DVD TITLE VISIONARIESVISIONARIESFacilitating a Discussion &Finding aVICTORIES Facilitator IdentifyEARLY LEADERSyour own. WhenIN THE the LGBT 90’s MOVEMENT hit, all the Identify your own. When the 90’s hit, all the new communication technologies offered new communication technologies offered people a new way to communicate that was people a new way to communicate that was &easier and more.VICTORIESeasier and more. Be knowledgeable. When the 90’s hit, all the Be knowledgeable. When the 90’s hit, all the new communication technologies offered new communication technologies offered people a new way to communicate that was people a new way to communicate that was easier and more. easier and more. Be clear about your role. When the 90’s hit, Be clear about your role. When the 90’s hit, all the new communication technologies all the new communication technologies offered people a new way to communicate offered people a new way to communicate VISIONARIESthat was easier and more. that was easier and more. Know your group. When the 90’s hit, all the Know your group. When the 90’s hit, all the new communication technologies offered new communication technologies offered people a new way to communicate that was people a new way to communicate that was easier and more. easier and more. NO SECRET ANYMORE: THE TIMES HOPE ALONG THE WIND: THE LIFE OF DEL MARTIN & PHYLLIS LYON OF HARRY HAY & VICTORIESa film by JEB (Joan E. Biren) a film by Eric Slade Curriculum Guide VISIONARIESwww.frameline.org/distribution 1 TABLE OF CONT VISIONARIES & VICTORIES Table of Contents FILM SYNOPSES : : : : : : : : : : 3 HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE : : : 5 CLASSROOM CURRICULUM : : : 8 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS : : : 11 RESOURCES : : : : : : : : 12 VOCABULARY : : : : : : : 14 TIMELINE : : : : : : : : 16 photo credits: WORKSHEETS : : : : : : : 20 Lyon & Martin: unknown; Hay: Mark Thompson ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS : : : : 22 Youth In Motion is funded in part through the generous support of the James Irvine Foundation and the Bob Ross Foundation. youthinmotion.frameline.org VISIONARIESFILM & VICTORIES SYNOPSI Film Synopsis & Awards NO SECRET ANYMORE: THE TIMES OF DEL MARTIN & PHYLLIS LYON dir. JEB (Joan E. Biren) :: 2003 :: 57 min. :: USA AWARDS & SCREENINGS When Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon courageously launched the Daughters of Bilitis in 1955, it became the first public organization for lesbians in Outstanding America. Their newsletter, The Ladder, was a lifeline to lesbians around Documentary, American the country, and challenged prevailing beliefs that lesbians were illegal, Library Association Notable Video for Adults immoral and sick. This film follows their story, tracing the emergence of lesbians from the fear of discovery to an expectation of equality. Audience Award, Best Documentary Del and Phyllis helped get the National Organization for Women to Provincetown Int’l. Film acknowledge lesbianism as a feminist issue and in 1972 wrote the Festival ground-breaking book Lesbian/Woman. They worked tirelessly on the Official Selection, historic campaign to remove homosexuality from the American Psychiatric American Society on Association’s list of mental disorders, a battle finally won in 1973. Del Aging Media Festival became a leading voice in the emerging battered women’s movement, and Phyllis became a sex educator, helping to found The Institute Juror’s Award, Special for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. Both were delegates to the Mention, Turin Int’l. Gay International Women’s Year conference in Houston in 1977, and the & Lesbian Film Festival couple were appointed as delegates to the White House Conference on Audience Award, Aging in 1995. Though not covered in the film, the couple was also given Best Documentary, the honor of being the first same-sex couple to be legally married in San Philadelphia Gay & Francisco in June 2008. Lesbian Film Festival No Secret Anymore is a delightful way to meet these legendary lesbians, Audience Award, Best Documentary, Austin known as the founders of the modern lesbian civil rights movement. With Gay & Lesbian Int’l. Film incisive interviews, rare archival images and warmhearted humor, the Festival film covers many aspects of social change in American history through the public and private lives of these two unapologetic activists who were Audience Award, Best partners in love and political struggle for more than 50 years until Del’s Documentary, Reel passing in August 2008. Affirmations, Washington, DC youthinmotion.frameline.org 3 VISIONARIESFILM & VICTORIES SYNOPSI Film Synopsis & Awards HOPE ALONG THE WIND: THE LIFE OF HARRY HAY dir. Eric Slade :: 2001 :: 57 min. :: USA AWARDS & SCREENINGS Hope Along the Wind tells the riveting story of one of America’s unsung heroes – gay rights activist, labor organizer, and spiritual leader Harry Northern California Hay. His life’s work provides a unique account of the early gay rights Emmy Award Nominee for Best Documentary movement while chronicling the history of California politics and US social movements in the 20th century. Golden Gate Award, San Francisco Int’l. Film Harry’s activist roots began in 1930s Los Angeles, when he became Festival involved with the Communist Party and labor movement. In the late 1940s, a time of violence and oppression against gay men, he began Juror’s Prize for Best Documentary, organizing the country’s first homosexual rights organization, the Philadelphia Gay & Mattachine Society. In so doing, Harry was the first to identify gays and Lesbian Film Festival lesbians publicly as an oppressed minority in this country and insist they deserve equality. The Mattachine Society emerged to national prominence Chris Award for Social in 1950 when it successfully fought solicitation charges brought against Issue Documentary, Dale Jennings after LA police entrapped him. Columbus Int’l. Film & Video Festival Harry’s work as a labor organizer in the 1930s led Senator McCarthy to call him before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1954. Alone and defeated, Harry retired briefly from political activism until the 1960s when he met his lifelong partner John Burnside. Living in New REVIEWS Mexico at that time, Harry worked for Native American land rights, and began some of his most important writing about the berdache, a third “Harry Hay thought it was time for a change, gender honored in many Native American tribes. He returned to Los and his lifelong efforts Angeles in the 1970s where he was instrumental in founding the Radical to bring a sense of unity, Faeries, a counter-culture group that served as an alternative to the community, and joyous mainstream gay rights movement. spirituality to gays in the U.S. and beyond make This momentous film features poignant interviews with Harry and for remarkable viewing in [this] documentary.” many of the surviving original members of the Mattachine Society as –Los Angeles Times well as archival photographs, newsreel footage, and visually stylized dramatizations. Hope Along the Wind is an engaging profile of the leaders “highly recommended... who shaped the LGBT movement and American history. a real jewel...” –Video Librarian youthinmotion.frameline.org 4 VISIONARIESCURRICULUM & VICTORIES Curriculum Guide How to Use this Curriculum Guide This guide is designed to spark discussion and provide activity ideas to accompany a screening of Hope Along the Wind and No Secret Anymore, two You have a right films that provide a thorough overview of the origins of the modern lesbian, to address sexual gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement in the United orientation, gender States, beginning with the 1950s. These films profileHarry Hay, Del Martin, identity, and gender and Phyllis Lyon – firebrand social activists, whose courage and persistence expression in the have shaped our concepts of civil rights and justice. classroom. The California Student This guide can be used as part of a US History unit on 20th century Safety and Violence social movements. The films and activities are also appropriate for use Prevention Act of 2000 in sociology, psychology, and filmmaking classes, as well as in English (AB537) protects classes for study of narrative or exposition. Gay-Straight Alliances will find students, faculty, and staff in California these films invaluable as documents of LGBT history – essential viewing public schools from for all young activists and allies. discrimination and harassment based on Each film runs 57 minutes. While these can be shown start to finish in actual or perceived a traditional one-hour class period, we recommend you view the film sexual orientation chapter by chapter (approximately 20 minute installments) and facilitate and gender. This law means that California discussion after each segment. public schools are now responsible for The topics explored in these films may elicit some controversy. Be sure to protecting lesbian, prepare your audience in advance and review the Approaching the Material gay, bisexual, and section of this guide for tips on facilitating conversations. transgender students (or those thought to be LGBT) from harassment This guide contains California standards-based curriculum and student and discrimination so action activities, as well as resources and suggestions for further study. that every student has Though the guide is divided into Curriculum and Action sections, activities an equal opportunity in both sections may be appropriate for use in multiple settings and to learn in a safe and include: supportive environment regardless of her or his • Background material to spark