1969: Gay Power, “New York’s First Homosexual Newspaper” and the first publication to emerge from the post-Stonewall movement, publishes its premiere issue. 1988: ACT UP protests MoMA’s show of graphic photos of people with AIDS by celebrated photographer Nicholas Nixon, who was neither gay nor afflicted. “The artist makes people with AIDS look like freaks, … Read More
1981: Larry Kramer and two friends put up a banner at the Fire Island dock that says “Give to Gay Cancer”. They make only $124. 2011: The United States Department of Health and Human Services issues a finalized guidance memorandum that creates an enforcement mechanism for the policy announced last year by the Obama administration … Read More
1935: New York University professor Dr. Louis W. Max tells a meeting of the American Psychological Association that he has successfully treated a “partially fetishistic” homosexual neurosis with electric shock therapy delivered at “intensities considerably higher than those usually employed on human subjects.” Max’s presentation is the first documented instance of aversion therapy used to … Read More
1907: Dr. Evelyn Hooker is born. Dr. Hooker published the first empirical research to challenge the notion that homosexuality was a mental illness. Her work was the foundation for an entire field of research that led to removal of homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 1967: Dick Michaels, Bill Rand, and Sam … Read More
1970: In New York City, the Rockefeller Five appear in court, but their trial is postponed (charges are later dismissed). Daughters of Bilitis activist Isabel Miller (which is a pseudonym of Alma Routsong) is among the speakers at a rally held after their court appearance. 2011: The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth … Read More
1982: In France, the Age of Consent for same-sex acts is lowered from 21 to 15, the same as for heterosexual acts. 2010: Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker rules that Proposition 8, the 2008 referendum that banned same-sex marriage in California, violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. 2011: President Barack Obama signs a … Read More
1995: After refusing to allow the Gay and Lesbian Association of Zimbabwe to exhibit at a human rights book fair, President Robert Mugabe opens the fair with an attack on lesbians and gay men, saying they are alien to African traditions and that he doesn’t believe “they have any rights at all.” 1996: Representative … Read More
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
2011: The first legal same-sex marriages are performed in the state of New York. New York City records 659 marriages, a one-day record for the city.
1983: In the wake of a House Ethics Committee’s recommendation that he be reprimanded for a consensual sexual affair he had ten years previously with a seventeen-year-old congressional page, Representative Gerry Studds publicly acknowledges his homosexuality, becoming the first member of Congress ever to do so. 2011: California governor Jerry Brown signs the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and … Read More