The riot at Gene Compton's Cafeteria in 1966 was one of the first recorded GLBT-related riots in American history. [1]
“Stonewall.” For decades, this simple word has been evocative of revolution, of societal change, of a fight for justice, and a struggle for equality. For many in the GLBT community, it has been a catch-all word for the explosion of a new civil rights movement that sprang forth from a historic two nights of rebellion in New York City. While the Stonewall Riots of June 28-29, 1969
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December 24, 1924
are considered by many to be the most important moment in the history of GLBT rights in the United States, the truth is that the rumblings of revolution were happening long before that first brick was thrown in Greenwich Village. “To frame the whole thing as 'the pivot is Stonewall' is in some ways to limit what you can see right there,” said Rachel Mattson, curator of the University of Minnesota's Tretter Collec-
San Francisco’s Mona’s 440 Club becomes the first known lesbian bar in the United States.
Illinois grants a charter for the Chicago-based Society for Human Rights, the first known American gay rights group.
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tion in GLBT Studies. “There are arguments that historians have made about the ways in which there were incredible moments of freedom and resistance in the 19th century and the early 20th century.” “We as a people were invisible and 99.9% in the closet,” said Mark Segal, founder of Philadelphia Gay News. “Before Stonewall, there were only (around) a hundred out people in the U.S. that would speak publicly and on the record about LGBT issues.” Following World War II, there was an increasing initiative on the government's part to maintain a set of so-called traditional values in American society. During the times of the Red Scare and anti-communist hysteria, homosexuals were included in lists of supposed subversives that were seen as antithetical to the American way of life. “I think it's hard for people to imagine today what it was like to try and be gay at that moment in time,” said Lisa Vecoli, former curator of the Tretter Collection. “You could lose your job, you could lose your housing. It was classified as a mental illness. You could be thrown in prison, you could be institutionalized. There were laws against wearing more than two pieces of clothing of the opposite gender.” In the late 1940s, the U.S. State Department began firing alleged homosexuals from the federal workplace. The Federal Bureau of Investigation kept lists of known gay people and monitored their daily lives. On a local scale, police began raiding establishments that catered to queer people, arresting and exposing them to the public. “It's remarkable what the consequences were for somebody if they were publicly revealed as
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November 11, 1950
The pro-gay tolerance Mattachine Society is founded in Los Angeles.
The U.S. State Department begins the firing of alleged homosexuals under the National Security Loyalty Program.
being gay,” said Vecoli. “So in that environment, it was very hard for people to gather and socialize and create community. And one of the few places that they did that was in bars and social clubs.” However, unlike the gay bars and clubs of today, the establishments that queer people visited to avoid persecution and be among others like them weren't quite on the level. “You had bars which were largely run by criminal elements,” said Vecoli. “And were there to exploit the fears and the vulnerabilities of the GLBT community. So they were in crappy spaces, they sold crappy liquor, and they charged high prices and in exchange for patronizing those establishments. GLBT people had a place to gather that was sometimes safe.” Nonetheless, these gathering spaces were regularly subject to police crackdowns or persecution. Long before the events of Stonewall, there were already sparks of queer rebellion happening in America. In May of 1959, trans people, gay men, lesbians, drag queens and more rioted at the Cooper Do-nuts café in Los Angeles after repeated police harassment there. In April 1965, queer patrons protested Philadelphia's Dewey's Coffee Shop after being refused service by staff members on account of their sexuality or gender identity. In August 1966, a riot erupted at San Francisco's Compton's Cafeteria, after a transgender woman resisted arrest and was joined by other trans people and drag queens in fighting back against the police. To respond to the tensions and worries bubbling over in the GLBT community, various student and activist organizations sprang up across the country to advocate for the rights and well-
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One month prior to the Stonewall Riots, Steve Ihrig and Koreen Phelps founded Fight Repression of Erotic Expression, a University of Minnesota gay rights group. [2]
being of GLBT people. The Mattachine Society of Los Angeles was founded to assist local gay people in matters both legal and educational. The Daughters of Bilitis was founded in San Francisco as the first lesbian rights group in the United States. Homophile organizations on the eastern seaboard formed a coalition known as the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organiza-
September 24, 1951
Christine Jorgensen becomes the first publicly known recipient of sex reassignment surgery in America.
1953 Christine Jorgensen. Photo by Maurice Seymour
April 27, 1953
tions (ECHO). On college campuses across America, queer students began mobilizing to fight for gay liberation. One such group was FREE: Fight Repression of Erotic Expression, founded in May 1969 at the University of Minnesota by Steven Ihrig and Koreen Phelps. “It wasn't the first gay liberation student organization by any means, but it was unique for Minnesota at the time and it started with two people
1955
The first American lesbian rights group, the Daughters of Bilitis, is founded in San Francisco.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower issues an executive order barring the employment of homosexuals by the federal government.
who met each other on the West Bank, which was sort of this hippie counterculture area,” said Noah Barth, a Master's student in the U of M's Heritage Studies and Public History program, as well as a curator at the Tretter Collection. “And neither one of them were students at the time either. And they really wanted to find a way that gay people could be safe just going about their lives. They wanted to find a place that gay people could find community with one another.” Ihrig and Phelps met on campus and decided to start a class known as the Homosexual Revolution. Before and after the iconic Stonewall riots, their endeavor sought to address inequities faced by queer people in Minnesota and beyond. “By the time Stonewall had occurred, the people that were involved in this class wanted to find a way to take this class to the next step, sort of ignited by the Stonewall riots,” said Barth. “And so that's when it became a student organization in the fall of 1969.” Prior to Stonewall, GLBT firsts were made manifest in the United States: In 1961, José Sarria became the first openly gay person to run for public office, while Illinois became the first state to decriminalize same-sex activity in 1962. While a groundswell of revolution was coagulating across the nation, the doors of gay liberation burst wide open on one fateful day in New York City.
Fight The Power In the early hours of June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn of Greenwich Village was doing business as usual. The establishment, located on Christopher Street, was a popular hangout for gay people, drag queens, trans people, and sex workers. Thanks to financial backing by the MaFight Repression of Erotic Expression (FREE) was a pre-Stonewall gay rights organization that was founded at the University of Minnesota. [3]
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May 1959
Lesbians, gay men, drag queens and trans people riot at the Cooper Do-nuts café due to police harassment of queer people there.
The Gold Coast, the first gay leather bar, opens in Chicago.
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1962
Illinois becomes the first state to decriminalize consensual same-sex activity between adults.
José Sarria becomes the first openly gay person to run for public office in America.
fia and recurring kickbacks to police, it served as a relatively safe space for the queer people in the neighborhood. “At the time (of Stonewall) it was trans people, it was sex workers, it was youth who were on the streets,” said Vecoli. “It was usually the most vulnerable population that was targeted for police harassment. And so that's going to be people of color, trans people, young people on the streets, and whether it was at Compton's Cafeteria or the Black Cat Cafe or at Stonewall, the police came in they did some kind of enforcement and something got thrown and things got volatile.” “So when we think about Stonewall, I think it's important that we think about Stonewall as being one moment of response, and the people who were involved and responded to that as being a very, very broad, diverse part of the community,” Vecoli continued. That morning, plainclothes police officers raided Stonewall, with around 200 patrons in the bar at the time. Police barricaded the doors to prevent any escapes, and began filling paddy wagons with arrestees and confiscated liquor. Segal, who was present in the area that night, got a firsthand account of the incident. “As a usual night at (age) 18, I walked up and down Christopher Street talking with my friends or sitting on steps chatting away,” said Segal. “That night, the lights (at Stonewall) blinked and I asked a friend what was happening. Casually, they said we were being raided.” According to Segal, this was a commonplace occurrence. “No regular was worried since the same thing always happened,” said Segal. “The bar made its payoff, older gay men might take their
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(Top) The riots at the Stonewall Inn emboldened GLBT people across the country to be more vocal and public in their fight for equal rights. [4] (Above) Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera are considered to be two of the most important figures in both the Stonewall Riots and the entirety of the American GLBT rights movement. This portrait captures their involvement in the 1973 Pride Parade in New York City. [5]
August 1966
Police harassment of trans people at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco brings about one of the first GLBT-related riots in American history.
April 1965
GLBT and gender-nonconforming people protest Dewey’s Coffee Shop in Philadelphia after being refused service by staff members.
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May 1969
Fight Repression of Erotic Expression (FREE) founded at the University of Minnesota.
September 1967
The Los Angeles Advocate is founded, later renamed as The Advocate in 1969. It is currently the longest-running GLBT publication in American history.
A donation can carried by Mark Segal in the first Gay Pride Parade in 1970, now featured in the Smithsonian Institute American History Museum in Washington, D.C.. [6]
wallets out, give a few bucks and get out. Stereotypes would be confronted and (people would be) pushed around and eventually get carded and let out. I was among the first to be let out.” Segal noted that while some of the older patrons who likely had jobs and families ran from the premises to protect their “secret lives”, many others remained outside of the inn and gathered around the door in a semi-circle of sorts.
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“Eventually there were more of us outside than in,” said Segal. “And when a police officer opened the door and confronted one of the crowd, another member tossed something at the door, then many people tossed anything they could through at the doors. At that point, the police were trapped in the club… that is the first time in recorded history that the LGBT community had caused the police to be frightened by
May 18, 1970
Two Minneapolis men submit an application for a same-sex marriage license, the first of its kind in American history.
June 28, 1969
Police raid New York City’s Stonewall Inn, leading to GLBT people resisting arrest and rioting over a span of two days.
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our community to the point that they had to call for reinforcements.” Accounts vary on who exactly instigated the riot at Stonewall. While a number of names have been thrown around, some insist that their identity didn't matter, but rather why they did it. “I think that there are many stories about who was there and who wasn't there the first night, but the thing is it wasn't just that one night,” said Mattson. “It was a rebellion that lasted for several nights and became the impetus for the founding of a bunch of different new organizations. And so I think there is no answer to who was there that night, who wasn't there that night, (or) whether there was a brick thrown.” “I think that somebody's involvement in something could speak for itself,” added Barth. “And the fact of the matter was that the Stonewall Inn was serving transgender people, drag queens, and people of color across the street. You have a park where homeless youth are hanging out and sleeping in that evening. And so, by the nature of its geography in the village, it is surrounded by lower-class people of color. So their involvement in the rebellion is central to the rebellion.” Aside from congregating outside the bar and taunting police, the riots began in full force when witnesses claimed to see a woman being hit by a police baton, sparking a full-on mob at Stonewall. Windows were broken. Trash was set on fire. Debris was flung at the building. On the first night of the riots, the NYPD was woefully outnumbered by protestors, prompting riot control squads to arrive and combat the angry crowd. The streets were largely cleared out hours later. The riot became a major story for New York news outlets in the hours to follow, and it became
October 15, 1971
The Minnesota Supreme Court rules on Baker v. Nelson, stating that the denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples does not violate the U.S. Constitution.
June 28, 1970
New Yorkers march through the streets to recognize the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, with this demonstration now recognized as the first Pride parade.
Queer rights organizations and activist groups, such as the Gay Liberation Front, sprang forth from the events of the Stonewall Riots. [7]
and resistance to police. When the dust settled and the streets were once again quiet, to many queer people, it felt like a brand new day.
The Revolution Is Here And It's Queer
Singer Anita Bryant's public anti-gay campaign in the late 1970s provoked plenty of backlash from gay Floridians. [8]
a visually and emotionally resonant call to arms for disenfranchised GLBT people in the city. “We were emboldened as shown by the fact that we congregated there again the following night,” said Segal. “Out, and in public, and on our turf.” Rioting resumed the next night at Stonewall, with many previous protestors returning, alongside a number of regular bystanders. Thousands of people flooded Christopher Street. Two people present this night became icons in the GLBT liberation movement for years to come: Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson.
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“You have to mention the name of Marsha P. Johnson,” said Mattson. “You have to note that they were trans women of color who are sex workers and organized the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionary organization (STAR). But you also have to note that there were just an incredible number of other people whose names we don't know and whose stories we don't know and whose motivations we'll never know and whose experiences we'll never know.” Various NYPD precincts encroached on the crowd, and like the previous night, chaos ensued, with more property damage, arrests,
December 15, 1973
1974
The American Psychiatric Association declares that homosexuality is not a mental disorder.
Nancy Wechsler and Jerry DeGrieck become the first openly lesbian and openly gay elected officials in United States history, winning seats on the Ann Arbor, Mich. City Council.
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As a direct result of the Stonewall riots, the gay liberation movement had a very public face. In addition to growing press coverage, queer activists became more emboldened in their fight for equality. Across the country, queer groups organized pickets, protests, and demonstrations demanding equal rights for GLBT folk. One such entity was the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), a collection of various gay liberation groups that formed immediately in the wake of Stonewall. “GLF forming on that step of the Stonewall that next night took two revolutionary steps,” said Segal. “First, we stated clearly that we would no longer hide in the shadows: We were out, proud and in your face. We also would no longer allow society to define us. We would define ourselves and expect society to accept our pride.” In Minnesota, organizations like FREE continued their work in providing support to queer people in the North Star State. “(FREE) had a speakers bureau,” said Vecoli. “They had done protests on campus. They'd had a table up for New Student Welcome Week at the university. They had done sensitivity trainings for rookie police officers on the University of Minnesota campus. They had helped found Gay House, which was one of the first gay community centers in the country.” Minnesota also became enshrined in GLBT history when two University of Minnesota students and gay activists, Jack Baker and Michael
Elaine Noble becomes the first openly gay person to be elected to state office, winning a seat on the Massachusetts State Legislature.
October 18, 1973
Lambda Legal is founded as the first legal organization for the GLBT community.
McConnell, applied for a marriage license in Hennepin County in 1970. They became the first gay couple to be legally married in American history when they succeeded in obtaining a license in Blue Earth County, despite a later dismissal of their claim to a right to be married by the Minnesota Supreme Court. A full year after the Stonewall riots, New Yorkers marched through the city streets to recognize the anniversary of that night, a demonstration now officially recognized as the firstever Pride parade. “We marched out of the Village and across town to Central Park,” said Segal. “(It was the) first time the LGBT community ever held a march and crossed a city in public. There were thousands of us… we had changed the LGBT community in one year.” Openly gay politicians began running for office, with candidates such as Nancy Wechsler, Jerry DeGrieck, Elaine Noble, Allan Spear, and Harvey Milk becoming some of the first openly queer people to attain elected office in America. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association ruled out homosexuality as a mental disorder, and legislating the equal rights of GLBT people in America slowly became more and more of a possibility. “Minneapolis was the first unit of government at any level to pass transgender-inclusive nondiscrimination language, and they did that in 1975, long before anyone did that anywhere else in the country,” said Vecoli. Despite the amazing strides made by the GLBT community in the years following Stonewall, however, there were still struggles and obstacles. Many queer people were still subject to arrests and persecution. University of MinneThe public panic towards HIV/AIDS caught the attention of major media outlets such as Time Magazine [9].
1978 Rainbow Flag. BigStock/jelisua88
June 25, 1978
Gilbert Baker designs the first rainbow flag as a symbol for the gay rights movement, unveiling it at the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade.
Harvey Milk. Photo by Daniel Nicoletta, CC BY 3.0
1975
Minneapolis is the first American unit of government to pass transgender-inclusive non-discrimination language.
1978
November 27, 1978
San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay candidate elected to office in California, is assassinated by Dan White.
Many AIDS activists across the country grew frustrated with what they saw as lax government response to the growing AIDS epidemic, demanding increased research and medical funding to combat the disease. [10]
sota student Myra Billund-Phibbs mentioned a raid of a Minneapolis bathhouse in 1979. “The Locker Room Health Club was a threestory bathhouse at 315 N. 1st Ave., which sits around the corner from the Gay '90s, where the police precinct is now,” said Billund-Phibbs. “Two undercover officers had gone into the bathhouse, and once they saw public sex happening, they basically sounded the alarm and… raided the building.”
Rousing the men out of their rooms, the police reportedly lobbed homophobic slurs, looked through the men's belongings, and issued threats. “116 men were ticketed for disorderly conduct and nine for sodomy, which was a felony at the time,” said Billund-Phibbs. “So all of those men had their names and home addresses published in the newspaper.” This incident was a moment of outrage for
1981
1979 Billie Jean King. Photo by Lynn Gilbert, CC BY-SA 4.0
May 1981
Tennis star Billie Jean King comes out as a lesbian, the first major professional athlete to do so.
October 14, 1979
The first March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights is held.
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gay men in Minneapolis, Billund-Phibbs said. “That was really an organizing event that I think coalesced and became a really important political moment also,” Billund-Phibbs added. It was also still a struggle for queer people to come out publicly, especially to their family and friends. “Being gay was a struggle for me personally, growing up in a Southern Baptist, African-American family,” said Minneapolis DJ Jamez L. Smith.
1982
March 2, 1982
Wisconsin becomes the first state to outlaw sexual orientation-based discrimination.
June 5, 1981
The virus first referred to as GayRelated Immune Deficiency (GRID) is identified by the medical community; the name is later changed to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
It became abundantly clear that AIDS was not exclusively affecting the GLBT population. [11]
“I hid it from them for years. I didn't come out to my mom until I was like 28.” There was also a growing religious backlash to the increasingly visible gay rights movement. In 1977, singer and conservative activist Anita Bryant famously organized a campaign protesting a Dade County, Florida ordinance that banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, forming the Save Our Children coalition, while in 1979, the Rev. Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority, a prominent conservative political organization that, among other goals, publicly opposed state acceptance of same-sex activity. Tragedy befell the gay rights movement when the openly gay San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone by former city supervisor Dan White in 1978. “I remember when Harvey Milk was killed, I
was in high school,” said Smith. “When Harvey Milk was killed, I was actually in school and people were more upset about the fact that Mayor Moscone was killed.” Nevertheless, the fight for equal rights of all queer people would continue. But a horrifying discovery in June of 1981 would prove to be a nightmare for the community for years to come.
'Panic' On June 5, 1981, the Centers for Disease Control reported the first known cases of a mysterious disease that showed symptoms of a rare strain of pneumonia that occurred in individuals with extremely vulnerable immune systems. The first cases of this disease were either identified as intravenous drug users or gay men. More cases emerged, with a large number of gay men presenting similar symptoms, such as a flu-like illness, weight loss, and fevers. The press
1986
Rock Hudson. Public Domain
1985
originally called the disease “Gay-Related Immune Deficiency”, or GRID. However, in 1982, CDC scientists realized that the disease was not exclusive to gay people, and renamed it Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS, which is caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV. Despite the revelation that anyone could be affected by AIDS, the misleading associations with the gay community led to significant discrimination and falsehoods being thrown upon queer people. To the gay community itself, Mark Segal summed up the reaction to AIDS with one word. “Panic,” he said. “Then the need to organize since medical (institutions) and government would not come to our defense.” Smith noted how the AIDS crisis fueled homophobic attitudes, especially widely circulated misconceptions.
November 18, 1986
American supermodel Gia Carangi dies from AIDS, becoming one the first high-profile women to succumb from the disease.
July 25, 1985
Movie star Rock Hudson reveals that he has AIDS. Hudson died on Oct. 2 the same year.
1987
March 24, 1987
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP) is founded in New York City.
“I'm in high school and I'm sitting in (my aunt and uncle's) living room, looking out the window, and my uncle comes out of the bathroom,” said Smith. “He was one of those men that would go to the bathroom with the newspaper, and he comes running out of the bathroom (with) his pants still wrapped around his ankles, and (he says), 'They did it! They did it! They finally found a way to get rid of the faggots.' That's how I heard about AIDS.” Vecoli said that as a lesbian in the early 1980s, there wasn't a lot of exchange with the gay male community during the advent of AIDS. “I want to emphasize that wasn't true for everyone here, but it was true I think for a definite portion of the population,” said Vecoli. “And my perspective on what happened was that the threat to and the needs of the gay male community at that point, struggling with and suffering with AIDS, really was the impetus for kind of a reintegration between the broader gay and lesbian communities to try and find to try and develop a GLBT umbrella.” “Lesbian women had come together to support each other with the breast cancer epidemic, and then this mysterious illness started killing their gay brothers,” said Smith. “And with the (onset of the) AIDS epidemic, they shifted their focus to HIV.” Organizations such as ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) were founded in the 1980s to lobby for access to experimental HIV medication and to push politicians to bring about legislation and funding for research to fight AIDS and prolong the lives and potentially cure those living with it. In 1983, the Minnesota AIDS Project was created to become the state's biggest HIV/AIDS service organization. In 1988,
the first World AIDS Day was hosted to bring about awareness of the pandemic. It didn't take long for the GLBT community to mobilize to fight the specter of AIDS. Many AIDS activists believed that the government was dragging its feet in appropriately responding to the crisis in the mid-1980s, and took it upon themselves to mobilize and spread awareness and solicit funding to battle this horrifying pandemic. With the 1980s coming to a close and a new decade on the horizon, the GLBT community wasn't just fighting for their rights. They were fighting for their lives. On June 6, the second part of our three-part series on the history of Stonewall and the American GLBT rights movement will examine the continued reaction to HIV/AIDS, the growing visibility of queer people in the media, the rise and demise of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell”, and the first of many legislative victories for the GLBT community in the 21st century.
Photography Credits Introduction photo courtesy of Mark Segal, copyright owned by New York Public Library 1. Photo by Gaylesf, Public Domain 2. Photo courtesy of MN Daily, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis 3. Photo courtesy of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis 4. Photo courtesy of Mark Segal, copyright owned by New York Public Library 5. Art by Dramamonster at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 6. Photo by Mark Segal 7. Photo courtesy of LSE Library/Flickr Commons 8. Photo by Original Uploader Moni3 - English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 9. Photo courtesy of the National Institutes of Health 10. Photo courtesy of the National Institutes of Health 11. Photo courtesy of the National Institutes of Health 12. Photo by Diana Davies, copyright owned by New York Public Library, CC BY-SA 3.0 ___________________________________________
Special Thanks Lavender would like to thank Mark Segal, Lisa Vecoli, Jamez L. Smith, Rachel Mattson, Noah Barth, Myra Billund-Phibbs, and the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies (University of Minnesota Libraries) for their contributions to Part 1 of this three-part series.
[12]
1988
1987 Barney Frank. Photo courtesy of United States Congress, Public Domain
May 30, 1987
October 11, 1988
The inaugural National Coming Out Day is observed.
Rep. Barney Frank becomes the first U.S. congressman to voluntarily come out as gay.
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Zidovudine was the first antiviral drug shown to be effective against AIDS, becoming a common treatment in the late 1980s and early 1990s. [1]
The GLBT community in the United States experienced a massive sea change in the two decades following the critical explosion of rebellion staged at the Stonewall Inn. Queer people became more open and confident in fighting the establishment for their rights. Openly gay people began running for—and attaining—public office. Government-sanctioned discrimination became openly challenged in the public sphere.
Yet, for every major accomplishment, a serious obstacle was to follow: The religious right began to vocally and persistently campaign against the growing acceptance of homosexuality. Gay rights luminaries such as Harvey Milk became victims of deadly violence. Most terrifying of all, the advent of HIV/AIDS not only shocked the GLBT community into a state of fear and panic, but also made them the target of
unfair and painful misinformation campaigns by those who sought to exclusively link AIDS to the queer community. Vigilance among the queer community by the late 1980s was at an all-time high, and for some, it seemed like that would never change. “In the lesbian circles I had in the mid-to-late 80s, there was always a low level of fear and vigilance,” said St. Paul attorney Rebecca Heltzer. “Stories of trans folk being beat up by the police; having the police walk through gay and lesbian bars was always unnerving; (and the) fear of losing your job and being harassed.” Being a queer person of color was doubly difficult, whether it involved being victimized or simply being rendered invisible. “Frankly, little has changed from the ‘80s-‘90s to now, from that perspective,” said Minneapolis DJ Jamez L. Smith. “For me I do remember, living in Seattle, noticing just in the gay newspapers and the various rags and flyers for clubs. It was always this big white man featured on this, that, (or the) other thing. And I actually wrote a letter to the newspaper, basically saying, ‘Hey, there are black people out here too, there are Asians, there are women.’ And I'm talking 1988, 1989. And well into the 90s this was still going on, and it's still happening today.” The idea of achieving the milestone of samesex marriage in the early 1990s seemed like a pipe dream, and considering the relative lack of mainstream safety and advocacy for the GLBT community at the time, it also seemed impractical. “(GLBT people) needed not to be harassed, and not to be beaten up,” said Lisa Vecoli, former curator of the Tretter Collection at the University of Minnesota. “They needed physical safety and
1992
1991 Freddie Mercury. Photo by Carl Lender, CC BY-SA 3.0
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November 24, 1991
Rock star Freddie Mercury dies of AIDS-related complications.
The World Health Organization declassifies homosexuality as a mental disorder.
Tony Kushner's seminal two-part play Angels in America was one of the first mainstream theatrical productions to touch upon the subject of AIDS in America. [2]
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Reality TV star Pedro Zamora, an openly gay man living with AIDS, was celebrated for his public advocacy for AIDS awareness. [3]
they needed housing and they needed a job. And in some sense, the marriage is higher up the pyramid, and so people weren't organizing around that issue because they had more important more critical needs.” By the time the 1990s rolled around, HIV/ AIDS was still taking its toll on the world at large, but it became readily apparent that the virus didn’t discriminate by sexual orientation, despite initial misconceptions in the 1980s. While queer icons like Freddie Mercury and Anthony Per-
The Ryan White CARE Act, named after an Indiana teenager who was diagnosed with AIDS in 1984, provided federal aid to HIV-positive people and their families. [4]
kins died in the first half of the 1990s from AIDS complications, self-identified heterosexuals such as author Isaac Asimov, rapper Eazy-E and tennis star Arthur Ashe all died from AIDS-related illnesses. “The community was getting a lot of support from the medical community at large because they were terrified too,” said Lavender co-founder George Holdgrafer. “There were a number of different organizations (such as) The Aliveness Program, which is still going. But it wasn’t until
1992
1993 Lea DeLaria. Photo by BigStock/Kathclick
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the numbers started mushrooming that the community at large, the straight community, started finding ways to be supportive.” Around this time, the medical community was making strides in developing drugs to combat the progression of the disease, and the federal government enacted the Ryan White CARE Act, which attained funding for low-income and underinsured people living with HIV. “The most powerful aspect of my experience working at the Tretter Collection is that I am
November 30, 1993
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” becomes federal law, precluding GLBT military service members from disclosing their sexual orientation under threat of discharge.
Lea DeLaria becomes the first openly gay comedian to perform on a late night talk show with her appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton announced a new policy on queer people serving in the military, better known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Under this revamped policy, openly gay soldiers would not be allowed to serve. Clinton is seen here making the announcement from the White House. [5]
gaining access to these stories that I know as a queer person are part of my historical memory and the space that I hold in this present day,” said Eliza Edwards, a staff member at the Tretter Collection. “Often, a lot of young people don't have access to (these stories) because of the AIDS crisis, because so many of the people who could have served as our elders are now dead. And to construct that framework around myself as a young person is a lifelong project that's just so difficult, because we have so little access to
those stories and people who have been in those spaces and can tell those stories back to us.” The increased visibility of the AIDS epidemic and the toll it took on the gay community entered the mainstream in the 1990s as well, in the form of stage and screen dramatizations. In 1991, playwright Tony Kushner debuted the Angels in America duology, honestly examining homosexuality and AIDS in contemporary American culture. In 1993, director Jonathan Demme’s Oscar-winning drama Philadelphia became the
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December 22, 1993
first major motion picture to acknowledge AIDS, regarding its gay subject with respect, dignity, and compassion. In the third season of the MTV reality show The Real World, cast member Pedro Zamora—an openly gay man living with HIV— brought international attention to the issue, being hailed for his AIDS activism on the show and in public before passing away in late 1994. Little by little, television, film, and literature allowed greater, less-stereotyped visibility for the GLBT community in the eyes of the heterosexu-
December 31, 1993
Trans youth Brandon Teena is raped and murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska.
Philadelphia, an Oscar-winning drama starring Tom Hanks as a gay lawyer dying from AIDS, is released in theaters.
1996
April 1996
The first Day of Silence is organized to raise awareness of bullying and harassment of GLBT students.
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Since 1996, students across the globe have been holding the annual Day of Silence to bring awareness to homophobia in schools. [6]
al community, but there was still a lot of room for improvement. “More visibility helped a lot of people contextualize what being LGBTQA means, but the amount of representation was really limited back then,” said Minneapolis filmmaker Pete Groynom. “We still have far to go in terms of the many different kinds of queer experiences that are represented in mainstream media.” Various states and municipalities also began to take charge in ending certain forms of discrimination towards queer people, such as for employment, services, and health benefits. In 1993, Minnesota’s Human Rights Act was
amended to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity for housing, employment, and other rights. The previous year, Vermont and California updated legislation to add sexual orientation in their respective antidiscrimination statutes. Despite a growing attempt to humanize the queer community in the eyes of the mainstream community, mistrust still remained. In 1994, the Clinton administration officially enacted “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, a revamped Department of Defense policy that barred harassment against closeted GLBT people in the military, but banned openly queer people from serving. The rationale
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for this policy was the assumption that openly gay, lesbian or bisexual troops would negatively affect overall troop morale and stymie military cohesion. This effectively forced GLBT troops to remain in the closet. “They hid and could do nothing more since, while the law said Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, most military officials would use any excuse to oust a known gay member of the military,” said Mark Segal, founder of Philadelphia Gay News. To make matters worse, in 1996 Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act, deeming marriage as being between a man and a woman. The act also denied federal marriage benefits to same-sex spouses on the chance that a state legalized such unions. “The marriage issue, in my mind, became the focal point because it was used against us,” said Vecoli. “The Right saw that as an organizing tool and it was brutally effective for about a decade. They would go into states, they would put a constitutional amendment on the ballot. They would raise money from people out of fear they would have people go vote. And it was an organizing tool. Everywhere they had gone into a state, they had been effective in raising money and getting out voters and electing people and changing the constitution, so they were continuing to do it.” Bully tactics such as these became par for the course not only in government and organized religion, but also in schools and the public in general. The bullying of queer youth became a major issue, or at least finally became a major issue in the public eye. In July 1996, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of gay student Jamie Nabozny, who alleged that school officials in Ashland, Wisconsin willingly failed to intervene in anti-gay abuse. The case was the first to find that public
April 1997
Comedian Ellen DeGeneres comes out as a lesbian; her character on her ABC sitcom Ellen likewise comes out of the closet.
September 21, 1996
President Bill Clinton signs the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to gay couples on the chance that gay marriage becomes legalized.
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Ellen DeGeneres. Photo by BigStock/Kathclick
Openly gay college student Matthew Shepard was brutally attacked and left for dead in this rural area in Laramie, Wyoming in October 1998. Shepard died from his wounds days later. [7]
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Comedian Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet in April 1997, becoming an instant icon in the gay rights movement. [8]
schools can be held accountable for failing to halt homophobic abuse in a school setting. Many middle and high schools saw the formation of gay-straight alliance groups, and in 1996, the first Day of Silence was organized to bring about awareness of the bullying and harassment of queer students in American public schools.
Hatred On the night of Oct. 6, 1998 in Laramie, Wyoming, 21-year-old college student Matthew Shepard was approached by two men, who offered him a ride home. Taking Shepard to a
remote area, the two men then robbed and beat Shepard within an inch of his life, tying him to a fence and leaving him to die. After his assailants left, a comatose Shepard was later discovered by a cyclist who mistook him for a scarecrow. Shepard died in a Colorado hospital six days after his assault. The brutal assault became a major media story nationwide, especially after it was revealed that Shepard was openly gay and that his attackers, both convicted and given life sentences, seemingly killed him because of his sexual orientation. Their infamous, failed “gay panic defense”
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October 6, 1998
Gay college student Matthew Shepard is brutally beaten by homophobes in Laramie, Wyoming, dying six days later.
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cemented the obvious nature of what this atrocity was: a hate crime. “It is troubling that there is so much hate in people that can be manifested in those heinous crimes,” said Heltzer. “(It’s) also troubling that ‘mainstream’ culture is not equally horrified by such crimes.” The murder of Shepard, much like the 1993 rape and murder of transgender man Brandon Teena and many other incidents, was a tragic dose of reality for members of the public largely or entirely unaware of the abuse and mistreatment the GLBT community faced on a daily basis. “Part of our invisibility is that hate crimes are not reported or not covered,” said Segal. “That is why it has been my life's work to end that invisibility by any means. Hate crimes are not new. While we only know the more recent accounts, there are numerous attacks that most of us are not aware of.” “The Upstairs Bar in New Orleans (was) fire bombed,” Segal continued. “The numerous (Metropolitan Community Church) pastors who have been attacked and killed. Then there’s the torture of aversion therapy, more recently called conversion therapy, which is literally torture of LGBT youth.” At the time, federal and Wyoming state law did not include sexual orientation in their existing hate crime legislation. Over the next few years, local and federal attempts to include GLBT people in hate crime laws became a serious endeavor. Several attempts were made in the United States Congress to extend federal hate crime legislation, with the Matthew Shepard Act introduced in 2007. It wasn’t until October 2009 when the legislation—fully known as the Mat-
December 5, 1998
The Bisexual Pride flag is publicly unveiled.
1999
The Transgender Pride Flag is created by Monica Helms.
Transgender Flag. BigStock/sevenozz
The original cast of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy became a worldwide phenomenon when the reality series premiered in 2003. [9]
thew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act—was finally signed into law by President Obama.
A Queer Eye For The New Millennium Although the turn of the century came and went without the feared calamity of Y2K, change in the 21st century certainly seemed inevitable nonetheless. One of the biggest changes that seemed to last for good was a paradigm shift in visibility for queer people. Although depictions of GLBT life were present in popular media before,
2000
July 1, 2000
Vermont becomes the first American state to legally recognize same-sex unions.
2003
June 26, 2003
they were few and far between, and many depictions (especially of trans and nonbinary people) weren’t exactly flattering or even humanizing. The true shift began in the late 1990s, such as when comedian and sitcom star Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian, largely considered a major watershed moment for gay rights in America. Similarly, the debut of the sitcom Will & Grace in 1998 brought gay life even further into the mainstream. By the early 2000s, a wave of popular media depicting GLBT people in a positive, humanistic light flooded the pop culture landscape: In 2003, the wildly popular reality series Queer Eye For
2003
The landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas overturns American sodomy laws.
The Straight Guy debuted to critical and commercial acclaim. Premium cable programs such as The L Word and Queer As Folk offered mature, three-dimensional stories tailored for queer audiences. Even television series that weren’t primarily GLBT-themed—such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Wire, and Six Feet Under—featured characters and storylines with fleshed-out queer themes. On the big screen, GLBT movies became increasingly prevalent in both mainstream and independent releases, such as the Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain, the rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the transgender road trip
July 15, 2003
The Bravo reality series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy premieres.
2003
November 2, 2003
Gene Robinson. Photo by Donald Vish, CC BY-SA 2.0
Gene Robinson becomes the first openly gay person consecrated as a bishop in a major American Christian denomination.
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California became the second state to legalize same-sex marriage in 2008. [10]
film Transamerica, and the feature film adaptation of the popular Broadway musical Rent. While GLBT representation was making serious inroads in the media, the tide was seriously beginning to turn in a legislative sense across the country. In 2000, the state of Vermont made history by becoming the first American state to legally recognize same-sex unions, the first major volley in a 15-year fight for marriage equality in the United States. That volley was outdone in 2004, when the state of Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage outright. It was an
astonishing achievement thought unthinkable decades earlier, and over the following years, various other states followed suit. It helped that national public opinion of GLBT people and gay marriage was becoming increasingly popular, and the topic became a major hot-button political issue between proponents and opponents, especially during the 2004 election season. “The community started organizing around marriage, not because that was our number one goal and aim, but because that's what we were being beaten over the head with,” said Vecoli. In spite of conservative and religious groups
attempting to frame the subject of same-sex marriage as an attack on traditional values, gay marriage was starting to become a reality in America. Around the same time, however, another major win for the GLBT rights movement emboldened the community with the landmark Lawrence v. Texas ruling, wherein the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated remaining sodomy laws in 14 states, making consensual same-sex activity legal in the entire country. “The best way to describe this… is to recall that in 1969, we put everything on the agenda: marriage equality, gays in the military, equality
2008
2004 Image by BigStock/Vlatko2002
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May 17, 2004
May 15, 2008
California becomes the second U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage.
Massachusetts becomes the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage.
The passage of California's Proposition 8 amendment to ban gay marriage in that state sparked protests across both the state and the nation. [11]
under the law, funding of our community,” said Segal. “While we expected that all would someday would happen, we never expected to see it in our lives.” The importance of the Lawrence v. Texas ruling could not be understated: no longer was sexual activity between consenting adults criminalized, regardless of their sexuality, and therefore recognized consensual sexual privacy as being legitimately protected by the 14th Amendment. There was still considerable pushback. Six months after same-sex marriage became legal in California, it was invalidated thanks to the con-
2009
2008
stitutional amendment known as Proposition 8. The same year, states like Arizona and Florida put similar amendments on election ballots, both of which passed. Despite setbacks like these, the resolve of the GLBT rights movement was never in doubt. Grassroots campaigns to legalize gay marriage, protect queer people from discrimination, allow same-sex couples to adopt, and strengthen hate crime legislation continued across America. While the gay marriage fight during the late 2000s produced varying results, one major win for the queer community was the reversal of a
mid-1990s policy that effectively banned gay, lesbian and bisexual troops from serving in the military openly. The rationale for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was becoming an increasing source of legal and moral scrutiny in the years leading up to 2010. A number of bills, such as the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, sought to undo DADT and let gay troops serve openly, but such efforts had ultimately failed. Near the end of the decade, President Obama expressly advocated for a full repeal of DADT, with the backing of top military officials
October 28, 2009
President Barack Obama signs the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into federal law.
November 4, 2008
Same-sex marriage in California is deemed illegal thanks to the Proposition 8 amendment. Matthew Shepard Act. Photo by Pete Souza
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Photography Credits Introduction photo by Kelly Huston, CC BY 2.0
The federal repeal of existing sodomy laws in America was not without its detractors in subsequent years. [12]
President Barack Obama signed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act into law in December 2010. [13]
including then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates. In the first half of 2010, Congress amended the Defense Authorization Act to end DADT, an effort that passed the House in May. That November, the Defense Department released a report outlining a timeline for repealing DADT. The report found that there was minimal risk of disrupted military cohesion and morale due to the repeal. After over a month of legislative and military discussion, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was made official on Dec. 22, 2010. By the turn of the millennium, it was hard to imagine that within a decade, the GLBT community would benefit from a tidal wave of equal rights milestones, from the implementation of gay marriage and the repeal of DADT, to the increased visibility and acceptance of queer identity in pop culture. With a new decade around the corner, the GLBT community had a lot to celebrate. But there was still a lot more work to be done.
On June 20, the third and final part of our three-part
It Gets Better Project. Image by Savage Love, LLC
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series on the history of Stonewall and the American GLBT rights movement will see the continued leaps and bounds made for marriage equality—especially right here in Minnesota—leading to federal legaliza-
1. Photo courtesy of National Institutes of Health 2. Photo by Uark Theatre - Angels in America Part 2, CC BY 2.0 3. Photo by original uploader Callelinea at Pedrozamora1993.jpg, Public Domain 4. Photo by Wildhartlivie at en.wikipedia, CC BY 3.0 5. Screenshot courtesy of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library 6. Photo by Fiskot - CC BY-SA 4.0 7. Photo by Tony Webster - CC BY-SA 3.0 8. Photo by Alan Light, CC BY 2.0 9. Photo courtesy of BigStock/Kathclick 10. Photo by Pargon - Flickr: Gay Marriages at SF City Hall, CC BY 2.0 11. Photo by AJ Alfieri-Crispin- CC BY-SA 2.0 12. Photo by Lokal_Profil, CC BY-SA 2.5 13. Photo by Chuck Kennedy
tion, the GLBT milestones achieved in the realms of
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pop culture, politics and sports, the increased visibility
Special Thanks
of transgender, genderqueer and non-binary people in the public sphere, and most importantly, what needs to be done to ensure full equality, acceptance, and safety of all people under the rainbow.
2010
Lavender would like to thank Mark Segal, Lisa Vecoli, Rebecca Heltzer, Jamez L. Smith, Peter Groynom, George Holdgrafer, Eliza Edwards, and the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies (University of Minnesota Libraries) for their contributions to Part 2 of this three-part series.
September 21, 2010
Dan Savage and Terry Miller found the It Gets Better Project in reaction to the suicides of bullied queer youth.
After a long, emotional, and hard-fought battle, Minnesota's GLBT community was elated following the defeat of the anti-same-sex marriage amendment on Nov. 6, 2012. [1]
Change was in the air. By the time the first decade of the 21st century came to a close, a definitive paradigm shift in regards to the GLBT rights movement in America was a surety. The landmark Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court decision undid all remaining sodomy laws across the nation. The military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy was repealed. Individual states began legalizing same-sex mar-
riage, with many more states’ efforts to do the same in the works. In July 2011, gay marriage was officially enacted in New York, while in September of the same year, DADT’s repeal went into effect. Meanwhile, Minnesota had its own share of gay marriage drama in 2011, when the State Senate added a proposal for a constitutional amendment to the 2012 election ballot that, if passed, would
definitively outlaw same-sex marriage in the state. The ensuing grassroots campaigns for and against this amendment were passionate and fierce. Despite the efforts of conservative and religious backers of the amendment, the measure was ultimately defeated on Nov. 6, 2012, by 51 percent of Minnesota voters. “The summer and fall leading up to the 2012
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September 20, 2011
The repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" officially goes into effect, allowing gay, lesbian, and bisexual troops to serve openly.
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Kate McKinnon. Photo by BigStock/DFree
April 7, 2012
Kate McKinnon becomes the first openly lesbian cast member in the history of Saturday Night Live.
On May 13, 2013, the Minnesota Senate passed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage with a 37-30 vote. [2]
amendment vote was stressful, and though the outcome was a relief, it all felt very tenuous,” said Minneapolis filmmaker Pete Groynom. “It passed by such a small margin.” Nonetheless, still buoyed by the amendment’s defeat, lawmakers in the Minnesota Legislature introduced a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in the state. On May 9, 2013, the Minnesota House passed the bill with a 75-59 vote.
2012
2012
Four days later, with gay marriage supporters’ cheers echoing throughout the State Capitol, the Minnesota Senate passed the bill with a 3730 vote. One day later, Gov. Mark Dayton signed the bill into law. 43 years after Jack Baker and Michael McConnell made American history by applying for a marriage license together in Minneapolis, gay marriage was finally a reality in the North Star State.
“It was exciting and really hard to believe,” said Groynom. “I'm still proud that Minnesota was ahead of the national curve on this issue. Meanwhile, it only took a few months for gay marriage to seem completely normal, which I think speaks volumes about how much of a nonissue it had been all along.” On the same day that Minnesota Amendment 1 was defeated, the states of Maine, Wash-
November 6, 2012
Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin becomes the first openly gay person to be elected to the U.S. Senate; Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona becomes the first openly bisexual person elected to U.S. Congress.
October 4, 2012
Orlando Cruz becomes the first active professional boxer to come out as gay.
Tammy Baldwin. Photo courtesy of United States Congress.
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ington, and Maryland became the first states in the nation to legalize gay marriage via popular vote. Around the same time that gay marriage became the law of the land in Minnesota, Rhode Island and Delaware did the same. On June 26, 2013, the United States Supreme Court declared that same-sex couples that were legally married were entitled to federal marriage benefits, effectively striking down a key section of the Defense of Marriage Act. That same day, California’s Proposition 8 was deemed unconstitutional, allowing same-sex marriages in the state to resume. By early 2015, an astounding 36 states—as well as Guam and Washington, D.C.— allowed same-sex couples to marry. By this point, the writing was on the wall, and in April 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court clearly took notice. The court began hearing arguments on whether or not the U.S. Constitution guaranteed same-sex couples the fundamental right to marry. On June 26, 2015, a decision was made on the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges case. In a 5-4 vote, Baker v. Nelson was overturned, and the decision required every state to recognize same-sex marriage. Gay marriage was legalized nationwide.
Fighting For Visibility
Gov. Mark Dayton signs the passed Minnesota same-sex marriage bill into law on May 14, 2013. [3]
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August 15, 2013
Darren Young becomes the first active professional wrestler in a national wrestling promotion to come out as gay.
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As jubilant and triumphant as the gay marriage victory was, it wasn’t the end of the story. While marriage equality was a hard-earned win for the community, it was especially important for the community not to rest on its laurels. Equally as important was the fight for visibility among the various facets of the GLBT community. “There is definitely a heightened level of visibility, but there's also a lot of conversations to be
May 2014
Michael Sam becomes the first openly gay man to be drafted in the NFL.
Countless gay marriage supporters celebrate outside the Minnesota State Capitol as gay marriage is legalized on May 14, 2013. [4]
On June 26, 2015, the United States Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide after the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges case. [5]
had around erasure,” said Eliza Edwards, a staffer at the Tretter Collection at the University of Minnesota. “I'm bisexual, and I came out in high school as a young bisexual woman right around when marriage equality was getting a real push in a legislative sense.” Edwards stated that during the campaign to defeat the marriage amendment, many of her bisexual and transgender friends were excluded from those conversations.
“When you're phone banking, for example, the scripts would actively exclude those communities and those words… because people would say, ‘Oh, you're not ready. Those people out there aren't ready for you yet,’” said Edwards. “So that was something that also had a really big impact on me as a young person: not being able to see myself in the most visible spaces as somebody who is bisexual.” “I think that we are continuing to evolve as
2014
2014 Laverne Cox. BigStock/kathclick
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a community,” said Lisa Vecoli, former Tretter Collection curator. “More people now are saying, ‘I'm not this or that. I reject the binary. I'm more fluid.’ The time that I spent at the University was a profound education for me, where young people are viewing sexuality and gender today just very differently from the way we viewed it 30 or 40 years ago.” Trans and nonbinary people in particular are still struggling to achieve the level of vis-
October 30, 2014
Apple CEO Tim Cook comes out as gay, becoming the first openly gay CEO on the Fortune 500 list.
Actress Laverne Cox becomes the first openly trans person to appear on the cover of Time; a couple months later, Cox becomes the first openly trans person to be nominated for an Emmy Award for acting.
Trans woman and activist CeCe McDonald became a symbol for the victims of transphobia after she was jailed for manslaughter, despite asserting that her actions were made in self-defense. She remains a staunch advocate for the rights of trans people. [6]
Michael Sam became the first openly gay NFL draft pick in history in 2014. [7]
ibility that their gay and lesbian counterparts have earned in recent years. According to a 2015 report by the American Medical Student Association, 19 percent of hate violence survivors identify as transgender, while 62 percent of trans people have reported suffering from depression, and 41 percent have attempted suicide. Trans people are also disproportionately incarcerated, with the same report stating that one in six trans people have been jailed in their lifetime. “I don't think we need to be thinking about the words ‘equity’ or ‘equality’,” said Tretter Collection staffer Ray Barney. “I think we need to be
looking at justice, and (remain) in tune with the pulse of who are the people most targeted by our systems of inequality and discrimination.” In 2011, trans woman and GLBT activist CeCe McDonald was charged with second-degree murder for stabbing a man after McDonald and her friends were assaulted outside of a Minneapolis bar. McDonald agreed to a seconddegree manslaughter charge and was sentenced to 41 months in prison, but she was placed in two different men’s prisons. Despite the outcome of the case, McDonald became a symbol for the victims of trans bash-
2015 Caitlyn Jenner. BigStock/Starfrenzy
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April 2015
ing and hate crimes across the country, with many activists decrying McDonald’s treatment and insisting that her actions were self-defense. McDonald was released from prison in early 2014 after serving 19 months. To this day, she remains an outspoken advocate for the rights of trans people, especially for trans people of color. Another issue directly affecting trans people in the United States has been the introduction of so-called “bathroom bills”, legislation that would force trans people to use public bathrooms based on the gender that they were assigned at birth. These bills were crafted on the assumption that their enactment would make cisgender people safer, although various legal and GLBT advocacy groups have argued that there have been no recorded instances of a trans person assaulting a cisgender individual in a public restroom. Nonetheless, a number of states have introduced bathroom bills in their respective legislatures, with North Carolina signing the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act into law in 2016. “I think we have to continue to work on all fronts and I think we have to continue to make sure that we bring everyone with us, so it can't be a movement that only succeeds for upper middle class gays and lesbians,” said Vecoli. “It has to be a movement that succeeds for those who are the most vulnerable among us: the people that were at Dewey’s and Compton's and Stonewall, who helped to make all this happen.” Indeed, while serious strides have been made in the decades since Stonewall, the harsh reality is that GLBT people, especially youth, are still at risk of isolation, violence, and discrimination. “Sometimes (older GLBT people) want to express to me what they lived through, and they'll be like, ‘Back in my day, if you were queer you'd
Olympic champion Caitlyn Jenner officially comes out as a transgender woman during an appearance on 20/20.
get disowned by your parents,’” said Barney. “And I’m like, ‘People ARE still getting disowned by their parents.’ There’s always more work to be done.” The Trevor Project, a national organization that offers crisis intervention to GLBT youth, reports that GLBT youth report higher rates of anti-queer harassment than straight youth, and that young people who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual have two to six times higher rates of suicide attempts compared to straight youth. Queer youth are also at risk of being targeted for so-called “conversion therapy”, a pseudoscientific practice that claims to be able to change a person’s sexual orientation. Despite a lack of concrete or peer-reviewed evidence that conversion therapy actually works, only 17 states to date have outlawed the practice as it pertains to minors. Furthermore, an overwhelming consensus of the medical community argues that conversion therapy is a harmful, ineffective, and unethical practice. “GLBT elders, young GLBT people, people of color, trans people, nonbinary people; we continue to have extraordinarily high rates of homelessness and suicide and all sorts of negative consequences for people who are living on the edge,” said Vecoli. “I think the main thing is not to declare victory and go home and disengage, but to continue. We have to stay in the fight.”
You’ve Got To Have Hope The 2010s still managed to bear the fruit of hope for the GLBT community, especially in the world of politics, media, and even sports. While a number of professional athletes have come out of the closet post-retirement, many queer
Critically acclaimed singer and actress Janelle Monáe has been beloved for her status as an openly bisexual GLBT rights activist. [8]
athletes have broken the glass ceiling while still active in their respective sports. In 2012, Orlando Cruz became the first boxer to come out as gay while still in competition. In 2014, Michael Sam became the first openly gay NFL draft pick in history. Most famously, Olympic champion Caitlyn Jenner made history when she came out as a transgender woman in 2015. In the media, GLBT individuals and projects no longer felt like a novelty. Television shows such as Transparent, Orange is the New Black, Modern Family, and Broad City brought greater exposure to queer themes on the small screen,
2015
while motion pictures such as Moonlight, Call Me By Your Name, Carol, and Blue is the Warmest Color gave audiences critically acclaimed, humanistic depictions of gay life on the big screen. In the world of music, GLBT artists such as Frank Ocean, Lady Gaga, Sam Smith, Janelle Monáe, and Adam Lambert have enthralled fans worldwide as out and proud musicians in the same vein as Freddie Mercury, Elton John, or Melissa Etheridge. And in American politics, the “firsts” kept coming: in 2012, Tammy Baldwin became the first openly gay individual to be elected to the
June 26, 2015
In Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that same-sex couples are entitled to the right to marry, legalizing gay marriage nationwide.
2015
July 27, 2015
The Boy Scouts of America removes its nationwide ban on openly gay employees.
Obergefell. By jordanuhl7, CC BY 2.0.
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After becoming the first American gay couple to apply for a marriage license in 1970, Michael McConnell and Jack Baker finally had their union validated in Minnesota in 2019. [9]
United States Senate; in 2018, Jared Polis of Colorado became the first openly gay person in American history to be elected governor; and in 2012 and 2019, respectively, two men made history when they became the first openly gay presidential candidate for their parties: Fred Karger for the Republican Party, and Pete Buttigieg for the Democratic Party. Fifty years ago, this level of representation across all facets of public American life would
have been unheard of. Slowly but surely, queer people across the nation were able to see their communities represented in ways some couldn’t even imagine. “I mean, me seeing people like Boy George is the most obvious example—for me in my generation anyway—of a public figure coming out and being openly gay,” said Minneapolis DJ Jamez L. Smith. “It was validating and encouraging. Positive change is positive change.”
2016
2016 Pulse. Photo by Raimond Spekking, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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Fighting For A Better Future In June 1969, an epic demonstration of rebellion officially signaled the birth of the modernday GLBT rights movement. In the five decades that have followed, the GLBT community celebrated unbelievable victories. The GLBT community has endured much hardship, and suf-
July 9, 2016
Mixed martial artist Amanda Nunes defeats Miesha Tate for the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship, becoming the first openly gay champion in UFC history.
June 12, 2016
A gunman kills 49 people at the Pulse gay club in Orlando, becoming one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history.
fered terrible tragedy. It’s important to reflect on those who have fought, persevered, or died to ensure a promising future for the following generations. “When someone tells me I’m history, I usually laugh and say, ‘Yes, I’m so old that I am,’” said Mark Segal, founder of Philadelphia Gay News and witness of the Stonewall Riots. “But it’s hard to wrap your mind around it. To me and others, it was something we believed in and did day-to-day as a way of life.” “When I came out in 1981, I used to keep a list of all the lesbians that I knew,” said Vecoli. “And every time I met a new lesbian, I would add them to the list, and somehow for me that was my way of trying to establish that there were other women like me in the world, that there was the hope of a community. There was the hope of some kind of larger umbrella. And I kept that list until it reached 100.” Looking back, Vecoli said that it was surreal how much progress has been made since she started that list all those years ago, and she’s admitted that she’s learned a lot along the way. “I'm eternally grateful to the young people who took the time to educate me and bring me along,” said Vecoli. “So I owe it to them to try and make sure they're part of our agenda and part of our umbrella.” Hardships still remain. Even as we break more barriers, even as we gain more visibility, many in the GLBT community continue to suffer the indignities of discrimination, violence, and ostracism. So as we cherish and celebrate this momentous 50th anniversary of Stonewall, a question remains: where do we go from here? “I would love to see some real diversity of
2017
2017
While all of the major strides made in the past 50 years are worth celebrating, there is still a lot of work left to be done to ensure equality, safety, and visibility for the GLBT community. [10]
ideology, diversity of skin tone, diversity of the spectrum of genders,” said Smith. “Pass the Equality Act,” said Segal. “Remember that wedding cake issue? If we had the Equality Act, we would have won that case. Until we do, we are second-class citizens… the fight goes on.” “There needs to be increased access to economic opportunity and social support networks,” said Groynom. “And expanded representation in mainstream culture remains vital.” “We need to work toward coming together and supporting one another,” said St. Paul attor-
February 26, 2017
The drama Moonlight becomes the first GLBT-themed film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
February 19, 2017
Asia Kate Dillon’s role on the Showtime drama Billions is the first main character in North American television history to identify as non-binary.
2018
2018
ney Rebecca Heltzer. “We need to support other minority groups in their struggle for equity and fairness, and seek their support in ours. If you expect respect, dignity, and help from others, our community needs to show the same to those who are also struggling for equality.” “I think that history has a really large role to play in looking forward,” said Edwards. “How can I look for it as a young person if I don't know the foundation and the grounds that I'm standing on? There're so many stories out there that I don't have a window (to look) into, because of the way that history has been linearized, and
November 2, 2018
The Freddie Mercury biographical drama Bohemian Rhapsody is released in theaters, eventually becoming the highest-grossing GLBT-themed film in history.
September 22, 2018
The first citywide Bi Pride event in American history is hosted in West Hollywood.
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displaced by people and devalued by others. So when I think about the next 50 years, my dream is that everybody will have access to those spaces.” “Everybody that I know in my life has lost people because of all of the violence that surrounds us in our everyday lives,” Edwards continued. “And that is such a difficult reality to hold. And I think that makes imagining a future both really difficult, really painful, and also a really empowering moment, especially for young people, but also for our elders and for the people that are still here and are still alive and are still fighting to support us.” Stonewall, historic as it may have been, was never the beginning of the fight for equality. Fifty years later, the fight continues. And as we fight, we must also remember. We must remember the struggles and sacrifices of our queer sisters, brothers, and siblings that came before us. We must cherish the history they built for us. We remember Marsha P. Johnson. We remember Sylvia Rivera. We remember James Baldwin. We remember Christine Jorgensen. We remember Barbara Gittings. We remember Harvey Milk. We remember Bayard Rustin. We remember Pedro Zamora. We remember Brandon Teena. We remember Matthew Shepard. We remember Jason Gage. We remember Mollie Olgin. We remember the victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando. We remember the nameless, the faceless, and the unsung heroes who fought back in Greenwich Village, many whose stories never
got to be told. We remember those who were taken before their time by AIDS. We remember those who had their lives senselessly taken in acts of hatred. We remember the pioneers. We remember those who dared to be different. We remember those who risked everything to give this community a future worth living. And it’s our duty to pick up where they left off. Everyone under the rainbow deserves the right to live as their authentic self, without fear or shame, but with love and pride. Celebrate, slay, and sashay. It’s time to get to work. “People are full of surprise, even for themselves, if they have been stirred enough.” - James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room
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LAVENDER
STONEWALL 50
Introductory photo by Sophia Hantzes 1. Photo by Sophia Hantzes 2. Photo by Sophia Hantzes 3. Photo by Sophia Hantzes 4. Photo by Sophia Hantzes 5. Photo by Elvert Barnes, CC BY-SA 2.0 6. Photo by Pax Ahimsa Gethen, CC BY-SA 4.0 7. Photo by BigStock/kathclick 8. Photo by BigStock/kathclick 9. From left: Photo by Paul Hagen; Photo by Angela Jimenez; photos courtesy of the Michael McConnell Files, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection, University of Minnesota 10. Photo by BigStock/BalkansCat 11. By Diana Davies, copyright owned by New York Public Library, CC BY-SA 3.0 ___________________________________________
Special Thanks Lavender would like to thank Mark Segal, Lisa Vecoli, Rebecca Heltzer, Jamez L. Smith, Pete Groynom, Eliza Edwards, Ray Barney, and the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies (University of Minnesota Libraries) for their contributions to Part 3 of this three-part series.
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2018 Jared Polis. Photo courtesy of Office of Congressman Jared Polis
Photography Credits
November 6, 2018
Jared Polis of Colorado becomes the country’s first openly gay man to be elected governor; Sharice Davids of Kansas becomes the first openly gay Native American elected to U.S. Congress.