2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

This roundtable brings together historians, teacher trainers, and classroom peer educators from the United States, the Netherlands and Japan in order to examine how discussions about sexual diversity vary.

While a discourse of “protection” can be seen in both countries, its meanings differ considerably. Since the 1970s, the US Religious Right has argued that state must take a clear stance against homosexuality, lest children believe that same-sex attraction was acceptable. Gay and lesbian rights advocates, meanwhile, have challenged this rhetoric by emphasizing that the children needing protection included queer youth. In the Netherlands, by contrast, the acceptance of LGBTQ people in public institutions has been far less controversial. Since the 2000s, however, a growing ideology of homonationalism has framed (white, native Dutch) gays and lesbians as being in special need of state protection from (brown, Muslim) immigrant communities, which are falsely presumed to be the sole source of homophobia in national life.

Marie-Amélie George and Ann Marie Wilson will provide historical insights into these broad distinctions. This background will then frame a series of questions about the ways contemporary educators navigate the “difficult conversations” that emerge when teachers invite youth to reflect on sexual diversity. Wilson’s work as a teacher trainer suggests that peer mentors are uniquely positioned to intervene in secondary-school classrooms. Koen Rutten and Dana Theewis will show, however, that these interventions are too often constrained by the cultural biases of LGBTQ advocacy groups. Tricia Worster and Yutaka Mano will add the American and Japanese perspective.