In the News: Windy City Times

The pleasures and perils of LGBTQ history AHA CONFERENCE by Joe Franco 2012-01-18

As part of the American History Association's recent conference in Chicago, a great deal of discussion was devoted to the emerging interest in LGBTQ history. An early-morning panel discussion Jan. 8 confronted many of the problems and the successes with LGBTQ history and its dissemination to the popular masses. Lauren Jae Gutterman, the panel's moderator and a Ph.D. candidate at New York University, started the group's discussion. Professor Kevin Murphy, with the University of Minnesota, discussed his recent tribulations when putting together an oral history of the Twin Cities, saying, "We collected over 100 oral histories of the Twin Cities LGBTQ community. Historians, sociologists, geographers and ethnologists tried working together but found it difficult to create a work that would make their work interesting to the masses." The resulting book, Queer Twin Cities, was not well-received by the media or the intended target audience. Murphy admitted that not even the local Minneapolis gay press reviewed the book after its 2011 release. He said that it was "heartening to see the localized interest in GLBT history" but that, ultimately, the work seemed to alienate readers. Professor John D'Emilio, with the University of Illinois-Chicago, brought more problems with LGBTQ public history to the table. He is co-director of a website called OutHistory.org that was originally envisioned to be "Wiki-like" in that anyone could submit entries with constant updating from others. "The problem," said D'Emilio, "is that almost nobody submitted any content. Ultimately, there just was never going to be enough interest and enough content to build up steam." D'Emilio believed the upcoming re-design of the website would help: "We want to abandon the 'Wiki' concept and make the content more transparent for the user." D'Emilio's solution for making LGBTQ public history more accessible through the web involved the use of individuals and more popular features that were user-friendly. He admitted that this was absolutely imperative that academics learned to speak in a language that made what they had to teach and say more accessible. Professor Don Romesburg—an assistant professor at Sonoma State University and a curator for the recently opened GLBT History Museum (the first full-scale, stand-alone facility of its kind in the United States) in San Francisco—reported on a definite success in the LGBTQ-history scene. Worldwide attention focused on the opening of the facility, prompting Romesburg to joke, "Britney Spears was at our museum." Tens of thousands of individuals have visited the museum since its opening last January. "We've had 2,000 new Facebook 'Likes' and 100 new members in our first year alone," said Romesburg. The museum is unique in that it resisted a chronologically linear model in its layout. "The arrangement was about demonstrating belonging and making power present," said Romesburg about the museum's success. The museum's success, seen in light of the failure of other queer-history initiatives, certainly begs the question, "What did the GLBT History Museum do differently?" Romesburg theorized, "We tried to welcome everybody. The construction of a museum means that we matter. It's relevant, important and meaningful." The discussion ended with Joey Plaster, a graduate student at Yale, and Rev. Megan Rohrer, a Lutheran minister who works with at-risk and impoverished LGBT youth of the Castro and Tenderloin neighborhoods in San Francisco. Their work with the queer youth is not unlike Boystown's unprecedented problems this past summer. The gentrified Castro wanted the gay youth out of the neighborhood. A concerted effort among the residents, shop owners, bar owners and politicians began to form. Ultimately, Plaster and Rohrer used history as a way of mobilizing the disenfranchised queer youth. They used the imagery of the 1960s to propel the voices of the neighborhood queer youth. Rohrer said that "the use of tactile GLBT historical artifacts was more than enough motivation for the queer youth to spring into action." She added, "When an individual gets to see and touch something historical, something from the past, this alone is transformative."

In the News: Bay Area Reporter

'Encampment' brings attention to homeless LGBT youth

NEWS

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Published 05/19/2011

by Matt Baume

	Homeless youth and their allies staged a "street sweep" in the Castro last Saturday to bring attention to budget cuts for social service programs. Photo: Matt Baume

The May 14 encampment was part of a nationwide demonstration to raise awareness of homelessness among a demographic known as transition-age youth. Homeless and foster youth between 16 and 24 years old can face unique housing challenges, particularly as they age out of the foster care system and learn to navigate services for adults.

"We're here to engage the community on homelessness, and specifically queer homeless youth issues," said organizer Beck, who uses only one name. "We're in kind of a state of emergency, saying, 'hey community, wake up.'"

Saturday's action started at Civic Center with games, an unveiling of protest banners, and hot meals served by Food Not Bombs. A march proceeded to Harvey Milk Plaza, where speakers read poetry and called for improved access to services to get off the street.

Their requests included housing with kitchens, rather than single room occupancy hotels with no facilities for food preparation; employment opportunities for youth who are unable to complete school; and an end to the sit-lie ordinance.

According to local organizers Trans Youth Rise Above, there are 5,700 homeless youth in San Francisco, of which at least 1,000 are queer.

Operation Shine America, which coordinated similar rallies in other cities, estimates that there are 2 million homeless youth in the country. Queers for Economic Equality Now also organized the San Francisco event.

Beck explained that organizations like the Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center and Larkin Street Youth Services' Castro Youth Housing Initiative have faced repeated budget cuts, reducing services that can prevent youth from living on the street.

Jodi Schwartz, executive director of LYRIC, agreed that times are tight. "There has been a sizable decrease in investments in LGBTQ youth services," she told the Bay Area Reporter. "Just for LYRIC, if we were to lose the last piece of dollars for transition-age youth workforce, our decrease in funding would be 72 percent over the last four years."

Larkin Street Executive Director Sherilyn Adams told the B.A.R. that the extent of cuts won't be known until Mayor Ed Lee releases a budget later this month.

"There's no proposed cuts to the Castro Youth program," she said, but added, "it does not begin to meet the need."

To address the potential consequences of such cuts, Lee recently convened a stakeholder group consisting of representatives from organizations that advocate for homeless youth. Based on feedback from that group, the mayor asked that the Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families prioritize funding for LGBT and undocumented youth.

While organizations hope to turn around the recent budget cuts, local organizers are seeking ways to demonstrate how the city's rate of youth homelessness could worsen.

After Saturday's protest concluded, about three dozen homeless youth spent parts of the night camped out around the Muni station, according to organizer the Reverend Megan Rohrer, director of the Welcome Ministry, a coalition of 12 churches that seek to provide a faithful response to poverty.

Rohrer is currently working with the GLBT Historical Society to raise visibility by drawing inspiration from past struggles. She incorporated a "street sweep" into Saturday's protest, in which participants swept Castro Street sidewalks with brooms to evoke a similar 1960s-era protest.

In that action, LGBTs protested the city's negligent sanitation and police roundups by pushing brooms through the Tenderloin.

Local clergy learned they were needed to stand up for homosexuals

Here is a story about the pastors that helped the Vanguard youth. This San Francisco Chronicle article from Jan. 3, 1965 records the political event that helped the clergy understand their power to help call for justice on behalf of homosexuals. Check out the GLBT Historical Societies Online Exhibit about this group of pastors.

“A ‘Secularized’ Church Pursues Its Mission In Unorthodox Causes

Wall Street Journal, March 13, 1967
“A ‘Secularized’ Church Pursues Its Mission In Unorthodox Causes
San Francisco Homosexuals Helped by Glide Methodist; Some Members Unhappy

Movement “part of a wider trend called ‘secularization.’” “The clergy is a major source of recruits for the civil rights movement.” “Essentially, they say, their job is to apply Christian ideals of charity to urban problems.” “Glide’s members are especially concerned about homosexuality. It is widespread in San Francisco. Police estimate that 80,000 to 90,000 San
Franciscans, or more than 10% of the city’s 790,000 people, are homosexuals.

Glide permitted the Vanguards, a group of young male prostitutes, to have a dance in the church. Glide also has made office space available to the Vanguards, helped them secure a clubroom and bought them furniture. “We were the only ones who would respond to the needs of these people, says Mr. Williams. “If you make yourself available to people, there’s got to be a complete commitment. A commitment just to help those its easy to help is hypocritical.”

Glide ministers haven’t tried to ‘reform’ the homosexuals. But Mr. Durham says some have responded to the sympathetic treatment they have received. “One fellow who was really struggling with his sexual identity has gotten married and found a job,” he says. “Two or three have joined the church. Some who have gotten away from the kind of life they were leading have even come back to help those still caught up in it.”
…
Whatever else may result from the aid to the Vanguards, it already has opened some communication between homosexuals and the police department. A policeman has been assigned to counsel the group. Oddly, among those unhappy with the Glide, Vanguard relationship were leaders of several other homosexual organizations. “We thought the publicity (about dances and prostitution) would tend to perpetuate in the public mind a stereotype of the homosexual as irresponsible and sexually permissive,” one says.

…[mentions Saul Alinksy preaching, abortion “defender” preaching, CCH, etc.]…

If Glide’s activities appear unorthodox, its ministers say, it is largely because of a strong ‘anti-urban’ strain in American Protestant thinking. While most denominations have willingly, even eagerly, dispatched missionaries to primitive and sometimes savage foreign lands, many religious leaders have sied away freom work in the domestic ‘jungles.’ Heretofore, says Mr. Durham, “The role of the church in the city was somehow to save people from the evils of the city and to remind them of the sanctity of their rural heritage.” But no matter how “atheistic, Godless, immoral, demonic” modern city life may seem to be, Mr. Durham says, God create it and loves it.”