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CityAndStateNY.com
Celebrating 30 years of LGBTQ representation By Annie McDonough
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N 1991, a year after Deborah Glick became the first out gay state legislator in New York, gay New York City Council candidate Tom Duane stood on the precipice of a potentially risky move. He was running in the Democratic primary against Liz Abzug – who was also out gay – in a newly created council district that included the West Village, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen. Duane had a good chance of becoming one of the first out gay members of the council. The new district was one of several drawn with an eye toward giving underrepresented minority groups a voice in the council, with one of those groups being LGBTQ New Yorkers. The neighborhoods in the new district have been central to the gay rights movement in New York – both before and after the Stonewall riots. The district was considered “gay winnable,” Duane said. But he also faced what he referred to as a personal “calling” to disclose that he was HIV-positive, even though some warned against it in light of the ignorance and discrimination toward gay people during the AIDS epidemic. “There were a lot of people who thought that it was a terrible idea to tell anybody,” Duane recalled to City & State recently. “But I was determined. I was going to do it no matter what, and however people were going to react, they were going to react.” Inspired to disclose his status in a letter to constituents by Brian Coyle, a Minneapolis City Council member who disclosed his own HIV status in a similar way, Duane went on to win the council seat. Along with Antonio Pagán, another openly gay politician, Duane was one of the first two out gay members of the council. This year marks three straight decades of representation by a gay or lesbian member in City Council District 3. Thirty years after Duane first joined the council,
June 6, 2022
The four members who most recently represented New York City Council District 3 have been at the forefront of the fight for gay rights.
