Gayskool
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🏳️🌈 Sounds Fabulous!
One of the stereotypes about gay men has to do with their speaking voices. (Think David Sedaris, Paul Lynde, Quentin Crisp, Liberace, and a whole bunch of Disney animated villains.) It’s often called the “gay lisp,” but I think it’s not really a lisp. To me, it sounds like a…
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🏳️🌈 You Know She Brings It to You Every Ball
In 1990, the groundbreaking documentary “Paris Is Burning” was released. It was an intimate look at the ball scene in New York — a place where marginalized LGBTQ people (mainly of color) would compete for trophies in fashion-inspired categories. The takeaway for me was that people who are cast out…
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🏳️🌈 Our Corporate Allies Haven’t Always Been our Allies
During Pride Month, major companies wrap themselves in rainbows, march in parades, and proclaim their commitment to equal rights. This hasn’t always been the case. There are many stories of companies discriminating against LGBTQ people in the past. Let’s look at one infamous company. In the ’80s, Delta Airlines gained…
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🏳️🌈 Do Ask, Do Tell!
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) was the horribly misguided policy that allowed lesbian, gay, and bisexual people to serve in the U.S. military as long as they didn’t disclose their sexual orientation. President Bill Clinton introduced the policy as a sort of compromise between forces advocating for and against lesbian,…
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🏳️🌈 Meet Tammy
LGBTQ representation in government is getting better, and that’s thanks to trailblazers like Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). In 1998, Baldwin became the first openly lesbian woman elected to Congress. In 2012, she became the first openly LGBTQ person in the Senate. Baldwin has never hidden her sexual orientation. “I think that…
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🏳️🌈 LGBTQ People Have Class
GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network) was created in 1990 to promote LGBT issues in kindergarten, elementary, middle, and high schools. It supports students and teachers. GLSEN is best known for helping schools form and sustain Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs. Some administrations and parents are so vehemently hateful…
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🏳️🌈 10 Percent
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male shocked the world when it was published in 1948 by Alfred Kinsey. It said 10% of the male population was gay and more than one third of men had had at least one gay sexual experience. The report also gave us the Kinsey Scale,…
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🏳️🌈 A Teevee Ad With Some Assembly Required
IKEA was the first company to depict a gay couple in a TV ad in the United States — in 1994! It showed the couple shopping for a table. The ad only appeared in a few markets and was shown late at night, not during prime time. Of course, bigots…
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🏳️🌈 Oy Gay!
Allen Bennett was the first openly gay rabbi in the United States. He came out in 1978 in California as one of many LGBTQ voices opposing the Briggs Initiative (which I might discuss in a future history lesson). In 1979, he was elected rabbi of Congregation Sha’ar Zahav in San…
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🏳️🌈 Death Becomes Us
Ever wonder why so many LGBTQ characters die in movies and on TV? It’s not a coincidence. For many years, written and unwritten censorship laws prohibited the depiction of LGBTQ characters unless they were punished for their orientation. (You can google “Hays Code” for more info about this.) This situation…