College. On the journey west, their train rolled through Kansas on July 4, where they watched wheat fields blowing in the summer breeze. Bates wrote in her diary that she was A better American for such a Fourth.

      The memories of that summer trip with Coman would one day become a poem titled America. The poem would later be set to music by Samuel Augustus Ward and become the song you know today, America the Beautiful.

      O beautiful for spacious skies,

      For amber waves of grain,

      For purple mountain majesties

      Above the fruited plain.

      America! America!

      God shed His grace on thee,

      And crown thy good with brotherhood

      From sea to shining sea.

      How Do We Know?

      NOBODY HAS ever proven that Katharine Lee Bates and Katharine Coman were lesbian. The Professors Katharine, as they were known around Wellesley College, were certainly close. For 25 years they lived together in a Boston marriage, a popular term used to describe two unmarried women who depended on one another emotionally and behaved much like a married couple.

      And they definitely were a couple. The two had met at Wellesley in 1887. Coman taught history and economics; Bates was the head of the English department. Starting in 1894, the women shared a home and never separated until Coman died in 1915. After Coman’s death, Bates published a collection of poems for her lost partner titled Yellow Clover, where she called their relationship one soul together.

      The further back in history you look, the more difficult it is to know who was and wasn’t lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. The issue wasn’t discussed often, and if it was discussed, it was usually in a negative way. (The words homosexual and heterosexual didn’t even exist before 1868.) Years ago most personal relationships—marriages, families, friendships—were very different than they are today. Bates and Coman might not have even thought of themselves as lesbian, just different.

      Despite this, it doesn’t make sense to assume everyone in history was heterosexual until proven otherwise. Most people have dark hair—does that mean you should assume everyone in history has had dark hair unless described as another color? Given what we know of Bates, Coman, and their lives together, doesn’t it make more sense to say they probably were lesbian unless proven otherwise?

      As you will soon learn, history is filled with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. We know this through rare published histories, personal letters, court transcripts, and other sources. For years, much of this history was hidden, ignored, or erased by those who would rather not discuss it. But it is a fascinating, rich history, and our world would not be the same without the contributions of the LGBT community, invisible or not.

      Homosexuality Through the Centuries

      FOR AS long as there has been human civilization, LGBT people have played a part—from farmers to poets, generals to foot soldiers, peasants to queens and kings. In some cultures, same-sex couples and transgender persons were accepted as part of everyday life. But in many, they were persecuted.

      Ancient Greece was comfortable with homosexuality. The Greek philosopher Socrates (circa 469-399 BC)—who told his pupils Know thyself and The unexamined life is not worth living—was gay. So was his student Plato (427-347 BC), another great philosopher. The Greek poet and composer Sappho (circa 625-circa 570 BC) wrote about love between women. She set her poems to music played on a type of harp called a lyre. Sappho ran a school for young women on the island of Lesbos. This is where the word lesbian comes from.

      The military genius Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), born in the Greek kingdom of Macedon, established an empire that stretched from modern-day India and Afghanistan in the east to Egypt and Greece in the west. He often led his own soldiers into battle, and he never lost in eleven years. He was also bisexual. Hephaestion, the commander of his cavalry, was his partner.

      Sappho performs for an audience. Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-120246)

      ACTIVITY

      FIND AQUARIUS

      ACCORDING to Greek mythology, Aquarius is forever pouring water from his urn in the evening stars. Can you find it?

      You’ll Need

      Computer with Internet access and printer

      Binoculars or telescope (optional)

      Pen or pencils

      In North America, the constellation Aquarius is best seen in the month of January around 9 PM. (If you stay up later, you can also see it at 10 PM in December, or 11 PM in November.) You may not be able to see it clearly from a city because of light pollution. If you can go to the country, far from the bright lights, it will be easier to find. Binoculars or a telescope will also make viewing easier.

      To begin, find a star map for the January sky in your area—check www.astroviewer.com, then click Current Night Sky and enter your city. Print it out the day before you plan to use it, for the same hour as you will be stargazing.

      Imagine a line running north to south over your head. As you look along this line, there will be a bright star, almost alone, in the southern sky. This is Fomalhaut in the constellation Piscis Austrinus—the Southern Fish. Above Fomalhaut, zigzagging down toward it, will be several dimmer stars. These represent the flow of water out of Aquarius’s jar and into the mouth of the fish. Now look at your star map. Can you fill in the rest of the constellation?

      Homosexuality also appears in Greek mythology. The young mortal Ganymede so appealed to Zeus that he took him to live on Mount Olympus, where he became cupbearer to the gods. Hera became jealous, but Zeus still honored Ganymede by placing him in the night sky as the constellation Aquarius.

      In ancient China, the last emperor of the Han Dynasty, Ai (27-1 BC), reportedly did not care for women, even though he was married. He fell in love with Dong Xian, a male politician, and later named him head of the armed forces. Emperor Ai had hoped that Dong Xian would succeed him as the next emperor, but when Ai died unexpectedly, the Grand Empress Dowager Wang seized power.

      In Europe and the Middle East, the Roman Empire followed the Greeks, where again, homosexuality was common, and some Roman men married one another. The emperor Hadrian (AD 76-138) was bisexual, and when his partner Antinous drowned in the Nile River, Hadrian built a city, Antinopolis, in his honor. Hadrian was considered one of the five Good Emperors, fair and thoughtful rulers who were respected by their people. (Other Roman emperors were not so good, and even barbaric.)

      Farther east, in India, sacred Hindu texts tell of gods changing their gender, or gods that were both male and female, like Lakshminarayan, and of same-sex divine couples giving birth to children.

      Culture Connections

      MUCH OF the world’s art and literature has been created by LGBT individuals.

      You may be familiar with One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, the collection of Arabic and south Asian folktales that includes stories of Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba, and Aladdin’s lamp. One of the many contributors to the work, the Persian poet Abū Nuwās (circa 756-814), was most likely gay. Some of the tales include homosexuality, but for many years the gay passages were deliberately rewritten to disguise them.

      The Italian genius Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), best known for his fresco of the Last Supper and his painting of the Mona Lisa, was also a brilliant scientist, and he was gay. So was Michelangelo (1475–1564), who painted the ceiling mural of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel and sculpted David and the Pietà, one of the most famous Renaissance depictions of Jesus Christ.

      William Shakespeare (1564–1616) may have admitted to being bisexual in Sonnet 144. Most of his sonnets, first printed without his permission in 1609, are dedicated to Mr. W. H. and addressed from Shakespeare to a man. When the romantic poems were published in 1640, however, many of the male pronouns were changed to female, and remained that way for another 150 years.

      There have also been many gay and lesbian kings and queens throughout the centuries—James I (1566-1625) of England, namesake of the King James Bible; Christina of Sweden (1626–1689), who stepped down from the throne rather than be forced to marry; and Frederick the Great (1712-1786) of Prussia. Some of these rulers were honorable; others were downright evil. And a few were eccentric. Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845-1886) was known as Ludwig the Mad because he spent more time building elaborate castles than he did ruling. His famous Neuschwanstein Castle became the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland.

      Leonardo da Vinci and the Mona Lisa. Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-111797, LC-D416-29478)

      Two-Spirit People

      NATIVE AMERICAN culture has a long tradition of two-spirit people—tribal members who do not fit into standard gender roles, but instead are thought of as having a third or alternative gender. Two-spirit people have existed in more than 130 different native cultures. They were often given unique responsibilities, depending on their tribes’ traditions. Some were believed to have special abilities, like predicting the weather, healing, or providing spiritual protection. Others acted as matchmakers, name givers, and marriage counselors.

      Two-spirit is a general term used to describe people who were as different as the tribes to which they belonged. The Pawnee called two-spirits winkte. Zuni, lhamana. Navajo, na’adlech. Among the Mojave, two-spirits born biologically male were called alyha, while those born female were hwame. Sadly, as with so many aspects of Native American culture, the two-spirit tradition was suppressed by European colonists, Christian missionaries, and the US government, though it did not vanish entirely. Recently, the two-spirit tradition has returned to many tribes.

      One of the most famous two-spirit people was a Zuni lhamana named We’wha (pronounced WEE-wah). Born in 1849, We’wha eventually became a leader in the pueblo (village) of Halona:idiwana—The Anthill at the Middle of the World—near the present Arizona-New Mexico border. Around age three or four, he began showing traits of a two-spirit, so he was trained in women’s tasks such as gardening, weaving, and pottery making.

      We’wha holding a clay ceremonial basket with sacred corn, 1886. National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution (02440800)

      In the winter of 1885-86, anthropologist Matilda Stevenson brought We’wha to Washington, DC. He soon became the talk of the town, though most Washingtonians believed We’wha to be an Indian princess. A newspaper reported, Society has had recently a notable addition in the shape of an Indian princess of the Zuni tribe…. Princess Wawa goes about everywhere at all of the receptions and teas of Washington wearing her native dress…. The ladies crowded about the Princess Wawa and amused themselves endlessly in attempting to converse with her by signs and broken English.

      We’wha helped the Smithsonian Institution better understand Zuni culture, and demonstrated weaving on a loom set up on the National Mall. In May he participated in the society event of the season, the Kirmes, an amateur pageant held at the National Theatre. More than 280 people in traditional costumes paraded around the stage in a gathering of the nations, and We’wha performed a traditional Zuni dance. (The charity event raised $5,000 for a local hospital.) And on June 23, 1886, We’wha presented a wedding gift to President Grover Cleveland and his new wife in the Green Room of the White House.

      We’wha eventually returned to the pueblo, where he died in 1896 at the age of 49. The loss of the Zunis’ much-loved leader caused universal regret and distress.

      New Worlds, Old Laws

      SAD AS it is, another reason historians know that LGBT people have long existed is that laws were written to persecute them. Court records tell of LGBT people who were arrested and punished.

      In 1642, two decades after the Plymouth Colony was established in Massachusetts, Edward Michell and Edward Preston were discovered together. They were put on trial and found guilty, and were publically whipped in Plymouth and again at Barnstable. In 1649, Sarah White Norman and Mary Vincent Hammon were charged with the crime of being lesbians; Plymouth authorities forced Norman to make a public confession. Transgender behavior was also outlawed in the colonies. In 1696, Massachusetts passed a law against cross-dressing.

      There were, however, some positive changes in the law. In France, the Declaration of the Rights of Man was approved in 1789, at the start of the French Revolution. It proclaimed the right to do anything that does not injure others. The declaration led to the repeal in 1791 of laws against same-sex relationships. In 1810 it was incorporated into the Napoleonic Code, which extended the same freedoms to French colonies and territories.

      No other colonial empire, nor the newly established United States, did the same.

      Changing Minds

      THE LAWS in the newly independent United States weren’t much friendlier to LGBT people than those of the colonial era. But in the 1800s many of the country’s greatest minds were more open and accepting.

      Famous freethinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), and Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) all wrote about same-sex intimacy. Once, in explaining to poet Louise Chandler Moulton why she never married, Alcott admitted, I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man. The works of author Herman Melville (1819-1891), including Moby Dick, White-Jacket, and his unfinished short novel Billy Budd, occasionally mentioned, but more often hinted at, gay life among their characters.

      Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), who was influenced by the writings of Emerson, wrote passionate poetry that she mostly kept to herself—fewer than a dozen of her poems were published during her lifetime. After she died, however, more than a thousand poems were discovered in her home and were later printed. For years, they were altered—she and her turned to he and him in love poems. Dickinson’s letters to her close friend Susan Gilbert were also edited by the poet’s niece to make them sound less romantic.

      Whether any of these men and women were gay, lesbian, or bisexual is still debated. Maybe they were just writing in the flowery, romantic style of the time. Or maybe they were trying to explore topics that weren’t openly discussed. We may never know for sure. There is no debate, however, about the great American poet Walt Whitman. He was certainly gay.

      LGBT Hero

      General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (1730-1794)

      When Baron von Steuben arrived at Valley Forge on February 23, 1778, riding in a 24-belled sleigh, wearing a full-length fur coat, and holding a miniature greyhound, George Washington’s soldiers were not sure what to think of him. They didn’t know that he had fled Europe after accusations that he was gay. Benjamin Franklin, who had met Steuben in France, suggested that the baron should come to the United States and help with the revolution.

      The Prussian-born commander quickly transformed the hungry and weary troops into a model company that turned the tide in the American Revolution. He eventually became Washington’s chief of staff, and his training manual, Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, was used by

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