1979: David Kloss of San Francisco wins the first annual Mr. International Leather title in Chicago. 1988: The first-ever Conference on Homophobia Education convenes in Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the Campaign to End Homophobia and cosponsored by a number of church groups and national gay rights organizations, the symposium is held to work out strategies … Read More
1971: Andy Warhol’s play Pork opens at the La Mama Experimental Theater in New York City. Among the cast, making his acting debut, is an extremely talented, sixteen-year-old drag queen named Harvey Fierstein. 1981: After customs officials at New York’s JFK Airport find a gay love letter in his luggage, British traveler Phillip Fotheringham is … Read More
1983: Querelle-Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s last film, based on a novel by Jean Genet-opens in New York City. Starring Brad Davis and Jeanne Moreau, the film is almost universally panned by critics. 2011: The United States Department of Labor updates its internal equal employment opportunity policy to bar discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
1966: Members of the Mattachine Society stage a “sip-in” at the Julius Bar in Greenwich Village, where the New York Liquor Authority prohibits serving gay patrons in bars on the basis that homosexuals are “disorderly.” Society president Dick Leitsch and other members announce their homosexuality and are immediately refused service. Following the sip-in, the Mattachine Society … Read More
1965: Following the previous day’s protest in Washington, D.C., twenty-nine ECHO (East Coast Homophile Organization) demonstrators picket the United Nations in New York City. 1973: The Minnesota State House of Representatives votes 69 to 46 to retain the state’s sodomy laws. 1976: Michael Bennett’s “A Chorus Line” sweeps the Tony Awards, winning nine in all, including one for Best … Read More
2006: Ernie Fletcher, governor of the U.S. state of Kentucky, rescinds a 2003 executive order banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in the public sector. 2011: The Maine Human Rights Commission finds that a rental agency that repeatedly delayed an application from a transgender applicant illegally discriminated against her based on her … Read More
1970: Midnight Cowboy wins the Oscar for Best Picture, becoming the first (and only) X-rated film to do so. It is also the first major Hollywood film to feature an onscreen sexual encounter between two men. The film’s director, John Schlesinger, also gay, wins for Best Director. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnFoaj8utio] 1976: Civil rights crusader and U.S. Congresswoman Barbara … Read More
1976: Mayor George Sullivan of Anchorage, Alaska vetoes a municipal civil rights ordinance that would have extended protections in housing and employment to LGBT people, proclaiming that the “people of Anchorage should not be forced to associate with sexual deviates.” 1982: Wisconsin becomes the first U.S. state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual … Read More