December 17 in LGBTQ History
1997: In New Jersey, same-sex couples are given the right to jointly adopt children
Tag: 1990
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.
November 6 in LGBTQ History
2012: Washington voters approve Referendum 74 legalizing same-sex marriage.
October 27 in LGBTQ History
1970: To protest a September 1970 Harper’s cover story entitled “The Struggle for Sexual Identity,” in which editor Joseph Epstein had lamented homosexuals as “an affront to our rationality” and homosexuality as “anathema,” Columbia graduate student Pete Fisher stages a sit-in at the magazine’s Park Avenue offices with 40 other Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) members. Although the sit-in does not elicit an official response from the magazine, it leads to GAA’s national Television debut and has an enormous impact on future media coverage of lesbian and gay issues.
October 24 in LGBTQ History
2002: Harry Hay, leader in the early gay rights movement in the United States, co-founder of the Mattachine Society and the Radical Faeries, dies at age 90.
September 4 in LGBTQ History
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
August 18 in LGBTQ History
1990: President George H. W. Bush signs the Ryan White Care Act, a federally funded program for people living with AIDS. Ryan White, an Indiana teenager, contracted AIDS in 1984 through a tainted hemophilia treatment. After being barred from attending school because of his HIV-positive status, Ryan White becomes a well-known activist for AIDS research … Read More
July 31 in LGBTQ History
1940: The German Reich Commissar of the occupied Netherlands territories makes all sexual activities between men illegal. 1965: Lesbian and gay demonstrators picket the Pentagon to protest discrimination in the military. 1969: In New York City, militants separate from the more moderate homophile movement to form a counterculture-inspired group they vote to call the “Gay Liberation Front”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Liberation_Front … Read More
July 26 in LGBTQ History
1989: In a response to politcal outcries over a Robert Mapplethrope exhibit, Jesse Helms leads a fight in the U.S. Scnate to curtail National Endowment for the Arts funding for “obscene or indecent art,” including artworks that depict “sadomasochism, homoeroticism, the exploitation of children, or individuals engaged in sex acts.” The measure is overwhelmingly adopted … Read More
July 18 in LGBTQ History
1966: Around 25 people picket Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco when new management begins using Pinkerton agents and police to harass gay and transgender customers. 1990: Two congregations of the Lutheran Church−both in San Francisco−are suspended for having ordained gay and lesbian pastors.