With the fifty-first anniversary of the NYC Stonewall Riots (June 28th to July 3rd) ending just before the 4th of July weekend, this Speak Your Piece podcast by Senior Public Historian Brad Westwood with historian J. Seth Anderson offers some contemporary Utah history.
Anderson is the author of LGBTQ Salt Lake, published by Arcadia Publishing in 2017. Anderson was raised in Central Utah and in Arizona and is currently a PhD Candidate in American History at Boston University. His research interests include the history of culture, religion, medicine, and sexuality, from the late nineteenth century through the twentieth century.
His dissertation focuses on the history of conversion therapy (a pseudoscientific therapy intent on changing sexual orientation) in the United States. He earned his master’s degree at the University of Utah, where he studied the history and the effects of HIV/AIDS in Utah.
Anderson has published two books, and his writings have appeared in the Washington Post and the New England Journal of Medicine. Seth and his husband, Dr. Michael Ferguson, were the first same-sex couple married in Utah. They currently live in Boston.
Watch for the second part of this episode on July 6.
Resources
- To purchase a copy of Seth Anderson book LGBTQ+ Salt Lake (2017), go to Arcadia Publishing at: https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/9781467125857. As always, we also recommend that you consult your local independent book seller or borrow a copy from your local library.
- Regarding a primer on the history of LGBTQ+ history, in the US, see Marc Stein, Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement (American Social and Political Movements of the 20th Century); Routledge (2012); See: https://www.routledge.com/Rethinking-the-Gay-and-Lesbian-Movement/Stein/p/book/9780415874106
- Regarding local historical sources, see Kristen Ries & C. Maggie Snyder HIV/AIDS Archive, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah at: https://www.lib.utah.edu/collections/special-collections/ and the HIV/AIDS Oral History Project, produced by the U of U American West Center; see https://awc.utah.edu/projects/hiv-aidsoralhistoryproject.php and https://awc.utah.edu/news/hivaidshistoryproject.php
- J. Seth Anderson, “Why we still haven’t banished conversion therapy in 2018,” Washington Post, See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/08/05/why-we-still-havent-banished-conversion-therapy-in-2018/
- Carl G. Streed, Jr., M.D., M.P.H., J. Seth Anderson, M.A., Chris Babits, Ph.D., and Michael A. Ferguson, Ph.D. “Changing Medical Practice, Not Patients — Putting an End to Conversion Therapy,” The New England Journal of Medicine, August 8, 2019, see: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1903161
- Southern Poverty Law Center’s statement on the Ferguson v JONAH ruling: https://www.splcenter.org/news/2015/06/25/jury-groundbreaking-splc-suit-finds-gay-%E2%80%98conversion%E2%80%99-program-unconscionable-and-fraudulent
- A story from MSNBC on the day Anderson and Ferguson were married: http://www.msnbc.com/melissa-harris-perry-4