Dan Manedal’s voice still shakes when he recalls the night that teenagers pelted rocks through his windows.
“There was nothing I could do,” he said. “My life was like this because I had decided to be open about my sexuality.”
Coming out in the 1960s and ‘70s was far different than it is for people today, said Manedal, now 67. At age 25, after telling his friends and family he was gay, his life changed.
He moved to a trailer park when he didn’t feel safe in his home.
He was beaten walking out of a gay bar.
He met someone at a gay social event 200 miles from his home in Williamsport only to find they were neighbors. Each had been forced to go far from home to try to find support.
Manedal said he’s proud to see how far the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement has advanced. But he fears that where it came from will soon be forgotten.
His story is just one of many that, when combined with artifacts and stacks of documents, will help tell the story of LGBT people in central Pennsylvania.
A Story Told
Barry Loveland is founder and chair of the History Project organized by the LGBT Center of Central PA. He’s worked with about 50 volunteers, from student interns to retired professors and historians to preserve the local history of the LGBT community.
The project was started in August 2012 after Loveland met with the center’s Common Roads group for teenagers. A small panel was formed to talk to the younger generations about the hardships many faced when coming out often meant giving up family and friends.
The panel was so well received that it led to a story circle at the LGBT Center, located in Midtown Harrisburg. About 20 people attended, and it sparked the idea, Loveland said, that there were stories to be told.
Over the following months, Loveland recruited volunteers, who were trained how to perform interviews, use video equipment and catalog artifacts. A partnership also was created with Dickinson College in Carlisle, where anything collected or recorded would be kept safe.
The project has grown into a full chronology of central Pennsylvania’s history regarding LGBT issues, from political movements to social acceptance.
“My vision is to have a way for LGBT people to really connect with that history,” Loveland said.
After dozens of interviews are transcribed and more than 100 artifacts are cataloged, the center will create an interactive website including videos, photos and documents.
Many stories examine discrimination, what it was like for people to come out at home and in the workplace, and how community infrastructures were developed for support and socialization, Loveland said.
“A lot of straight people don’t think about the fact that, in their tradition or families, people kind of hand down stories to generations,” Loveland said. “LGBT people have their families, but they also have their chosen families, and sometimes those intergenerational stories don’t come down to them. It’s really important that we build those ties that have never really been there for the LGBT community.”
Slow Process
Lonna Malmsheimer, professor emeritus from Dickinson College’s American studies department, heard about the project while attending a separate event at the LGBT Center.
Because of her experience in communication and history, she was asked if she’d train a group of people who would interview LGBT activists.
So far, three groups of volunteers have gone through training on how to use the video equipment needed to record interviews, but it’s been a slow process.
“Working with volunteers is generally not all that easy,” she said. “They are busy people, too, and it’s often the busiest who offer help.”
While they’ve completed a number of interviews—Malmsheimer having done five or six herself—there are about 80 people on a waiting list who want to tell their own stories.
Malmsheimer, now 73, remembers going to a research library as a graduate student and finding that materials related to LGBT issues were locked up in a separate room. If she wanted to see any of it, she had to get permission.
“Part of the push, as far as I see it as a historian, is that, in the past, this work not only wasn’t done, it couldn’t have been done,” she said.
Sara Tyberg, a 20-year-old sophomore sociology student at Dickinson College, is one of two interns assisting in the project.
Her responsibilities include transcribing interviews and proofing the completed work.
“I think the LGBT History Project is an important project because it is revealing a huge, marginalized history in this area,” Tyberg said. “There’s the saying, ‘History is written by the victors,’ and, for most of history, especially in areas like central Pennsylvania, the (LGBT) community hasn’t been the victor.”
So Local
Tyberg believes participating in the project has taught her a lot about the LGBT experience.
While most people are familiar with LGBT identity, she said, each story is unique.
Louie Marven, executive director of the LGBT Center, said he’s happy to watch the project form under the work of volunteers.
“They’re really the ones who have been making this happen,” he said.
What’s unique about the project is that it’s so local, Marven added. Similar things have been done in major cities, he said, but LGBT people are everywhere.
Many people who are just coming out feel they’ll find the most support in big cities, Marven said. But he wants to change that.
“I hope this project can emphasize that people in rural spaces are doing things to support each other,” he said. “Changes are happening in the LGBT community. I’m excited to see where it takes us.”
For more information on the project or to learn how to get involved, visit www.centralpalgbtcenter.org.
