Teaching LGBT History Californias New HistorySocial Science Framework

Teaching LGBT History: California’s New History-Social Science Framework Matthew Payan History Teacher, Santiago High School mpayan@ggusd. us Adapted from a presentation by: Don Romesburg, Ph. D. Chair, Women’s and Gender Studies Department Sonoma State University don. romesburg@sonoma. edu Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Barbara Deming, and Kady Vandeurs (1973)

Think-Write-Pair-Share Read each of the following questions and select one for your response: • How familiar are you with the elements of the FAIR Education Act? • What are you currently doing in your classroom to promote cultural and racial diversity? • What are you currently doing in your classroom to teach LGBTQ contributions to history?

FAIR Education Act – What does it say? California Education Code Section: 51204. 5: Fair Accurate Inclusive Respectful “…a study of the role and contributions. . . of Mexican ‐ Americans, Asian ‐Americans, European Americans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender Americans, persons with disabilities…and members of other cultural groups, to the economic, political, and social development of California & the U. S. with particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society. ”

CA 2016 Framework: Foundational and Conceptual Guidelines • Training for Ethical Citizenship Grounded in Democracy and Diversity • Mandate for LGBTQ-Inclusive Educational Access and Equity • Suggestions for Campus Climate

CA 2016 Framework: Chapter 1 - Introduction • Citizenship As educators, we want our students to perceive the complexity of social, economic, and political problems. We want them … to respect the right of others to differ with them. We want them to take an active role as citizens and to know how to work for change in a democratic society. …We want them to develop a keen sense of ethics and citizenship. We want them to develop respect for all persons as equals regardless of ethnicity, nationality, gender identity, sexual orientation, and beliefs.

CA 2016 Framework: Chapter 20 - Access and Equity • Introduction: Every California student deserves a world-class 21 st century education, one that supports their achievement of their highest potential. In order to accomplish this goal, it is important to acknowledge that inequities exist in current educational systems…. Current evidence also indicates that some groups of students experience a low level of safety and acceptance in schools for reasons including cultural, ethnic, and linguistic background; disability; sexual orientation [and] socio‐economic. • Culturally Responsive Teaching: The disciplines of history and the related social sciences provide unique opportunities to integrate culturally and linguistically responsive teaching into classroom instruction in order to deepen content understanding, develop literacy, and promote engagement. Students may possess multiple cultural identities based upon their gender, sexual orientation, class, race, ethnicity, religion, and disabilities (Ignatjeva and Iliško, 2008). Culturally competent teachers respect these differences, are aware of their own cultural identity and unconscious biases, and adapt their instruction accordingly.

Axioms of K-12 Study of Gender and Sexuality in History Classrooms 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Family Diversity is Social Reality Gender is Diverse, Disciplinary, and Innovative Sexuality is a Central Field of Social Power and Meaning Making Power, Identity, and History Are Intersectional The Past Produces the Present and Informs Possible Futures Students Should Explore These Concepts in Grade School, Middle School, and High School All of the Above Matters to All Students. It matters especially to some.

Grade-By-Grade LGBTQ Content Elementary School • Grade Two—People Who Make a Difference • Grade Four—California: A Changing State • Grade Five—United States History and Geography: Making a New Nation Middle School • Grade Eight—United States History and Geography: Growth and Conflict High School • Grade Nine—Elective Courses in History–Social Science • Grade Ten—World History, Culture, and Geography: The Modern World • Grade Eleven—U. S. History and Geography: Continuity and Change in Modern U. S. History • Grade Twelve—Principles of American Democracy

Grade Two—People Who Make a Difference LGBTQ Content: Family Diversity as Lived Reality • Families Today and in the Past Through studying the stories of a very diverse collection of families, such as immigrant families, families with lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender parents and their children, families of color, step- and blended families, families headed by single parents, extended families, multi-generational families, families with disabled members, families from different religious traditions, and adoptive families, students can both locate themselves and their own families in history and learn about the lives and historical struggles of their peers. Teachers should not assume any particular family structure and ask questions in a way that will easily include children from diverse family backgrounds. They need be sensitive to family diversity and privacy, and to protect the wishes of students and parents who prefer not to participate.

Grade Four—California • Gold Rush: Students can also explore how the gender imbalance between women and men in California during the gold rush era allowed women who wished to participate in the gold rush to pass as men and led to a number of men to take on women’s roles…. Students may also read or listen to primary sources that both illustrate gender and relationship diversity and engage students’ interest in the era, like Bret Harte’s short story of “The Poet of Sierra Flat” (1873) or newspaper articles about the life of the stagecoach driver Charley Parkhurst, who was born as a female but who lived as a male, and who drove stagecoach routes in northern and central California for almost 30 years. … Parkhurst was one of the most famous California drivers. Remembering Charley Parkhurst: New Opportunities in Gold Rush-Era California (UC Berkeley History-Social Science Project, 2016)

Grade Four—California • California in the Postwar Era: Students can also study … the emergence of the nation’s first gay rights organizations in the 1950 s. In the 1970 s, California gay rights groups fought for the right of gay men and women to teach, and, in the 2000 s, for their right to get married, culminating in the 2013 and 2015 U. S. Supreme Court decisions Hollingsworth v. Perry and Obergefell v. Hodges. … They learn about the contributions of … Harvey Milk, a New Yorker who was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977 as California’s first openly gay public official.

Grade Eight–United States History and Geography: Growth and Conflict LGBTQ Content: • Regional Variations of Family, Gender, Race, and Gendered Relations and Change Over Time • Roles of Industrialization, Urbanization and Emancipation on Family and Gender Relations • Colonization and Indigenous Gender/Family Roles

Grade Eight–United States History and Geography: Growth and Conflict The Rise of Industrial America: 1877– 1914: The American Indian wars, the creation of the reservation system, the development of federal Indian boarding schools, and the re-allotment of Native lands profoundly altered Native American social systems related to governance, family diversity, and gender diversity. Reading Chief Joseph’s words of surrender to U. S. Army troops in 1877 helps students grasp the heroism and human tragedy that accompanied the conquest of this last frontier. Allotment entailed breaking up Native lands into privately held units (largely based on the Anglo‐American model of the male‐headed nuclear family), displacing elements of female and two‐spirit authority traditionally respected in many tribal societies. Boarding schools in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries took Native children from their parents for years at a time, imposing Christianity, U. S. gender binaries and social roles, and English‐only education in an attempt to make them into what school administrators viewed as proper U. S. citizens.

Grade Nine Elective Courses in History–Social Science LGBTQ Content: • Role of Lesbians in Women’s History • Role of LGBTQ Peoples in Ethnic Studies—Intersectionality • Women in U. S. History: Themes or issues of significance include the following: The traditional and nontraditional roles of women, gender identity, and division of labor and society along gender lines; The impact of race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and religion on women

Grade Nine Elective Courses in History–Social Science • Ethnic Studies: Central to any Ethnic Studies course is the historic struggle of communities of color, taking into account the intersectionality of identity (gender, class, sexuality, among others), to challenge racism, discrimination, and oppression and interrogate the systems that continue to perpetuate inequality…. . To study these themes, students can … study how different social movements for people of color, women, and LGBT communities have mutually informed each other.

Grade Ten World History, Culture, and Geography: The Modern World Same-Sex Marriage Laws and “Sodomy Laws” throughout World History: • British Imperialism and Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code • Paragraph 175 and German discrimination during WWII and the Holocaust

Grade Eleven Continuity and Change in Modern U. S. History LGBTQ Content: • Queer Lives in Urbanization and Progressivism • 1920 s Changes in Heterosexual Relations and LGBTQ Lives • Gender and Sexual Transformations of WWII • Cold War Anti‐Citizens, Social Movements, and Sexual Science • Movements for Equality and Liberation • LGBTQ Challenges and Victories in Contemporary America

Grade Eleven Continuity and Change in Modern U. S. History • The 1920 s: LGBT patrons and performers became part of what was tolerated and even sometimes acceptable as LGBT‐oriented subcultures grew and became more visible. At the same time, modern heterosexuality became elaborated through a growing world of dating and entertainment, a celebration of romance in popular media, a new prominence for young people and youth cultures, and an emphasis on a new kind of marriage that valued companionship. American culture was also altered by the First Great Migration … which changed the landscape of black America. The continued flow of migrants and the practical restrictions of segregation in the 1920 s helped to create the “Harlem Renaissance, ” the literary and artistic flowering of black artists, poets, musicians, and scholars, such as Alain Locke, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, and Zora Neale Hurston. Their work provides students with stunning portrayals of life during segregation, both urban and rural. LGBT life expanded in 1920 s Harlem. At drag balls, rent parties, and speakeasies, rules about acceptable gendered behavior seemed more flexible for black and white Americans than in other parts of society, and many leading figures in the “Renaissance” such as Hughes, Locke, Cullen, and Rainey were lesbian, gay, or bisexual.

Grade Eleven Continuity and Change in Modern U. S. History • WWII: Students learn about the roles and sacrifices of American soldiers during the war, including … gay people in military service…. When possible, this study can include oral or video histories of those who participated in the conflict. Military officials established an unprecedented effort to screen out and reject homosexuals, though gay men and lesbians still served in the armed forces in significant numbers. Some found toleration in the interests of the war effort, but many others were imprisoned or dishonorably discharged. That persecution set the stage for increased postwar oppression and organized resistance. Margaret “Ma” Chung, 1945

Grade Eleven Continuity and Change in Modern U. S. History • Cold War Struggles at Home: The public Red Scare overlapped with a Lavender Scare. Congress held closed-door hearings on the threat posed by homosexuals in sensitive government positions. A systematic investigation, interrogation, and firing of thousands of suspected gay men and lesbians from federal government positions extended into surveillance and persecution of suspected lesbians and gay men in state and local government, education, and private industry. Students can debate whether such actions served national security and public interests and consider how the Lavender Scare shaped attitudes and policies related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from the 1950 s to the present. Students can synthesize this breadth of information about the government and Cold War by addressing this question: How were American politics shaped by the Cold War? While more Americans than ever before enjoyed the comforts of middle-class suburban affluence, not all people benefitted from it. Minorities were forbidden from owning property in these newly-constructed developments. While the white middle class grew in size and power, poverty concentrated among minority groups, the elderly, and single-parent families. Betty Friedan also coined the term “feminine mystique” to describe the ideology of domesticity and suburbanization, which left white middle-class college educated housewives yearning for something more than their responsibilities as wives and mothers. Students can see the contradiction between the image of domestic contentment and challenges to the sex and gender system through the publication of and responses to the Kinsey reports on male and female sexuality in 1948 and 1953; the publicity surrounding Christine Jorgensen, the “ex‐G. I. ” transformed into a “blonde beauty” through sex‐reassignment surgery in 1952; the efforts of the medical professional to enforce proper marital heterosexuality; and the growth of LGBT cultures.

Grade Eleven Continuity and Change in Modern U. S. History • Movements for Equality: ‐Although the 1950 s have been characterized as a decade of relative social calm, the struggles of African Americans, Chicano/as, Native Americans, Asian Americans, as well as women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people that emerged forcefully in the 1960 s, have their roots in this period. -Students should also learn about Dr. King’s philosophical and religious dedication to nonviolence [and] leadership of the black churches, female leaders such as Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, and Fannie Lou Hamer, and gay leaders such as Bayard Rustin, all of whom played key roles in shaping the movement. -The advances of the black civil rights movement encouraged other groups—including women, Hispanics and Latinos, American Indians, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Americans, students, and people with disabilities— to mount their own campaigns for legislative and judicial recognition of their civil equality. Students can use the question How did various movements for equality build upon one another? -California activists like Harvey Milk and Cleve Jones were part of a broader movement that emerged in the aftermath of the Stonewall riots, which brought a new attention to the cause of equal rights for LGBT Americans.

Grade Eleven Continuity and Change in Modern U. S. History • Movements for Equality (cont. ): -Students also examine the emergence of a movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights starting in the 1950 s with Californiabased groups like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis. Throughout the 1950 s and early 1960 s, these fairly secretive organizations created support networks; secured rights of expression and assembly; and cultivated relationships with clergy, doctors, and legislators to challenge teachings and laws that condemned homosexuality as sinful, sick, and/or criminal. -In the 1960 s, younger activists, often poorer and sometimes transgender, began to confront police when they raided gay bars and cafes in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and most famously at the Stonewall Inn in New York City in 1969. Organizations such as the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance called on people in the movement to “come out” as a personal and political act. Students can consider figures such as Alfred Kinsey, Harry Hay, Jose Sarria, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, Frank Kameny, Sylvia Rivera, and Harvey Milk.

Grade Twelve – Principles of American Democracy • Civil Rights: Court cases addressed the rights of the LGBT community (Lawrence v. Texas, 2003, and Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015). • Student Rights: The Brown decision and the cases of Bakke v. Regents of the University of California, and Grutter v. Bollinger provide students the opportunity to deliberate and debate whether affirmative action is an appropriate way to address inequality. School -related cases of Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), Fricke v. Lynch (1980), New Jersey v. T. L. O (1985), Henkle v. Gregory (2001), or the 2013 Resolution Agreement announced by the United States Department of Education in Student v. Arcadia Unified School District offer additional perspectives relevant to students on free speech, privacy, nondiscrimination, and civil rights for students in schools.

• • New History-Social Science Framework (July 2016) Making the Framework FAIR* LGBT-Related Revisions to the HSS (July 2016) FAIR Lesson Plan Suggestions FAIR Education Act Centralized Site ONE Archives/LAUSD/The Center Responding to Common LGBT Questions from Students

Brainstorming Connections + Challenges • How might you apply the new History-Social Science Framework’s content, concepts, and related themes into your grade level and subject areas? • In what ways could teachers collaborate across subjects and/or grade levels to build on the LGBTQ axioms and enhance inclusive citizenship values? • What LGBTQ content in the new Framework seems most challenging to you and why?