Students are privy to information concerning the history of women's and African Americans' rights as early as elementary school. When a speaker at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) History Month Kickoff Rally, addressing some 60 students, asked who had been taught any LGBT history in high school, only one student's hand rose.
The rest of the crowd remained silent, hands at their sides.
History got things a little too straight
said speaker Mickey Hart, director of the LGBT Center, with a laugh. We need to discover and recover our history and teach others. Those who do not know the past are doomed to repeat it.
Hart was one of nine speakers at the rally on the first day of October, a month celebrating LGBT history by shedding light on famous LGBT people, past LGBT movements and how LGBT people have fought - and continue to fight - for their rights even amidst torment, according to the LGBT Center website.
What type of world do we live in where elementary school children are taught that being gay is bad? asked speaker Amelia Shaw, an LGBT ally who is vice commissioner of LGBT affairs, and who gave a speech that moved the audience to tears.
While young children are normally taught the struggles of minority groups from a young age, LGBT people are missing from the curriculum. In an effort to increase awareness and understanding, Open Doors will host a series of events, graduate student. Dustin Collins has organized a Friday LGBT film series, and for Oct. 11, National Coming Out Day, a culmination of events will be held by the LGBT Center. Posters of nine famous LGBT activists titled We Are Outstanding will be posted throughout campus.
At the kick-off rally, many of the speakers recounted their own personal tales of torment from when they came out, or read aloud stories of those who have been tortured or have killed themselves as a result of the lack of acceptance in a hetero-normative society.
As a society people would rise to riot levels if acts of violence involved children of a different race
or a different gender ... but not when a child is gay
said speaker Christopher Uihlein, treasurer of Open Doors. Yes
gay kids are different
but that is no reason to stop compassion.
Even with the stories of personal persecution, the speakers agreed that society has become more accepting throughout the years, but it has leaps and bounds to go.
There are 10 countries with marriage equality
with three added this year
said Robyn Ochs, a bisexual activist who visited Ohio University for five days last week. We are all so lucky to live in this moment. We are at a tipping point. Someday people will write about us because we are changing the world right now.
Ochs, editor of Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, has watched LGBT history evolve from the frontlines since she came out as bisexual at age 23. She had friends who died of AIDS, attended numerous pride marches in Washington, D.C., and Ochs married Peg Preble, her long time partner, May 17, 1994, the first day it was legal to do so in Massachusetts.
History is an act in progress. It is an ever-growing tapestry
Ochs said. Get out there and learn about your LGBT history. Get out there and move us towards equality.
As she spoke, cheers emanated from the crowd dappled with rainbow pins, armbands and shirts brazening phrases such as Gay? Fine By Me and Marriage is so Gay.
I came for the last rally in 2007
and there were six people. Now there are so many that I felt empowered. Really
