Arts & Entertainment
LGBT history lessons far from universal in U.S. public schools
Religious exemption wavers, anti-LGBT curriculum publishers wrinkle progress
This fall more public school students could see LGBT content as states move toward mandating a more inclusive K-12 curriculum. However, publicly funded private schools continue to seek religious exemptions to anti-discriminatory measures.
In 2011 California passed its Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act, and lawmakers in New Jersey, Illinois, Colorado and New York City have moved to follow suit.
California’s FAIR Education Act mandates the inclusion of the political, economic and social contributions of LGBT people and persons with disabilities into educational textbooks across the state. It amends an existing educational code previously mandating inclusions based on race, ethnicity, nationality and gender.
Sen. Mark Leno, the state’s first openly gay state senator, sponsored the bill, stating the goal was to ensure the contributions of LGBT historical figures were “accurately and fairly portrayed in instructional materials.”
Similarly, Colorado State Representative Brianna Buentello, who co-sponsored their bill, said, “Our intent was to start teaching the history of everybody.”
In New York, the city council approved a 2019 budget that included $600,000 for LGBT-inclusive educational programming. Included are lessons about pioneers such as Harvey Milk, Bayard Rustin, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera and others. Also included are opportunities to meet current history makers and view an interactive map of LGBT historic sites through the city.
Proponents state the inclusive measures were necessary to protect both LGBT students and faculty from bullying and other forms of discrimination.
Illinois State Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz (D-Glenview) said if their bill had been law 15 years ago, her brother would not have been harassed and denied tenure in a suburban Chicago school.
“My brother was teaching history,” Gong-Gershowitz said at the time. “And a student asked whether the historical figure, that was the subject of the lesson, was gay. He answered the truth.”
As a result, her brother was subject to hate mail and called into the principal’s office.
New Jersey also passed a law mandating LGBT-inclusive curriculum for middle and high school students. However, the mandate does not apply to private schools.
Len Deo, president of the New Jersey Family Council, said these measures infringed on parents’ choices regarding teaching sexuality to their children, echoing concerns of conservative groups across the country.
Lauri Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute similarly said at a hearing on the matter, “The left’s motive is what it always is … to normalize homosexuality,” The Hill reports.
This concern about parental choice in education is at the heart of the school voucher movement championed by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. However, the program has its roots in a resistance to school integration efforts in the 1950s and 1960s.
According to the Center for American Progress, a progressive-leaning policy institute, in response to federal desegregation orders following the Brown v. Board of Education decision, Prince Edward County, Virginia issued tuition grant vouchers for white students to attend segregated private schools. Then as now, these schools rely on significant levels of public funding to continue to operate.
While Title IX of the federal Education Amendment prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in educational programs receiving federal funds, the Obama administration’s inclusion of gender identity and sexual orientation in this definition remains controversial.
Still, some schools continue to submit religious exemption waivers to perceived Title IX mandates, permitting them to discriminate against out LGBT students or faculty with impunity.
Additionally, an investigation by Huffington Post found thousands of these schools use discriminatory evangelical Christian curriculum often purchased using public funds.
As of 2017, 30 percent or more of the Christian (non-Catholic) schools participating in private school choice programs in Virginia and Maryland, and up to 10 percent in D.C., used textbooks from ultra-conservative publishers such as Bob Jones University Press.
Bob Jones University, submitted a Title IX religious exemption request in 2017 for permission to discriminate against LGBT students and faculty despite receiving public funds.
Students who attended programs using these discriminatory texts reported feeling ill-equipped to succeed in a diverse society and felt instilled with racist, sexist and intolerant views of the world.
Capri Coleman, an educator in the D.C. area, says it’s important to take students’ feelings into account just as much as parental “choice” when considering curriculum.
“Parents are always going to have a choice in what they want their children to be exposed to,” she says. “But at the same time, children will always run into people who are not like them.”
This is why she felt it was important for parents and society to first “teach tolerance and understanding.”
Unfortunately, due to voucher programs and religious exemptions, the tolerance and understanding promised by LGBT-curriculum legislation is not reaching all students receiving publicly funded education.
The Petal Release Party and Drag Show was held at Spark Social on Friday, July 31. Performers included Tiara-Missou, Labianna and Darcy de la Cuadra.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)
Celebrity News
Madonna headlines World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam
Kylie Minogue made surprise appearance alongside gay icon
AMSTERDAM — Madonna on Sunday headlined the final night of the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam.
The gay icon took the stage shortly before 2:30 a.m. local time (8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday) during Club Confessions, a set that MISTR, a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term HIV care, organized.
“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage inside Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall that can hold up to 6,000 people.
Stuart Price, who produced Madonna’s 2005 “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album and “Confessions II,” which debuted on July 2, DJed the set.
Kylie Minogue made a surprise appearance. She and Madonna performed a new remix of “Love Sensation” from “Confessions II.”
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
“Throughout my career, I’ve always supported efforts to fight HIV and AIDS, and that fight begins with education and access,” said Madonna in a MISTR press release. “With MISTR, (CEO) Tristan (Schukraft) is expanding access to HIV prevention and sexual healthcare for everyone. Through this work, he’s helping preserve and strengthen LGBTQ+ spaces while investing in the communities and culture that have long sustained us.”
Minogue in an Instagram post thanked Madonna, Price, Schukraft, and MISTR.
Madonna appeared at The Abbey in West Hollywood, Calif., in April. Madonna in June celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York’s Times Square.
Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced the World Pride Music Festival that also featured Bebe Rexha and Paris Hilton, among others.
“Pride has always been about bringing our community together,” said Resnicow. “At a moment when too many people are being told to hide or make themselves smaller, gathering openly, joyfully, and without apology matters more than ever. I couldn’t be prouder of what this festival brought to life in Amsterdam — one dance floor, completely free.”
Theater
Reggie White relishing first season as artistic director of Woolly Mammoth
First five shows a reminder that ‘pressure is a privilege’
Madly talented and preternaturally energetic, Reggie D. White, 38, is about to launch his first season as artistic director of D.C.’s boundary-pushing Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.
White brings a lot to the job. As actor, playwright, and director, his varied resume includes a 2019 Broadway acting debut in Matthew López’s Tony Award–winning play “The Inheritance,” his semi-autobiographic play “Fremont Ave.” that opened to acclaim last season at Arena Stage, and a number of exciting regional directing credits.
A longtime admirer of Woolly, the out theater-maker was selected from a pool of candidates before receiving the offer last November and starting work in January. His season of five world premieres kicks off with gay playwright Steve Yockey’s “Venus” (Sept. 9-Oct. 4), a darkly funny study of modern relationships told through two lesbians looking back on their first encounter.
White was introduced to Woolly Mammoth as a pre-law student at Cal State Hayward in the San Francisco Bay Area, long before he foresaw a life in the arts. “As part of a random theater history course, I was assigned to write a paper on a counterculture company called Woolly Mammoth,” he recalls “Strange name. I was like what the hell is that?”
Nineteen-year-old White was intrigued. Research acquainted him with Howard Shalwitz who co-founded Woolly in 1980, and the company’s commitment to living playwrights and new work. He also learned how theater could be used as a tool for difficult conversations and shape the way people thought about social issues by employing imagination and rigor.
“Never in a million years did young me envision that one day I’d be Woolly’s third artistic director in its 46-year history,” says White. “It’s kind of serendipitously insane.”
WASHINGTON BLADE: Was there a moment when the enormity of the job hit you?
REGGIE D. WHITE: After I’d signed my contract and finished all the paperwork, I got my keys and sat in the theater by myself in the dark and thought about what an incredible honor it is to be trusted with what happens in this beautiful space [in D.C.’s Penn Quarter]. I might have cried. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember it’s real.
BLADE: Are you curating the upcoming 2026–2027 season?
WHITE: Yes, I am. It’s very rare that an incoming artistic director gets to program their first season, but I was lucky in terms of time. After being hired late last year, I asked Woolly’s managing director Kimberly E. Douglas, if she thought it would be crazy if I programmed the season. She warned me it would be hard.
I invoked tennis legend Billie Jean King’s maxim “pressure is a privilege” and got to work.
These plays [dubbed White’s “first five”] represent both the kind of theater that Woolly can do really well and speak directly to my voice as curator and how I want to contribute to the larger theatrical conversation in the DMV.
Getting here has meant a lot of late nights. But I knew the juice would be worth the squeeze.
BLADE: As a queer artistic director, what makes you unique?
WHITE: When I was playing in “Inheritance” on Broadway, after a performance, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer came backstage to meet the cast. She spoke about how her lens on the world as a Puerto Rican woman shapes her decisions. Similarly, because I’m a queer Black man I see through a lens that shapes my work.
I know I’m not the only queer artistic director in town. For me, it influences how I make editorial decisions. Out of this season’s five plays there are explicitly queer characters in four [“Venus,” “Chanukkah Spectacular,” “Ten Grand,” and “Love I Awethu Further”] and I’m directing two [“Venus,” “Ten Grand”].
BLADE: Will we see familiar faces?
WHITE: Every show this season will feature a Woolly Mammoth company member in its cast. Our company also includes designers and directors who we’ll include. I’m invested in continuing to provide a showcase for their work.
BLADE: How do you think queer audiences will receive the season?
WHITE: Very well, I think. For queer people who’ve had to navigate the world subversively and solve problems in unique ways, I think it will be especially interesting. I find theater a potent place for questions.
Like all artistic directors. I’ll show up for the job in my own way. I’m just excited that I’ve been invited to bring the fullness of myself to the role.
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