On Thursday, Oct. 26, Dr. John D’Emilio visited Elgin Community College on behalf of ECC’s Writers Center. At the event, he spoke about and read from his memoir, Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood: Coming of Age in the Sixties.

“The memoir is not only a glimpse into what it was like to be a young, gay man in the 1960s, but also what it was like to be part of that generation,” said ECC English professor Rachel Stewart. “New ideas were exploding all around, and this book navigates that territory with such insight and such grace.”

The book explores D’Emilio’s life growing up in an Italian family living in the Bronx. From his early childhood to his college years, it covers topics ranging from his experience protesting whilst he was a student at Columbia University to his introduction to the underground world of homosexual New York. 

“Most people know [D’Emilio] as an academic historian,” Stewart said. “They know him as the person whose research laid the foundation for the study of LGBTQ history and some of the legal decisions that changed the rights of LGBTQ individuals in the United States.”

D’Emilio began teaching at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where he created a “History of Sexuality” course. In the late 90s, the University of Illinois sought out D’Emilio to teach LGBTQ studies where he has since been granted the title of emeritus professor. 

“At the University of North Carolina in Greensboro 1983, when I created a history of sexuality in America course, nothing like that had ever been done at the university,” D’Emilio said. “Around the country, there were a few people teaching courses like that, but it was very unusual.”

D’Emilio came into teaching with the perspective of using history as a resource for social change. This motivation comes from his background as an activist for the LGBTQ community. His work includes serving in the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (now the National LGBTQ Task Force) and publishing books on LGBTQ history.

“Over the years, I’ve kept my best friend, Estelle Freedman, a woman’s historian,” D’Emilio said. “She and I together co-authored a book called Intimate Matters, a history of sexuality in America. That book has been a standard work and helped create the field of sexuality as a historical topic.”

This work would go on to be quoted in Justice Anthony Kennedy’s argument in a Supreme Court decision.

“I think of all the things that I have been involved in, the thing that still amazes me is that in 2003, when the Supreme Court issued a decision in the Lawrence v. Texas case, which declared sodomy statutes unconstitutional, the work that Estelle and I did together in Intimate Matters was quoted in one of the citations in the majority decision,” D’Emilio said. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, [this argument] is from our work. I helped make that happen.'”

According to D’Emilio, inspiration for writing Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood came from several places at several different points in his life, including moments in his career as a history professor.

“One of my favorite courses to teach was the history of the 1960s,” D’Emilio said. “Over the years, teaching that course again and again, almost without exception, I found that my students’ favorite reading in the course would be a memoir. Not a memoir by a president, or a general, but a memoir of a regular, ordinary person. It made the 60s come alive, like that [the students] could be part of something like this.”

In 2004, D’Emilio had heart surgery which, according to him, was one of the major reasons he decided to write a memoir.

“The memoir didn’t start with the idea that I was going to write a book,” D’Emilio said. “In 2004, I had open heart surgery. Lying in the hospital beforehand, I just kept thinking about my life and all these wonderful people and memories. Would I ever see them again? Those memories kept surfacing, and over the next years, I would take those memories and began recreating the environment and write something.”

Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood was published in 2022. 

“I wondered, would people be scandalized by [the book] and outraged,” D’Emilio said. “But I guess you have to understand, that was what [the world] was like then, and what a young, gay man would have to go through. I don’t want that to remain a hidden experience.”

After publication, D’Emilio expressed that the positive reviews that he has received on Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood have been rewarding. 

Regarding the future of LGBTQ history, D’Emilio maintains a hopeful outlook. 

“Even though homophobia and transphobia still very much exist in the world, we have moved so far from where I started, from where the nation started,” D’Emilio said. “I feel like I was really part of the group for social change. My work has helped create something called LGBTQ history.”

After reading an excerpt from his book at ECC, D’Emilio answered questions from the audience regarding our nation’s future on LGBTQ rights.

“There will be [growth], but there will be setbacks,” D’Emilio said. “Progress generates a reaction against it. The reaction against the progress creates more response.”

When asked about the current generation of Queer youth, D’Emilio encouraged community and connection.

“Stay connected and remain hopeful,” D’Emilio said. “If you give into the despair of the opposition, it will paralyze you. The deeper your connections are to other people, the more powerful you become together.”