LGBT History
Schwarzenegger Wants to Know Your Twitter Thoughts on Harvey Milk Day
Published August 25, 2009 @ 09:46AM PT
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed an effort last year to create a state day in remembrance of Harvey Milk. At the time, Gov. Schwarzenegger said Milk's legacy didn't transcend the local level, and that he was too low profile to be honored with a state day. One year later, and a plethora of attention given Harvey Milk by everyone from Hollywood to the White House, efforts are underway to push legislation that would create a Harvey Milk Day in California again. And this time, Gov. Schwarzenegger wants to hear from people via Twitter what they think about it.
Here's the post that we just put up. Wanna retweet?
@Schwarzenegger: Sign the Harvey Milk Day bill! He gave his life, the least you can do is give him a day. #p2 #LGBT
There are a million reasons for Harvey Milk to be remembered officially by the state of California, the least of which is that he was one of the first LGBT politicians ever to be elected to public office, and he gave his life championing equal rights for all.
Conservatives are hitting the Governor's office up hard on this, trying to get Schwarzenegger to veto legislation that would create a Harvey Milk Day. Let's make sure Gov. Schwarzenegger hears from some allies on this one.
There's also a voicemail you can call set up to get input on Harvey Milk Day. Here's the digits: 916-445-2841. Oh, and for those of us addicted to action, here's a short petition you can sign urging the Governor to sign the bill to make Harvey Milk Day a reality in California.
Wise Latina is the New Queer
Published August 20, 2009 @ 10:11PM PT
During the confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, many conservative and right-wing pundits tried to make a big to-do over the fact that Sotomayor said the following statement: "[A] wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life." Conservatives wanted to paint this statement as racist and offensive. Pop culture instead has embraced the phrase "wise Latina," pushing the term into the lexicon of words, like queer, that have been reclaimed by minority groups as a means of empowerment.
Queer is a term that, for many, was an offensive slur that harkened back to the days of "Mad Men," when it was regularly used as a derogatory term to refer to LGBT folks. Now? For many, it's a cultural concept that means a rejection of labels for one's sexual orientation. Or, as some folks have put it, queer was a term that was reclaimed by the LGBT community as a source of power.
Exit queer, enter Wise Latina. The latter phrase was used by many a conservative politico as a means of trying to discredit Sonia Sotomayor. Sen. John Cornyn, for instance, said that Sotomayor's reference to being a Wise Latina was "antithetical to the whole idea of the rule of law." Rush Limbaugh called Sotomayor a "racist" for using the term Wise Latina. Glenn Beck said that Sotomayor's comment was "one of the most outrageous racist remarks" he's heard.
So how are people reacting to conservatives trying to criminalize the phrase "Wise Latina"? They're embracing the term as a badge of honor, and a proud descriptor. Booyeah.
AP notes that "Wise Latina" has become a pop culture phenomenon. And now it's being marketed on books, cups, T-shirts, and onesies, to name a few items. Charles McIlwain, a media prof at NYU, told AP that people are seeing this phrase as an opportunity to take pride in their roots, and reclaim it as something worth aspiring toward.
"I think one thing many people are doing, Latinas and the Latino community in general, is reframing the phrase and saying: 'Hey, when we talk about the wise Latina, we're not trying to show that somehow we're better than others, but we want to associate being Latino with something that's wise and good," McIlwain told AP.
What a great example of owning a phrase that haters tried to tarnish. Talk radio might want to demonize Wise Latina, along the same lines as words like queer were once demonized. But these are words and terms that can be reclaimed, and can be used to educate and inspire, rather than label or disparage.
Activism, Art, and the HIV/AIDS Crisis
Published August 20, 2009 @ 05:23PM PT
How do you commemorate the fear, anger, hope, challenges, activism, and organizing that occurred at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the U.S. more than twenty years ago? If you're the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, you host a whole semester's worth of programming and exhibits looking at the impact that groups like ACT UP had, and the vivid images that captured the country's attention and changed the way that HIV/AIDS was viewed.
Before there was social networking, there was guerilla marketing. And as the Carpenter Center points out, that tactic was deployed quite effectively by ACT UP, as well as artist collectives like Gran Fury, the Silence = Death Project, and Fierce Pussy (to name a few). These groups used the power of art to fight against HIV/AIDS, and specifically to fight against government inaction and stereotypes that made up the early history of the disease in this country. Whether it was explaining that kissing doesn't cause HIV/AIDS, or whether it was telling the Catholic Church that condoms protect against sexually-transmitted diseases, these orgs put their artwork where their politics were, so to speak.
"ACT UP’s demonstrations in the late 1980s and early 1990s reflected the group’s outrage against a governing establishment that ignored HIV/AIDS as a national health crisis; that failed to secure funding for medical research, treatment, and education; that profited from inflated costs for therapeutic drugs; and that perpetuated homophobic misrepresentations of HIV and AIDS," writes the Carpenter Center.
The exhibit itself? Well, it'll feature classic ACT UP advertising campaign posters, as well as a suite of over 100 video interviews with surviving members of ACT UP New York. Those interviews form the crux of an oral history project that captures a diverse movement birthed during the darkest days of HIV/AIDS. These are the organizers and activists who "transformed entrenched cultural ideas about homosexuality, sexuality, illness, health care, civil rights, art, media, and the rights of patients," and made the world a little - scratch that, a lot - better for everyone fighting against the disease.
In other words, the exhibit at the Carpenter Center will pull together some of the best social artwork of the last thirty years: the artwork and ad campaigns that helped end misinformation about HIV/AIDS, that brought about new strategies of political organizing, and that helped give voice to those living with HIV/AIDS. Better yet, it should help draw the connections between the organizing and activism at the height of the 1980s, and how lessons learned during that movement can be applicable now.
Honoring Lesbian Writer Natalie Barney
Published August 20, 2009 @ 01:57PM PT
Natalie Barney was an American writer and poet who spent most of her life writing in Paris, France. But she was born in Dayton, Ohio, and if plans continue to move forward, a marker honoring Barney's legacy will become Ohio's first public memorial noting the sexual orientation of the person being honored.
Activists in Dayton say that Barney's legacy, as well as her openness about her sexuality, is something to celebrate. "Barney’s sexual orientation was part of her life’s work. What she did when it comes to women’s rights was significant," said John Zimmerman of the Greater Dayton LGBT Center.
And true to form, Barney was a path-breaker. She's the author behind "The Well of Loneliness," which many argue was one of the best (if not at least the best-selling) lesbian books of the 20th century. The book was banned by the British and allegedly "burned in the King's furnace," due to its lesbian themes.
Barney also ran a salon series in Paris, which influenced authors like Truman Capote, Ezra Pound, Jean Cocteau, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thornton Wilder, Sinclair Lewis, Rainer Maria Rilke, T.S. Eliot, Gertrudge Stein, and Marcel Proust to name a few. And wow, if there's a creative writing class in heaven, these sure sound like the teachers.
The Dayton City Commission will vote on August 26 whether or not to follow through and honor Barney with her own memorial. Strikes us that this would be yet another opportunity to honor the influence that LGBT Americans (albeit ex-patriates, in the case of Barney!) have had on both a national and global level.
Gov. Schwarzenegger Shouldn't Diss Harvey Milk. Again.
Published August 20, 2009 @ 07:31AM PT
Last year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed an effort to create a state-sponsored "Harvey Milk Day," which would honor the late politician's legacy and advocacy for equal rights. At the time, Gov. Schwarzenegger said that Milk wasn't a well-known enough figure to merit his own state day, and that instead activists should honor him on a local level. This year, efforts are underway to create a statewide "Harvey Milk Day" again, but the Governor's reasoning that Milk isn't "well-known enough" won't fly this time around. Not in the wake of Milk receiving a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom. Not in the wake of a major Hollywood movie that won several Oscars. Not in the wake of tens of thousands of people urging the Governor to support the creation of "Harvey Milk Day."
Still, despite all of that, Gov. Schwarzenegger may just veto the effort again. And that's not only unreasonable, it's also wrong.
Equality California (EQCA) put out a petition yesterday that quoted California's Secretary of Education, who sent a letter urging the Governor to veto the bill that would create a Harvey Milk Day. The letter reads in part, "As you know, the Governor vetoed a substantially similar bill last year. The veto message stated that Harvey Milk's contributions should continue to be recognized at the local level by those who were most impacted by his contributions. Since this bill is nearly identical, the veto message remains applicable."
But unless the Secretary of Education has been living under a rock this past year, the reasons that "Harvey Milk Day" was vetoed last year are outdated and no longer applicable. Milk's profile, and his legacy as a champion for equal rights, have perhaps never been higher. It would be wrong at best, and completely foolish at it worst, for Gov. Schwarzenegger to make the same mistake this year and veto efforts to keep Milk's legacy in the spotlight.
As Harvey Milk once said, "I fully realize that a person who stands for what I stand for, an activist, a gay activist, becomes the target or the potential target for a person who is insecure, terrified, afraid, or very disturbed with themselves." Here's hoping the Governor isn't afraid of standing by the side of someone who fought hard for equal rights.
Brokeback Mountain Shirts the Stuff of Film Legendry
Published August 19, 2009 @ 06:11AM PT
Like that sled from "Citizen Kane," or those slippers from "The Wizard of Oz," or even those sabers from "Star Wars," the cowboy shirts from Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" have just been established as film props destined for eternal reverance. How so? By being installed at the Gene Autry National Center of the American West, a museum dedicated to "exhibit and interpret" the heritage of the American West.
This is seemingly a small thing, but underneath the surface it's a really cool step. As Mike Szymanski writes for examiner.com, the Autry National Center is known for its more manly and macho images of cowboy culture. The fact that the museum will now be displaying the two shirts worn by actors Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal mark a breakthrough for LGBT film history, and the crippling of a stereotype that says the American West is for straight people.
For their own part, the Autry National Center issued a press release saying much of the same thing. "The iconic shirts are at the center of the Contemporary Westerns case in order to highlight Brokeback Mountain's significance in keeping the Western genre alive and thriving in the new millennium, and also to spotlight the LGBT community's struggle for safety and inclusion in the rural, Western communities from where many originate yet often feel forced to abandon," said the Center.
Actor and art collector Tom Gregory, who originally purchased the shirts at auction and has lent them to the Center, took it a step further, and said that these two shirts represent much more than just film props. According to Gregory, this two shirts are the "ruby slippers" of our time. "These shirts are a visual representation of love. Two shirts intertwined, stained and soiled with mud and the life-blood of Brokeback Mountain, where exhilaration soared for two men who found a deep, passionate, and reverent love with one another, a love that they were never allowed to live," said Gregory during the installation of the shirts. "These shirts have become the only tangible reference point for millions who have been touched by Annie Proulx’s story and Ang Lee’s film, including the hundreds of men and women who sent me e-mails and letters emoting for their long lost same-sex love."
And truth be told, Gregory is right. How many of us were able to hold back the emotions during that last scene, where in the closet of Heath Ledger's character hangs his lover's shirt?
I'll still never understand how Brokeback Mountain didn't win the Best Picture. But kudos to the Autry Center for underscoring the importance of this film, both for the LGBT population and for the American West.
The Laramie Project, Ten Years Later
Published August 18, 2009 @ 06:19AM PT
How does a community change more than a decade after one of the most brutal LGBT hate crimes ever committed in the United States? Specifically, how has the murder of Matthew Shepard, which drew nationwide attention in 1998 and became a catalyst in the debate over hate crimes and sexual orientation, impacted Laramie, Wyoming in the past eleven years?
The writers behind The Laramie Project are looking to answer those questions, by adding an 80-minute epilogue to the original play which will include commentary based on more than a dozen interviews with Laramie residents, focused on how Matthew Shepard's murder has changed (or in some cases, not changed) their community and their own lives.
Moisés Kaufman, who wrote and produced the original Laramie Project with the Tectonic Theater Project, told the New York Times earlier this month that the epilogue hopes to answer the question of whether extreme acts of violence within a community, like that which was done to Matthew Shepard, have any measureable effects on the local population. “We wanted to see what occurs in a small town in the long run when it’s been subject to such a devastating event,” said Kaufman. “What has been the long-lasting effect of this watershed moment? Is the fallout of these events positive, negative or perhaps a better question, is it measurable in those terms?”
Without giving anything away, the writers behind the new epilogue say that what they found in looking back at Laramie was a community that is still trying to figure out its place within LGBT history, and figuring out how to come to terms with Shepard's murder.
"We found the people of Laramie still fighting to own their own history, their own identity, their own story, and part of that is shaped by how they understand what happened that night to Matthew," said Leigh Fondakowski, one of the writers behind the new epilogue.
Adding even more intrigue, the writers were able to speak to one of the perpetrators behind Matthew Shepard's killing, Aaron McKinney, who is now serving two consecutive life sentences in prison for the role he played in Shepard's murder. Controversial? Yes. Writers of the epilogue won't reveal what McKinney had to say, but mention that McKinney's commentary will likely defy expectations.
The goal now is to get theaters to sign on for a multi-city simultaneous performance. Writers are hoping that 100 regional theaters will line up to perform The Laramie Project on October 12, which will mark the 11th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death. So far, at least 40 theaters have committed.
An online community forum has been set up, as well, and features a trailer for the epilogue with video of the interviews that writers conducted in Laramie. From hearing one resident say that Matthew Shepard's murder was the "first time I realized what a hate crimes was," to hearing another resident articulate that the state of Wyoming hasn't responded adequately to Shepard's death, it's clear that there are many feelings about how Matthew Shepard's death changed the residents of Laramie, both on an individual and community level. Check out the trailer below, and the Web site for more info.
