December 10 in LGBTQ History

1924: Henry Gerber, a German-born immigrant, receives a charter from the state of Illinois for a nonprofit corporation in Chicago named the Society for Human Rights. It becomes the earliest documented gay rights organization in the United States. Though the organization was intended to be an American equivalent of contemporary German LGBTQ emancipation groups, Gerber is arrested soon after and the society falls apart.

December 9 in LGBTQ History

1975: The Washington Star begins a series on homosexuality in American Sports. Inspired, Washington Redskins linebacker Dave Kopay agrees to come out to the series’ author, Lynn Rosellini.

December 7 in LGBTQ History

1993: In Texas, Williamson County commissioners reverse the previous week’s decision to deny Apple Computer tax breaks for a new facility in the county because of its policy of extending benefits to employees’ same-sex domestic partners. Several of the commissioners, however, continue to express condemnation of “the gay lifestyle.”

December 5 in LGBTQ History

1642: A Massachusetts Bay servant is sentenced to be whipped for “unseemly practices” with another woman in the first documented example of legal prosecution in North America for same-sex relations between women.

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