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It is important for gay men and lesbians, as well as the general
public, to be aware of the wide variety of homosexuals who have made
notable contributions throughout history. Each installment in this new
series will highlight several gay men and lesbians who share the same
life's work.
A couple of notes before starting. First, when dealing with historical
persons, there may well not be any obvious direct evidence of their
gayness--historians, until recently, have tended to ignore the
homosexuality of some of the people they are researching or writing
about--so in many cases, only circumstantial evidence is available.
Second, a variety of sources will be used to prepare this series,
including The Gay 100, The Gay Almanac, The Gay Book of Days, Gay
Letters, Gay Men and Women Who Enriched the World, Members of the
Tribe, The New Gay Book of Lists, Out in All Directions, Out of the
Past, and Outstanding Lives; sources on the World Wide Web will also be
used, especially for pictures. Now, on to this first installment's
theme...gay and lesbian teachers.
Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher and teacher whose
"noble life and courageous death" have made him one of the most admired
figures in history. What isn't mentioned in most history books
(especially those used in schools) is that Socrates was homosexual.
This was not at all unusual in the Athens of his day; the Athenians of
the era were less concerned about male homosexuality than probably any
society today. "Socrates spent his days sitting in the shade of an
olive tree and discussing philosophical questions of justice, virtue,
piety, and the soul with well-born youths. As a teacher and lover of
young men, he was the embodiment of the Athenian institution of
paiderasteia, or boy love." We have no writings of Socrates, and all we
know of him comes from "the dialogues of his most famous pupil," Plato
(see below), "and from the memoirs of another student, Xenophon."
Socrates' forced suicide by poison had nothing to do with his
gayness--it had more to do with his criticism of Athenian institutions
Plato (427?-347 B.C.) was one of the most important thinkers and
writers in the history of Western culture, not just of the golden age
of Greece. He founded the Academy, an interdisciplinary school for
research, in 387 B.C. His teachings and writings (most notably, the
Symposium and the Phaedrus) include forthright discussions of gay
desire and love. Interestingly, and with an irony that the philosopher
might have appreciated, the term "platonic love" is used today to mean
a kind of sexless friendship (usually between members of the opposite
sex!). Plato described Socrates' (see above) trial and death in
Apology, Crito, and Phaedo.
Brunetto Latini (1220-1295) was a gay Florentine tutor. The Italian's
best-known student was Dante. Although Dante thought well of his
teacher, he "condemned Latini to the third round of the seventh circle
of hell, a place reserved for sodomites."
Goldsworthy Dickinson (1862-1932) was a gay British philosopher and
lecturer at Kings College. He was one of the founders of the League of
Nations. Some of his writings--in particular his 1896 masterpiece The
Greek Way of Life--dealt openly with love between people of the same
sex, which lead gay British novelist E. M. Forster (1879-1970) to write
"all his deepest emotions were towards men."
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was a gay Austrian-British
schoolmaster, philosopher, and logician. Born in Vienna, Wittgenstein's
family was very wealthy. He attended college first in Berlin and then
in England, returning to Austria when World War I started to serve as
an artillery officer. While he was a prisoner of the Italians, he wrote
his revolutionary book on philosophy, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,
which was eventually published--in German--in 1921, and--in a combined
German-English version--the following year. After the war, Wittgenstein
gave away his inherited family fortune and became a elementary school
teacher in Austria. Following a stint as a monastery gardener's
assistant, he returned to Cambridge's Trinity College in 1929 on a
fellowship. He became a British citizen in 1938, and was appointed
professor the following year. He spent World War II as a hospital
porter and in a laboratory, resuming his professorship after the war.
Until recently, biographers tried to ignore his homosexuality;
F. O. Matthiessen (1902-1950) was a gay Harvard professor who taught
American literature and criticism of poetry. He wrote American
Renaissance, a monumental work which discussed the writings of Ralph
Waldo Emerson, gay author Herman Melville (1819-1891), Henry David
Thoreau, and gay poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892). Candid love letters
between Matthiessen and his partner of 20 years, gay painter Russell
Cheney (1881-1945), were published in 1978 in Rat & the Devil, and also
appear in Rictor Norton's recently published My Dear Boy: Gay Love
Letters through the Centuries.
Paul Goodman (1911-1972) was a gay American lecturer and author
(Growing Up Absurd).
Arnie Kantrowitz (1940-) is a gay American writer, teacher and
activist. He wrote Under the Rainbow: Growing Up Gay, co-founded of the
Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), and was a Vice
President of the Gay Activists Alliance in 1971. He "teaches creative
writing at The College of Staten Island, and is a widely published gay
journalist and essayist."
Jackie Goldberg (1945-) is currently an openly lesbian member of the
Los Angeles City Council. However, before she entered the political
arena, Jackie spent over 20 years as a teacher in Illinois, Compton,
and finally Los Angeles. Goldberg then spent several years on the Los
Angeles Unified School District Board, retiring in 1991. She was first
elected to a council seat in 1993, and was re-elected in 1997. However,
her first love remains teaching: "I'd rather be teaching. Don't get me
wrong--this is a great job, but teaching is still my favorite
occupation." Jackie's longtime (18 years) lover is lesbian poet and
author Sharon Stricker; they have a 22-year-old son, Brian.
Rafael Freda (1948?-) is a gay Argentinian school teacher and activist.
He and "his lover, Eduardo Vzquez, were recognized as spouses by the
teachers' union social security system" in May, 1997. Shortly
thereafter, the Argentine "government extended pension rights to the
lovers of deceased gays and lesbians and the flight-attendants union
began offering benefits to gay/lesbian employees' domestic partners."
Jeff Horton (1949-) is currently an openly gay member of the Los
Angeles Unified School District Board. Before serving on the board,
Jeff, a graduate of Yale University, spent 15 years as an English
teacher at Crenshaw High in south Los Angeles. He also worked for a
year as a deputy to then board member Jackie Goldberg (see above). When
she announced her retirement in 1991, Horton ran for her seat and was
elected; he was re-elected in 1995. He recently completed a term as
president of the board. Jeff's partner of 13 years is Larry Pickens; in
1995, they adopted a son, Dante Pickens-Horton, who is now (1997) eight
years old.
Eric Rofes (1954-) was a sixth-grade teacher in the Boston suburbs when
he came out as a gay activist; he lost his job, but was later hired by
a progressive private school. His years as a closeted schoolteacher are
documented in his book Socrates, Plato & Guys Like Me: Confessions of a
Gay Schoolteacher. Rofes served as Executive Director of the Los
Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Service Center in the 1980s.
Tom Ammiano (?-) is currently an openly gay member of the Board of
Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco. However, he
actually has three careers: besides being a politician, he is a
schoolteacher and a stand-up comedian. A friend of the late Harvey Milk
(1930-1978)--Ammiano appeared in the Oscar-winning documentary The
Times of Harvey Milk--Tom "led the struggle for the rights of gay
teachers." He was also "the first openly gay member of the San
Francisco School Board" (and the top vote-getter in the 1990 election),
and has served terms as the Board's president and vice president. Tom
has been a "Community Resource Teacher for the AIDS Education Project,
a classroom teacher for the educable mentally retarded, and a teacher
of English in Vietnam. He was an instructor for AIDS Peer Education at
City College of San Francisco and a teacher at the Disabled Students
Program, also at City College." Ammiano "was featured in a Newsweek
article on gay teachers," as well as being "profiled in the New York
Ann Bancroft (?-) is a lesbian teacher and polor explorer. She
travelled to the North Pole by dog sled in 1985 as part of a team with
seven men, and skied to the South Pole in 1992 with three other women.
Her story is told in Dorothy Wenzel's On Top of the World. Bancroft
currently works for an outdoor education company.
Dante Germino (?-) is an openly gay Italian-American professor and
political theorist. He has written two books, Machiavelli to Marx:
Modern Western Political Thought and Antonio Gramsci: Architect of a
New Politics. Germino is on the faculty of the University of Virginia.
Billy Hileman (?-) is a gay schoolteacher and activist. Billy was
co-chair of the 1993 March on Washington.
Our Gay and Lesbian Heritage by Bruce Britton - Part 2
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