Historical figures in LGBTQ rights ( other than Milk)

If you ask people about the history of black civil rights in this country you'll get somewhere between 4 and 10 names. If you ask people about the history of Women's civil rights you'll get the same. But if you ask about gay rights or queer rights, you are lucky to get two. This thread is devoted to broadening that number. I hope this thread is worth my time. At least I will read and appreciate it.

Frank Kameny

1. A harvard trained astronomer, he was the first person in 1961 to file an appellate petition contesting his termination by the U.S. Army Map Service /US Civil Service Commission for homosexuality which reached SCOTUS. Of course it was ignored. .http://kamenypapers.org/ "
Yale Law Professor William Eskridge, an expert on the history of gay rights, said the Kameny papers show how the government's reasons for excluding gay rights shifted over time while Kameny's position was consistent. They are the work of the initial protester, strategist and leader of a major social movement, he said.

"Frank Kameny was the Rosa Parks and the Martin Luther King and the Thurgood Marshall of the gay rights movement," Eskridge said.

"That's why it's important that his papers are available because they're the innermost workings of this great strategist and leader — and they're, of course, archival records of the movement itself," he said.

2. He and Barbara Gittings were active in persuading the American Psychiatric Association to delist homosexuality as mental disorder in 1973.

3. He formed the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. , the first gay civil rights organization in Washington, D.C


"

 

Barbara Gittings an early activist and protester in the gay rights movement
1. Founding member of New York chapter of Daughters of Bilitis in 1958
2. She and Kameny successfully lobbied the American Psychiatric Association to delist homosexuality as mental disorder in 1973.
3. Editor of The Ladder, a Lesbian Review
4. Founding member of the gay caucus of the Professional Librarian Assoc. The first such caucus in any professional organization.

 

The two Arthurs: Referring to Arthur Bell and Arthur Evans.

Arthur Bell was a journalist and early member of the Gay Liberation Front .
1. Wrote his first piece for the Village Voice on Stonewall riots in 1969 and continued to write the Bell Tells column including a series on unsolved murders of gays.
2. Founding member of the Gay Activist Alliance
3. author of Dancing the Gay Lib Blues, a personal account of the struggles of the early gay rights movement

Arthur Evans early gay rights activist, philosopher and author.

1. Founding member of the Radical Faeries an anti-assimilationist/ counter cultural movement that rejected hetero- imitationism.
2. Founding member of the Gay Activists Alliance and proponent of 'zaps' ( a zap was a raucous public demonstration designed to embarrass a public figure or celebrity as a tactic which served to draw attention to discrimination)
3. Researched the historical roots of the counterculture , published in 1973
4. wrote seminal work on the influence of misogyny and homophobia on philosophy and logic It was published in 1997 as the Critique of Patriarchal Reason.

 

Sylvia Rivera was self identified Drag Queen, and an early advocate for Transgender rights who concentrated her energies on those under the LGBTQ umbrella who were marginalized as the GAA turned toward mainstream activism including its drag queens, the homeless, the incarcerated, and its people of color and Latina members.


1. Patron of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village who protested police harassment of the gay and trans community in the first documented protest for Gay rights in America



2. Founder of both the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance. Co-founder alongside Marsha Johnson, of the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a group dedicated to helping homeless young drag queens and trans women of color

3. Fought for the New York City Transgender Rights Bill and for a trans-inclusive New York State Sexual Orientation Non Discrimination Act

4.Negotiated transgender inclusion in the political structure and agenda of the ESPA.

5. an active member of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York, Rivera ministered through the Church's food pantry, which provides food to hungry people. and founded a MCC New York's queer youth shelter later renamed Sylvia's PLace

 

Thank you for this. I study up on important people in the LGBT spectrum. Some of these I've not heard of before! I appreciate this.

Side-note - do you also post at another debate politics forum?

 

Rev. Troy Perry is the founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, a Protestant denomination with a special affirming ministry with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities, in Los Angeles on October 6, 1968. He held a seat on the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations in 1973.

1. Perry worked to oppose Anita Bryant 's Save the Children campaign in 1977, that sought to overturn an anti-discrimination ordinance passed by the city of Miami.

2.He fought and beat the Briggs Initiative in California that was written to ensure gay and lesbian teachers would be fired or prohibited from working in California public schools.

3 Perry also planned the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979 with Robin Tyler.[15]

4. In 1970, Rev. Perry, with two friends, Mr. Morris Kight and Rev. Bob Humphries, founded Christopher Street West to hold the first and oldest annual Pride Parade. It is the oldest gay pride parade in the world.

5.Wrote Profiles in Gay and Lesbian Courage published by St. Martin's in 1992. He is a contributing editor for the book Is Gay Good?


6. He was honored by the American Civil Liberties Union Lesbian and Gay Rights Chapter with its Humanitarian Award. and became the first American citizen honored with Cuba's CENESEX award. He holds honorary doctorates from Episcopal Divinity School in Boston,[17] Samaritan College (Los Angeles), and Sierra University in Santa Monica, California for his work in civil rights, and was recently lauded by the Gay Press Association with its Humanitarian Award. Rev. Perry has been invited to the White House on five occasions

 

Phill Wilson founded the Black AIDS Institute in 1999 and served as its CEO and is a prominent African-American HIV/AIDS activist.

1. In 1983 worked as the Director of Policy and Planning for the AIDS Project in Los Angeles and as the AIDS Coordinator for Los Angeles

2.From 1990 to 1995, Wilson served as the co-chair of the Los Angeles HIV Health Commission, 1995, he became a member of the HRSA AIDS Advisory Committee.

3.1999, when he founded the Black AIDS Institute. In 2010, Wilson became appointed to President Obama's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, becoming the co-chair of the disparities subcommittee.

4. He lobbied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide additional funding to African American groups resulting in a 5-year domestic 'Act Against AIDS' campaign that resulted in 14 Blacks organizations, including the National Newspaper Publishers Association, being awarded grants to hire an AIDS coordinator to expand their work.

5.Inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame, winner of the Leadership for a Changing World award by the Ford Foundation, and GLAD Legal Advocates & Defenders’ Spirit of Justice Award.

 

Marsha Johnson an American gay liberation[6][7] activist and self-identified drag queen(Johnson variably identified herself as gay and as a transvestite as well ( nowadays we would call her transgender or gender non-conforming but neither term was in use before she died) and one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall uprising of 1969, she was later deemed unofficially 'the "mayor of Christopher Street'

1.founding member of the Gay Liberation Front.

2. After Drag Queens were banned from inclusion in the 1973 Gay Pride march By gay and lesbian committee, Johnson and several prominent Drag Queens, marched separately ahead, marking a turning point for Trans inclusion in gender non-comforming equality.

3. co-founded the gay and transvestite advocacy organization S.T.A.R. (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) providing food, shelter and clothing to homeless LBGTQ youth of New York.

4.Organizer and marshal with ACT UP.

 

The Original activist,.Oscar Wilde.
https://www.anothermag.com/art-phot...ilde-paved-the-way-for-gay-rights-in-the-arts

 

Oh there are LOTS of options outside the US such as Wilde, but as I originally wrote the OP I was talking specifically about the gay rights movement in this country. Its not a bad idea to broaden it though because there are so many great courageous activists in Europe, Africa, Australia etc. I am beginning to feel constrained.

 

We don't need this it is not necessary. What happened to gay people just wanting to be treated like normal people?

 

They do (because they are normal people ), but what is wrong with remembering the history of the people who were instrumental in moving closer towards that outcome? “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.”

 

You're not talking about remembering history. Remembering history is remembering events not what some random person likes to do in their bedroom.

This is treating gay people as if they are freaks or special or in need of special recognition because you're recognizing someone for their sexuality not for their achievements.

 

The OP literally talked about the history of events in the gay rights movement and the people involved. This has nothing to do with what anyone of them might have done in their bedrooms. Some of the people involved in the gay rights movement won’t have even been homosexual themselves. Please, take off the blinkers and read the thread again.

 

My argument still stands that we don't need this. If we did we would have it.

Your response didn't argue that position.

 

Don’t need what exactly? We don’t need to think about any historical events or individuals but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an interesting and positive thing to do.

The question of whether we still need equal rights campaigning for LGBT isn’t really a relevant question for this thread.

 

LGBT figures.

 

You’re being evasive now.

Are you complaining about other people discussing the historic campaigners? I’d argue they were very much needed in their time but anyway, I don’t see how that objection could be justified, especially given nobody forced you to get involved.

Or are you saying we don’t need such figures today? That is debatable but not directly relevant to this thread either way, which is clearly and specifically about historic figures and events.

 

You're just saying that because I don't meander down irrelevant nonsense.

no.

I don't care.

What do I care?

Since this thread is taking place today yes it is.

 

No, I said it because you were being evasive. You're the one trying to drag the thread off-topic.

So we should never have a general discussion about anything in history if it involves something that isn't relevant in the present day?

 

I'm not being evasive. I don't care about off topic nonsense.

That's a lie. Every post I've made has been about lent figures.

Explain what you mean.

 

Cary Grant and Randolph Scott. Pioneers for Santa Monica Real Estate....

 

@btthegreat ... no, you didn't waste your time by posting. Thank you for it.

 

Your initial dismissive repose to the thread seemed to suggest the entire topic was unnecessary and shouldn’t continue. I don’t see the point in your responding to the thread at all otherwise. Your explanation when I questioned you, your reasoning was apparent that the discussion is happening today and (in your opinion) LGBT equality campaigners are no longer necessary today. I’m extending the same logic to other topics to try to demonstrate why I think it’s flawed. I don’t see a reason not to discuss historic figures and events regardless of the present day situation in that field.

Of course, it’s also possible that you just took an opportunity to make an anti-LGBT comment without really thinking about it and you’re desperately trying to make it look like something more considered and relevant.

 

I am not treating these gay people as 'normal people' because they did not do what normal gay people did. When I google their names, more comes up on their page, than does referencing other gay people of the same era. I don't know that the leaders of most reform movements have been directly asked if they wanted to be remembered 'like normal people' for what they accomplished for their life's work. Historians who documented and ascribed their influence over historical events tended to bypass the question, assuming that when these figures who worked passionately over decades of time, often with some personal or professional sacrifice on the line, probably would appreciate their legacies being preserved and noted. I am treating these movers and shakers of gay rights activism, just like those of the women's rights and African American civil rights movements by describing those legacies here. Insofar as pillars of the gay rights movement have the same egos, the same desire to be credited for their life's work as straight ones have, these gay activists are being treated like normal political activists.

I am not going to entertain the broader question about whether we need this. We have a forum to discuss history, and historical figures are presumed significant in this forum. I had that debate with each of my kids, throughout middle and high school, resenting having to learn about Martin Luther King, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I don't see it as a mature discussion to have.

I don't care if you or anyone else needs it. I don't care if you or anyone elseis uncomfortable or bored. I don't care if it insults the very foundation of your beliefs or your soul is diminished by me posting on this topic in this format. Nobody has to click on these posts. I am dismissing your input and you wrote, from my consideration. Waste of my time. Good day.