November 6 in LGBTQ History
2012: Washington voters approve Referendum 74 legalizing same-sex marriage.
2012: Washington voters approve Referendum 74 legalizing same-sex marriage.
1976: Ads appear in The Advocate for “Gay Weekend”, a board game in which players try to accumulate as many “tricks” as possible
1961: KQED in San Francisco broadcasts The Rejected, the first made-for-television documentary about homosexuality on American television. 1976: California Appeals court upholds lewd conduct convictions of two men arrested for “kissing in public” in a parked car at a freeway rest stop. Both are ordered to register as sex offenders.
1957: The Wolfenden report is published in England. The committee recommends “that homosexual behavior between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offense”. The committee also recommended that the age of consent for sexual acts between men be set at 21, in contrast to 16 for heterosexual and lesbian sex. 1976: Start … Read More
1848: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Co-organizer Lucretia Mott invite several hundred women to Seneca Falls, New York, for the first Women’s Rights Convention. About 100 sign a “Declaration of Sentiments” modeled on the U.S. Declaration of Independence. The document marks the beginning of organized feminism in the United States. 1921: The U.S. Senate Naval Affairs Committee issues … Read More
1919: In Berlin, Magnus Hirschfeld opens the Institute of Sexual Research. 1934: The Hays Code, a self-regulatory code of movie ethics, discouraging filmmakers from including frank depictions of sex and sexuality instituted by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), becomes mandatory. The code is nicknamed after the head of the MPPDA, former … Read More
1894: Alfred Kinsey, biologist and pioneer in the study of human sexuality, is born. 1912: Alan Turing, the father of modern computing and breaker of the Nazi Enigma code is born. 40 years later he is convicted of “gross indecency” by the very government he loyally served and dies by suicide two years after that. 1952: … Read More
1976: West Virginia becomes the sixteenth state to repeal its sodomy statutes. Two weeks later, Iowa becomes the seventeenth. 1982: German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, thirty-six, dies of an overdose of cocaine and tranquilizers in Munich. 2003: Michael Stark and Michael Leshner are wed in Ontario, becoming the first legal same-sex marriage in Canada. … Read More
1610: The Virginia Colony passes the first anti-sodomy law of the American colonial period. 1919: Anders als die Andern (“Different from the Others“), the first pro gay film, premieres in Berlin. Magnus Hirschfeld is a producer and makes a cameo appearance. The movie stars Conrad Veidt. 1953: A Mattachine Foundation circular estimates total membership in the society at … Read More
1966: A coalition of homophile organizations across the country organizes simultaneous demonstrations for Armed Forces Day. The Los Angeles group holds a 15-car motorcade (which has been identified as the nation’s first gay pride parade) and activists hold pickets in the other cities. 1970: Bella Abzug-running for the 19th District congressional seat in New York City-addresses … Read More