Trump’s administration wants to erase queer history. An unconventional book club is fighting back
He added: “Freak history, it’s always the history of resistance because that’s what queer means.” Whether it’s gender identity or gender identity, queer is non-standard. “Institutions, even schools with good intentions, even schools that try very hard and even great public schools, they invest in top to bottom versions of history. And queer history has never been like that.”
To “meet” it is important to discuss not only the history of queer and black or trans in the 19th century, but to connect people with each other, Ryan said. “We are bringing revolutionary history, but we are also trying to build communities,” he said.
The way people connect and build communities has changed, thanks to social media and smartphones.
Michael Bronski, professor of media and activism at Harvard University, has been involved in LGBT politics and activism since 1969. He has written several books on queer history and politics. He said his students today are often surprised by their work without social media. “All of these new technologies are very useful and efficient, but they often lack human relationships,” he said. Various civil rights start with community action.
“It’s very important to prioritize the reality of community,” Bronski said. “We don’t actually form a community by tweeting. It might be useful for connecting with people to seek something. But it’s not a community. Community means being united – often, often but actually that’s true. “Now people are getting amplified, which is also good,” he said.
Written history does exist and is added every day. Our phones are easier to keep records than ever before. Everyone can take photos, videos and record audio. But the website can be changed and the media can be deleted. “What would be the benefit if Amazon could watch everyone watching ads at the same time,” Peppermet said. “We are in this era of technology, but we obviously have to go back to a simulation to record history.”
She noted that Marion Stokes is a civil rights activist and archivist who has recorded 24-hour television broadcasts for more than 30 years and has set an indispensable record between 1979 and 2012. “We’re going to need that, we need people to do something like this,” Peppermint said.
Despite the changes now, the Trump administration will not be in power forever. Every step of the queer community has the potential to recover in the future. Brownsky said at least Trump said that at least it cannot really eliminate trans Americans.
“There is an interesting contradiction in which every act of erasure admits something happened before,” he said. “Active erasure is actually an affirmation that exists from the beginning.”
At 76, Bronksi had a long memory of events like pride before the company protested against the march rather than the march. It’s important to the queer community, he said, but they formed, “to keep this knowledge alive within itself” – whether it’s publishing its own books and magazines, telling oral history, or preserving other aspects of its culture.
“At the moment, what the government is doing is terrible and destructive,” he said. “We have to take that into account. The government has a lot of power, but it’s just the government, not a community.”
