A Timeline of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in the United States
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A Timeline of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in the United States Adapted with permission from Out of the Past: 400 Years of Lesbian and Gay History in America (Byard, E. 1997, www.pbs.org/outofthepast) with additions and updates from Bending the Mold: An Action Kit for Transgender Youth (NYAC & Lambda Legal); The American Gay Rights Movement: A Timeline; Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators, and School Personnel (Just the Facts Coalition). Additional materials and study guide by GSAFE (www.gsafewi.org) 2 A Timeline of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in the United States READ MORE WATCH Ways to Use this Timeline This resource has primarily been adapted Six of the people featured on the PBS timeline are This timeline was designed as a starting point for from PBS Online’s Out of the Past: 400 Years profiled in the documentary Out of the Past and classroom and student club discussions, exploration, and Lesbian and Gay History in America (Byard, have been marked with the bolded words WATCH research. A sample lesson plan is included. However, E., 1997, www.pbs.org/outofthepast/). The on this document. These individuals are: there are many additional ways to use this resource. interactive timeline online allows users to click on dates to read details about people, • Michael Wigglesworth The timeline can be printed, copied, and posted in full or in policies, and events that have shaped the • Sarah Orne Jewett part in the classroom, on a bulletin board, or in a display lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and • Henry Gerber case. transgender (LGBT) people living in the • Bayard Rustin United States. • Barbara Gittings Another option is to search the timeline and build smaller • Kelli Peterson timelines based around themes (“Famous Lesbian,” “LGBT Several items on the PBS timeline online People of Color,” “LGBT People and the Military”) or time expand to reveal more details and in-depth The documentary is available for purchase through periods (“The Modern Gay Rights Movement,” “Early Gay descriptions. These have been marked with various retail and online stores for about $10. It is American History”). the bolded words READ MORE on this an excellent resource for your GSA and school document. library. Make your own version of LGBT Jeopardy and divide your class or club into teams. Create a multiple choice quiz Three examples of the expanded readings The Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network from the timeline and post the group results in your room. you will find online are shared at the end of (GLSEN) published a teachers’ guide to accompany Consider taking the quiz as a school staff. this document. We encourage you and your the documentary. The 31-page resource contains students to go online to READ MORE about historical context, ideas for discussion, and Use the timeline as the starting point for research projects. the people, places, and events that capture suggested assignments for each of the video’s six Another class or group project could involve researching your attention. segments. A glossary, bibliography and resource and presenting local LGBT history and/or gathering oral section are also included. The teachers’ guide is histories. Each item on this timeline, of course, offers available as a free download from the GLSEN an opportunity to read more. The PBS site website (www.glsen.org). Hold a movie night or show segments of films or includes an extensive bibliography for documentaries in your classroom that profile people and further research and exploration. GSA for Many additional films and documentaries have events from the timeline. Safe Schools also offers a bibliography of captured the events, individuals, and issues that suggested reading in LGBT history. have shaped and defined the progress of the LGBT Create a library display feature books with LGBT themes or community in the U.S. by LGBT authors. Adapted and updated from Out of the Past: 400 Years of Lesbian and Gay History in America (PBS Online); Bending the Mold: An Action Kit for Transgender Youth (NYAC & Lambda Legal); The American Gay Rights Movement: A Timeline; Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators, and School Personnel (Just the Facts Coalition) A Timeline of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in the United States 3 1677 1698 1652 The sodomy trial of A French explorer among the 1642 Nicholas Sension of Illinois Indians remarks on the Joseph Davis of 1624 Windsor, number of "berdaches" (men In Essex County, Haverhill, New Connecticut, living as women) and the Massachusetts, Hampshire, is fined Richard Cornish is reveals that prevalence of homosexual Elizabeth Johnson for "putting on executed in Sension has been activity. Note: “berdache” is is fined and women's apparel" Virginia for open about his considered and offensive term whipped for and made to admit alleged desire for men for by Native American and "unseemly his guilt to the homosexual acts more than 30 Two-Spirit people. practices with community. with a servant. years. another maid READ MORE attempting to do READ MORE READ MORE READ MORE “Native American that which man “Colonial European “Sodomy Laws” “Act v. Identity” Sexuality” and woman do." Cross-Dressing” 1636 1649 1662 1691 In Massachusetts, Sara Norman and The first edition of Michael In Massachusetts, the Reverend Mary Hammon of Wigglesworth's The Day of Doom is Deborah Byar is John Cotton Yarmouth, published. This epic poem about the Day fined and publicly proposes Plymouth Colony, of Judgement quickly becomes America's humiliated for including sexual are taken to court first best seller, with 1800 copies sold wearing men's relations between for "leude during the first year. clothes. women in the behaviour each definition of with [the] other READ MORE "sodomy" for the upon a bed." “Michael Wigglesworth” first time. WATCH The Diary of Michael Wigglesworth Adapted and updated from Out of the Past: 400 Years of Lesbian and Gay History in America (PBS Online); Bending the Mold: An Action Kit for Transgender Youth (NYAC & Lambda Legal); The American Gay Rights Movement: A Timeline; Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators, and School Personnel (Just the Facts Coalition) 4 A Timeline of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in the United States 1756 1779 Steven Gorton, a In an example of "romantic married Baptist friendship" between men, minister, is suspended Alexander Hamilton writes to 1704 from his position in his friend, John Laurens, "I New London, wish, my dear Laurens, that 1782 Lord Cornbury, the Connecticut, for it might be in my power, by royal governor of "unchaste behavior action, rather than words, to Deborah New York and New with his fellow men convince you that I love Sampson, Jersey, is accused when in bed with you." disguised as by his critics of them." Gorton "Robert dressing as a confessed and the READ MORE Shurtleff," enlists woman to hold congregation voted to “Romantic Friendships in the Continental court. reinstate him. Among Men” Army. 1752 1777 1780 1798 "Dr. Charles Thomas Jefferson A Native American Moreau de St. Hamilton" is revises Virginia "joya" (a man living as Mery, a Frenchman arrested in Chester, law to make a woman) and her living in Pennsylvania, and sodomy husband visit a Spanish Philadelphia, writes revealed to be (committed by mission near Santa that the women he Charlotte Hamilton, men or women) Barbara, California. A has met "are not at who confessed to punishable by priest notes how all strangers to having lived in mutilation rather common joya are in being willing to disguise as a man than death. local villages. seek unnatural for several years. pleasures with persons of the same sex." Adapted and updated from Out of the Past: 400 Years of Lesbian and Gay History in America (PBS Online); Bending the Mold: An Action Kit for Transgender Youth (NYAC & Lambda Legal); The American Gay Rights Movement: A Timeline; Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators, and School Personnel (Just the Facts Coalition) A Timeline of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in the United States 5 1863 1826 1857 Colonel Conrad of the 15th Missouri Jeff Withers and Charlotte Cushman, an discovers that two women passing (being James Hammond, 1850 actress famous for 1860 regarded as a sociological group other than two young playing male roles, a person’s own) as men have enlisted as Southerners who Crow nation Woman begins living with New edition of soldiers in his detachment, and that "an would become Chief Barcheeampe is sculptor Emma Walt Whitman's intimacy had sprung up between them." At prominent spotted by appalled Stebbins. It was the Leaves of Grass least 400 women passed as men and citizens, write white travelers in last in Cushman's long includes the served as soldiers in the Civil War, playfully and Wyoming and sequence of homoerotic according to a 20th-century researcher graphically erotic Montana; she is relationships with Calamus Poems. working with wartime medical records. letters about their renowned for her war women. The two past involvement exploits and for remained together until READ MORE READ MORE with each other. having several wives. Cushman's death in “Walt Whitman” “Passing Women” 1876. 1846 1856 1859 1861 A white traveler in Woman Chief, a Addie Brown and Rebecca Franklin Thompson, born Wyoming records the woman warrior of Primus, two African- Sarah Emma Edmonds, deep friendship of two the Crow Nation, American women living in fights for the Union Army Sioux men, Hail-Storm is killed on a the North, begin their in the Civil War. During and Rabbit, who "ate, peacemaking loving correspondence.