Hey it's Rowan, and today I've got my
pride flag behind me, my LGSM top on,
and my anti-bullying wristband, because
it's time to talk about LGBT
History Month.
Now in 2015 it may sound weird for me
to have to say this but
LGBT stands for lesbian gay bisexual and
trans,
although this is also recognized as
covering a myriad of
alternative sexualities and alternative
gender identities which don't fit into
this cis
and straight model. It seems strange for me to
explain that because
for most people now it feels like an
acronym that we all know.
But I remember not too long ago when I
was at high school, and I tried to talk to
my teachers about this stuff
and use the acronym, and none of them knew what it
meant. And this is what LGBT History
Month does:
it spreads basic and more complicated and
not as well-known knowledge about the
LGBT community,
through schools, colleges, and
universities but it's also a time when
all of us, regardless of where we are in
education, can be learning about this
stuff.
So quick disclaimer: although I usually use
the word "queer"
as an umbrella term, in this particular video
I'm going to be using LGBT.
one: because I think it's more
mainstream, it's also what is used LGBT
History Month, but please know that when
I say this
I am talking about all the other kind of
sexualities and gender identities which
are
included in that generalized umbrella. So why
is it so important?
I would say a number of reasons. When a
group of people is Othered or
condemned in society
it is vitally important to expose the
contributions they made to the
growth and development of that culture as
well as in the their own community,
because this can cause a disconnected in the Othering. Because people in mainstream
society
have to then acknowledge: we're here! we've
always been here! And even through these
years of being
Othered and ignored and killed and
discriminated against...
we have been helping. We have been
producing beautiful things,
we've been saving lives, and we've been
changing history. We don't actually go to
a special
class for LGBT stuff and get taught
about it and know anything about it
and so the stuff that we have to find
out about it, as people who identify
as LGBT, or anywhere on that spectrum, is
through the internet,
which can often be quite a hostile and
difficult place, especially the comment
sections.
Although we have been making strides in
the general media to be portraying LGBT
people both
real live people and fictional
characters in TV shows there's still a
long way to go.
And so it becomes quite difficult to see
yourself as an
LGBT person being mapped out throughout
history and being acknowledged
throughout history, as having been contributing to
life and to
the country or the world that you live in. The second thing it does is...I don't wanna say "normalize" because
that maybe gets into value judgments
about
something being the way it's "supposed" to be, so instead I'll use the word that the LGBT
History Month
website itself uses which is to
usualise...
so to make something usual. The way they
go about this
is to casually include information
about LGBT people and communities
within pre-existing lessons. So for
example in geography you might be
learning about major cities, you might
talk about the fact
that San Francisco has the largest
population of gay households
in america and then you move on. This
wouldn't be a point of contention,
or discussion, it would just be
acknowledged as a fact
of life. There is no comment, there's no
reaction, there is no problem.
So young people become sort of acclimatised to LGBT being something that isn't
unusual or Othered. Because it's this Otheing
which makes it so easy to abuse people,
to see them as less than.
If in schools there's no mention of
LGBT people at all,
it becomes very easy to see it as a 
taboo subject that you shouldn't be
speaking about.
It becomes very easy to dehumanize
people if the authority figures in your
life,
teachers and educators, are saying that
they are something that is not to be
talked about.
Which then leads us onto the sort of
third thing or
this new step that happens: So after you have usualised
LGBT people and LGBT History you need to
what the website refers to as "actualise" and
this is when you *do* explain and
examine and take more time to talk about
LGBT issues.
To give them their own space and the
space that they deserve. But because
we've already gone through the process
of usualisation
we're able to study this without
distractions. I know that this would have
been very useful when I was studying...
in psychology when we were talking about
studies on children
and on attachment theory and we were talking
about adoptive
parent, one of the girls in our class actually asked "Are gay people allowed to adopt?"
Now if we'd gone through a process of
usualisation at the school,
this is a question that people probably
already have know the answer to, or if they didn't
it would've been answered very casually
by the teacher and we would've moved on.
As it stood, instead, another girl turned
to this girls and said
"Urgh no that's disgusting!" And the
teacher did nothing about it.
Now this is where we have to go into a little bit of a science lesson about
LGBT kids and students education within
the UK.
We need to talk about something called
Section 28. Now Section 28 was a clause
in at local government Act in 1988.
"A local authority shall not
intentionally promoted homosexuality, or
publish material
with the intention of promoting
homosexuality, or to promote the teaching
in any maintained school of the
acceptability of homosexuality
as a pretended family relationship' So
what ended up happening because of
that clause was that
no one was getting taught anything about
gay people in schools.
Even mentioning that people you were already
studying happened to be gay
was not allowed, or teachers felt
like it wasn't being allowed.
So you have this sort of silence or taboo
going on. Now
this particular clause was repealed in
2000, however
the ripple effect of the Act is probably
still going on today,
because for the period 1988-2000 there
were a lot of teachers who were being trained
and the training that they had had 
nothing about LGBT stuff in it.
So you have a lot of teachers who have
gone through a climate of not being able to
talk about it,
that even in the training it was not
talked... To a place where they
are allowed to talk about it, but often a lot of
them don't know they're allowed to talk about it.
Again, I know when I was in school I had
teachers talk about the fact that it was
not appropriate to talk about in class.
Even though the Act itself had been
repealed for almost a decade.
This uncertainty among teachers about not
only what they can teach
or not teach, but also the language and
homophobia that they are
or aren't allowed to challenge within the workplace
and within the school environment
is really important.
I think it's a reason why these two
ideas of actualizing
and usualising in the LGBT History
month
pack or idea or syllabus is so
important.
Another way you might like to think about
this is the idea that we are "reframing"
and "relearning" within these lessons. So
reframing as an idea of
acknowledgement within the existing
education that you've had.
So for example you would take individuals
that you're already learning about for example
Wilfred Owen is
on most of the GCSE and some of the A level English syllabuses.
If we take that person: a brilliant war poet
and we acknowledge their queerness, we start
to open up a conversation about the fact
that LGBT people are contributing and
have contributed
to history that we might not think is
"LGBT History",
but as just history and culture in
general. But I also think
it's important to talk about the other thread
which is uniquely LGBT.
And that's what I think of as relearning:
to relearn the past would be to have a look
at events thoughout history that have happened which
have been important
to LGBT individuals and to the community.
So, to talk about
this lovely thing that went on... the
LGSM, which you guys might know
from Pride... the idea of the miner's strike and how
that kinda intersected together with the
LGBT rights movement.
LGBT History Month is so so great,
and I think a lot more schools should be
doing something about it. I understand that
university's often do events, but
at that point a lot of people who are
homophobic or biphobic or
transphobic are already pretty set in their
views and will not go to these
non-compulsory events that Universities will hold. I think at
University the events are a lot more for
people who are within the LGBT
community already and I want to learn more
about their own history.
I think it would also make it a lot easier
for students
and staff to challenge homophobia both
you know
in the classroom environment and around the
school if it was something that wasn't
given
just one month that we talk about. Ao if
you
have any person, place, issue,
event that you want to learn more about or that
you want to se me make a video
about,
please post a comment below or send me
message and I'll be very happy to make a
video about it either this February,
LGBT History Month, or beyond, because as I said
it's important to be
educating yourself all year round. I've left a link to the LGBT
History Month website below, so definitely check that out. Until next
time, bye!
Subtitles by the Amara.org community
