Recently I created some entries on Frances Kellor a fantastic timeline project. My entry on Kellor's co-founding the National Urban League in 1910 got included in the women's timeline. The entry on Kellor's first book being published in 1901, got included in the African - American timeline. It likely got put there as the book concerns the plight of African - American women in southern penitentiaries.
The time line organizers are working on an LGBT timeline.
The editor of the timeline had removed Kellor's sexuality from the initial timeline entries I wrote. The editor explained that if you click on the timeline, it expands, and then Kellor's LGBT status was mentioned. It was not put on the time line itself, he explained, because her LGBT status did not seem relevant to the accomplishments. We do not, after all, put all peoples' sexuality on the timeline.
In response, I noted that both Kellor's first book and the group she merged to form the National Urban League, aimed to help women exclusively. Kellor only lived with women. As a transgender person from childhood, she wrote a lot about gender. Her identity was intimately tied to the projects she chose to pursue.
Then, via email, the woman that introduced an even more radical suggestion:
Why not just have one timeline for all groups?
The suggestion was put forward because straight students will not look at the LGBT timeline. This leaves prejudice unchallenged. Furthermore, LGBT students would feel better about themselves if their experience were normalized.
I agree with the idea of inclusion. But, taken to the extreme, this thought would mean the disappearance of African - American Studies and Women's departments. And, I would argue that Kellor's LGBT status informed her aiming to create an inclusive form of Americanization. But, we do not want to see LGBT persons as necessarily separate and different.
What do you think? Can you come up with arguments for either side?
