WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.860 --> 00:00:11.130 david.kersey@maine.edu: Hi, my name is David Kersey and I am presenting my research on LGBT organizing and the impact of organizational goals and priorities on strategy. 2 00:00:12.599 --> 00:00:20.220 david.kersey@maine.edu: My research consisted of a literature review to explore how LGBT organizations strategies were shaped by their goals and priorities. 3 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:29.010 david.kersey@maine.edu: And these organizations include gay shame the LA LGBT Center. The marriage equality movement, the Gay Liberation Front, as well as others. 4 00:00:29.550 --> 00:00:42.210 david.kersey@maine.edu: Then apply the knowledge I gained from that research on to meeting minutes and other materials of the main lesbian and gay political alliance that had been archived in special collections at the Glickman library. 5 00:00:43.620 --> 00:00:49.740 david.kersey@maine.edu: The GPA was founded in response to the murder of Charlie Howard a gay man from Bangor, Maine. 6 00:00:50.370 --> 00:01:03.900 david.kersey@maine.edu: Um, this murder as well as on the recent fight to remove same sex, sexual relations from the criminal code and man. I'm really highlighted for the founding members. The 7 00:01:04.620 --> 00:01:17.880 david.kersey@maine.edu: Exclusion and marginalization of the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community. And at that time, as well as centered legislative work as an important way to achieve their goals. Um, 8 00:01:21.150 --> 00:01:26.670 david.kersey@maine.edu: And the organization known as ML GPA at that time is now known as equality main 9 00:01:28.830 --> 00:01:33.420 david.kersey@maine.edu: The MLS up his goals and priorities can be seen in their original mission statement here. 10 00:01:34.350 --> 00:01:42.600 david.kersey@maine.edu: These include a focus on educating the general public, which is also could be called the SIS gender heterosexual population of Maine. 11 00:01:43.500 --> 00:01:53.730 david.kersey@maine.edu: legislative work building a strong lesbian, gay, and bisexual community as well as working with other organizations within man and the United States as a whole. 12 00:01:55.440 --> 00:02:11.250 david.kersey@maine.edu: So how do these goals and priorities translate into strategy, as well as one of the most obvious strategies is to appeal to the general public, since they're focused on legislative work and raising acceptance for the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community. 13 00:02:12.540 --> 00:02:18.840 david.kersey@maine.edu: And so, this led them to avoid appearing to radical or queer and to try and maintain 14 00:02:19.890 --> 00:02:23.910 david.kersey@maine.edu: more mainstream on the safe picture of LG 15 00:02:24.930 --> 00:02:26.940 david.kersey@maine.edu: lesbian, gay, bisexual identity. 16 00:02:28.320 --> 00:02:28.740 david.kersey@maine.edu: And 17 00:02:30.060 --> 00:02:31.470 david.kersey@maine.edu: Other on 18 00:02:32.610 --> 00:02:38.100 david.kersey@maine.edu: tactics that were taken was education. And this is done in multiple formats through 19 00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:49.020 david.kersey@maine.edu: Events newsletters action alerts on all sorts of publications that describe the legislation and other actions. The ML GPA was supporting 20 00:02:50.400 --> 00:02:55.740 david.kersey@maine.edu: These tended to focus specifically on legislation or other policy issues on but did not 21 00:02:57.450 --> 00:03:03.060 david.kersey@maine.edu: Highlight the specific challenges that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people were facing and main 22 00:03:04.350 --> 00:03:15.390 david.kersey@maine.edu: They did advocate for acceptance and equality, but they didn't bring in this specific experiences or kind of the queer experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual people 23 00:03:17.100 --> 00:03:32.100 david.kersey@maine.edu: And this may also have been a strategy to try and um curtail some of the opposition, they were receiving from the organized anti gay forces and may not this time that we're working very hard to prevent any gains in equality through legislation. 24 00:03:33.570 --> 00:03:41.640 david.kersey@maine.edu: I'm here on the left of this slide, you can see a pink. A invitation to the ML GPS Fifth Annual Meeting and 1990 25 00:03:42.330 --> 00:03:52.980 david.kersey@maine.edu: These meetings occurred every year they were a key way for the organization to provide connection and community for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people while also connecting straight allies with the community. 26 00:03:53.490 --> 00:04:05.100 david.kersey@maine.edu: And fundraising for the organization through the event fees on the left or right. I'm sorry. You can see action alert on this one focuses on 27 00:04:06.270 --> 00:04:20.640 david.kersey@maine.edu: Bill LD 1116 on which they described as an act to prevent discrimination on, as I mentioned previously, and it holds true for this action alert as well. They keep too vague language about 28 00:04:22.020 --> 00:04:26.340 david.kersey@maine.edu: Equality just preventing discrimination. However, they do not describe 29 00:04:27.540 --> 00:04:36.570 david.kersey@maine.edu: The discrimination that's like that occurs or any of the specific challenges that queer people may face because of that discrimination. 30 00:04:38.790 --> 00:04:46.050 david.kersey@maine.edu: They encourage their members to lobby by attending a hearing, as well as calling or writing to their legislators. 31 00:04:46.590 --> 00:05:00.300 david.kersey@maine.edu: And this is a really good example of how they worked really hard on legislative reform and getting their members and fault in that, but did not work to include more marginalized members of the LGBT community. 32 00:05:01.410 --> 00:05:13.350 david.kersey@maine.edu: And on that note, well, number two, a discussion of inclusion and exclusion and how the history and founding of the amount GPA, as well as their goals and priorities impact at that 33 00:05:14.160 --> 00:05:25.230 david.kersey@maine.edu: Um, so here we can see that in 1991 60% of the GPS members were a woman and 32% of their members and that same year where men. And this is a very interesting 34 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:36.690 david.kersey@maine.edu: A statistic that reveals a lot about other things that were happening at the time, as well as the unique context of this organization. Um, so 35 00:05:37.410 --> 00:05:48.690 david.kersey@maine.edu: Of course shows with lesbian community was very influential and lesbian, gay, and bisexual organizing in Maine. And part of the reason for that at this time in particular is that in 1984 the AIDS crisis. 36 00:05:50.670 --> 00:05:58.110 david.kersey@maine.edu: Was causing many game by a man to die from complications of AIDS or were very Ellen unable to be as active in 37 00:05:59.250 --> 00:06:00.060 david.kersey@maine.edu: Activism. 38 00:06:01.290 --> 00:06:09.480 david.kersey@maine.edu: And they also on it meant a lot of women were very involved in LGBT organizing and activism at that time. 39 00:06:10.200 --> 00:06:22.110 david.kersey@maine.edu: And this is in contrast to other organizations such as the earlier Gay Liberation Front. Which one was on foreign to be inclusive of both inclusive of both men and women. However, in practice. 40 00:06:22.440 --> 00:06:32.160 david.kersey@maine.edu: And women often found that their voices were shut down in the organization. And many of them left to form on women centered lesbian and bisexual organizations instead 41 00:06:35.220 --> 00:06:46.560 david.kersey@maine.edu: And finally, we'll move on to the exclusion of the transgender community, um, you may have noticed, I haven't talked about that community or part part of the broader LGBT community much at all. And that's partially because 42 00:06:46.950 --> 00:06:52.050 david.kersey@maine.edu: Transgender membership was not mentioned in any of the materials that I examined during this research. 43 00:06:53.250 --> 00:07:04.500 david.kersey@maine.edu: And in fact, the MO GPA or by that point and quality man had had no transgender employees until G Andrew and out trans woman was hired in 2014 and there are 44 00:07:06.300 --> 00:07:15.870 david.kersey@maine.edu: A few reasons why this might have been on one is the early on in the organization's history in the 1980s and 19 nine years on the transgender community was 45 00:07:17.190 --> 00:07:22.380 david.kersey@maine.edu: Facing very strong opposition, even more so than lesbian, gay, and bisexual people 46 00:07:23.010 --> 00:07:33.450 david.kersey@maine.edu: And receiving as very threatening to society and so would have been really difficult for an organization that was trying to appeal to a broad public to include them. 47 00:07:34.380 --> 00:07:45.990 david.kersey@maine.edu: Them being the trans community in their activism and organizing at that time. Um, and this is really important because that can lead that dynamic can lead to exclusion. 48 00:07:48.150 --> 00:07:52.110 david.kersey@maine.edu: And and lack of protections for people that 49 00:07:53.430 --> 00:07:55.470 david.kersey@maine.edu: Are otherwise part of the same community. 50 00:07:56.760 --> 00:08:08.760 david.kersey@maine.edu: So my general conclusions from this Reacher should is that the historical context in which organizations are founded help shape their goals and priorities and that those goals and priorities determine the strategies that 51 00:08:09.450 --> 00:08:25.230 david.kersey@maine.edu: The organization employees and who they include in their work and who they exclude from their work and understanding this dynamic is can clarify why organizations choose some strategies over others. Thank you for listening to my presentation.