Bay Area Network of Gay and Lesbian Educators records

Title: Bay Area Network of Gay and Lesbian Educators records

Dates: 1985-1995

Collection Number: 1994-18

Creator/Collector:

Extent: 6 linear feet (four cartons, one manuscript box)

Repository: GLBT Historical Society

Abstract: The Bay Area Network of Gay and Lesbian Educators was an organization created to support queer educators, queer youth, and their families in Bay Area schools. The collection consists of correspondence, minutes from meetings (primarily regional steering committee meetings), financial records, and news clippings.

Language of Material: English

Collection is open for research.

[Identification of item]. Bay Area Network of Gay and Lesbian Educators records. Collection Number: 1994-18. GLBT Historical Society

Gift of Larry E. Alegre (Chair of BANGLE) on August 30, 1994. Gift of Barbara Blinick on July 17, 1998. Gift of Bob Latham, on behalf of BANGLE, on April 23, 2002.

The Bay Area Network of Gay and Lesbian Educators was an organization created to support queer educators, queer youth, and their families in Bay Area schools. It was co-founded in 1994 by Rob Birle, a student teacher in Antioch, CA. The goals of the group included general social support as well as political advocacy. Initially, the group met only in San Francisco, but by the mid- to late 1980s, chapters convened in the South Bay, Contra Costa County, and the East Bay, as well as for a brief time in Sonoma. To facilitate coordination and communications between chapters, a regional steering committee was created in 1987, with representatives from each chapter. A newsletter was published, beginning in the mid-1980s, which initially included news from San Francisco, and expanded to include regional news as the chapters grew. Eventually, each chapter took on the work of producing its own newsletter. Over the years, the individual chapters took on a variety of projects, including scholarships; essay contests; the Adopt-A-Book Project, in which books were bought and donated to schools in San Francisco and Contra Costa; the Anti-Slur Campaign, to try and encourage schools to enforce their rules against the use of homophobic slurs at school; development of support services for queer youth; and activities related to Pride parades. BANGLE was absorbed into the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) in 1997.

The collection consists of correspondence, minutes from meetings (primarily regional steering committee meetings), financial records, and news clippings. It also includes documents about various BANGLE projects, including youth advocacy, a lesbian and gay parenting forum, Project Empowerment (a weekend workshop designed to empower queer educators) and the San Francisco BANGLE scholarship (for 1994 only). Finally, materials from the Gay and Lesbian United Educators of the United Educators of San Francisco (the local teachers’ union) are also included, a group with strong ties to BANGLE and strongly overlapping membership. GSSO Linked Terms: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/NCIT_C16529; http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/GSSO_001456; http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/GSSO_003411