Learning about our black and Latinx LGBTQ+ history is necessary for our survival

As Pride Month comes to a close, I am still surprised at just how little most of us know of our history. 

There has still been a need every year during Pride Month for many news outlets to run op-eds about how integral black queer folks as well as black and Latinx trans women in particular, were to the Stonewall Uprisings in 1969.

I’m still shocked that spectacular television shows like "Pose" have to visually showcase to our community how awful the AIDS epidemic was in the 1980s, how transphobia was rampant within our nightlife, or how the black and Latinx queer house ball scene was the birthplace of Vogue and black queer speak. It’s not as if books, articles and/or documentaries haven’t shown us or told us these things, rather it is that most of our own community has not deemed our own history as important enough to seek out these materials for themselves. Some folks in our community, far too often only wish to exist in the present, without recognizing just how dangerous it is to not beware of your own past.

You may like:What a Kentucky town's 20-year struggle with 'Fairness' says about rural LGBTQ rights

More:11th Kentucky city adopts Fairness Ordinance protecting LGBT residents from discrimination

It’s dangerous to not know what you are made of. What history, people and communities you come from. It’s dangerous to not know what has already been faced. Knowledge is powerful. Especially knowledge of self. That self that makes up you is a reflection of those who came before you, and you are a reflection of those who will come after you.

Books helped me become more prideful about who I was, and about what community I was now a part of when I came out at 16. These works written for us and by us, like "Black Lesbian Feminism" and "Black Queer Theory" solidified my pride. The more I read, the more empowered I became. After I continued to read, I realized that if I would’ve known about what came before me sooner in my life, I would’ve known where I was going faster. I would’ve been more empowered on my journey, and I would’ve began speaking truth to power earlier, and with the intellectual assuredness that I have now.

It's 'Cheers, but queer':Louisville’s last lesbian bar reflects shift in LGBTQ nightlife

I didn’t learn about Audrey Lorde’s impact or Pat Parker's poetry until college. I didn’t know Stormé DeLarverie was integral to the Stonewall Uprising in 1969, or that Bayard Rustin organized the March on Washington in 1963 until I was a graduate student. I didn’t learn about James Baldwin’s brilliance, Lorraine Hansberry’s light, or that Jewel Thais-Williams’ nightclub Catch One was a sanctuary for our community until I was grown. I didn’t learn about Victoria Cruz's crusade, Sylvia Rivera telling folks to settle down, or Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson's activism until I started teaching.

I didn’t know how inhumane HIV+ folks were treated during the early 80s until I started watching "Pose." I wish I would have known us and our history sooner. Their writings and activism gave me the necessary experiential grounding, affirmation and confidence in my identity as black lesbian femme. I knew after reading and studying these theories and our history that I was a part of a community that had always been here. A community that has a fascinating and compelling history. A history we must all know.

As a community, we are still plagued by the same circumstances and ideologies that those who came before us fought against. Gay racism, sexism, homonormativity and transphobia are still ever present within many LGBTQ+ communities across the country. Ours. Theirs. Every LGBTQ+ community still suffers under the boots of these things. From the racism, fetishizing and transphobia folks experience on dating apps to the blatant and covert expressions of racism in our nightclubs. To the questions and queries that nonbinary folks are bombarded with on a daily basis. These are the issues that continue to bring us harm and that continue to hurt our community.

Education and activism are the keys to resolving these issues. Folks in our community, who exist in spaces of privilege either in terms of race, cis identity, or socioeconomics, etc. need to work on being open to receive what black and Latinx queer folks, black and Latinx trans folks, black and Latinx femmes, and black and Latinx butch queens have been saying for decades. There is no LGBTQ+ liberation that we can speak of until we know where we have come from and begin to familiarize ourselves with the folks who fought and died for us.

WATCH THIS:Kentucky man gives 'free dad hugs' at Cincinnati Pride, uplifts thousands on Facebook

Knowledge of self has been integral to any movement for equality and justice, and we cannot be free until everyone in our community is free from these repugnant and terroristic ideas about race, trans identities or nonbinary identities. As a black lesbian feminist femme professor, I teach my LGBTQ+ students that the best way to empower others is to empower themselves, and one of the fastest ways to do this is through educating themselves about our own history. For Pride Month 2020, I encourage folks to seek out new information about others and themselves to honor our struggles with injustice and liberation all year long, instead of just in the month of June.

Kaila Adia Story is a University of Louisville associate professor of the Audre Lorde Endowed Chair in Race, Gender, Class & Sexuality Studies and Women's & Gender Studies and Pan African Studies. Story co-hosts the "Strange Fruit" podcast on public radio station WFPL with Jaison Gardner.