Originally appeared Sept. 12, 2001, in the Chicago Free Press.
IT SEEMS APPROPRIATE during September, if not long before, to begin preparing for October's observance of Gay and Lesbian History Month.
The idea for a Gay History Month was first proposed back in 1994 as a way to increase gays' and lesbians' appreciation for their own history and a way of making clearer to our friends and fellow citizens the contributions gays and lesbians have made to Western Civilization and the common culture we all value.
The idea quickly drew the attention of a small group of advocates who promoted the idea and wrangled endorsements from major gay organizations such as the Human Right Campaign, Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Later that first year they even obtained two or three "official" proclamations from sympathetic political officials.
Eventually October was selected at the best month for Gay and Lesbian History Month because a) it would not conflict with the more celebratory gay pride events of June, b) two months were better than one, c) it would not conflict with any other prominent celebration, and d) October was during the school year and it was anticipated that colleges and universities would be centers of activity on gay history.
The idea of Gay and Lesbian History Month has several obvious advantages:
- It can help provide a sense of pride for young and closeted gays and offer models of courage, creativity and achievement for young gays to emulate.
- It is a way to promote gay visibility without being partisan or seeking any government guarantees or protective rights.
- The objects of interest are safely in the past so the project is one of teaching and learning about facts rather than promoting or threatening anyone's values.
- It is a way of talking about gays and lesbians without talking directly about anyone's sex life. It focuses instead on the accomplishments of gays and lesbians as people who led full, rounded, and interesting lives.
- Perhaps most obviously, it is a way to make clear to skeptical heterosexuals that far from being a threat to Western Civilization, gays and lesbians made some of the greatest contributions to that civilization.
In short, when you sing a song, listen to a symphony, view a painting, attend a church, read a novel or poem or see a play, they may well have been written, composed, painted, or designed by a homosexual. Homophobes do not want people to know this; that is why everyone must.
One of my most vivid memories is of the day when the father of a gay son burst into a meeting of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays and blurted out in a loud and excited tone "Did you know Michelangelo was gay?!"
Discovering that fact seemed to open up a whole new perspective for him on what being gay might mean and how he should think about his son. We could think of it as "gay pride for straights."
There will be controversy, of course, over whether some people were gay or not or when and whether people acted on their same-sex desires. But where there is controversy there is talk, and where there is talk there is awareness, so controversy is not a bad thing.
Absent any public declarations, it will be a matter of looking at people's letters and diaries, family records, the recollections of friends, court proceedings, contemporary gossip, and then weighing the evidence. Where information is currently insufficient, libraries, dusty archives and old trunks in family attics may eventually provide further material.
For example, whether Ravel was gay or Eleanor Roosevelt was lesbian may be uncertain, but Tchaikovsky's homosexuality is not in doubt, nor Michelangelo's, nor Edna St. Vincent Millay's youthful lesbian affairs. Prof. Wayne Dynes's comprehensive and judicious "Encyclopedia of Homosexuality" is a valuable resource on these questions.
Of course, the "famous gays" approach is not all there is to gay and lesbian history. A second area of interest is the question of how gays and lesbians lived in earlier times: How they found one another, how they socialized, how they organized their lives, what kinds of prejudice they encountered and how they protected themselves.
In the last few years, a number of books have appeared about gays in ancient Athens and Rome, several cities in Renaissance Italy, turn of the century Moscow and St. Petersburg, New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. The similarities to our own lives are often as surprising as the differences.
And finally, of course, after nearly 50 years of organized advocacy we ourselves now have a history of our own as a social movement, as a developing community and a quasi-ethnic group. There are several good books on the history of the gay community, its institutional growth, and its changing cultural practices.
The information is there for people who want to know more about our past and share it with their friends. Make October count.