Don’t Know Much About History
Last month, I had the pleasure of performing in a “docudrama” of sorts at CAMP Rehoboth called Voices from Stonewall. Told mostly through the actual words of both protestors and police who were there when the June 1969 riots took place at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, it was both dramatic and educational—for me, anyway. Many in the audience didn’t learn something so much as were reminded of what they themselves had lived through 54 years ago. After both of our shows, I heard the same sentiment from multiple audience members: Kids, especially our own gay and trans youth, need to hear this.
It was another reminder of one of our greatest vulnerabilities as a community. As much as most happy LGBTQ+ people find solace and comfort in our deep and abiding friendships with one another, it’s rare that gay and trans kids are raised by gay and trans parents. Black kids learn not only about ancestors who were enslaved, but also about Jim Crow laws and redlining from their Black parents. Jewish kids learn about the Holocaust from their Jewish parents. Japanese-American kids learn about the internment camps during World War II and Native American kids learn about the Trail of Tears from parents who share those targeted identities.
As queer people, some of us take a natural interest in the history of our own community. But unless you’re naturally drawn to do your own research, we don’t have much intergenerational contact in the LGBTQ+ community. While there are certainly exceptions to this (more about me in a moment), most of us come out, work up the courage to visit our first gay bar (or these days, gay bowling league or gay AA meeting), meet a bunch of gay people just like ourselves (typically same race, same income level, and same age), and create a little found family.
We raise up our peers while they raise us up. We might brush up against our elders at the occasional swanky fundraiser for an LGBTQ+ charity, but the conversations are typically fleeting, full of kindness but lacking in depth. Rarely, if ever, has a younger gay or trans person been told by an older gay or trans person to sit down, be quiet, and listen to them talk about how things used to be.
I’m a lucky outlier, in that two of the first people I came out to were a lesbian couple over 20 years my senior. One was the director of a play I was appearing in, and the other was our stage manager. They didn’t live in Rehoboth Beach full-time (yet), but as soon as the play closed they brought me to the beach and spent an entire weekend introducing me to lots of happy LGBTQ+ people who were living their very best lives.
Also, they stopped by Lambda Rising (RIP) on Baltimore Avenue to buy me a copy of Making History, an anthology of first-person LGBTQ+ historical accounts beginning in the 1920s. Almost 30 (!!) years later, they are still dear friends, and everyone who knows us refers to them as my lesbian moms.
Also, even luckier for me, these are ladies who know their history. They also sought out and nurtured relationships with their elders. Two of their dearest friends were Muriel Crawford and her wife Anyda Marchant, who wrote lesbian novels with actual happy endings under the pen name Sarah Aldredge. Muriel and Anyda passed away in 2005 in their 90s. I’m not sure I know another gay or trans person my age who has ever met a gay or trans person over the age of 90, much less had the opportunity to sit and listen to them speak about what they’ve seen, how they’ve loved, and what they’ve learned from it all.
And just as this lack of intergenerational contact prevents our youth from knowing their history, it also prevents us (now that I’m in my 50s, I’m counting myself among the elders) from experiencing the culture as it exists today. Once, I remember a gay Baby Boomer expressing his disappointment that none of the young gay men he knew had ever heard of the 1939 film The Women, much less appreciate his exquisite line readings. This was back in the ealy-aughts, so I asked him (gently) if I quoted some lines from Mean Girls, would he have any idea what I was talking about.
He had to admit he’d be at a loss. Which is a shame. Both of those movies are really funny. But more than that, we have so much to learn from each other. And so many mistakes we will surely make if we never bother to learn about ourselves. As the great Roman politician Cicero once said, “Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child.” I don’t know if he was gay or not, but he’s name-checked in “Cell Block Tango,” so…close enough. ▼
Eric Peterson is Interim Managing Editor of Amble Press, a novelist (Loyalty, Love & Vermouth), and a diversity, equity, and inclusion practitioner. In his spare time, he hosts a podcast, The Rewind Project.