#lgbthistory

1960’s gay rights champion Dick Leitsch died on June 22, 2018. We’ll be bringing you a full episode about Dick and his contributions to the movement during Season Four. In the meantime, we’ve produced this farewell episode to introduce you to Dick, who was a one-of-a-kind, out-and-proud, fearless leader at a time when few people dared to risk all to carry the ball forward in the fight against police repression and society’s condemnation. Listen now: http://bit.ly/mgh-leitsch

This Saturday in Brooklyn: JoinMaking Gay History, Food 4 Thot, Nancy and LGBTQ&A for the biggest, queerest live show, one night only. Get your tickets here http://bit.ly/bigqueerpodfest

The Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance (ALFA) Archives and Periodicals Collection provide rich insight into feminist and lesbian activism from the 1970s to the early 1990s, particularly in the American Southeast. The Rubenstein Library holds ALFA’s organizational records as well as the hundreds of grassroots newsletters and journals they collected from other lesbian, feminist, and activist groups. Shown here is Atalanta, ALFA’s own self-produced monthly newsletter. #lgbtqhistorymonth #lgbthistorymonth #lgbthistory #lgbtqhistory #rubensteinlib #iglibraries #librariesofinstagram (at David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library)
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From the Lightning Brown Papers, a polaroid of Joe Herzenberg, who became the first openly-gay elected official in the South when he was elected to the Chapel Hill City Council in 1987. Both Brown and Herzenberg dedicated their political careers to advancing LGBTQ+ rights and representation in the South. #lgbtqhistorymonth #lgbthistory #rubensteinlib #iglibraries #librariesofinstagram (at David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library)
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“'LET HE WHO BE WITHOUT SIN CAST THE FIRST STONE’“ – “LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS?” – “ANITA WHO?” – “KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF MY BODY. AND OUT OF OUR BEDS!,” Stop Anita Bryant Demonstration, Hollywood High School, Los Angeles, California, June 13, 1977. Photo by Pat Rocco, c/o @onearchives.
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On June 13, 1977, forty years ago today, as queer communities across the United States continued to process and protest the success of Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign against Miami’s anti-discrimination ordinance (which Miami voters overwhelmingly voted to repeal on June 7), approximately 5,500 demonstrators gathered outside of Los Angeles’ Hollywood High School for a march to De Longpre Park. The march, organizers explained, was “to protest any possible spread to California of antihomosexual legislation.”
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Within months, Bryant’s campaign successfully challenged pro-gay ordinances in a number of American cities and eventually turned its attention to California, where the battle over the Briggs Initiative engulfed and galvanized the queer community. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #Resist (at Hollywood High School)

“Any point of view which is opposed to gay rights is a wrong point of view, categorically, by fiat and word of God.” – Marc Rubin, June 4, 1971.
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Picture: “GAY POWER TO GAY LOVERS,” Gay Activists Alliance wedding cake, New York City Board of Examiners, New York City, April 1971. Photo by Grey Villet, c/o @life.
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On June 4, 1971, forty-six years ago today, in response to New York City Clerk Herman Katz’s threats of legal action against the performance of same-sex “holy unions” by the Church of the Beloved Disciple, twelve members of the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) zapped (i.e., infiltrated and largely brought a halt to the business of) Katz’s office.
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Specifically, GAA members (including Arthur Evans, Marc Rubin, and Vito Russo) toted a coffee wagon and a large wedding cake (topped with two same-sex couples, pictured) into the City Clerk’s office, announced they would be holding two weddings, and invited city clerical workers to attend. As city workers helped themselves to coffee and cake, Evans took over the office switchboard, informing incoming callers that the Clerk’s office was only issuing same-sex licenses that day.
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While the protest had no immediate impact on city policy, it did get attention from local press, and it illustrated the increasing brazenness of gay activists in confronting city officials. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #Resist #Pride2017 (at New York, New York)

“I’m leaping with joy like a bird.” – Chi Chia-wei responds to Taiwan’s top court striking as unconstitutional the country’s ban on same-sex marriage
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Picture: Chi Chia-Wei leads a rally for same-sex marriage, Taipei, Taiwan, November 2003. Photo by Sam Yeh, c/o @gettyimages.
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Earlier today, Taiwan’s constitutional court ruled the country’s Civil Code, which provides that an agreement to marry can only be made between a man and a woman, violates the constitutional guarantees of freedom of marriage and people’s equality. The decision by the country’s top court gives Taiwan’s parliament two years to change the code and implement the ruling; if lawmakers fail to do so, same-sex marriage automatically will become available.
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The decision puts Taiwan on track to become the first country in Asia to recognize marriage equality.
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Chi Chia-wei, who has for decades been one of Taiwan’s most visible queer activists, brought the marriage case two years ago. “It’s been a long fight,” he said, “and I’m in need of a good sleep.” #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #ChiChiaWei #Resist (at Taipei, Taiwan)

Stormé DeLarverie (December 24, 1920 – May 24, 2014), Chelsea Hotel, New York City, 2010. Photo © Alice O’Malley.
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In the 1950s and 1960s, Stormé DeLarverie, who died three years ago today, made history as the emcee (and only drag king) of the Jewel Box Revue, North America’s first racially integrated drag revue. DeLarverie also took part in the historic Stonewall Riots in June 1969, though the specifics of her participation at Stonewall are the topic of some debate.
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It is well-established, David Carter explains, that the catalyst for the riots—the point at which the crowd in Christopher Park turned its rage on the police—was the prolonged struggle between police and one particular butch lesbian. As the crowd watched, police subdued the woman and, as she was forced into a paddy wagon, she yelled, “Why don’t you guys do something!” At that point, the crowd erupted, forcing the police to retreat back into the bar, and starting “the high point of the violence on the part of the crowd.”
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For many years, some argued that the person at the center of the mayhem was Stormé DeLarverie; the truth, however, is that DeLarverie was a well-known figure (a legend, some say) in the queer community by 1969, and there would be no question of her had it been DeLarverie.
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Nonetheless, DeLarverie was among those credited with fighting back early and with particular intensity, thus taking the brunt of police brutality in the early hours of the Stonewall Riots.
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In the decades that followed, DeLarverie played a large role in the queer liberation movement; as her New York Times obituary put it, “she literally walked the streets of downtown Manhattan like a gay superhero.”
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Stormé DeLarverie died in her sleep on May 24, 2014; she was ninety-three. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory (at Hotel Chelsea)

“One night I heard two, I believe, nurse’s aides—not the actual nurses—standing outside my door sort of laughing…[They said] ‘I wonder how long the faggot in 208 is going to last.’” – Ken Ramsauer to Geraldo Rivera, May 1983 (via “How to Survive a Plague,” by @bydavidfrance)
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[Please note, the second picture in this post is of Ramsauer near the end of his battle with AIDS; he appears, as David France describes, “in grotesque medical distress.”]
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Pictures: (1) Ken Ramsauer Memorial & Candlelight Vigil, Central Park, New York City, June 13, 1983, photo by Robert Maass; (2) Ramsauer, left, after the Rivera interview, c/o Contact Press Images, via @nymag.
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On May 23, 1983, thirty-four years ago today, less than a year after his diagnosis, and four days after he gave a nationally televised interview to Geraldo Rivera on the growing AIDS crisis , New York City hardware store manager, freelance lighting designer, and activist Ken Ramsauer died of AIDS-related illness. He was twenty-seven.
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Weeks later, on June 13, more than fifteen hundred people gathered in Central Park to honor Ramsauer, who the New York Times described as “a national symbol of the discrimination and pain suffered by victims of a condition that ravages the body’s immune system.”
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Mourners at the memorial raised candles and held numbered signs to reflect the growing number of New Yorkers lost to AIDS. In a speech, Rivera said that Ramsauer “wanted society to know the discrimination and negative publicity that has allowed this disease a mortal head start.”
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“In New York,” David France explains, “there were just 722 cases reported, half the nation’s total. It seemed they were all at [Central Park] that sweltering evening. My friend’s mouth hung open…I was speechless. We had found the plague…From there, it was an avalanche.” #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #NeverForget #NeverAgain #KenRamsauer #Resist

“DEFEAT THE BRIGGS INITIATIVE,” demonstrators in San Francisco react to the rejection of Eugene, Oregon’s gay rights amendment, May 23, 1978. Photo © Daniel Nicoletta, whose amazing book “LGBT San Francisco” (@lgbtsanfrancisco) is available for pre-order now.
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On May 23, 1978, thirty-nine years ago today, the typically liberal stronghold of Eugene, Oregon gave Anita Bryant’s Save Our Children campaign another resounding anti-queer victory, as voters there rejected a gay rights amendment to the city’s human rights ordinance.
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The vote, which turned out to be the closest of the four votes on gay rights ordinances to date, was nonetheless decisive: 22,898 to 13,427.
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That night, Bryant praised “the Christian public and all the citizens of Eugene who worked and voted against legalized immorality.” She encouraged her supporters to “continue to reach out in Godly love to all homosexuals who want deliverance, while opposing at the threshold every attempt of the militant homosexuals to represent their lifestyle as ‘normal’ and to impose it on us and our children.”
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From there, all eyes turned to California, where the fight over the Briggs Initiative (which effectively would have banned self-identifying LGBTQs and their allies from working in public schools) took on even greater significance in the wake of the Eugene vote. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #DanielNicoletta #Resist

Gay Liberation Dance, Charles Street Meeting House, Boston, Massachusetts, May 23, 1970. Photo © N. DeWolf. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #Resist (at Charles Street Meeting House)

“Some of them say that we’re sick, or crazy, and some of them think that we’re the most gorgeous, special things on earth.” – Venus Xtravaganza
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Picture: Venus Xtravaganza (May 22, 1965 – December 21, 1988), center, c. 1988. Photo c/o Queensland Art Gallery. [TW]
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Venus Xtravaganza, who was born fifty-two years ago today, was among the legendary children of the New York City drag ball scene featured in the 1990 documentary “Paris is Burning.” Venus, a trans woman who relied on survival (i.e., sex) work was murdered by a client before the documentary was completed; her death shed light on the ever-present threat of violence faced by trans women, and particularly trans women of color, in America.
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Venus, who left home as a teenager, was accepted into the House of Xtravaganza in 1983, and she quickly made a name for herself in Harlem’s ball culture. In that scene, where, as one writer put it, “the allure of costume, high fashion, status, and wealth combined to form an enveloping world of love and acceptance,” Venus’ ambitions of finding a rich husband were within the status quo. But, as a number of queer theorists point out, Venus articulated her dreams in a way that emphasized the gross inequities faced by trans women of color: “I would like to be a spoiled rich white girl,” she said. “They get what they want, whenever they want it. They don’t have to really struggle with finances, nice things, nice clothes, and they don’t have to have that as a problem.”
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In her 1993 book, “Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex,’” preeminent gender theorist Judith Butler discussed “Paris is Burning” and Venus specifically as illustrative of the performative nature of gender, race, and class; Butler’s work inspired academic criticism that led to an ongoing discussion regarding the painful intersection of norms and prejudices that trans and gender nonconforming people are forced to confront.
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Venus Xtravaganza was killed on December 21, 1988; she was twenty-two. Her murder remains unsolved. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #VenusXtravaganza #TransLivesMatter #Resist

“The U.S. has the resources…to develop treatments which can make AIDS a chronic manageable disease. What’s lacking is the will. President Bush planted a tree for Ryan White. We want leadership and money to fight this war—not symbolism.” – ACT UP ad announcing the Storm the NIH action, Washington Post, May 8, 1990.
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Picture: “WE’RE FIRED UP,” ACT UP members during the Storm the NIH action, Bethesda, Maryland, May 21, 1990. Photo by Bob Daugherty.
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On May 21, 1990, twenty-seven years ago today, over a thousand members of AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP), representing chapters from across the country, staged a massive protest at the Bethesda campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Citing budget cuts and bureaucratic inefficiencies that clearly could be linked to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans (notably, even today, the NIH describes ACT UP as having been “protesting the ALLEGED slow pace of federal research”), ACT UP members occupied the NIH campus, staged a “die-in,” and plastered buildings with signs and banners.
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Organizers provided participants with a list of the group’s fourteen specific demands from the federal government: increased funding in AIDS research; the development of new AIDS treatments; test treatments for all opportunistic infections and cancers; diversify research priorities; begin combination trials; end medical apartheid: open trials to all people infected with HIV; streamline access to pediatric treatments; provide quality clinical care in all studies; conduct research where the need is greatest; announce results as soon as possible; stop secret meetings; restructure task force decision-making; end conflicts of interest; and link funding to performance.
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About a hundred demonstrators were arrested, including twenty-one who broke into the offices of Dr. Daniel Hoth, then-director of NIAID’s Division of AIDS, and a frequent target of ACT UP’s attention.
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Despite limited media coverage at the time, many consider the action to be among ACT UP’s most successful. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #ACTUP #FightBack #Resist (at Bethesda, Maryland)

“GOD IS GENDER NON-CONFORMING,” Trans Day of Action, June 2014. Photo c/o Hollow Sidewalks. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #Sunday

“STOP CRUCIFYING QUEERS – OUTRAGE!,” OutRage protest, London, United Kingdom, c. 1996. Photo by Steve Mayes, c/o OutRage.
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On May 17, 1990, twenty-seven years ago today, the World Health Organization announced its decision to remove homosexuality from the international listing of mental health disorders. In 2004, queer rights organizations from around the world—and specifically those focused on developing countries—sought international recognition of May 17 as a day to draw awareness to the ongoing impact of anti-queer violence, discrimination, and repression.
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On May 17, 2005, twelve years ago today, organizations around the world marked the first International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO).
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In 2009, in order to recognize the ongoing violence and discrimination faced by trans and gender nonconforming people worldwide, “Transphobia” was added to the name of the commemoration. And, increasingly, “Biphobia” is recognized as a threat of equal measure, as is violence against any member of the community.
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In recognition of International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia, we offer the following reminder: to be queer is to be criminal in 72 countries; 13 countries provide the death penalty for same-sex sexual activity (though only 8 countries have implemented the penalty in recent years); in 14 countries, LGBTQIAs face life in prison if discovered; in 52 countries, the penalty can run up to 14 years in prison.
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While 85 countries offer some protections, only 9 states offer constitutional guarantees to protect the queer community; in the vast majority of countries, our community is forced to seek protection from a patchwork system of statutes, case law, and custom. As too many know too well, these so-called protections can be fleeting.
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In recent weeks, the threat of anti-queer discrimination has been made painfully clear through the reports of mass incarcerations, torture, and killing of queer men in Chechnya.
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As Pride season approaches, we urge those fortunate enough to be protected by family, friends, custom, and law to remember: None of us is free until all of us are free. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #Resist #IDAHOT

“This world is for me too, honey. And they have to understand that. I have a right to be here, just like everybody else. See, their problem is: they don’t want you to know about me. Because, first of all, I get too many dicks hard. Simple as that.” – Octavia St. Laurent (March 16, 1964 – May 17, 2009) (pictured c. 1991)
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Octavia St. Laurent (a.k.a. Heavenly Angel Octavia St. Laurent Manolo Blahnik; a.k.a. Octavia St. Laurent Mizrahi), who died eight years ago today, was one of the trans icons of New York City’s underground voguing community, brought to the attention of the mainstream by Jennie Livingston’s seminal 1990 documentary “Paris is Burning.”
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“I want to be somebody,” Octavia told the world. “I mean, I am somebody. I just want to be a rich somebody.”
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Octavia had the distinction of being one of the “Paris is Burning” subjects to live the longest, and her presence in the decades after the documentary was as unapologetically fabulous and queer as any of the film’s ball performances. Among other things, Octavia used her fame—and the consistently-increasing awareness of the film—to speak out about violence, drug addiction, and AIDS in and among queer communities of color.
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In her last interview, Octavia was asked what advice she would give to the legendary children of the future. “Live life,” she said. “Live life and do not take anything for granted. Because what you have today can instantly be gone tomorrow. And don’t settle for nothing but the best.”
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Octavia St. Laurent died of cancer on May 17, 2009; she was forty-five. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #OctaviaStLaurent #Resist

On May 17, 1989, twenty-eight years ago today, Tom Fox, the subject of Michael Schwarz’s photo series “When AIDS Comes Home,” received word that his recent radiation and chemotherapy treatments failed, leaving no other treatment options. Schwarz took this picture seconds after Fox learned the news.
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Tom Fox died on July 11, 1989. Photo c/o @ajcnews. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #NeverForget #NeverAgain #Resist (at Atlanta, Georgia)

202-456-1111
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Call the White House and express, in no uncertain terms, your thoughts on the current president’s vile attack on the rights of your trans siblings: Trans People Are Not A Burden.
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Picture: “WE’RE HERE, WE’RE QUEER, WE HATE THE FUCKING PRESIDENT!,” AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP), New York City, 1990. Photo by Dona Ann McAdams (@leicalola), c/o Bronx Documentary Center. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #Resist

For those in the U.S.: Please call the Senate switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to speak to your state’s senators. Demand they save healthcare. And then call again.
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As Ian Millhiser said: “Thousands of lives can be saved if every ‘yes’ vote has the worst night of their life tonight.”
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Picture: “HEALTH CARE IS A RIGHT” – “LIVING WITH HIV,“ ACT UP member, Chicago, Illinois, June 1991. Photo by Genyphyr Novak, c/o Windy City Media. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #Resist #ActUp #FightBack #FightTrump (at Chicago, Illinois)

National Gay & Lesbian March, Paris, France, June 18, 1983. Photo © Jearld Moldenhauer. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #Resist #BastilleDay (at Paris, France)

“SODOM TODAY, GOMORRAH THE WORLD,” Alan Bray (October 13, 1948 - November 25, 2001), Gay Pride Rally, London, United Kingdom, July 1979. Photo © Terry Waller. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #Resist #LondonPride #Mood (at London, United Kingdom)

“RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS – OUTBREAK OCCURS AMONG MEN IN NEW YORK AND CALIFORNIA—8 DIED INSIDE 2 YEARS,” by Lawrence K. Altman, The New York Times (@nytimes), July 3, 1981.
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Just a month after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) first published a report announcing that five gay men in Los Angeles had died of a rare form of pneumonia, a second CDC report confirmed that the disease—identified as the typically malignant Kaposi’s Sarcoma—was spreading among young gay men beyond California.
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On July 3, 1981, thirty-six years ago today, in what is considered to be the first mainstream coverage of what ultimately became known as HIV/AIDS, the New York Times included a piece on this second CDC report.
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“It said that all the guys had the same history of having had all these sexual diseases: amoebas, hepatitis A and B, mononucleosis, syphilis, and gonorrhea,” Larry Kramer later told Eric Marcus (@makinggayhistorypodcast). “The late 1970s were the years of the amoebas—we forget that. Just as everybody talks about AIDS now, you couldn’t go to a party in the late 1970s without everybody telling an amoeba story. When I saw that article in the Times I was scared because I had had all of those diseases.
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“A few weeks later I had a conversation with Dr. Friedman-Kien from @nyuniversity, who told me in essence, ‘This is what’s happening. You’ve got to stop fucking.’ … As a result of that conversation, Dr. Larry Mass, who had been writing about this new health problem in a local gay paper even before the Times wrote about it, and two other guys—now both dead—and I, invited everyone we knew to come to a meeting here at my apartment.” That meeting resulted in the establishment of @gmhc, the world’s first AIDS service organization.
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Significant mainstream media coverage of the AIDS epidemic did not begin for at least five—and, some would argue, ten—years after the July 1981 article. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #Resist #NeverForget #NeverAgain

“PARADES ARE NOT ENOUGH – QUEER PRIDE—FLAUNT IT EVERY DAY – ACT-UP Madison – QUEER LIBERATION FRONT – PROGRESSIVE STUDENT NETWORK,” Madison, Wisconsin, c. June 1990. Photo c/o @uwmadlibraries.
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As June ends and our community falls off the corporate and media radar, we all should remember the words of Marsha P. Johnson, who increasingly is recognized as the matron saint of the queer liberation movement: “I think that as long as people with AIDS and as long as gay people don’t have their rights…there’s no reason for celebration. That’s how come I walk every year. That’s how come I’ve been walking for gay rights all these years, instead of riding in cars and celebrating everything. Cause you never completely have your rights for one person until you all have your rights.”
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Marsha P. Johnson was a trans woman of color afflicted by untreated mental health issues who often could be found in Sheridan Square asking strangers for money or a date. And Marsha, like too many trans women of color before and after her, was killed without any attention from police.
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We cannot celebrate Marsha in June unless we spend the rest of the year fighting for all those who are not free.
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Parades are not enough.
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In the U.S., forty percent of homeless youth identify as queer. That will be true tomorrow. Black queer men are facing a staggering increase in HIV/AIDS cases. That will be true tomorrow. Trans and gender nonconforming students have been left to fend for themselves. We face employment discrimination, rampant misogyny, police brutality, anti-Semitism, patent racism from within and outside our community, and a government without regard for the law or those who need its protection most. All of this will be true tomorrow. Queer people in Uganda, Nigeria, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Chechnya will have to exist under brutal regimes tomorrow. The list goes on.
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It is our obligation to carry our Pride, and the fight, forward.
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“Cause,” like Marsha said, “you never completely have your rights…until you all have your rights.” #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #Resist (at Madison, Wisconsin)

“Lawmakers in Germany,” the New York Times reports, “voted on Friday to allow same-sex marriage after a brisk but emotional debate in Parliament, setting the stage for the country to join more than a dozen European nations—including Ireland, France and Spain—in legalizing such unions.
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“The measure now goes to the upper house of Parliament for formal approval and then requires the signature of President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, meaning Germany’s first-same sex marriages are on track to be celebrated in the early fall.”
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Photo: “SCHLUß MIT DER UNTERDRÜCKUNG DER 3 mio. HOMOSEXUELLEN! (Eng. transl.: STOP THE OPPRESSION OF 3 MILLION HOMOSEXUALS!),” Gay Parade, Hamburg, Germany, 1983. Photo © James Mitchell. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #Resist (at Berlin, Germany)