Barbara Gittings: Letter to The Ladder
A Student's Guide to Essential Primary Sources
Table of Contents
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Abstract
Should doctors prescribe in the field of human feelings? Yes, is the underlying opinion of a medical group which myopically sees homosexuality only as a disease. On May 18, the Committee on Public Health of the New York Academy of Medicine issued a report entitled “Homosexuality” and intended for the public. In a skimpy 9 pages, the Committee has summarized - by omitting nearly all supporting evidence - its shocking views about homosexuality. We quote the report’s blunt conclusions:
Contents
- Chapter 1: Same-Sex Desire in the Ancient World
- Enheduanna: Hymns to Inana
- Plato: Symposium, the Discourse of Aristophanes
- Sappho: “Fragment 31”
- Spell 84: For a Man to Obtain a Male Lover
- Chapter 2: Gender Transgression and Same-Sex Desire Before the Nineteenth Century
- Suetonius: “Life of Julius Caesar”
- Nikephoros: The Life of St. Andrew the Fool
- Saga of the People of Laxárdalur
- Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: “I Saw a Devilish Thing”
- The Buggery Act
- Theodor de Bry: “Employment of Hermaphrodites”
- Richard Cornish's Trial for Buggery
- First Anti-Sodomy Law in the Colony of Virginia
- “Minutes of the Council and General Court of Colonial Virginia Regarding Thomas/Sine Hall”
- William King: “The Toast”
- Diary of Father Pedro Font
- “Lieutenant Gotthold Frederick Enslin Dismissed from the U.S. Military for Homosexuality”
- Chapter 3: Queer Lives and Loves in the Nineteenth Century
- Wu Tsao: “For the Courtesan Ch’ing Li”
- Bryan Edwards: “Shipmates”
- Anne Lister: Journal Entry
- Hiram Harvey Hurlburt: Passage About Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake’s Marriage
- Charlotte Cushman: Letter to Emma Crow
- Addie Brown: Letter to Rebecca Primus
- Fanny Fern: “Women Lovers”
- Walt Whitman: Letter to Peter Doyle
- “A Most Shocking Crime”
- “Judge Kimball Sends Dorsey Swan Down for Ten Months”
- Chapter 4: LGBTQ Persecution and Criminalization Since the Nineteenth Century
- The Execution of James Pratt and John Smith
- “An Amalgamationist in Limbo for the Second Time”
- Harriet Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself
- “Under False Colors”
- Oscar Wilde: Letters to Lord Alfred Douglas
- Photograph of Nazis Plundering Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin
- German Penal Code Paragraph 175
- Photograph of Gay Japanese American Men at Tule Lake Segregation Center
- “Sex Perverts as Government Employees”
- “Cops Start Bar Brawl”
- “Homo Nest Raided, Queers Bees Are Stinging Mad”
- “National Day of Mourning” Flyer
- Anita Bryant: “Rally for Democracy” Advertisement
- Bowers v. Hardwick
- “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”
- Chapter 5: Sexology and Medicalization
- Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: “The Riddle of Man-Manly Love”
- Richard von Krafft-Ebing: Psychopathia Sexualis
- Edward Carpenter: The Intermediate Sex
- Alexander Berkman: Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist
- Havelock Ellis: Sexual Inversion
- Katherine Bement Davis: Case Study Four, Factors in the Sex Life of Twenty-Two Hundred Women
- Sigmund Freud: Letter to an Anonymous Mother
- Alfred Kinsey: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male
- Alfred Kinsey: Kinsey Scale
- DSM-1: “Sexual Deviation”
- “It’s Official Now: We’re Not Sick!”
- Chapter 6: The Fight for Equal Rights Before Stonewall
- Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: Speech to the Congress of German Jurists
- Society for Human Rights Charter
- Mattachine Society: Mission and Purpose Statement
- Daughters of Bilitis: Purpose
- Lorraine Hansberry: Letter to The Ladder
- Frank Kameny: Letter to President John F. Kennedy
- José Sarria: Campaign Platform Speech
- Barbara Gittings: Letter to The Ladder
- The Mattachine Society of Washington: First DC Gay Rights Protest Information Bulletin
- Janus Society: Dewey’s Sit-In Statement
- Society for Individual Rights: Homosexual Bill of Rights
- Compton’s Cafeteria Photograph
- Ernestine Eckstein Interview
- Press Release about Street Sweep
- Chapter 7: Gender Transgression and Trans Identities Since the Nineteenth Century
- “A Mountain Romance”
- “Charley Parkhurst”
- T.C. Crawford: “A Zuni Princess in Washington”
- Dr. Alan Hart: Letter to Mary Roberts Rinehart
- Lilli Elbe: Letter to Christian
- Pauli Murray: “Summary of Symptoms of Upset”
- Christine Jorgensen: “The Story of My Life”
- Virginia Prince: The Chevalier D’Eon Resort
- Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries: Manifesto
- Sylvia Rivera: “Y’all Better Quiet Down”
- Lou Sullivan: Letter to Jude Patton
- Lou Sullivan: Information for the Female-to-Male Crossdresser and Transsexual
- Lou Sullivan: “Hats Off to Billy Tipton”
- Leslie Feinberg: Speech at the Al-Fatiha Retreat
- Laverne Cox: Speech to SCAD TVfest
- Chapter 8: Twentieth-Century Queer Culture and Community in the United States
- Gertrude Stein: “Miss Furr and Miss Skeene”
- Countee Cullen: Letter to Alain Leroy Locke
- Elsa Gidlow: “Episode,” On a Grey Thread
- “Hamilton Lodge Ball: An Unusual Spectacle”
- Plays on Broadway: The Captive
- “Chinese Woman Becomes Surgeon”
- Radclyffe Hall: The Well of Loneliness
- Gertrude “Ma” Rainey: “Prove It on Me Blues”
- Lisa Ben: “Here to Stay”
- Langston Hughes: “Café 3 a.m.”
- “Letter to a G.I.”
- Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop: For Immediate Release
- Olivia Records Announcement
- Charles White: The Life and Times of Little Richard
- Ellen DeGeneres: “Yep, I’m Gay” (“He Called Me Ellen DeGeneres?”)
- Chapter 9: 1960s–70s Liberation Movements
- Joe Adams: “Love and Bisexuality”
- Gay Liberation Front Platform Statement
- “Women’s Liberation Is a Lesbian Plot”
- Huey Newton: “A Letter from Huey to the Revolutionary Brothers and Sisters About the Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements”
- “The Woman Identified Woman”
- Bart Moncq: “The Power of Zapping”
- Jeanne Manford: “A Fair Chance”
- Denise Harmon: “Stonewall Means Fight Back!”
- Combahee River Collective Statement
- “Gays Mobilize Against Briggs”
- Harvey Milk: “Where Do We Go From Here?”
- Harry Hay and Don Kilhefner: Spiritual Conference for Radical Fairies Flyer
- “Why We Are Marching”
- Audre Lorde: “When Will the Ignorance End?”: Keynote Speech at National Conference of Third World Lesbians and Gay Men
- Chapter 10: LGBTQ Culture and Community in the 1980s
- Gay & Lesbian Latinos Unidos Promotional Flyer
- Melvin Boozer: Address to the Democratic National Convention, New York City
- “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals”
- Adrienne Rich: “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Experience”
- Cheryl Clarke: “The Failure to Transform: Homophobia in the Black Community”
- James Baldwin Interview
- Audre Lorde: “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”
- Joseph Beam: “Brother to Brother: Words from the Heart”
- Bayard Rustin: Martin Luther King’s Views on Gay People
- Lani Kaʻahumanu: “The Bisexual Community: Are We Visible Yet?”
- Gloria Anzaldúa: “Fear of Going Home: Homophobia”
- “Our Demands: The National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights”
- Dykes, Disability & Stuff
- Vito Russo: “Why We Fight” Speech
- Chapter 11: LGBTQ Culture and Community in the 1990s
- “North American Native Gay & Lesbian Gathering 1990 Itinerary”
- “The Queer Nation Manifesto”
- “Black Leaders Meet Discuss Lesbian/Gay Issues”
- June Jordan: “A New Politics of Sexuality”
- “Anything That Moves: Beyond the Myths of Bisexuality”
- Lesbian Avengers Flyer
- Essex Hemphill: “Vital Signs”
- “Life of 22 Years Ends, but Not Before Many Heard Message on AIDS”
- Sandip Roy: “Pink Peacocks in San Francisco”
- Chapter 12: Progress and Pushback: LGBTQ Life in the Twenty-First Century
- Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits Newsletter
- Lawrence v. Texas
- Nkunzi Zandile Nkabinde: Black Bull, Ancestors and Me: My Life as a Lesbian Sangoma
- S.909: Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act
- Barack Obama: Repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” Speech
- Gilbert Baker Speech
- Gender Identity Law as Approved by the Senate of Argentina
- H. Res. 319 Recognizing Bayard Rustin
- Obergefell v. Hodges
- “Latinx LGBTQ Adults in the United States”
- Bostock v. Clayton County
- Executive Order 14168: Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government