Queer History and Theory Front and Center at Williamsburg
October 2023
UPDATE 11/7/23 - We confronted Colonial Williamsburg with this article: “Sorry, but queer history and theory is not why Williamsburg was founded or why people go there. They are not the main event, but you are acting as if they are.... How do you respond?” They failed to respond.
Brenda Hafera’s latest installment on the bastardization of the nation’s historic sites - “Something’s Queer at Colonial Williamsburg” - documents the further spread of critical theory throughout those sites.
The world’s largest living history museum, Colonial Williamsburg, is the place where essential American history happened, but the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is intent on taking away the emphasis on that history. Having begun its foray into queer history in 2019, Williamsburg recently partnered with the New York Historical Society to host a teacher chat on “Queer History and Methodologies” and a workshop on “Best Practices for Teaching Queer History,” sponsored by The Bob and Marion Wilson Teacher Institute of Colonial Williamsburg. The Institute provides instructional resources, professional development opportunities for teachers, and scholarships. “Best Practices for Teaching Queer History” is offered to educators at all levels, from college down, all the way to preschool.
In its description of the queer history chat, Colonial Williamsburg declares that “LGBTQUIA+ stories have existed throughout American history but are often overlooked or untold.”
Straining to find ‘queer history’ from colonial times and pretending it is the main event is bad enough, but more disturbing is placing this approach in the service of queer theory - a branch of critical theory which seeks to tear society down and, ultimately, destroy America or, if you prefer, ‘fundamentally transform’ it into something it is not. Read up on Cultural Marxism and you will begin to see the game that is afoot.
Hafera writes:
There is no doubt that queer theory has joined critical race theory to further insult and overthrow true history and meaning at our historic sites.
October 2023
UPDATE 11/7/23 - We confronted Colonial Williamsburg with this article: “Sorry, but queer history and theory is not why Williamsburg was founded or why people go there. They are not the main event, but you are acting as if they are.... How do you respond?” They failed to respond.
Brenda Hafera’s latest installment on the bastardization of the nation’s historic sites - “Something’s Queer at Colonial Williamsburg” - documents the further spread of critical theory throughout those sites.
The world’s largest living history museum, Colonial Williamsburg, is the place where essential American history happened, but the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is intent on taking away the emphasis on that history. Having begun its foray into queer history in 2019, Williamsburg recently partnered with the New York Historical Society to host a teacher chat on “Queer History and Methodologies” and a workshop on “Best Practices for Teaching Queer History,” sponsored by The Bob and Marion Wilson Teacher Institute of Colonial Williamsburg. The Institute provides instructional resources, professional development opportunities for teachers, and scholarships. “Best Practices for Teaching Queer History” is offered to educators at all levels, from college down, all the way to preschool.
In its description of the queer history chat, Colonial Williamsburg declares that “LGBTQUIA+ stories have existed throughout American history but are often overlooked or untold.”
Straining to find ‘queer history’ from colonial times and pretending it is the main event is bad enough, but more disturbing is placing this approach in the service of queer theory - a branch of critical theory which seeks to tear society down and, ultimately, destroy America or, if you prefer, ‘fundamentally transform’ it into something it is not. Read up on Cultural Marxism and you will begin to see the game that is afoot.
Hafera writes:
- It is particularly disturbing that even preschool teachers are eligible to learn from Colonial Williamsburg how to teach queer history.... “Queer theory and politics necessarily celebrate transgression in the form of visible difference from norms,” explains Jay Stewart, the CEO of a U.K. transgender advocacy group. Queer theory calls “for a working together to overthrow ‘mainstream’ thinking and articulate ‘alternative’ lifestyles.”
There is no doubt that queer theory has joined critical race theory to further insult and overthrow true history and meaning at our historic sites.