I'm grateful to Andy Soth, senior producer at PBS Wisconsin, for pointing me toward "Wisconsin Pride," a two-part history of that state's LGBTQ+ people broadcast during June and now available via YouTube's PBS Wisconsin channel. Just follow the link at the end of this post; be aware that two hours of quality viewing are ahead.
The piece does an admirable job of tracking --- beginning with "two-spirit people" of the state's indigenous population and concluding with Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, first openly gay person elected to the U.S. Senate, and her role in development and passage of the Respect for Marriage Act signed by President Biden during December.
In between, countless stories are told, all of them fascinating in one way or another.
I had no idea, for example, that when I enrolled at the University of Iowa for the first time during the fall of 1964, the dean of men and others at the University of Wisconsin-Madison were leading a concerted drive to purge the campus of gay male students and faculty, continuing a long, sporadic tradition.
Or that against that background, one of the most active and effective gay rights movement in the nation developed. Or that patrons of Milwaukee's Black Knight tavern were resisting harassment during 1961, eight years before Stonewall Riots in New York City marked the official birth of the worldwide LGBTQ movement.
Although their story is not included in the documentary, two Lucas Countyan posts about Ellen/Edgar Wales Burnham --- an intersex person whose story relates to both Wisconsin and Iowa history of the 1870s and 1880s --- caught Mr. Soth's eye recently. And that led to the link posted here.
If interested, you'll find "The Curious Case of Ellen/Edgar Wales Burnham (Part 1)" here and "The Curious Case of Ellen/Edgar Wales Burnham (Part 2)" here.
And here's the link to "Wisconsin Pride," produced by Mr. Soth.
No comments:
Post a Comment