QUIZ 8

We've arrived at the final week of our too-short time together, and as usual there's too much to think about--but if history allows us to be inspired by past moments of courage even as we try to avoid repeating mistakes, then we need as much history as possible, now more than ever.

Although some topics and events are repeated between sources, each has its own focus and value for our purposes this week: understanding some of the ways that asexual, bisexual, gay, lesbian, and trans lives and politics have been claimed, lived, understood in recent decades.

 

READINGS:

I encourage you to spend some time with the topics you know least about, as well as those in which you may have the most immediate interest.

 

Michael Bronski (he/him), "Revolt/Backlash/Resistance" (Chapter 10)

 

Genny Beemyn (they/them), “Transgender History in the United States” in Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community ed Laura Erickson-Schroth, Oxford University Press, 2014: 501-536 (linked via PSU library, or contact me for PDF)

 

BiNet USA, Bisexual History Timeline 1969-2014.

Michael Collins, "A Queer Eye for Radical Strategy: Organizing for Queer Liberation," Organizing Upgrade, June 23, 2018

 

Chris Geidner, "The Court Cases That Changed LGBTQ Lives," The New York Times, June 19, 2019

Loraine Hutchins, "Making Bisexuals Visible" (Chapter 8 of LGBTQ America, a project of the National Park Service). This is a 36-page document, but includes a few pages of front matter, is in fairly large print, and includes many photos and footnote material—so the core reading text is less than it appears to be.

 

Julia Jacobs, "Two Transgender Activists [Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera] Are Getting a Monument in New York, The New York Times, May 29, 2019

Scott James, "What Was Your Stonewall? Pivotal LGBTQ Moments across the United States," The New York Times, June 23, 2019

Louis Lucero II, "Memories of That Night at the Stonewall Inn from a Few Who Were There," The New York Times, June 16, 2019

Mentions of Asexuality in the Media, 1948-1997, compiled via wiki.asexuality.org; see also the "Asexual Manifesto" and mention/photo below in Primary Sources.

 

Miranda Rosenblum, [A brief history of the] "U.S. Bisexual+ Movement,” GLAAD, September 22, 2017.

New York Public Library, Stonewall 1969 Travelling Exhibit (6 panels), 2019

Kimberly Springer, "Black Feminist Organizations and the Emergence of Interstitial Politics" in American Queer History, ed. Alida Black. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001

 

Susan Striker (she/her), "The Difficult Decades" and "The Millennial Wave" (Chapters 4 & 5 from her book Transgender History: The Roots of Today’s Revolution), pages 115-149; 151-193)

 

Michael Waters, “Finding Asexuality in the Archives,” Slate, March 6, 2020. I think the title is misleading, but it’s a brief, readable survey with information you won’t find elsewhere (e.g., the Wikipedia entry on Asexuality, or various pages hosted at asexuality.org or at aceinthehold.co)