2014 - Transwoman Laverne Cox appears on cover of Time Magazine

2014 - Michael Sam becomes first openly gay NFL athlete
2014 - BP Oil Co CEO Lord John Browne comes out as gay

2014 - Martina Navratilova proposes to longtime girlfriend Julia Lemigova at US Open and they marry later the same year

2014 - Openly gay and lesbian athletes at Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia

2014 - Facebook offers 56 different gender options for its users

2014 - United Kingdom and Scotland legalize same-sex marriage

2014 - US Post Office issues Harvey Milk stamp
2014 - Boy Scouts end anti-gay policy and allow gay youth to join
2014 - Apple CEO Tim Cook announces publicly that he is gay

2014 - Ed Murray elected mayor of Seattle, largest US city with gay male mayor

2014 - Oregon, Pennsylvania Illinois, Oklahoma, Virginia, Utah, Indiana, Wisconsin, Colorado, West Virginia, Nevada, North Carolina, Alaska, Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, and South Carolina legalize same-sex marriage

2015 - Florida and Alabama legalize same-sex marriage 

2015 - US Supreme Court declares same-sex marriage legal in United States
2015 - Bruce Jenner (dn) undergoes gender reassignment surgery and becomes Caitlyn Jenner

2015 - Luxemburg and Ireland legalize same-sex marriage

2015 - Oregon and Washington DC ban reparative therapy

2016 - Gallup Poll reports that LGBTQ population is 4.6%, not 10% as previously estimated

2016 - Sen Harris Wofford announces plans to marry a man and becomes first male US Senator to come out

2016 - Eric Fanning is first out gay man appointed US Secretary of Army

2016 - Sarah McBride, MTF transgender person, addresses Democratic National Convention

2016 - Mass shooting at gay bar in Orlando, Florida

2016 - Many openly gay and lesbian athletes at Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2016 - Greenland and Colombia legalize same-sex marriage

2016 - Illinois and Vermont ban reparative therapy

2017 - Donald Trump is elected President, threatening to impede LGBTQ rights

2017 - Ines Rau is first transgender Playboy model

2017 - Finland, Malta, Germany, and Australia legalize same-sex marriage

2017 - Transwoman Danica Roem elected to public office in Virginia

2017 - New Mexico, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Nevada ban reparative therapy

2018 - India decriminalizes homosexuality

2018 - Angela Ponce is first transgender person to compete in Miss Universe pageant

2018 - Minnesota, Oregon, California, Colorado, Maine, and DC issue non-binary driver's licenses

2018 - New York adds third gender option to birth certificates

2018 - Record number of LGBTQ candidates run for and are elected to US Congress

2018 - Sharice Davids (Kan-Dem) is first Native American lesbian elected to Congress

2018 - Washington, Hawaii, Delaware, and Maryland ban reparative therapy

2019 - Large number of LGBTQ-themed movies nominated at Academy Awards

2019 - Lori Lightfoot is first gay black female to become mayor of Chicago

2019 - President Trump bans transgender troops from the US military

2019 - Indya Moore becomes first trans cover model for Elle Magazine

2019 - Taiwan and Austria legalize same-sex marriage

2019 - New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Maine, and Colorado ban reparative therapy

2019 - Record number of cases of violence to and murder of transgender people

2019 - Pete Buttigeig becomes first US presidential candidate who is openly gay

2019 - 50th anniversary of Stonewall Riots is commemorated worldwide with unprecedented coverage

2019 - Valentina Sampaio becomes first openly transgender model for Victoria's Secret

2019 - New Jersey, Colorado, Oregon, and Illinois mandate LGBTQ curriculum in public schools

How Stonewall Riots Sparked a Movement

Video: Overview of 20th Century LGBTQ History

Book Riot: Books About LGBTQ History

Important LGBTQ Moments in US History

Wanda Sykes: Overview of LGBTQ History

Brief History of Queer Political Action

Worldwide History of LGBTQ Rights | 1790-Present

A Movement Caught Hold and Has Never Let Go

Info: Archaic Language and Images

Video Lesson: Living History of the LGBTQ Movement

Vintage Photos of LGBTQ Couples
 

Decades of Coming Out

Coming Out in the 1950s

Coming Out in the 1960s

Coming Out in the 1970s

Coming Out in the 1980s

LGBTQ Historical Figures Born Before 1900

1891-1964 - Cole Porter, American Composer and Songwriter

1882-1941 - Virginia Woolf, British Novelist and Essayist

1879-1970 - EM Forster, British Novelist

1877-1967 - Alice B. Toklas, Writer

1874-1946 - Gertrude Stein, Writer, Novelist, Poet

1873-1947 - Willa Cather, American Novelist

1854-1900 - Oscar Wilde, Irish Playwright and Poet

1840-1893 - Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian Composer

1830-1886 - Emily Dikinson, American Poet

1825-1895 - Karl-Heinrich Ulrichs, Father of LGBTQ Movement

1819-1892 - Walt Whitman, American Poet

1788-1824 - Lord Byron - British Poet

1712-1786 - Frederick the Great, King of Prussia

1672-1725 - Peter the Great, Russian Czar

1564-1593 - Christopher Marlowe, English Playwright
1561-1626 - Sir Francis Bacon, British Philosopher and Scientist

1475-1564 - Michelangelo, Italian Artist
1452-1519 - Leonardo Da Vinci, Italian Artist and Scientist

LGBTQ Historical Figures in Ancient Times

76-138 CE - Hadrian, Roman Emperor

70-17 BCE - Virgil, Roman Poet

356-323 BCE - Alexander the Great, Macedonian Ruler

384-322 BCE - Aristotle, Greek Philosopher

469-399 BCE - Socrates, Greek Philosopher

427-347 BCE - Plato, Greek Philosopher

620-560 BCE - Sappho, Greek Poet

1010-961 BCE - David, King of Israel

LGBTQ Historical Overview

Fight for LGBTQ Rights Throughout History

Video List: Famous LGBTQ Folk

Stonewall Forever: Past, Present, and Future Pride

Gay History Quiz

Gay Kings and Queens of Europe

Historical Locations

Independence Hall, Philadelphia / Gay and Lesbian Protest Movement 1965...
Activists led by Barbara Gittings started some of the first picket lines here. These protests continued on and off until 1969. Gittings went on to run the Gay and Lesbian Task Force of the American Library Association for 15 years.

The Stonewall Inn, New York City / Birthplace of Modern Gay Rights Movement 1969...
For the first time, a group of gay men and drag queens fought back against police during a raid on this small bar in Greenwich Village, on Christopher Street. The place is now a national historic landmark.

Castro Street, San Francisco / Mecca for LGBTQ Community Since 1970s ...
When it comes to historic landmarks, Castro Street (and Castro District) was an oasis of hopefulness. Home to the first openly gay elected official Harvey Milk and the legendary Castro Theater, this urban location remains iconic to the LGBTQ community.

Cambridge City Hall, Massachusetts / Site of First Same-Sex Marriage in US History 2004...
In the years following this event, attempts by religious groups in the area to ban it have been stifled and many more states have joined Massachusetts. In 2015, the US Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage legal nationwide.

Stonewall Forever: Past, Present, and Future Pride

Wikipedia: Stonewall Riots (New York)

Video: Story of Stone Wall Inn and Stonewall Riots

Stonewall Riots: Beginning of the LGBTQ Movement

Gay Jesters Who Inspired LGBTQ Activism in the 1950s

How Stonewall Riots Sparked a Movement

Brief History of Queer Political Action

Things You Missed in History: What Was the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot?

Wikipedia: Compton’s Cafeteria Riot (San Francisco)

Before the Riot at Stonewall, There Was a Sit In at Dewey's

Stonewall Riots

June 28, 1969

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the LGBTQ community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. They are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States.

Gay Americans in the 1950s and 1960s faced an anti-gay legal system. Early homophile groups in the US sought to prove that gay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. The last years of the 1960s, however, were very contentious, as many social movements were active, including the African American Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and antiwar demonstrations. These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots.

Very few establishments welcomed openly gay people in the 1950s and 1960s. Those that did were often bars, although bar owners and managers were rarely gay. At the time, the Stonewall Inn was owned by the Mafia. It catered to an assortment of patrons and was known to be popular among the poorest and most marginalized people in the gay community: drag queens, transgender people, effeminate young men, butch lesbians, male prostitutes, and homeless youth. Police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, but officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn. They attracted a crowd that was incited to riot. Tensions between New York City police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening, and again several nights later. Within weeks, Village residents quickly organized into activist groups to concentrate efforts on establishing places for gays and lesbians to be open about their sexual orientation without fear of being arrested.

After the Stonewall riots, gays and lesbians in New York City faced gender, race, class, and generational obstacles to becoming a cohesive community. Within six months, two gay activist organizations were formed in New York, concentrating on confrontational tactics, and three newspapers were established to promote rights for gays and lesbians. Within a few years, gay rights organizations were founded across the US and the world. On June 28, 1970, the first Gay Pride marches took place in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago commemorating the anniversary of the riots. Similar marches were organized in other cities. Today, Gay Pride events are held annually throughout the world toward the end of June to mark the Stonewall riots.

Stonewall Forever: Past, Present, and Future Pride

Info: Famous LGBTQ People

Wikipedia: Stonewall Riots (New York)

Video: Story of Stonewall Inn and Stonewall Riots

Stonewall Riots: Beginning of the LGBTQ Movement

Info: Archaic Language and Images

How Stonewall Riots Sparked a Movement

The Homophile Movement

1950s - 1960s
 

In 1950, Harry Hay formed the Mattachine Society in New York and Washington DC. Other organizations such as One Incorporated (formed in 1952) and the Daughters of Bilitis (formed in 1955 in NY) soon followed. By 1954, the monthly sales of One Magazine peaked at 16,000. In 1956, the Daughters of Bilitis began publishing The Ladder. Homophile organizations elsewhere included Arcadie (1954) in France and the British Homosexual Law Reform Society (founded 1958).
 

By the mid-1960s, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people in the United States were forming more visible communities, and this was reflected in the political strategies of American homophile groups. From the mid-1960s, they engaged in picketing and sit-ins, identifying themselves in public space for the first time. The Janus Society formed in 1962 in Philadelphia.  Formed in 1964, the San Franciscan Society for Individual Rights (SIR) had a new openness and a more participatory democratic structure. SIR was focused on building community, and sponsored drag shows, dinners, bridge clubs, bowling leagues, softball games, field trips, art classes and meditation groups. In 1966, SIR opened the nation's first gay and lesbian community center, and by 1968 they had over 1000 members, making them the largest homophile organization in the country. The world's first gay bookstore had opened in New York the year before. A 1965 gay picket held in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, according to some historians, marked the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. Meanwhile, in San Francisco in 1966, transgender street prostitutes in the poor neighborhood of Tenderloin rioted against police harassment at a popular all-night restaurant, Gene Compton's Cafeteria. These and other activities of public resistance to oppression lead to a feeling of Gay Liberation that was soon to give a name to a new movement.

 
In 1963, homophile organizations in New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC joined together to form East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO) to more closely coordinate their activities. The success of ECHO inspired other homophile groups across the country to explore the idea of forming a national homophile umbrella group. This was done with the formation in 1966 of the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO). NACHO held annual conferences, helped start dozens of local gay groups across the country and issued position papers on a variety of LGBTQ-related issues. It organized national demonstrations, including a May 1966 action against military discrimination that included the country's first gay motorcade. Through its legal defense fund, NACHO challenged anti-gay laws and regulations ranging from immigration issues and military service to the legality of serving alcohol to homosexuals. NACHO disbanded after a contentious 1970 conference at which older members and younger members, radicalized in the wake of the 1969 Stonewall riots, clashed. That convention became the battle that ended the homophile movement.

Homophile Movement

Making History: The Homophile Movement

One Incorporated

Out History: Homophile Movement

Cornell Library: Homophile Movement

Lavender Scare

1950s

The lavender scare refers to a witch hunt and the mass firings of homosexual people in the 1950s from the United States government. It contributed to and paralleled the anti-communist campaign known as McCarthyism and the Red Scare. Gay men and lesbians were said to be security risks and communist sympathizers, which led to the call to remove them from federal employment.

Former US Senator Alan Simpson has written: "The so-called 'Red Scare' has been the main focus of most historians of that period of time. A lesser-known element and one that harmed far more people was the witch-hunt McCarthy and others conducted against homosexuals."

In 1950, the same year that Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed 205 communists were working in the State Department, Undersecretary of State John Peurifoy said that the State Department had allowed 91 homosexuals to resign. On April 19, 1950, the Republican National Chairman Guy George Gabrielson said that "sexual perverts who have infiltrated our Government in recent years" were "perhaps as dangerous as the actual Communists.” The danger was not solely because they were gay. The homosexuals were considered to be more susceptible to blackmail and thus were labeled as security risks. McCarthy hired Roy Cohn (who would later die of AIDS and was accused of being a closeted homosexual) as chief counsel of his Congressional subcommittee. Together, McCarthy and Cohn (with the enthusiastic support of the FBI head, J. Edgar Hoover) were responsible for the firing of scores of gay men and women from government employment and strong-armed many opponents into silence using rumors of their homosexuality. In 1953, during the final months of the Truman administration, the State Department reported that it had fired 425 employees for allegations of homosexuality.

McCarthy often used accusations of homosexuality as a smear tactic in his anti-communist crusade, often combining the Red Scare with the Lavender Scare. On one occasion, he went so far as to announce to reporters, "If you want to be against McCarthy, boys, you've got to be either a Communist or a cocksucker." At least one recent history has argued that, in linking communism and homosexuality and psychological imbalance, McCarthy was employing guilt-by-association if evidence for communist activity was lacking.

In 1953 President Dwight Eisenhower signed an executive order which set security standards for federal employment and barred homosexuals from working in the federal government. The restrictions set in place were cause for hundreds of gay people to be forcibly outed and fired from the State Department. The executive order was also the cause for the firing of approximately 5,000 gay people from federal employment. Not only did the victims lose their jobs, but also they were forced out of the closet and thrust into the public eye as lesbian or gay.

It was not until 1973 that a federal judge ruled that a person's sexual orientation alone could not be the sole reason for termination from federal employment, and not until 1975 that the US Civil Service Commission announced that they would consider applications by gays and lesbians on a case by case basis. Eisenhower’s executive order stayed partly in effect until 1995 when President Bill Clinton rescinded the order.

Lavender Scare: Notes, History, Overview

CBS Sunday Morning: The Lavender Scare

Washington Post: Gay Rights Pioneer Frank Kameny

LGBTQ History: Frank Kameny

IMDB: Lavender Scare Movie

Remembering the Legacy of Frank Kameny

Roger Ebert Review: Lavender Scare

PBS: Lavender Scare Film

Frank Kameny: Grandfather of Gay Rights Movement

Lavender Scare: How US Government Purged Gay Employees

The Documentary Film: The Lavender Scare

Lavender Scare: Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians by US Government

Frank Kameny: American Gay Rights Activist

Rotten Tomatoes 100%: Lavender Scare Documentary

Hero: Frank Kameny

1925–2011

Frank Kameny was an American gay rights activist. He has been referred to as "one of the most significant figures" in the gay rights movement and “the first and most influential members” of the gay rights movement. He is sometimes called the “grandfather of the gay rights movement.”

In 1957, Kameny was dismissed from his position as an astronomer in the US Army's Army Map Service in Washington, DC because of his homosexuality, leading him to begin "a Herculean struggle with the American establishment" that would "spearhead a new period of militancy in the homosexual rights movement of the early 1960s."

Kameny formally appealed his firing by the US Civil Service Commission due to homosexuality. Although unsuccessful, the proceeding was notable as the first known civil rights claim based on sexual orientation pursued in a US court.

In 1961 Kameny and Jack Nichols, fellow co-founder of the Washington, DC branch of the Mattachine Society, launched some of the earliest public protests by gays and lesbians with a picket line at the White House on April 17, 1965. In coalition with New York's Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, the picketing expanded to target the United Nations, the Pentagon, the US Civil Service Commission, and Philadelphia's Independence Hall for what became known as the Annual Reminder for gay rights. Kameny also wrote to President Kennedy asking him to change the rules on homosexuals being purged from the government.

In 1963, Kameny and Mattachine launched a campaign to overturn DC sodomy laws. He personally drafted a bill that finally passed in 1993. He also worked with Barbara Gittings to remove the classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder from the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

In 1971, Kameny became the first openly gay candidate for US Congress when he ran in the District of Columbia's first election for a non-voting Congressional delegate. Following his defeat by Democrat Walter Fauntroy, Kameny and his campaign organization created the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Washington, DC, an organization which continues to lobby government and press the case for equal rights.

Famous LGBTQ People

LGBTQ Celebrity Couples

Famous LGBTQ People in Science and Technology

LGBTQ Arts, Culture, and Entertainment

Famous LGBTQ People in Sports and Athletics

LGBTQ Leisure and Recreation

Famous LGBTQ Politicians

LGBTQ Movie Stars

LGBTQ Television Stars

Homophobe: Anita Bryant

1970s

Anita Bryant was a singer, beauty queen, and celebrity spokesperson who became best known for her work in favor of bigotry against gays and lesbians. She was born and raised in Oklahoma by an extremely religious family. From early on she was a singer and she sang on stage at local fairgrounds. Eventually, she sang on radio and television.

Bryant won first prize on the Arthur Godfrey talent show and had her first minor hit song when she was 16 years old. At 18, she won the Miss Oklahoma beauty pageant, and she was second runner-up for Miss America. In 1959 and 1960, she had three million-selling singles. She eventually vanished from the pop charts, but released several albums of Christian music.

Projecting a wholesome, maternal image, Bryant plugged Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, Holiday Inn, and Tupperware in assorted TV, billboard, and magazine ad campaigns. Her most famous celebrity endorsement deal began in 1968, when she sang an upbeat jingle in commercials for the Florida Citrus Commission, closing each ad with their tag line, "A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine."

By the mid-1970s, Bryant was also a celebrity spokesperson for Christ, singing Christian music and writing books offering inspirational advice. Her popular books contained strong Christian themes applied to parenting and cooking. She won the "Most Admired Woman in America" poll in Good Housekeeping.

Then, in 1977, Bryant became obsessed when Miami-Dade County added an amendment to its human rights ordinance, making it illegal to discriminate in housing, employment, loans, and public accommodations based on "affectional or sexual preference." Announcing, "I will lead such a crusade to stop it as this country has not seen before", she founded Save Our Children. As the group's name implies, Bryant's central (and ludicrous) argument was her fear that children would be molested or converted by gay perverts. "As a mother," she famously explained, "I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children, therefore, they must recruit our children."

Bryant's religious activism drew many followers, and within a year the law was repealed, making it legal again to fire workers, deny people housing, or refuse their business based on how and with whom consenting adults have sex. Celebrating her victory in a sound bite that aired nationwide, Bryant promised she would "seek help and change for homosexuals, whose sick and sad values belie the word 'gay' which they pathetically use to cover their unhappy lives."

Even after the local amendment was repealed, Bryant fanned the flames with speaking tours that made her a national spokesperson against "homosexual rights." She was the star attraction at rallies that led to the repeal of gay rights in numerous cities, and she went to California to support the Briggs Initiative in 1978, which failed, but would have banned homosexuals or anyone advocating the "gay lifestyle" from teaching in public schools. "I don't hate the homosexuals," she wrote in a fundraising letter. "But as a mother, I must protect my children from their evil influence."
 

Not surprisingly, Bryant's outspoken activism inspired the gay rights movement like nothing since Stonewall. The gay community referred to her as "Hurricane Anita." The response included pickets, petitions, and a boycott of Florida orange juice, which led the Citrus Commission to let her endorsement contract lapse.

Gay bars all over North America stopped serving screwdrivers and replaced them with the "Anita Bryant Cocktail", which was made with vodka and apple juice. Sales and proceeds went to gay rights activists to help fund their fight against Bryant and her campaign.

By this time, gay activists ensured that the boycott on Florida orange juice had become more prominent and it was supported by many celebrities, including Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Paul Williams, Dick Clark, Vincent Price, John Waters, Carroll O'Connor, Linda Lavin, Mary Tyler Moore, Charles Schulz, Billie Jean King, and Jane Fonda.

She was one of the first political figures to have a pie thrown in her face in protest to her activism ("At least it was a fruit pie," she said). Her record and book sales declined, she sold her 33-room mansion, and her marriage ended in divorce. She eventually declared bankruptcy.

In 1998, Miami-Dade County reinstated human rights protections for gays and lesbians. Five years later, the Christian Coalition backed a county-wide effort to repeal the law, but lost.

To this day, the gay community continues to regard Bryant's name as synonymous with bigotry and homophobia.

NNDB: Anita Bryant Profile

NNDB: Homophobia List

Wikipedia: Anita Bryant Biography

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