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By Michelle Regalado
Before the turn of the millennium, LGBT students at NYU had plenty of resources to turn to. A large, well-established LGBT office. A location in one of the most diverse and progressive cities in the world. Hundreds of LGBT resources available within the school and in neighboring locations around Manhattan.
Yet, in 2000, the Liberal Studies Program (LSP) at the university, a two-year liberal arts program for students, still had no LGBT-specific courses. Though other colleges at NYU had classes devoted to various LGBT studies, students in LSP at the time had no opportunity to take a course that focused entirely on the gay community – a situation Professor Joseph Portanova felt he needed to change.
“There were a lot of courses on gender and [its connection to] WWII and totalitarianism but nothing specifically LGBT,” said Portanova. “I thought it was a gap that should be filled.”
That’s when Portanova came up with “Policing Same-Sex Desire,” a class that combines historical events with modern LGBT issues.
“We focus on the legal and social forms of persecution and policing both from outside and within the gay community,” said Portanova. “We start by talking about ancient world attitudes and then work our way up to more modern material.”
Though Portanova had previously studied and read works on the historical implications of the gay community, he decided to enlist his partner, an active scholar in gay studies, for help in developing the syllabus for the class. For reading material, they incorporated an excerpt from the transcript of the Oscar Wilde trial, a book entitled Outlaw Lesbian by Ruthann Robson and several works by sexologists. The course also includes several memoirs, one that was written by a gay man who was in a concentration camp during in WWII.
“I try to keep a balance between gay and lesbian material in the course,” said Portanova. “The class always ends up changing a little every semester just so I can incorporate more of what I feel is missing.”
A few years ago, Portanova began taking his class on a walking tour of Greenwich Village that illustrates sites connected with important aspects of LGBT history. The class looks at former gay bars and notable figure’s houses, such as Edna St. Vincent Millay, an American lyrical poet who was known for having relationships with both women and men. They also examine institutions that had major roles in the Stonewall demonstrations, an event that marked one of the first times the gay community stood up to the government by rioting against the police raids in gay bars.
“We look at things ranging from the [gay] artist Paul Cadmus’s house to the Stonewall Inn,” said Portanova. “It gives us a chance to look at the physical make-up of the gay riots …and how the layout of the Village aided it.”
In order to gain a more global perspective in the class, Portanova has also added background material on same-sex desire in Islam, ancient China and Japan.
According to him, most of the Western material available about homosexuality is “primarily geared towards Greece and Rome.” However, he says that Islam, China and Japan also have a good deal of material related to the role of homosexuality in their independent cultures and “lesbianism in particular.”
The class helped students, especially those with little prior knowledge of the subject matter, helped broaden their societal perspectives.
Sarah Buchanan, a sophomore in LSP, comes from a conservative Southern background and says that going into the class, she had very little information about the LGBT community.
“I’m from Nashville, Tennessee, where the whole stereotypical heterosexual family is very much the norm. However, at a school like NYU, in a city like New York, I have met so many people who don’t fit into that mold,” said Buchanan. “I signed up for a history class that focuses on sexuality and gender, so I saw potential for some overlap in an area I previously knew little about.”
Though Buchanan acknowledges that the course is “a lot of work,” she believes it has surpassed her initial expectations.
“I definitely feel like I went in to this class to have my perspective widened and it has been, hands down,” she said.
The class has even inspired Buchanan to think of ways in which she can continue her studies on the topic after the class is over: “I am now considering minoring in gender studies,” said Buchanan. “All the issues surrounding gay rights are so applicable at this exact moment. Just look at the legislation in front of Obama today.”
This relation to modern-day issues is what Portanova hopes to sustain in the class for future semesters.
“What I most want students to take from this is the sense that there are different type of policing and that it’s not all limited to government and police and law. It could include society itself and…community policing,” said Portanova. He believes that students should pay attention to the way that society can sometimes limit progress within the gay community, thereby policing them in a manner that is just as restrictive as governmental law.
“I want to make people aware of the effect societal policing can have,” he said, “Especially since it’s something that is so relevant today.”
Hyphenated New York - NYU Fall 2009 