Posts tagged lgbtq
Lez Get Historical
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History to Herstory: Yorkshire Women's lives online. 1100 to the present
History to Herstory began in 2003, funded by the Big Lottery Fund, West Yorkshire Archive Service and its partners, the University of Huddersfield, The Bronte Society, Hull Local Studies Library, and Leeds City Council Libraries. Together we’ve selected over 80,000 archive pages illustrating women’s lives over 800 years. In 2011, The University of Huddersfield and WYAS successfully bid to JISC for funding to refresh, repurpose and rehome the resources. We have improved and upgraded the database, checked the images and created new learning materials. The University of Huddersfield will host and maintain the site.
Obviously, this archive includes materials on our own beloved Anne Lister, but I think it’s safe to say we will all be spending weeks exploring every woman’s story. Confession: the Key Themes page alone sends me into a nerd euphoria. Also: National Spinsters Pension Association!? Well, color me fascinated.
Enjoy!
While the McCarthy Era is remembered as the time of the Red Scare, the headline-grabbing hunt for Communists in the United States, it was the Lavender Scare, a vicious and vehement purge of homosexuals, which lasted longer and ruined many more lives.
Before it was over, more than 10,000 Federal employees lost their jobs. Based on the award-winning book by historian David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare shines a light on a chapter of American history that has never received the attention it deserves.
It examines the tactics used by the government to identify homosexuals, and takes audiences inside interrogation rooms where gay men and women were subjected to grueling questioning. These stories are told through the first-hand accounts of the people who experienced them.
The Lavender Scare shows how the government’s actions ignited an anti-gay frenzy that spread throughout the country, in an era in which The New York Times used the words “homosexual” and “pervert” interchangeably, and public service films warned that homosexuality was a dangerous, contagious disease.
While the story is at times infuriating and heartbreaking, its underlying message is uplifting and inspiring. Instead of destroying American homosexuals, the actions of the government had the opposite effect: they stirred a sense of outrage and activism that helped ignite the gay rights movement.via http://www.autostraddle.com/the-lavender-scare-documentary-115359/
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From Colorlines:
by Channing Kennedy Thursday, November 10 2011
If you’re reading this, you’re probably interested in the history of racebending and POC representation in cinema — and that means you need to get familiar with Anna May Wong, the black-and-white-era film star who made a career out of smashing barriers in Hollywood. A new documentary by filmmaker Yunah Hong, Anna May Wong: In Her Own Words, can bring her story to PBS, but not without your help.
Wong’s Hollywood career is fascinating and instructive. Despite being a California-born native English speaker who didn’t visit China until adulthood, Wong was only given roles that reinforced stereotypes about hypersexualized, deceitful Asian women. Time’s film critic Richard Corliss identifies three rules that hemmed in Wong’s career, even at the peak of her success: she couldn’t kiss (unless she was being savaged by an Asian man), she had to die, and off-screen, she always got paid a fraction of what her co-stars earned. And for her trouble, she was cast by Chinese newspapers as a traitor and an embarrasment.
So why, as someone subject to her own misrepresentations of Asian women, did Wong take these roles? One answer is illustrated in a role she didn’t get, a cowering Chinese peasant in 1937’s The Good Earth — played in yellowface by German actress Luise Rainer. Landing the roles was Wong’s only chance to humanize the stereotypes.
Want to know how Anna May Wong felt about her career? Yunah Hong’s new documentary, made over the last eight years, tells Wong’s story through new interviews and archival footage. The film is completed, but in order for PBS to air it, Hong has to raise $12,000 in the next 19 days to pay for the archival footage’s licensing fees.
As Hong says on her Kickstarter page:
Many older Asian Americans look down on Anna for playing stock Asian characters. But a younger generation sees her as a pioneering artist who beat the odds in a tough industry. Besides her strength as a woman, I admire her for pushing herself as an actress. When her film roles were limited, she traveled around Europe performing in cabarets, polishing her talents as a singer, dancer and monologuist. When MGM didn’t cast her in The Good Earth, a film set in China, she went to China anyway and filmed her trip. Long before anyone was called a “community activist,” she devoted herself to the Chinese American community’s war effort during World War II. She was way ahead of her time. Her courage to be herself against all odds is truly inspiring, the kind of story I want my ten-year-old daughter to know.
A city official married the first couple in New York City to wed under the state’s new law allowing same-sex marriage Sunday.
Phyllis Siegal, 77, and Connie Kopelov, 85, were married in a chapel at the city clerk’s office as a crowd of onlookers cheered.
Hundreds of same-sex couples heard the news Friday that they made the cut in the marriage lottery that New York state instituted for Sunday when the state’s Marriage Equality Act took effect. (via First gay couple weds in New York – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs)
Not sure why, but my first thought was, “Connie was born before the first talking picture.” These women have seen an awful lot—and that includes a hell of a lot of progress. CONGRATS!
(via henriksaves)
LGBTQ* Books To Keep On Your Radar
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers (A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America)By Lillian Faderman
Faderman charts the evolution of the concept of the “lesbian” as a 20th-century social construct and shows how love between women, once known at the turn of the century by such terms as “romantic friendship” or “sentimental friendship,” came to be called “lesbianism.” What was once not a realistic alternative to marriage became possible as women became educated, demanded equal rights, and came out of the home and into the workforce. With increased opportunities for independence, women no longer needed men’s financial support to survive and, as a result, love between women was no longer perceived as innocently as it had been in the past. This is a much-needed book and is highly recommended for all public libraries both for its information about the perception and treatment of this particular minority group in America, as well as for its historical and sociological contribution. Its scholarly approach and content also make it a necessity for women’s studies collections.
- Patricia Sarles, Mt. Sinai Medical Ctr., New York
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, IncPersonal Note: Currently reading. Trust there will be many posts to come.
This book was/is so important to me. It was one of the first books I read after coming out (‘92), and having grown up in a place where gay people were not visible, it was eye-opening to say the least. I wish women everywhere could be given a copy when they come out! It’s so vital to know the long history of the women who came before us.
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Interview with Dorothy Arzner
[K] As you might already know, I have a soft spot for Hollywood’s only major female director during its classic era: Dorothy Arzner. Her films often centered on unconventional female characters, their relationship to each other, as well as their way of dealing with the world at large. In addition to a talent for choosing intersting plots, Arzner - trained as an editor, and known for shooting one of the most spectacular scenes in Rudolp Valentino’s film career - knew a thing or two about how to make the best use of cinema’s conventions, techniques and tricks.
Hey, Handsome…. Dorothy Arzner on the set.
The above-linked interview - originally published in Cinema (U.S.) in 1974 - is up to today the by far the most comprehensive interview with this exceptional figure in film history, and now for the first time digitally available thanks to AgnesFilms.
Excerpt of Special Interest (read: to this blog. Because, come on, for film buffs the whole interview would be of special interst) to wet your appetite for more:
You were at Paramount at the same time as Marlene Dietrich and Mae West. Did you ever wish to make a movie with either of them?
Yes, I always wanted to make a picture with Marlene. There was a wonderful script called Stepdaughters of War. … It was to be a big antiwar picture showing the tragedies of war and how war makes women hard and masculine.OMG - Imagine the awesomeness of Dorothy Arzner working with Marlene Dietrich! Knowing what Arzner did with Katharine Hepburn in Christopher Strong, I’m inclined to believe, this collaboration could have been among my all-time favorite films.
Don’t you hate it, when history gets in the way of your taste in films?
Anyway, enjoy the interview!
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THE HOWDY CLUB
A lesbian bar on 3rd Street in the Village.
Club was open from the 1930s-1940s.
(Above picture - Howdy Club’s football team, circa 1940)
Why LGBT History Is Important by David Mixner
An enormous amount of energy went into Governor Jerry Brown’s office in California surrounding legislation insisting that the LGBT community’s struggle and history be included in text books and class room discussion. Happily, it was announced late Thursday that Brown had signed the FAIR Education Act (SB 48, Leno) into law. Congratulations to all involved in this great success, especially Senator Mark Leno, who authored the bill, and Governor Brown whose signature made the bill a reality.
A friend of mine today said he didn’t understand why it was so important and shouldn’t we just be included with everyone else. Well, he is right on the second point, we absolutely should be included with everyone else in the text books. And as to his first point, nothing could be more important.
There are many ways to kill people and one of the ways is to pretend that they never existed at all. Remove all traces of their journey and hope no one discovers their story. Often the issue of self-esteem among young LGBT citizens stems from the fact that they think our common denominator is just sexually based. They have no idea of their noble, proud and heroic traditions and actions of their pioneers.
LGBT history is filled with dramatic courage, dignity and determination and innovative and extraordinary leaders.
Unlike other communities that have struggled to preserve and create awareness about their history, we have seen systematic attempts to destroy and distort our journey. When we lost so many of our storytellers from AIDS, their surviving family members usually destroyed any trace that their family member was a LGBT citizen or had AIDS. Tens of thousands of stories of courage and heroism were lost. Boxes upon boxes of historical documents were burned. The shame of the families about their LGBT son or daughter made it even more difficult to keep our history intact.
In addition, we have organized groups now attempting to quash any positive role models, stories or epic struggles by this community. Some have linked us to Nazis and others insist we are nothing but pedophiles. Any positive portrayal of a community whose history is rich and full would threaten those lies.
If you feel like you have come out of nothing then you might feel you are nothing. If you think only sex is the basis of our journey then you will miss the remarkable stories that define this community as one of heroes, heroines and a very proud people.
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Newsworthy
California will become the first state to require public schools to teach gay and lesbian history.
The wedding of Violet Jones and Joan Lee, 5 September 1954.
‘A girl ‘bridegroom’ who married another girl at a white wedding in church was fined £25 yesterday. So was her ‘bride’. The ‘bridegroom,’ 26 year old Violet Ellen Katherine Jones and the ‘bride’ 21 year old Joan Mary Lee, of Ardgowan-road, Catford, S.E both admitted making a false statement to get a marriage certificate. Violet Jones wore man’s clothes- a fawn raincoat and trousers- in the court at Greenwich.Information from:
and
A Lesbian History of Britain: Love and Sex Between Women Since 1500
By Rebecca Jennings
AMAZING!! Also: can’t wait to get my hands on the Jennings book.
Gay rights demonstration, Albany, New York, 1971. Photo by Diana Davies.
(Source: heyy-faggot, via fyeahqueervintage)
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Before Stonewall…
[K] …. there was The Ladder:
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Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, founders of the Daughters of Bilitis, shared a life together for over 50 years and were married in San Francisco in 2008. Del passed away a few months later. You can read more about them by clicking here.
Such BAMFs!
(via vintagelesbian)
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The Gay Bar: Alison Bechdel, Radclyffe, Val McDermid and others on their first gay-bar experience.
(Source: fuckyeahlesbianliterature)
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"Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives" (1977)
I downloaded this movie a few weeks back and am just starting to watch it now.
The following are two of the plot summaries on IMDb for “Word Is Out”:
More than two dozen men and women of various backgrounds, ages, and races talk to the camera about being gay or lesbian. Their stories are arranged in loose chronology: early years, fitting in (which for some meant marriage), coming out, establishing adult identities, and reflecting on how things have changed and how things should be. Some speak as couples and some as individuals. One lost her children in a custody decision, one was dishonorably discharged from the US Army, two were sent to insane asylums. Each sees social progress as he or she looks back; all are reflective. News footage and a few vocal performances provide breaks as topics shift.
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Twenty-six American homosexuals of various ages and backgrounds are interviewed, they who speak candidly about their sexual orientation in this era just a few years after the initial gay liberation at Stonewall. They speak of when they first knew of their sexual orientation and what that actually meant to them during a time when there were few open outlets or supports for homosexuals in American society. Some speak of the added pressures if the acknowledgment of being a homosexual was during one’s growing up period, when there are enough pressures from growing up in and of itself. They also speak of the period of coming out - for some, this process being involuntary - with many who were treated as having a mental disorder and the resulting fear or anger associated with the treatment. Into their out period, they needed to figure out where in society they fit, whether it be in relation to their partner, to friends or society in general. To each individual or group, these roles could be totally different. They speculate on their future as homosexuals based on their experiences and the state of homosexual acceptance in American society.
