The Rainbow Network
IFM-SEI Rainbow Network Coordinators
One of our Woodcraft members was re-elected as the joint-IFM Rainbow Network coordinator at the IFM-SEI Congress 2010. Carly Walker-Dawson will take up the post with comrade Daniel Chang from Manque, Chile. The team will be the coordinators for the next three years until the next IFM-SEI Congress in 2013.
A History of the LGBT Movement:
Even in the 4th century C.E., moves were made to outlaw homosexuality. The first time this happened was at the Council of Elvira (in modern day Granada) in 305-306 when homosexuals were barred the right to communion (a very serious matter for Catholics at the time.) Finally, in 390, homosexuality was banned outright in the Christian world, to be punished by public burning. For more than a thousand years homosexuals were blamed for anything from plagues to famines.
The end of the 19th century saw further attacks against the seeds of an LGBT community that was now beginning to emerge. Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing published ‘Psychopathia Sexualis’, which placed homosexuality under the umbrella of paraesthesia, the term for sexual desire as a wrong goal or object. This paved the way for psychologists to view homosexuality as a mental illness until 1973.
However, the end of the 19th century also saw the birth of the openly bisexual American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and the setting up of some of the first societies to advocate gay rights, including the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee in Germany and the Order of Chaeronea in England.
In the early 20th century some great leaps forward were made. In 1904, Anna Rüling, a German feminist and lesbian activist, called for unity between the women’s rights movement and the sexual liberation movement. LGBT literature began to be published regularly, especially in Berlin, including the lesbian periodical ‘Die Freundin’.
In Russia, the old, monarchist state was overthrown, seeing the abolition of anti-homosexuality laws in 1917. In 1922 homosexual intercourse and displays of affection were officially decriminalised. In 1929, in Germany, a Reichstag committee voted to repeal the German anti-homosexuality laws. However, the rises of Stalinism and Fascism would quickly crush these early successes and return German and Russian society (where the movement was at its most advanced) to a line of anti-LGBT hate.
After the Second World War many gay rights groups were re-established or new ones came in to being. In this period many preferred the term ‘homophile’ so as to accentuate love over sex as part of a relationship. This movement was especially strong in America, but was largely ignored by politicians and the media. The movement became more radical in the 1960s to the backdrop of demonstrations and riots.
In the late 60s, the Gay Liberation Movement came in to being; an occurrence often attributed to the Stonewall riots. On 28 June 1969, LGBT customers at the Stonewall Inn in New York resisted a police raid which escalated into several days of rioting. 1970 would see the first Gay Liberation Day March in New York and Gay Freedom Day March in Los Angeles.
The 70s saw many advances for the LGBT movement, including the legalisation of homosexuality in several American states. The beginnings of litigation to allow transsexuals to change their sex started and, in America, LGBT activists entered into the public office, including Kathy Kozachenko, Elaine Noble and Harvey Milk. Following on from this, throughout the 80s more countries decriminalised homosexuality and enacted laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexuality.
An important development came in the 90s with Queer Theory, first in the works of writers such as Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick and Judith Butler. This area of study began and continues to explore notions of gender, asking questions about the extent to which gender is performed and learned and questioning the idea that gender is an essential and natural dividing line between people.
Why We Should be Involved in LGBT Issues in Woodcraft?
It would be grossly wrong to suggest that the struggles of the LGBT community have been won. Early last year a Ugandan minister proposed a bill to the Ugandan Parliament calling for homosexuality to be punished by life imprisonment or death. In Iran, LGBT people can face imprisonment, torture and execution; what is more, the UK government continues to deport LGBT refugees to Iran.
This is not only happening in other parts of the world; there is still a high level of LGBT abuse in the UK. The Metropolitan police have announced that LGBT-related incidents reported have increased by 20% in the past year. This announcement was made following the murder of Ian Baynham, a 62-year-old gay man, who was stabbed repeatedly in Trafalgar Square on a night out on September 25 last year.
The Woodcraft Folk aims to build a world based on peace, equality, social justice and co-operation, but without active participation in movements which aim to shape and change society this creed is meaningless. Equally, our vision of the future means nothing unless it takes into account the needs and rights of all oppressed communities.
In the next year, an LGBT History Pack will be produced, containing activities for leaders to run activities with all age groups in the Folk on LGBT issues and the LGBT liberation movement. The document will also contain profiles of some brave and inspiring individuals as well as movements and campaigns, but a better world must be built by all of us beginning with each new day. The LGBT community is not only threatened abroad by right wing moralists, religious fundamentalists and hate filled ideologues, but by every day individuals. The fight is not only in the realm of ideas, but as those involved in the struggle for LGBT liberation have learned and re-learned throughout the history of the movement it is in the streets as well.
LGBT history is for everyone.
Online Resources:
I would recommend everyone to take out ten minutes to watch this short video, which was created at an IFM-SEI summer school. Either follow the link below or search ‘IFM-SEI’ on youtube and the video appears on the first page:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xdbR-PYDZA
There is also a free teachers’ pack available online, which provides methods for you to do with your groups:
http://lgbthistorymonth.org.uk/schools/main.htm
and of course Rainbow is one of the ongoing DF Projects and as such has its own home page right here on SpanThatWorld.com just click HERE
Contact us:
For more information on the Rainbow Network in Woodcraft, to join to Rainbow Network mailing list or to get involved with the production of the LGBT History Month pack, email Carly Walker-Dawson on rainbownetwork@ifm-sei.org
To receive a more extensive LGBT history than above, email Daniel Rawnsley on dan.rawnsley@gmail.com
