That's my history - A reflection on LGBT+ History Month by OTN Trustee Neil Rees
After 27 years serving in international mission, Neil Rees was the minister of CLM Church in Ormskirk near Liverpool until November 2021. He maintains a strong interest in the global Christian community and international development and serves today in Bible teaching, training and leadership development. He has an MA in international development and one published book, Not Everything in Our Bibles Is Inspired. He is actively working to see the Christian community become more inclusive to all, which led to him becoming an LGBT+ ally, and a trustee of the Open Table Network.
FEBRUARY is LGBT+ History Month, an annual celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans & non-binary history. This year’s theme is Body, Mind, Spirit - We’ve asked our Patrons and Trustees to share their thoughts on this month. Our Trustee Neil Rees, who is an ally, reflects on why LGBT+ History is a history we need to share:
So it's LGBT+ History Month? I'm neither L, G, B or T, what's it got to do with me?
Everything.
You see, human history is not about ‘what happened’, or just ‘the facts’, please. It never can be. History is our curated record of the flow of events, actions and perceptions that change the way we live. And yet, none of us can step outside our own world and become an unbiased interpreter of the past. We are all prisoners of our own perspectives, with the result that objective history is an illusion, always being selectively retold and interpreted by one person or group through the lens of their own experience. It is therefore as much the history of the perception of events as it is a history of those events themselves. And these histories then form the pages on which future unfolding stories are written.
Nothing ever occurs in a vacuum. So when we, as heterosexual, cisgender folk, even as allies, approach LGBT+ history, ‘their” history is not just about ‘them’ - whoever ‘they’ might happen to be. It's about ‘us’ too, and how ‘we’ have related to ‘them’, how ‘we’ have viewed ‘them’, talked about ‘them’, treated ‘them’, and attempted to control ‘them’. (This applies equally to any other minority group). No, it's impossible to talk about ‘their’ history without talking about ‘ours’, and how ‘our’ perceptions of ‘them’ have shaped their world too.
LGBT+ history is thus written at the intersection of LGBT+ people's lives with those of ‘us’ in the majority, who hold more power. It can never be understood, much less told accurately, without an honest appraisal of that context. So LGBT+ history is my history too.
LGBT+ history cannot document a struggle for equality without addressing why that equality was - and still is in many instances - refused. That's my history.
LGBT+ history cannot celebrate the landmark pieces of legislation guaranteeing certain rights without asking why these rights were denied them anyway, by whom, and for what reason. That's my history.
LGBT+ history cannot recall through a veil of tears the pain of discrimination, alienation, rejection, violence and murder without looking the perpetrators in the eye and asking ‘Why?’ That's my history.
Ultimately, LGBT+ history makes no sense at all unless retold against the backdrop of the attitudes and actions of a wider society that belongs to us all. That's my history.
So I am as much part of LGBT+ history as anyone else. Yes, me, with my perceptions of you as LGBT+ people,and my unwitting contribution to building the world you have lived in, for better or worse.
My ignorance? Tick. My prejudice, silence and complicity? These too. But also my willingness to change, embrace new perspectives and help write a different history going forward.