Blowing Me, Blowing You.

In addition to being an interesting story, it’s also a reminder of what it was like even as recently as the late Sixties in the UK (and similarly in the US and Australia). Those of us grew up in later decades don’t always think about our LGBTQ elders and the struggles they faced before our rights were explicitly enshrined into law. We stand on the shoulders of many others who fought to get us where we are today.

Unlike most other minority groups, very few of us know LGBTQ elders who can teach us our LGBTQ history as we grow up. Few of us have the benefit of someone older and wiser to advise us and reassure us as we come to terms with our sexuality and orientation. Few of us have an LGBTQ elder to ask questions of as teenagers – or even as we pass through other stages of our lives.

Unlike most other minorities, we have to do the work ourselves of researching and discovering our own LGBTQ history. There are only a few jurisdictions in the world that mandate the teaching of LGBTQ history in public schools like California does. Only a few TV networks, like PBS (in the US) and BBC (in the UK) regularly present LGBTQ documentaries and historical dramas. Very few mainstream movies and TV show present us as more than just stereotypes, sidekicks, and novelties.

We owe it to ourselves and our LGBTQ elders to seek out, learn about, record, and preserve our own LGBTQ history because no one else is going to do it for us.

Sorry (not sorry) about the tangental rant!

;–)