“Queerness and its history was a mystery to me and when you are told so many times that a ‘concept is new’ you believe there wasn’t much beforehand. . . . What I didn’t know was that there is so much more to queer history than what is visible in the present.” After finishing our simulation of the strategic dilemmas that queer movements faced in the 20th century, Stone reflected on the curricular silence many students experience. All students, queer students in particular, deserve to encounter this history so that they might develop a fuller sense of self, examine how questions of gender and sexuality have shaped their present, and imagine where our society might go next.
Gay Liberation Front by Caroline Paquita-Kern. A Justseeds Celebrate People’s History poster. Source: Justseeds
Today we are experiencing a countermovement in response to recent progress on gay rights. The ACLU tracked 533 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in state legislatures across the United States in 2024. Twenty-one states restrict or explicitly censor discussion of LGBTQ+ people or issues in the curricula.
For students to imagine challenging today’s attacks on LGBTQ+ rights and building queer futures, they need to reach back into our collective history and learn from those who fought these same forces that would punish, pathologize, and erase queer people.
Pedagogically inspired by Bill Bigelow’s abolition movement role play and Adam Sanchez’s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee role play, Nick Palazzolo wrote a dilemma-based, problem-solving simulation in which students imagine themselves as participants in the fight for queer liberation. Role-playing movement participants, students debate key questions regarding the goals and strategies that organizers faced from the 1950s to the early 2000s.
Nick Palazzolo coordinates the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program at Central High School in Philadelphia and teaches Queer Studies, IB History, and African American History. He was a Zinn Education Project 2022–2023 Prentiss Charney Fellow and serves on the leadership team of Building Anti-Racist White Educators and Teacher Action Group.
The full lesson procedures and handouts will be posted by mid-April.
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