Vito Russo: “Why We Fight” Speech
A Student's Guide to Essential Primary Sources
Table of Contents
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Abstract
A friend of mine in New York City has a half-fare transit card, which means that you get on buses and subways for half price. And the other day, when he showed his card to the token attendant, the attendant asked what his disability was and he said, “I have AIDS.” And the attendant said, “No, you don’t, if you had AIDS, you’d be home dying.” And so, I wanted to speak out today as a person with AIDS who is not dying.
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