Know Your Gay History

A theme emerging is one of knowing our histories, stories that are hidden and denied but that shaped who we all are as L, G, B, and T folks. One workshop yesterday showed a part of the film “Hope Along the Wind,”, about Harry Hay, founder of the Radical Faeries, but also a founder of the Mattachine Society, one of the earliest gay rights groups. Harry worked on the Henry Wallace campaign, trying to get homosexual rights on the agenda for the Progressive Party, saying in 1948 that homosexuals “are an oppressed cultural minority, and as an oppressed minority, have rights under the constitution of the US.” He identified then, in 1948, that “the problem isn’t being homosexual, the problem is how society treats homosexuals.” Well. That’s the same thing Bill Jensdale was saying about teen suicide back in my earlier post about the opening plenary. In the early 1950s, when Harry started the Mattachine Society, it was through secret connections of 4 or 5 men that the movement was started.

In the discussion following the film, several people said how upset they felt about not knowing any of this history. That is was a source of shame and loss. Well, since our health movement is about overcoming shame and loss, let’s pay attention to our history, learn it and teach it to others.

Someone from Chicago said that he found showing the film was a great health intervention for queer youth: “Using this film and others pieces of Gay and Lesbian History to work with queer youth gives them a sense of their past. You can’t envision a future without having a past. This is an effective health intervention.”