As a policy school dedicated to the public good and producing civically engaged and socially responsible leaders, the School is committed to creating an environment of diversity, inclusion and belonging for its faculty, staff, students and surrounding communities. To that end, here are recommendations to observe LGBTQ+ History Month and National Disability Employment Awareness Month.
Watch
A Conversation with Dr. Sami Schalk Black Disability Politics
A conversation with Dr. Sami Schalk Black Disability Politics. Dr. Sami Schalk is an associate professor in the Department of Gender & Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. She is the author of Black Disability Politics published in 2022. This video talks about disability celebration and recognizes the diversity and strengths of individuals with non-normative bodies and minds, encompassing those with visible and invisible disabilities, chronic illnesses, deafness, mental health differences, and neurodiversity.
DISCLOSURE, a Netflix Original
Disclosure takes “an unprecedented, eye-opening look at transgender depictions in film and television, revealing how Hollywood simultaneously reflects and manufactures our deepest anxieties about gender. Leading trans thinkers and creatives including Laverne Cox, Lilly Wachowski, Yance Ford, Mj Rodriguez, Jamie Clayton and Chaz Bono share their reactions and resistance to some of Hollywood’s most beloved moments. Grappling with films like A Florida Enchantment (1914), Dog Day Afternoon, The Crying Game, and Boys Don’t Cry, and with shows like The Jeffersons, The L-Word, and Pose, they trace a history that is at once dehumanizing, yet also evolving, complex and sometimes humorous. What emerges is a fascinating story of dynamic interplay between trans representation on screen, society’s beliefs and the reality of trans lives. Reframing familiar scenes and iconic characters in a new light, director Sam Feder invites viewers to confront unexamined assumptions, and shows how what once captured the American imagination now elicits new feelings. DISCLOSURE provokes a startling revolution in how we see and understand trans people.”
Celebrating Disability Pride Month - American Psychology Association
Join APA president Dr. Thema Bryant in conversation with Drs. Martha E. Banks and Sandra Leon-Villa as they discuss finding empowerment as it relates to disability, the power of representation and intersectionality, developing positive disability identity, and the incredible contributions of psychologists who live with disabilities.
How Black Queer Culture Shaped History | Channing Gerard Joseph | TED
Names like Bayard Rustin, Frances Thompson and William Dorsey Swann have been largely erased from US history, but they and other Black queer leaders played central roles in monumental movements like emancipation, civil rights and LGBTQ+ pride, among others. In this tribute to forgotten icons, queer culture historian and TED Fellow Channing Gerard Joseph shares their little-known stories, connecting the origins of drag in the 1880s to the present day and exploring the awesome power to choose how we define ourselves
Vision Portraits (2019)
“Vision Portraits is a deeply personal documentary by award-winning filmmaker Rodney Evans as he explores how his loss of vision may impact his creative future, and what it means to be a blind or visually impaired creative artist. It’s a celebration of the possibilities of art created by a Manhattan photographer (John Dugdale), a Bronx-based dancer (Kayla Hamilton), a Canadian writer (Ryan Knighton) and the filmmaker himself, who each experience varying degrees of vision loss. Using archival material alongside new illuminating interviews and observational footage of the artists at work, Evans has created a tantalizing meditation on blindness and creativity, a sensual work that opens our minds to new possibilities.
Marsha P. Johnson and the Stonewall Rebellion: Crash Course Black American History #41 by Crash Course
This video discusses Marsha P. Johnson and the Stonewall Rebellion. Serving as a pivotal moment in the modern Gay Rights Movement, Stonewall began on June 28th, 1969, and lasted six days in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Even though the rebellion lasted less than a week, the reverberations lasted for generations. Out of Stonewall emerged the establishment of one of the first gay pride parades, increased activism and organizing on behalf of gay people, and greater attention paid to the rights and needs of LGBTQ+ communities.
Listen
Disability Awareness: Do it Right by Diana Pastora Carson, M.Ed.
In this episode, Diana leads listeners through guidelines for leading a disability awareness event from a social model lens. She tells the story of how she used to conduct disability awareness using traditional, outdated models. She includes a walkthrough of McMillin Elementary School's Beyond Awareness Celebration, and interviews leaders and participants throughout the planning, implementing, and reflection process.
NPR Throughline: The Lavender Scare
“In a moment when LGBTQ+ rights are again in the public crosshairs, we tell the story of the Lavender Scare: its victims, its proponents, and a man who fought for decades to end it.”
Rebecca Williford: Attorney/National Disability Community Leader Hosted by Joyce Bender
Joyce welcomes Rebecca Willford, the new CEO of Disability Rights Advocates. Rebecca is a seasoned, nationally recognized disability community leader and attorney with extensive experience litigating class action lawsuits on behalf of people with disabilities. She has achieved multiple precedents on matters of first impression, advancing the rights of people with disabilities throughout the country. During the show, she will discuss her advocacy on behalf of people with disabilities.
Read
Nervosa by Hayley Gold
Hayley Gold is a comic book writer and artist. She studied cartooning at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Gold's memoir about disordered eating, chronic illness, and a profound relationship with hope. Nervosa is a no-holds-barred, richly textured portrait of one young woman’s experience. In her vividly imagined retelling, Hayley Gold lays bare a callous medical system seemingly disinterested in the very patients it is supposed to treat. And traces how her own life was irrevocably damaged by both the system and her own disorder. With brutal honesty and witty sarcastic humor, Gold offers a remarkably candid exploration of the search for hope in the darkness.
The LGBTQ + History Book by DK
The LGBTQ+ History Book celebrates the victories and untold triumphs of LGBTQ+ people throughout history, such as the Stonewall Riots and first gender affirmation surgeries, as well as commemorating moments of tragedy and persecution, from the Renaissance Italian “Night Police” to the 20th century “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. The book also includes major cultural cornerstones – the secret language of polari, Black and Latine ballroom culture, and the many flags of the community – and the history of LGBTQ+ spaces, from 18th-century “molly houses” to modern “gaybourhoods”.
Intoxicated: Race, Disability, and Chemical Intimacy Across Empire by Mel Y. Chen
In Intoxicated, Mel Y. Chen explores the ongoing imperial relationship between race, sexuality, and disability. They focus on nineteenth-century biopolitical archives in England and Australia to show how mutual entanglements of race and disability take form through toxicity. Chen explores how the colonial administration of race and disability gives rise to “intoxicated” subjects often shadowed by slowness.
Come Out and Win by Sue Hyde
Come Out and Win will educate, engage, and agitate LGBT and straight activists to become involved in the political movement to win full equality under the law and sexual/gender freedom. Spurring a new generation of activists to positive social action, it not only tells the history of gay liberation but, crucially, offers guidance and practical advice for building organizations and taking concrete action to eradicate homophobia.
Black Disability Politics by Sami Schalk
In Black Disability Politics, Sami Schalk explores how issues of disability have been and continue to be central to Black activism from the 1970s to the present. Schalk shows how Black people have long engaged with disability as a political issue deeply tied to race and racism. She points out that this work has not been recognized as part of the legacy of disability justice and liberation because Black disability politics differ in language and approach from the mainstream white-dominant disability rights movement.
We Are Everywhere by Matthew Riemer and Leighton Brown
We Are Everywhere is a rich and sweeping photographic history of the Queer Liberation Movement, from the creators and curators of the massively popular Instagram account @lgbt_history, this book was released in time for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Through the lens of protest, power, and pride, We Are Everywhere is an essential introduction–told through stunning photographs and thoroughly researched narrative–to the history of the modern queer liberation movement.
Disability Pride: Dispatches from a Post-ADA World by Ben Mattlin
In Disability Pride, disabled journalist Ben Mattlin weaves together interviews and reportage to introduce a cavalcade of individuals, ideas, and events in engaging, fast-paced prose. He traces the generation that came of age after the ADA reshaped America, and how it is influencing the future. He demonstrates how a new generation of young people and disabled activists have made diversity and inclusiveness hallmarks of today’s social justice movements and modern media.