December 17 in LGBTQ History
1997: In New Jersey, same-sex couples are given the right to jointly adopt children
1997: In New Jersey, same-sex couples are given the right to jointly adopt children
2013: The first official day that LGBTQ couples in Hawaii (both residents as well as tourists) can marry in the Aloha State.
1964: Randy Wicker is a guest on The Les Crane Show, becoming the first openly gay person to appear on national television. Following the show, Wicker is barraged by hundreds of letters from isolated lesbians and gay men across the country.
1979: San Francisco swears in its first openly gay police officers. Within a year, 1 out of every 7 new recruits is LGBT.
1979: The first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights takes place in Washington, DC. Approximately 100,000 people marched in the largest pro-gay rights demonstration up to that time.
1972: M*A*S*H premieres on CBS introducing the world to Corp. Max Klinger, televisions first on-going transvestite (but still heterosexual) character. 1979: California Governor Jerry Brown appoints Stephen M. Lachs to the Los Angeles Superior Court making him the nation’s first openly gay judge. 1986: Arch-Conservative Antonin Scalia joins the U.S. Supreme Court. 2007: The Maryland … Read More
1953: Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Female goes on sale reporting that “2 to 6% of females, aged 20-35, were more or less exclusively homosexual in experience/response.” 1970: In New York City, Gay Activists Alliance stages the first of an orchestrated campaign of “zaps” in protest of continuing police harassment, heckling Mayor John … Read More
1969: West Germany repeals laws prohibiting gay acts between consenting adults-applies to males only as lesbianism was never proscribed by W. German law. 1977: The present-day Log Cabin Republicans organization is founded as the “Gay Republicans” club, a group of lesbians and gays within the United States’ Republican Party. 1979: New Jersey decriminalizes private consensual … Read More
1979: At the start of the Labor Day weekend at the Sri Ram Ashram near Benson, Arizona, the Spiritual Conference for Radical Fairies was organized as a ʺcall to gay brothersʺ by early gay rights advocates Harry Hay, John Burnside, Don Kilhefner, and Mitch Walker. It becomes the birthplace of The Radical Faeries. 2005: In … Read More
1979: At Sarnia, Ontario / Port Huron, Michigan international bridge, lesbians on their way to the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival are harassed or turned back by US Immigration officials. Formal complaints are laid on behalf of Canadian women by American gay organization, the National Gay Task Force.