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Teaching "Straight" Gay and Lesbian History
Nancy C. Unger
| The importance of offering a lesbian and gay American history course was initially impressed upon me in 1986. A newly minted Ph.D., I was teaching my very first class: a U.S. history survey at San Francisco State University (sfsu). The course required each student to review a book of his or her choice on any topic in U.S. history. One student chose John D'Emilio's Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940–1970 from my list of suggested titles and wrote a thoughtful, enthusiastic review.1 At the bottom of the review was a handwritten note: "Thanks for recommending this book. As a gay man, I didn't know I had a history." Didn't know he had a history?! My fellow historians will share my sense of dismay and my determination to remedy this unthinkable state of affairs. |
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I have always included the history of gay men and lesbians in my various classes, not as a sop to "political correctness" and not because it is an amusing/interesting "add on" to "real" history, but because it is a vital component of a more complete understanding of American political, economic, social, legal, military, and religious history. For example, my courses that focus on the twentieth century include the significant role that the campaign against homosexuals played in McCarthy-era persecutions; in "U.S. Historical Geography" (which examines the role physical geography has played in the development of the United States), we study how and why the coastal cities of New York and San Francisco emerged as major centers of homophile populations; in women's history courses we examine the controversy and contributions lesbians brought to various feminist movements. |
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Around 1989, a contingent of gay and lesbian sfsu students who appreciated the inclusion of their history in my classes came to my office to formally request that I offer a course on the history of American homosexuality. The curriculum committee approved my proposal, and the course was introduced. To my disappointment, because of a quirk in university policy, I, a lowly lecturer, was not allowed to teach "my" course. It was officially assigned to a tenure-track colleague but in fact taught by an exceptionally qualified graduate student.2 |
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In 1994 I came to Santa Clara University (scu), a Catholic, Jesuit institution in the heart of California's Silicon Valley. Based on my undergraduate education at the more conservative Gonzaga University (also a Jesuit school), I assumed that teaching my own lesbian and gay course was now a complete impossibility. I continued to incorporate gay and lesbian history into much of my research and my courses, however, and was pleasantly surprised to find that my desire to offer a dedicated course on that topic was supported by students, faculty, and administrators. That support included a $4,000 Building Partnerships for Diversity grant in 2001 from the university's Center for Multicultural Learning to fund the development of the course. Ironically, the center did not recognize issues of sexuality in its definition of "multicultural"—the funding was granted to support the course's emphasis on the role of race within homosexual communities. |
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Despite the widespread support I was receiving, as I developed the course I continued to worry about the reaction of older alumni. Considering Santa Clara University's setting in the traditionally liberal San Francisco Bay area, I felt less trepidation than I would have if I were offering the course on a campus in a conservative stronghold. Nevertheless, based on letters to the editor of the alumni magazine, I knew that while most alumni are delighted about the university's serious commitment to social justice, especially its emphasis on the dignity of all persons, others are still fuming over the "radical" decision to admit women to the university in 1961. |
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