The Mother of Gay Witch-Hunts: LADIES, STAY SAFE pt. 3
In the 1970s, America’s moral panic machine found its perfect scapegoat: gay and lesbian teachers. Also bathrooms. Historian Gillian Frank unravels the roots of child trafficking and "groomer" conspiracies back to Red Scare paranoia, civil rights backlash, a conservative women's movement against the Equal Rights Amendment and the pageant queen-turned-evangelical superstar Anita Bryant. In part three of the LADIES, STAY SAFE! miniseries, Cristen traces America's twisted history of how fears about “corrupting the youth” became political currency, why those panics still grip us today and whether Anita was ultimately scapegoated, too.
This is part 3 of a miniseries.
guest:
Dr. Gillian Frank is an Assistant Professor in the History of the Modern United States at Trinity College Dublin. His research focuses on the histories of gender and sexuality in postwar US culture and politics, especially as they intersect with religion and race.
sources:
Frank, Gillian. 'The Civil Rights of Parents': Race and Conservative Politics in Anita Bryant's Campaign Against Gay Rights in 1970s Florida. The Journal of the History of Sexuality. Jan 2013.
Gender and Sexuality Collections at Georgia State University. Anita Bryant – Out in the Archives.
Gershon, Livia. Parents’ Rights, Sex, and Race in 1970s Florida. JSTOR Daily. Oct 2023.
Miller, Neil. Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present. Vintage Books. 1995.
