LGBTQIA+ History Timeline Lesson

In this lesson, students learn about important leaders and events throughout LGBTQIA+ American history. They hear stories about Francis Bacon, a noted gay man who coined the term “masculine love”(1623), brilliant trans women of color, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who led the revolution at Stonewall (1969), and when Audre Lorde, a critically acclaimed novelist, poet, and fierce civil rights activist is named as the state poet of New York (1991). Students are each given a History Card with an important event from LGBTQIA+ history and are asked to guess their place in chronological order. This activity allows for the sharing of these often untold stories and also facilitates a much needed discussion about the erasure of LGBTQIA+ history in what is considered American history, and the value of critical thinking in history classes. After examining the LGBTQIA+ visibility (or invisibility) in their current history curriculum or textbooks, students proactively create newspaper articles to highlight the stories of LGBTQIA+ leaders and bring them into the classroom.