History, or Gay History?

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Over at Positive Liberty, Jonathan Rowe is perturbed by a new California bill requiring "schools to buy textbooks 'accurately' portraying 'the sexual diversity of our society." He thinks it smells of PC ghettoizing and fears adding gays to the list of minorities who get their own special little corners of discussion as the solution of least resistance.

As Rowe argues, yes, we should talk about who is gay in history. But no, clearly gays don't need any "special attention" given the disproportionate accomplishments that gays and bisexuals have made. Just teach history and honestly mention who is gay.

7 Comments for “History, or Gay History?”

  1. posted by North Dallas Thirty on

    I agree. This always reminds me of my American history textbook from the late eighties, which was boringly predictable; discuss historical event, then insert paragraph of “Black Americans/Hispanic Americans/Native Americans/(insert minority groups) also contributed to….”

  2. posted by Lori Heine on

    There certainly does have to be a happy medium between the way it used to be — concealing any hint of someone’s sexual orientation as if it were a deep, dark, horrible secret — and making some sort of happy-face, PC, “today is Gay History Month, and here are our heroes” sort of production out of it.

    A simple frankness about the issue — without any moral judgments being made either way — would be best.

  3. posted by Jon Rowe on

    Thanks for the link. Love the new digs.

  4. posted by Northeast Libertarian on

    I’m inclined not to be super-excited either way. On one hand, happy-happy-joy-joy PC excitement over identity politics is tiresome. But on the other hand, the constant shame which many on the other side show towards gay historical figures — and their antipathy towards potential role models for gay kids — is also wrong.

  5. posted by Eddie Brown on

    I would agree (shock and awe), but much of LGBT history is simply erased from the textbooks.

    By “pc” history textbook back in 10th grade made an aside that gays were among those in the Holocaust and then nothing more was said until it covered the AIDS epidemic.

  6. posted by raj on

    Eddie, are you surprised?

    Homosexuals and the Third Reich

    “Appallingly little imformation is available on the situation of homosexuals in Nazi Germany. Many historians have hinted darkly at the “unspeakable practices” of a Nazi elite supposedly overrrun with “sexual perverts,” but this charge is both unsubstantiated and insidious. Upon closer examination, it turns out to be no more than the standard use of anti-gay prejudice to defame any given individual or group — a practice, incidentally, of which the Nazis were the supreme masters. The Nazis were guilty of very real offences, but their unspeakable practices were crimes against mankind.

    “That homosexuals were major victims of these crimes is mentioned in only a few of the standard histories of the period. And those historians who do mention the facts seem reluctant to dwell on the subject and turn quickly to the fate of other minorities in Nazi Germany. Yet tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of homosexuals were interned in Nazi concentration camps. They were consigned to the lowest position in the camp hierarchy, and subjected to abuse by both guards and fellow prisoners; most of them perished.

    “Obviously, gay people are going to have to write their own history.”

  7. posted by Eddie Brown on

    Yet, even in my college level history textbooks their was zip about the gay rights movement in Germany, which was a visible and large political movement.

    I think that my college level sex ed book had a footnote about what the Nazis did to gay people.

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