Challenging and Changing America: The Struggle for LGBTQ Civil Rights 1900-1999

This timeline was created in 1998-1999 for the exhibition, Challenging and Changing America. It has been revised and updated for publication in 2018.

Challenging and Changing America
The Struggle for
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender
Civil Rights 1900-1999

INTRODUCTION
Challenging and Changing America
The Struggle for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Civil Rights
1900-1999

As many of us know from history the Pink Triangle was used by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis) to mark homosexual men in the concentration camps of Europe. The Black Triangle was used to mark Lesbians as asocial. In the late 1970s Gay and Lesbian activists reclaimed the Pink and Black Triangle and these were worn pointed up to show not only pride but a reminder of oppression and our victory over the oppressors.

These two symbols are used on the front of this publication to remind us that even though many of our stories have been of oppression and setbacks, that we as a people, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and the many others who find a home under our umbrella have strongly defended our right to exist and to exist freely no matter what the obstacles or barricades straight society has thrown up. We stand up, out and proud! This timeline proves that we as a people will continue to do so. We turn the Pink and Black Triangles point up! The timeline is dedicated to all of our people. To our people who dare to say no and by doing so say yes to life and to establishing and building a more just society for all.
This timeline celebrates our victories and our peoples as we have thrown off the straight jackets, the reading between the lines, the masks and the fears that society has placed on us. We move forward, regardless of any setbacks, for we as a people are strong. We continue to move forward now and loudly proclaim, “We Are Not Going Back!”
We in America today must consider and understand that we are living in a very divisive and hostile state due to our current political climate that indeed all of our “yesterdays could become our todays” with a stroke of a pen. A deep understanding of where we have come from is important as we again face these adversities, fight back and yes win. We have to, and if our stories from the past are any indication of our response to times such as these, we will.

I want to leave you with these words, words that ring as true today as they were when spoken in 1990. I never met Gloria Martin, a Revolutionary, Socialist, Feminist but through comrades have come to respect and admire her. At 74 Martin was elected organizer for Radical Women in Seattle and in an interview with the Seattle Times Martin said, “We have to fight for survival issues-better pay, benefits, abortion rights, child care. But we have to go further. We have to change the system, because as long as the system is the same, we’ll be fighting all our lives for the same thing. When people have had enough, revolution can happen suddenly.”

The first timeline was created as a part of The Connecticut Stonewall Foundation’s exhibition, Challenging and Changing America: The Struggle for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Civil Rights 1900-1999 held at the Hartford Public Library in October and November 1999. The Timeline created a conversation with the archival material on view in the exhibition. This work highlights many important events in our community in Hartford, the state of Connecticut, across America and throughout the world. Important events that helped to challenge and change ourselves, our movement and the world in which we live. The timeline is only some of the important events of our people as we have struggled and have been triumphant in our quest for equality, justice and liberation.

The timeline in booklet form was first created by Rutherford Wittus curator of the Literary and Natural History Collection at the Dodd Research Center, the University of Connecticut for the exhibition, Challenge and Change. This was a continuation of the original exhibition with additions from the holdings of the university library and curated by Mr. Wittus.

The timeline was again published for an exhibition at Central Connecticut State University by the staff of The Elihu Burritt Library under the direction of Frank Gagliardi, Associate Director of Library Services.

The current timeline is updated and additions to the original timeline are made in 2018. Information that was not available in 1998 when the timeline was first created by Richard Nelson of The Connecticut Stonewall Foundation have been added for this printing. Information that creates a conversation within and between the years in the timeline. It is the hope of the author that any and all information that becomes available will be added in future printings and that this timeline will inspire all of our people and allies to continue this important work.
Richard Nelson, Hartford Ct. 2018

Challenging and Changing America
The Struggle for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Civil Rights 1900-1999

1900: Russian born anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman takes a strong public stance in support of Oscar Wilde. When asked how she could dare to come out in support of Wilde in Puritanical America she replied, “Nonsense no daring is needed to protest great injustice!” She also speaks out in support of the rights of homosexuals. Goldman had to fight to defend her Gay liberation views against her anarchist comrades, who feared that open support of homosexuality would harm their cause.

1903: The first recorded raid on a Gay bathhouse, the Ariston Hotel Baths, is conducted in New York City. Twenty-six men were arrested and 12 brought to trial on sodomy charges: Seven men received sentences ranging from four to twelve years in prison.

1903: Mabel Hampton was born in North Carolina. As a young women she performed with an all-black female ensemble as a singer and dancer at Coney Island. At Coney Island she met an older woman who introduced her to the word Lesbian. Although she fooled around with women before, this was the moment when she realized their was a word for her desires and for people like her.  Mabel move on from Coney Island to the bigger and better stages in Harlem the center of New York Nightlife and began performing at the Garden of Eden and the Lafayette Theater. Her girlfriend at this time was the dancer Ethel Williams. In 1932 Mabel met the love of her life Lillian Foster and the two lived together in the Bronx until Lillian’s death in 1978. In 1985 Mabel was named Grand Marshall of the New York Pride Parade and said at that time: ” I Mabel Hampton, have been a lesbian all my life, for eighty-two years, and I am proud of myself and my people. I would like all my people to be free in this country nd all over the world, my gay people and my black people. Mabel Hampton died in 1989 and donated her personal papers and the papers of Lillian Foster to the Lesbian Her Story Archives.

1906: The first openly gay novel, with a happy ending, Imre, A Memorandum by American born author Edward Prime-Stevenson is published in Naples, Italy. The couple in the novel are happy and united when the novel ends. Critics have said, “This is the frankest and most affirming homosexual novel in the 1st decade of the century, noting that it reflects an interest in Gay history as well as the two men have a long conversation about great earlier homosexuals.”

1912: Bayard Rustin is born on March 17th. He became a leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence and gay rights during his life time. He was a leader in the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the War Resisters League and active in the 1941 March on Washington Movement to press for an end to discrimination in employment and in 1947 he initiated a Freedom Ride to challenge with civil disobedience the racial segregation issue related to interstate busing. He was arrested in Pasadena California in 1953 for sexual activity with another man in a parked car and after that his sexuality and the criminal charges were criticized by fellow pacifists and civil rights leaders and he was attacked as a pervert by political opponents from segregationists to conservative black leaders forcing him to serve as a behind the scenes advisor to civil rights leaders and others. The Fellowship of Reconciliation fired him after his conviction and he then became the executive secretary of the War Resisters League.  Rustin became a chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In 1972 he became an honorary chairperson of the Socialist Party of America and acted as the chairperson of the Social Democrats, USA. In the 1980s he became a public advocate on behalf of gay and lesbian causes and in 1986 gave a speech on behalf of the New York State’s Gay Rights Bill. Rustin served on many humanitarian missions and at the time of his death in 1987 he was on a humanitarian mission in Haiti.

1913: Members of Heterodoxy, a feminist club in New York City for “unorthodox women” meets regularly at Polly’s, a restaurant run by anarchist Polly Holladay. It becomes a hangout for notable Lesbians and feminist women. Emma Goldman a friend of Polly’s is a frequent visitor. It is noted that the club was where women intended to “simply be ourselves, not just our little female selves, but our whole big human selves” Their purpose was self-development as contrasted with self-sacrifice or submergence in family.

1913: Emma Goldman, referred to as “Red Emma” speaks in Hartford February 12th. She talks about love and marriage and stated how marriage-maintained Capitalism. More than 500 people attended the lecture at Hartford’s Columbia Hall. She told the audience that love only comes “from a union between two people and the sanction of the church or law cannot make it a bit more scared or holy.” In talking about Marriage vs. Free Love Goldman had this to say, “Free Love? As if love is anything but free it can live in no other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely.” Marriage on the other hand, “incapacitates (a woman) for life’s struggles, annihilates her social consciousness, paralyzes her imagination.”

1916: A moral reform organization known as the Committee of Fourteen Periodically investigates the Drag Balls being held in Harlem. The committee released 130 reports describing its visits and demanding that such “perversion must desist.” During this period and throughout the 1920s the police, politicians and mainstream society found themselves simply unable to suspend the ball scenes. The patrons rather than abandoning the scene fought for change and opportunity.

1917: The Bolshevik revolution sweeps away centuries-old standards of sexual conduct. Two months after coming to power the Bolsheviks struck down all laws governing sexual conduct. This early Soviet policy stated, “Absolute non-inference into sexual matters.” Revolutionary delegates play a leading role in the World Congress of Sexual Reform, an organization committed to Gay rights organized by Magnus Hirschfield.

1917: Alan J. Hart who was born in 1880 begins his transition from female to male. He is the first documented case in the United States. Hart’s surgery was completed at the University of Oregon Medical School over the 1917–1918 winter vacation. He then legally changed his name. In 1925 Hart married his second wife, Edna Ruddick; the union lasted until the end of Hart’s life. In 1925 Hart moved to the Trudeau School of Tuberculosis in New York, where he also carried out postgraduate work; he spent 1926–1928 as a clinician at the Rockford TB sanatorium in Illinois. In 1928 Hart obtained a master’s degree in Radiology from the University of Pennsylvania; he was in 1929 appointed Director of Radiology at Tacoma General Hospital. During the 1930s the couple moved to Idaho, where Hart worked during the 1930s and early 1940s; his work also took him to Washington, where he held a research fellowship as a roentgenologic in Spokane. During the war Hart was also a medical adviser at the Army Recruiting and Induction headquarters in Seattle, while Edna worked for the King County Welfare Department in the same city. In 1948, after Hart obtained a master’s degree in public health from Yale, the couple moved to Connecticut, where Hart had been appointed Director of Hospitalization and Rehabilitation for the Connecticut State Tuberculosis Commission. The couple lived for the rest of their lives in West Hartford, Connecticut, where Edna became a professor at the University of Hartford. After the Second World War synthetic testosterone became available in the US, and for the first time Hart was able to grow a beard and shave. He also developed a deeper voice, making him more confident and his public appearances easier. Alongside his medical practice and research, Hart pursued a second career as a novelist. Hart died in Connecticut in 1962 of heart failure.

1919: The Institute for Sexual Research is opened in Berlin and is run by Gay rights campaigner Magnus Hirschfeld. The word Transsexual was coined here, and people could receive counseling services. Dr. Hirschfeld was consulted on the first modern day sexual reassignment surgery that of Lili Elbe. Connected to the Institute was the Scientific Humanitarian Committee a group of Scientists and LGBT people who promoted LGBT civil rights. This group along with others in Germany sought to repeal Paragraph 175.

1919: Different from The Others, one of the first explicitly Gay films is released. Magnus Hirschfeld has a cameo role in the film and partially funded its production. The film was a polemic against the current laws under Germany’s Paragraph 175. A short time after its premier conservative religious and right-wing groups begin to disrupt public showings of the film. In 1920 legislators approved specific censorship provisions and banned public screenings of the film. The law stated that the film showed bias against Paragraph 175, confused young adults, and could be used as a recruitment of young people. When the Nazis came to power the film was one of many so called “decadent” works and was burned. Only one early copy of the original film exists but other copies have been made and shown at LGBT Film Festivals.

1919: Emma Goldman is deported to Russia under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover who labeled her “one of the most dangerous women in America.”

1920: Drag Balls which began in 1869 at Hamilton Lodge, Harlem began to gain more public visibility and were frequented by many Gay men and Lesbian women as well as straight people. These balls help to pave the way for an establishment of a queer culture.

1923: Emma Goldman writes a major article for the German Yearbook for Sexual Intermediate Types defending gay rights and discussing Oscar Wilde and French anarchist and poet Louise Michel alleged to be a Lesbian. While excoriating society for its persecution of Gays, Goldman also denounced the sexism of those who assumed a woman to be a Lesbian simply because she did not fit men’s “shopworn requirements of womanhood.”

1923: On a Grey Thread is written by Elsa Gidlow, freelance journalist, poet and philosopher. The book is considered to be the first volume of openly Lesbian love poetry published in North America. In the 1950s Gidlow helps to found Druid Heights a bohemian community in Marin Country California and popular meeting place for three countercultural movement, the Beats, the Hippies and the Women’s movement. Due to her membership in political and writers’ groups allegedly affiliated with communists she was investigated, subpoenaed and forced to testify at the House Un-American Activities Committee. Being an Anarchist, she denied that she was a communist. In 1977 Gidlow appeared in Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives where she openly discusses her life as a Lesbian. Gidlow’s autobiography, Elsa, I come with My Songs: The Autobiography of Elsa Gidlow, is published in 1986 and she gives a detailed account of seeking, finding and creating a life with other Lesbians. This book is published right before her death in 1986.

1924: The Society for Human Rights is founded in Chicago by Henry Gerber. The Society received a charter from the state of Illinois and produced the first publication for homosexuals, Friendship and Freedom. The society had originally seven members but had difficulty in interesting anyone other than poorer gays and was unable to gain any financial support from the more affluent members of Chicago’s Gay community. A few months after receiving its charter the Society ceased to exist in the wake of the arrests of several of its members.

1925: Eve’s Hangout a speakeasy in the West Village in New York City where, “men were admitted but not welcomed” was run by Eve Adams a gender blending pseudonym for Eve Kotchever, a Jewish immigrant who opened the Lesbian speakeasy and tea room. Weekly poetry readings, musical performances and salons where sexual topics were freely discussed were held. A number of radical activists frequented the tea room. In 1926 a female undercover officer entered the tea room where Eve was showing her collection of short stories she was writing called Lesbian Love. Eve was arrested on the charge of disorderly conduct and for allegedly making homosexual advances toward the officer. Her manuscript along with other objectionable books was seized as obscene material. Eve was sentenced to a year in the workhouse and deported to Poland in 1926.

1926: The Captive or La Prisonniere a play by Edouard Bourdet was among the first Broadway plays to deal with Lesbianism. In the play Irene is a Lesbian tortured by her love for Madame d’Aiguines but pretending engagement to Jacques. Irene attempts to leave Madame d’Aiguines and marry Jacques she returns to the relationship saying that is “a prison to which I must return captive, despite myself. Madame d’Aiguines is not seen in the play but leaves nosegays of violets for Irene as a symbol of her love. The play was shut down after 160 performances and prompted the adoption of a state law dealing with obscenity, threatening producers, playwright, actors and actresses with arrests and threatening theaters with the padlocking of their doors for one year. In February police marched on the stage during a performance and arrested the cast of the play. The cast are released after the attorney agreed to withdraw the play from the stage. On the same night Mae West and the cast of her play Sex were arrested and taken to jail. In Europe the play set records for attendance and was met with no threats.

1927: Mae West’s play The Drag opens in Bridgeport. The Drag subtitled A Homosexual Comedy in Three Acts and written under the pseudonym Jane Mast is about the cost of living a secret life. The play lasted for 10 performances before it was closed down and is banned. Inspiration for the play according to West came from “homosexual young men she knew at the time who desperately wanted to be open about their relationships.” At this time Gay Actors were not allowed speaking parts in plays by the Actor’s Equity Union to keep them from membership in the union. West auditioned and cast exclusively Gay actors from Greenwich Village Clubs. The actors were given a short story line and then improvised the script using their lives as a guide. The final scene consists of a giant Drag Ball. West was an avid supporter of Gay rights during her entire life. The play was a huge success when it opened in Connecticut but was panned by the critics calling it, “an inexpressibly brutal and vulgar attempt to capitalize on a dirty matter for profit.” Broadway joined in the chorus and one producer called the play, “the worst possible play I have ever heard of contemplating an invasion of New York striking at the heart of decency.”

1928: The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943) is published. Considered to be one of the most influential lesbian novels of the century. The book was denounced as obscene, disgusting and prejudicial to the morals of England. The Well of Loneliness became an American best seller, selling over fifty thousand copies.

1928:  Ma Rainey, the Mother of the Blues sings “Prove It On Me,” singing, “Went out last night with a crowd of my friends, They must’ve been women, ’cause I don’t like no men.” Writers about Rainey have said that it seems truly incredible given the historical context that her lyrical content directly referenced her own lesbian and bisexual tendencies.  Rainey was arrested for taking part in an orgy at her home involving women in her chorus in 1925. Her first recording was in 1923 and in the next five years she made over 100 recordings. In 1935 she returned to her hometown where she ran three theatres. In 1939 Gertrude “Ma” Rainey died of a heart attack.

1928 – Betty Berzon (January 18, 1928 – January 24, 2006) is born. She was an American author and psychotherapist known for her work with the gay and lesbian communities. She was among the first psychotherapists to assist gay clients. After coming out as lesbian in 1968, she began providing therapy to gays and lesbians. In 1971, during a UCLA conference called “The Homosexual in America,” Berzon became the first psychotherapist in the country to come out as gay to the public. Also in 1971, she organized the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center as well as an organization of gays and lesbians within the American Psychiatric Association (the Gay Psychological Association, now known as the Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues); the APA declassified homosexuality as a mental illness two years later. She is survived by Teresa DeCrescenzo, the president of Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services, whom Berzon met in 1973 and married during a mass wedding ceremony at the 1993 March on Washington.

1931: Niles Marsh one of the best know drag performers on the American vaudeville and night club circuits appeared in Hartford at the Capitol Theater. Marsh was one of the many artists who during that period encapsulated what was known as the Pansy Craze. Marsh was a child prodigy and started his career as a boy soprano touring for four years playing a female role. A producer heard him sing and cast him in a Broadway show. He then went on to be a very popular entertainer on the vaudeville circuit where he was singled out as “the one who is going to prove a real sensation.” Popularity of live theater decreased with the advent of “talkies” but Marsh still made regular appearances opening before a feature film. Marsh opened in Hartford before the feature film Charlie Chan, and was described as “a non-too-serious feminine impersonator” according to the Hartford Courant’s article, “Charlie Chan Picture tips Capitol Bill”, The Hartford Courant April 18, 1931. Marsh was described as “America’s foremost female impersonator, presenting his famous impressions in dazzling gowns. During a subsequent nightclub appearance, Marsh was seen by Mrs. Eve Finocchio, wife of the proprietor of a new drag nightclub in San Francisco, which had just opened in June 1936. Marsh was soon signed as a regular performer at Finocchio’s and remained “one of the highlights of the show” for at least the next eight years.

1933: During the “Milk Strike” when mothers of the poor and unemployed protested that large amounts of milk were poured down the storm drains to keep the prices high and the police were beating people Harry Hay throws a brick and dislodges a policeman from his horse. Sympathizers rushed him away to Clarabelle’s for hiding. Clarabelle who lived full time as female, was the “queen mother” of the Los Angeles Bunker Hill. She held an informal position coordinating homosexuals, queens, communists and bohemians. She had a dozen lieutenants, who monitored the area. Clarabelle was one of the most powerful of the “Queen Mothers” who oversaw the comings and goings in the districts of town where they lived. Bunker Hill was raised for downtown development in the 1960’s and over 11,000 residents were displaced.

1933: The National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards (NUMCS) elect Stephen Blair, an openly Gay man as its Vice President. The union was then labeled as “Red, Black and Queer” for its strong liberal views and embrace of minority rights. “Our struggle for freedom was expensive but worth it,” so noted Stephen Blair of those years. The union was Communist led and rejected segregation. Many of its leaders and members were openly Gay. By 1950 the McCarthy witch-hunts destroyed the NUMCS and many of the leaders were blacklisted or imprisoned. In 1995 the CIO expelled the NUMCS and eight other unions.

1933: The National Socialist Party begins its war against homosexuals in Germany. On May 6, The Institute for Sexual Science and Magnus Hirschfeld’s library are ransacked, and the books burned in the street. The Eldorado a famous homosexual and “transvestite” nightclub and many others were closed. LGBT organizations were banned and between the years 1933-1945 over 100,000 men were arrested as homosexuals. The men sent to the concentration camps were marked with the pink triangle and met with unusual degree of cruelty by their captors. Lesbians were also targeted by the Nazis and those who were sent to the camps were marked with a Black Triangle as asocial. (It wasn’t until 2002 that the German Government apologized to the LGBT community.)

1934: Frank McCormick, Stephen Blairs life partner and Vice-president of the California Congress of Industrial Organizations is instrumental during the West Coast longshoremen’s strike, which led to the unionization of every port on the West Coast. The strike which lasted over 83 days ended after Bloody Thursday when police fired into striking longshore men killing them. Many shops, theaters, and other businesses closed in support of the strike. Major West coast strikes in the 1930s were led by the California Congress of Industrial Organizations.

1934: Lesbian, writer, poet, art collector, lover of Alice B. Toklas and member of the Avant Garde Gertrude Stein’s opera Four Saints in Three Acts with music by Virgil Thomson an out open Gay man, opens at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford with an all-Black cast directed by noted African American choral conductor Eva Jessye. Prominent figures in art, music and literature came to Hartford for the opening.

1934:  Audre Lorde, Black, Feminist, Lesbian, author, poet and academician is born. Many times in her writing she focused the discussion on differences as well as the complexities of a black lesbian identity that include internalized racism and homophobia. Lorde wrote, “Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women, those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference, those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are black, who are older know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. Lorde also spoke out against a single issue movement by saying, “There is no such thing as a single issue movement, as we do not lead a single issue life.”

1937:  Over 200 members of the KKK raids the La Paloma a Gay club in Dade County Florida. The Klan stormed the club, roughed up the staff and performers, threatened patrons and ordered the nightclub closed. Local police raided the club two weeks later. The patrons, club management and performers responded with a call for resistance to the police, a building of community, and the club became a site of resistance to the conservative political forces in Dade County.

1939: The Cedar Brook Café, a Gay bar in Westport opens its doors. In the 1970s the bar was the center of Gay life in Fairfield county. According to author Dan Woog, “In the early days when bars were the only place gay people could congregate, it was a refuge. In the 1970s Gay people came out more publicly, it was the center of gay life. In the 1980s, when more women started going it helped bring the Gay and Lesbian communities closer together. Always, it was a rite of passage for young people for many, their first introduction to the gay community.” In 1998 the bar was going to be closed and a strip mall built when the present owner brought it.

1943:  Kiyoshi Kuromiya was born. Kuromiya was a Japanese American author and civil rights activist. In 1962 he joined the CORE restaurant sit-ins in Maryland, and was injured when leading black high school students in a voter registration march. In 1965 he attended the Gay Rights demonstration at Independence Hall Philadelphia and the Armies of the Night March on the Pentagon.  He was a founder of the Gay Liberation Front in Philadelphia and served as an openly gay delegate to the Black Panther’s Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention that had endorsed the Gay Rights struggle. Kuromiya was an assistant of Martin Luther King Jr and took care of Kings children immediately following his assassination. During the war in Vietnam to protest the use of napalm on the civilian population, he announced that a dog would be burned alive in front of the University of Pennsylvania Van Pelt Library. Thousands turned out to protest only to find a message from Kuromiya that read, “Congratulations on your anti-napalm protest. You saved the life of a dog. Now, how about saying the lives of tens of thousands of people in Vietnam. He was an activist with ACT UP Philadelphia and the ACT UP network, the People With AIDS empowerment and coalition building and was the editor of ACT UP Standard of Care, the first standard of care for people living with HIV produced by PWAs. He was a founder of Critical Path putting the strategies and theories of his associate/mentor Buckminster Fuller to the struggle against AIDS which provides free access to the Internet for people with HIV/AIDS.

1945: The Veterans Benevolent Association is formed in NYC. Its purpose was social and to help homosexuals who were arrested and confronted with employment problems. The Association formed in part responding to the sense of injustice that many Gay veterans felt about being given blue discharges which were less than honorable and denied the holders benefits of the G.I. Bill. The Veterans Benevolent Association joined with the NAACP to campaign for an end to the arbitrary issuance of blue discharges both to homosexuals and to African Americans who received these discharges in disproportionate numbers.

1945: After the concentration camps in Germany were liberated many homosexual prisoners who remained alive were recalled into custody to serve out their two-year sentence under Paragraph 175. In 1950 East Germany abolished the Nazi amendments to Paragraph 175, whereas West Germany kept the amendments. 100,000 men were implicated in legal proceedings and over 50,000 men in the Western section were convicted and jailed. Paragraph 175 was finally repealed in 1994.

1947: The first Lesbian magazine in the U.S. Vice Versa founded by Lisa Ben. The publication was free, and Ben mailed out copies to friends and encouraged them to pass along the magazine. The first issue was 15 pages long. Ben stopped publishing her magazine when friends advised her that under the Comstock Act she could be arrested.

1948: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male is published by Alfred Kinsey. Kinsey claimed that approximately 10% of the male population (and about half that among females) were predominantly or exclusively homosexual for at least three years of their lives.

1948:  African American Gay writer, James Baldwin left the United States after throwing a glass of water, breaking a mirror in a restaurant where he had been refused service. At the age of 24 he moved to Paris France trying to distance himself from white America’s prejudice against blacks. Baldwin at this time had already published a review of the writer Maxim Gorky in the Nation Magazine which he continued to published in and serving on the Nation editorial board until his death. In 1953 he published Go Tell It On The Mountain and a collection of essays were published two years later under the title of Notes of a Native Son. In 195 his second novel Giovanni’s Room caused a controversy when it was first published due to its explicit homoerotic content. In Another Country and Tell Me How Long The Trains Been Gone he presented both black and white characters and with heterosexual, gay and bisexual characters. Returning to the U.S Baldwin joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Baldwin called for a nationwide campaign of civil disobedience in response to the “terrifying crisis” after a bomb exploded in a Birmingham church three weeks after the March on Washington killing four children and injuring 22 others in what was described as, “one of the most viscous and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity.” In 1965 Baldwin join marchers who walked 50 miles from Selma, Alabama to the capitol of Montgomery. Baldwin continued to publish novels, poetry, plays and other works through-out his life. James Baldwin died in 1987 in Sain-Paulde Vence, France and is buried there.

1950: The Knights of the Clock, a social group for interracial Gay and Lesbian couples is founded in Los Angeles. They were primarily a social group including members of both sexes and tried to address social problems that affected interictal couples.

1950: The Homosexual in America, published under the pseudonym Donald Webster Cory, became the bible of the early homosexual rights movements in the U.S. The book sketched a broad plan to revolutionize American attitudes on the subject. Cory’s book was noted as a call to arms attacking anti-homosexual prejudice.

1950: The Mattachine Society is founded by Harry Hay, Rudi Gernreich and others. The name Mattachine was taken from Medieval French Society of unmarried men who conducted ritual dances at the vernal equinox. At these dances, the men performed wearing masks. Hay chose this name as he saw homosexuals of the 1950s as a “masked people,” unknown and anonymous.
Consciousness-raising groups were held and soon groups began forming across the U.S. Groups began sponsoring social events, fundraisers, newsletters and publications.

1950: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins to purge homosexuals and Communists from the State Department. Harry Hay was called before the committee in 1955 as both a communist and a homosexual.

1951: The Mattachine Society states that its mission and purpose is to unify isolated homosexuals creating an ethical homosexual culture. Homosexuals were seen as one of the largest minorities in America, who were victimized daily as a result of their oppression. The Mattachine Society called for, “a grassroots movement of Gay people to challenge anti-gay discrimination.”

1951: Christine Jorgensen begins her transition with sex reassignment surgery in Denmark after getting special permission from the Danish Minister of Justice. Writing to her friends, Jorgensen said, “As you can see by the enclosed photo, taken just before the operation, I have changed a great deal. But it is the other changes that are so much more important. Remember the shy, miserable person who left America? Well that person is no more and, as you can see, I’m in marvelous spirits.” The last procedure was performed in the United States with Harry Benjamin as a medical adviser. She became an instant celebrity in the US after a front-page New York Daily News story and used her new-found fame to advocate for transgender people, calling what she did “a swift kick in the pants for the sexual revolution.”

1952: A discussion group, ONE INC of the Mattachine Society publishes ONE magazine. ONE INC was an organization dedicated only to issues of the homosexual community.

1952: Almost 4,000 Gay men appeared in court and by 1954 there were over 1,069 men in prison for homosexual acts. Thousands of Gay men were blackmailed, prosecuted, sentenced to prison. Many were sentenced to supposed “cures”, which included lobotomies, aversion therapy and chemical castration.

1953: President Dwight Eisenhower signs Executive Order 10450, banning anyone identified as threats to national security including those with criminal records, alcoholics, and “sex perverts”–to be excluded or terminated from federal employment. The Order lists homosexuals as security risks, along with alcoholics and neurotics.
This was one of Eisenhower’s first official duties after being elected.
This Executive Order was tied to the McCarthy era Red Scare, the search for Communists who had supposedly infiltrated American society. The purging of homosexuals and lesbians from the federal government became known as the Lavender Scare, thousands and thousands of people were fired from their jobs simply because of their sexual orientation

1953: Leftists such as Harry Hay lose control of the Mattachine Society. The society became influenced by a more liberal ideology espoused by liberal reformists scared by the House Un-American Activities Committee. The conservatives questioned the organization’s stated goals challenging the idea that Gay people were a minority. Instead of social change the conservatives advocated accommodation, instead of mobilizing a community they sought the support of professionals. The conservatives stated: “We do not advocate a homosexual culture or community, we believe that none exists.”

1953: Postal Authorities seize the August issue of ONE Magazine, refusing to mail the magazine on the grounds that it was “obscene, lewd, lascivious and filthy.”

1953: The Postal Authorities seize the October Issue of One Magazine. The editors are charged with sending obscene material through the mail, a violation of the Comstock Act of 1873. The lower courts rule in favor of the authorities. The case is brought by ONE to the Supreme Court. The court rules that “the discussion of homosexuality was not pornographic.”

1955: Gay poet Allen Ginsberg reads the poem Howl for the first time in San Francisco. According to critics the poem “almost single handedly dislocated the traditionalist poetry of the 1950s.”

1955: The Daughters of Bilitis is formed by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. This was the first Lesbian political and civil rights organization in the U.S. The organization was considered to be an alternative to bars which were often the subject of raids and arrests. In 1956 the group published the Ladder the first professional national Lesbian publication in the U.S. The group is credited with linking hundreds of Lesbians across the country with each other, doing educational programs and civil and political rights work.

1956: U.S Custom Agents seized Howl and Other Poems when it arrived from its London based printer on grounds that it was obscene, indecent and vulgar. San Francisco police arrested Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who published the book and Shigeyoshi Murao, the manager of City Lights Books who sold it. When the case was brought to trial a San Francisco judge ruled that Howl and Other Poems had “redeeming social importance,” and stated, “Would there be any freedom of the press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid innocuous euphemism?”

1959: In May two cops decided to check IDs at Coopers Donuts in Los Angeles a popular all night hang out for Transgender people, queers, hustlers, drag queens. The law stated a person’s gender expression must match the picture on a ID. Having put up with police harassment for years this night was different. Patrons fought back utilizing items from the coffee shop in their fight against the police. The officers retreated and called for backups. The riots ensued and led to the temporary closure of the street and the arrest of several people.

1959:  A Raisin in the Sun, written by African American writer Lorraine Hansberry is performed on Broadway highlighting the lives of Black Americans living in racial segregation in Chicago. The title of the play was taken from a line in the poem Harlem, by Langston Hughes.

1960: The United States Court of Federal Claims overturns the “Other Than Honorable Discharge” issued by the United States Air Force to Fannie Mae Clackum and Grace Garner, U.S. Air Force Reservists for their alleged Lesbianism. This is the first known instance of a Lesbian-related discharge being successfully fought. This case did not affect the military’s policy of excluding homosexuals from the armed forces.

1960: The first issue of Virginia Prince’s magazine Transvestia is published. The magazine is published bi-monthly between the years 1960-1980. In 1963 the magazine stated it was: “dedicated to the needs of the sexually normal individual who has discovered the existence of his or her other side and seeks to express it.” The magazine was to be written by the readers telling their stories. Transvestia mostly appealed to the heterosexual crossdressers and Transvestites. Prince also started the Society for the Second Self, which was for heterosexual crossdressers.

1961: Frank Kameny, an astronomer fired from his government job and Jack Nichols establish a Washington D.C. branch of the Mattachine Society. Their approach was significantly different from other branches, “Calling for direct action for homosexuals to define themselves.” Kameny rejected the “Gay is sick,” model that the medical and legal professionals had places on gays, declaring, “They placed that label on us, they are the ones that need to justify it.”

1961: The break up of the Mattachine Society as a national organization. However, chapters remain across the country.

1961: Jose Sarria a performer at the Black Cat, a gay political rights organizer and founder of the Imperial Court System in the U.S is the first openly gay person to run for public office for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Getting over 6,000 votes political pundits began to realize that there was and could be a gay block of voters. Sarria said at this time, “No Politician in San Francisco would dare not to knock on Gay doors after this.”

1962: Illinois becomes the first state in the U.S. to strike down its sodomy laws.

1962: The U.S Supreme Court rules that nude or seminude photos of men designed to appeal to homosexuals were not obscene and could be sent through the mail.

1962: The first official police liaison to the homophile community is appointed in San Francisco.

1962: Police and Vice Squad raid the National Variety Artists’ Exotic Carnival and Ball at the Manhattan Center in New York City. Dozens of people are arrested on charges of masquerading and indecent exposure at the ball.

1963: The East Coast Homophile Organization (ECHO) is formed by the New York Mattachine Society, Daughters of Bilitis, Janus Society, and the Mattachine of Washington D.C. This group had a “militant” confrontational vision for the homophile movement.

1963: Bayard Rustin, a Gay African American man, civil rights organizer and key organizer and major player in the March on Washington was not asked to speak at the march because he was Gay. Rustin had been attacked for an arrest of engaging in public sex early in his career by political opponents and for also having Communist affiliations when he was a young man. He continued to work behind the scenes to make the march a huge success.

1963:  The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin is published in the New Yorker magazine. Dial Press later published the two essays in book form.  The essays “My Dungeon Shook– Letter to my Nephew” on the One Hundredth Anniversary of emancipation and Down At The Cross– Letter from  a Region of My Mind. Both are considered to be one of the most influential books about race relations in the 1960s.

1963: The Health Committee of the Social Services Department of the Capitol Region Conference of Churches in Hartford begins to explore the issue of homosexuality. From this exploration Project H begins to organize conferences on homosexuality for employers, school counselors, the clergy and professionals.

1963:  James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, Kenneth Clark, Jerome Smith, David Baldwin, Edwin Berry, Clarence Benjamin Jones, June Shagaloff and Rip Torn meet with the Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy to discuss the future of civil rights in America. Baldwin reported that they were shocked by Kennedy’s naivete and warned him America would experience unrest unless action was taken. Kennedy laughed off Smith’s suggestion that he personally escort Black children to school. After the meeting, Kennedy ordered FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to increase surveillance of Baldwin and others present. A memo issued four days after the meeting asked the FBI to produce information, “particularly of a derogatory nature”. A subsequent report labeled him both a “pervert” and a “communist”. Rip Torn discovered that he also had been placed under surveillance.

1964: Foster Gunnison Jr. completes his master’s degree at Trinity in Hartford. In June he goes to the New York Mattachine where he volunteers. His involvement with the homophile movement accelerates. He joins ECHO and seeks again to form a national group of organizations.

1964: The Society for Individual Rights (SIR) is formed in San Francisco. The group combines social events, political action, voter registration drives and meet the candidate’s nights. Gay activists ally themselves with liberal church leaders in an organization called, “The Council on Religion and the Homosexual.”

1964:  According to some historians the first organized protest against gay discrimination takes place on September 19 at the U.S. Army’s Whitehall Induction Center over the army’s failure to keep gay men’s draft records confidential. Randy Wicker and Craig Rodwell gay activists along with eight members of the Sexual Freedom League protested the armed forces anti-gay discrimination and the complicity in the McCarthy era witch-hunts.

1965: Conservatives leave the New York Mattachine Society after the election of more militant leaders. The conservatives emphasized the need for homosexuals to adjust to society. The militants felt that society needed the adjusting.

1965: At a fundraising ball in San Francisco, sponsored by the Society for Individual Rights police arrest Gay and Lesbian party goers. These arrests galvanized the local Gay and Lesbian community.

1965: East Coast Homophile organizations hold a conference in New York City. The theme of the conference is “The Homosexual and the Great Society.”

1965: Cannon Clinton Jones of Christ Church Cathedral in Hartford founded the Connecticut Chapter of the George Henry Foundation which housed a committee which was known as the Rehabilitation Committee, Project H, and the Committee On Sexual Minorities. These committees provided almost the only organized educational and psychosocial assistance to homosexuals within the Christian community.

1965: Annual Reminders begin at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 4th. These Reminders were held until 1969 with the theme “Equality for Homosexuals.”

1965: Gays and Lesbians picket the White House in Washington D.C. This is the first of demonstrations staged by ECHO to protest the exclusion of homosexuals from federal employment and the armed forces. Foster Gunnison joins these demonstrations. Other demonstrations are held at the State Department and the Pentagon. By late this year demonstrators felt that these pickets were no longer effective and stopped the pickets.

1965: An estimated 150 people participate in a sit-in when the manager of Dewey’s restaurant in Philadelphia refused service to several Trans teenagers. Under orders from the management the staff was instructed to deny service to the teens. The staff interpreted this instruction to deny service to anyone who they thought were LGBT. Four people are arrested and convicted of disorderly conduct. Leafleting outside the restaurant by the Janus Society distributed over 1, 500 leaflets and a second sit in led to negotiations with the owners to bring an end to this denial of service.

1965: Liquor Laws in New York City considered any gathering of homosexuals to be disorderly, forbid the serving of liquor to Gay men and Lesbian women in restaurants and bars. Bartenders in fear of being shut down denied drinks to homosexuals or kicked them out. In 1966 members of the New York Mattachine Society stages “Sip-Ins” in which they visit taverns, declaring themselves to be homosexuals and waited to be turned away so they could sue. Julius a Greenwich Village Bar refused service to the men. This resulted in much publicity and a reversal of the anti-gay liquor laws.

1965: Jose Sarria founded the Imperial Court Systems and named herself, Empress 1, The Widow Norton. Sarria was a long-time performer at the Black Cat in San Francisco who rallied local gay men against the legal system. The Imperial Court System today is found all over the world with various houses competing at drag balls. The Imperial Sovereign Court of All of Connecticut has over the years raised thousands of dollars for non-profit community groups.

1965: Dr. John Oliven, in his book Sexual Hygiene and Pathology, coins the term “Transgender” to describe someone who was born in the body of the incorrect sex.

1966: The North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO) meets. Foster Gunnison is appointed chairman of the Credentials Committee. His job is to decide who should or should not be invited to attend the conferences. Gunnison stated at this time he feared: “the movement would be hijacked by fringed elements, beatniks, and other professional non-conformists.”

1966: Foster Gunnison writes The Agony of The Mask. In this essay he makes a strong plea for ending the secrecy, and to openly avow one’s homosexuality. “This is the only way homosexuals can repair the damage done to them.” He also states: “To win the support of institutions, there must be the emergence of a legion of well-behaved, well-dressed homosexuals that would contradict the view that all homosexuals are the far-out type.” Gunnison is a major speaker at the NACHO convention in San Francisco. He writes “An Introduction to the Homophile Movement,” a historical overview of the movement.

1966: The staff of Compton’s Cafeteria in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco an all night hangout calls police to crack down on transgender individuals who frequent the restaurant. The restaurant had instituted a service fee directed at transgender individuals and blatantly harassed them. Picket lines were formed outside the restaurant. When a police officer attempted to arrest a transgender patron, she threw her cup of coffee at him. At that point a riot began, and the restaurant’s plate glass window was broken. The fighting spilled out into the street and a police car had its windows broken and a news stand was burned to the ground. Picket lines formed the next night and the newly installed window was smashed again. The city began to address the transgender community as citizens rather than as a problem to be removed.

1966/1967: Project H in Hartford received  complaints that the CT Department of Corrections had established Cell Block G to “house all transvestites and gays.” Cannon Clinton Jones began negotiations to visit the prison and held a meeting with the warden. It was explained by the warden that this was for protection from the general population of the prison. At the meeting with some prisoners Jones found that separate was not equal, that the prisoners in Cell Block G had limited access to prison yard exercise, and that they had to eat dinner at 3:30 so as not to be seated with other prisoners. Jones was allowed to begin counseling individual prisoners which he continued until his retirement in 1986.

1966/67: Police raided a New Year’s Eve party at the Black Cat Tavern in Los Angeles and arrest two men for kissing. The event sparked a riot that spread to other nearby gay bars and a large civil rights demonstration. A new organization PRIDE (Personal Rights in Defense and Education) is formed. On the first anniversary of the raid and unprecedented protest took place with over 600 people in attendance. Signs at the protest denounced the police with wording that stated, Stop Blue Fascism Now, Police Lawlessness Must Stop, and Police Officers Not Stormtroopers. This was the first large demonstration in Los Angeles by the Lesbian, Gay and Allied community against the police.

1967: The Institute of Social Ethics (ISE) is founded by Foster Gunnison in Hartford CT. The ISE maintains historical records and archives of the American Homophile Movement, facilitates communications among homophile organizations and handles business for NACHO, ECHO and later for the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee.

1967: Mattachine activist Craig Rodwell opens America’s first Gay book store, “The Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in New York City.

1968: The Metropolitan Community Church is founded in Los Angeles by Reverend Troy Perry. MCC is the world’s first church group with a primary, positive ministry to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people. The first service is held in Rev. Troy Perry’s living room where 12 people gathered launching an international movement.

1968: Cannon Clinton Jones of Christ Church Cathedral in Hartford begins a counseling group for Gays. Members of this group form the activist Kalos Society. The Kalos Society publishes “The Connection” magazine. According to one of the original founders of the Kalos Society, the counseling group helped us to “learn to like ourselves and then we could become political.” Keith Brown named the new group Kalos and was one of the founding members in May 1968.

1968: Gay is good slogan is adopted by NACHO.

1968: Philadelphia’s Homophile League states in writing, “We are living in an age of revolution, and one of the bywords of revolution in this country is confrontation.”

1968: NACHO’s goals of assimilationist civil rights and their tactic of petitioning for redress of grievances seems out of place and old fashioned with many. However, their stand that homosexuals are an oppressed group resounds with many within other movements of the left.
Many young Lesbians and Gays join with The Students for a Democratic Society and other radical groups. The call goes out for Gays and Lesbians to adopt a militant stand and form alliances with the Black Panther movement and with the anti-war movement.

1968: Margo Rila co-coordinates the San Francisco chapter of the Sexual Freedom League, a national social/educational organization, that sponsors a bisexual meeting group.

1968:  Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama conducts what has been called the “first homosexual marriage” in the United States. The event held in her Walker Street loft in Greenwich Village was not legally recognized. Kusama conducted the ceremony under the aegis of her own Church of Self-obliteration. In the release and invitation about the marriage she had this to say, “The purpose of this marriage is to bring out into the open what has hitherto been concealed. Love can now be free, but to make it completely free, it must be liberated from all sexual frustrations imposed by society. Homosexuality is a normal physical and psychological reaction, neither to be extolled or decried.”

1968: Angela Davis is dismissed from the faculty of the University of California due to her membership in the Communist Party USA and her involvement in the Black Panther Party. Judge Jerry Pacht rules in favor of Ms. Davis stating that the Board of Regents of the college could not fire her simply because she was a member of the Communist Party. In 1970 the Board of Regents again fired Ms. Davis. At this time she had rejected all identity politics that made categories like race, gender, or sexual orientation the basis for political organizing. She stated her distrust in the idea that “the personal is political.” In October of 1970 Ms. Davis is arrested after a massive attempt to find and arrest her for ownership of guns used in a take over of a Marin County court room. Thousands of people across the country began organizing a movement to gain her release. She was held at the Women’s Detention Center first in solitary confinement and finally her legal team was able to obtain a federal court order to get her out of the segregated area. An all white jury on June 4, 1972 returned a not guilty verdict and Ms. Davis was set free. In 1997 Angela Davis came out as a Lesbian and at this time she stated, “This is something that I am fine with as a political statement. But I still want a private space for carrying out my relationships.” The focus of her current activism is the state of prisons in the US and considers herself a prison abolitionist. She is also the co-founder of Critical Resistance a national grassroots organizations dedicated to building a movement to abolish the prison-industrial complex. Ms. Davis blames Imperialism for the troubles that oppressed peoples are facing stating, “We are facing a common enemy and that enemy is Yankee Imperialism which is killing us both here and abroad. Now I think anyone who would try to separate those struggles, anyone who would say that in order to consolidate an anti-war movement, we have to leave all of these other outlying issues out of the picture, is playing right into the hands of the enemy.”

1969: In early spring Carl Wittman writes “A Gay Manifesto,” calling on gays to free themselves, come out, create institutions and liberate themselves from the yoke of oppression.” Wittman played a prominent role in the SDS and union organizing. He founded a rural commune in Oregon where he published “RFD” a journal for country gays. Wittman died of AIDS in 1986.

“THE COP HIT ME, SO I HIT HIM BACK!”. Storme’ De Larverie

1969: In June what was to be just another raid on a gay bar named the Stonewall Inn soon became known as a critical turning point of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender movement. It was at that movement in history when a people come face to face with their oppressors and together in solidarity fight back. These days in late June and early July began what is known as the modern-day LGBT Civil Rights Movement worldwide.

1969: The Mattachine Society calls a meeting to derail planned demonstrations and to attempt to stop the new, more militant groups founded after Stonewall. The meeting is interrupted by angry young militants. The militants leave the meeting and regroup at Alternate University.

1969: The Gay Liberation Front is founded in New York City. Its mission is to build alliances with other struggles of the left. GLF groups spring up around the country. In NYC the GLF pickets the offices of the Village Voice which refuses adds with the word ‘Gay’ in them. In San Francisco employees dump gallons of purple printers ink out of an office window onto GLF picketers in the street who were protesting the newspapers homophobic slant. The protesters went around town making purple handprints on buildings and surfaces creating one of the first visible signs of a growing movement.

1969: Foster Gunnison declares he is opposed to the notion that heterosexuality is somehow the “norm” by which all other relationships must be judged. He urges homosexuals to expose themselves for who they are and to aim for “free and open expressions of homosexual affection.” In the name of these goals he calls for radical-militant tactics including confrontations, street demonstrations, blatant and hard-hitting assaults on social institution, and even welcomes, where called for, riots and violence.

1969: The Eastern Regional Conference on Homophile Organizations convention is taken over by the GLF and other radicals. Radicals convene ‘radical causes’ to pass resolutions in support of the Black Panther Party, striking grape pickers, the Chicago Eight, the anti-war movement and against the so called right of educational, governmental, and religious institutions to define and limit sexuality. This was the first time a homophile group took on non-homosexual issues. Immediately after the resolutions were passed ERCHO voted to disband to prevent further take over by what liberals saw as a radical element. The conservative homophile movement begins to fall apart.

1969: Betty Friedan, fearful that the movement for equality for women would be damaged by the presence of Lesbians, warned of the ‘Lavender Menace.” Author and activist Rita Mae Brown challenges this and writes ‘Take a Lesbian to Lunch.’

1969: Rita Mae Brown, editor of NOW’s newsletter and administrative coordinator for the National Organization for Women leaves NOW two months after The Daughters of Bilitis name was left off the sponsors’ list for the Congress to Unite Women.

1969: In December nineteen people meet to form the Gay Activists Alliances. Their goal is “to be completely and solely dedicated to securing basic rights for homosexuals to the exclusion of the other movements.” To achieve these goals the alliance would take to the streets, employing militant confrontational tactics to win acceptance within the country’s institutions. These goals differ from the Gay Liberation Front whose mission was to topple and transform the country’s institutions.

1969: The Cockettes and avant garde psychedelic hippie Gay theater group perform for the first time at the Palace Theater in San Francisco. The group performed all original material, dressed outrageously and put their lifestyle on the stage. The Cockettes gain an underground cult following.

1969: The National Institutes of Mental Health released a report based on a study led by psychologist Dr. Evelyn Hooker stating that sodomy laws should be repealed. Evelyn Hooker who applied for a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grant to conduct research on “normal homosexuals.” presented the results of her research at the APA’s 1956 Annual Convention in Chicago. After the NIMH’s report, Dr. Hooker’s work on the homosexual subculture led to Hooker receiving an award in 1992 for Distinguished Contribution to Psychology in the Public Interest from APA.

1970: Several other groups within the Gay Liberation Front, mostly due to political disagreements break away to form new groups. Among these newly formed groups are: Gay Women’s Liberation Front, Third World Revolution, and Street Transvestite Action Revolution.

1970: STAR Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries is founded by Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. (Pay it no mind) Johnson. STAR was a political organization with a radical ideology but also provided housing and other social services to homeless queer youth and sex workers. The organization was made up of mostly low-income, homeless, transfeminine people of color. Rivera stated that Marsha and I funded the house working the streets in order to keep everyone fed and sheltered and to keep “our kids” from having to hustle the streets.” STAR House is considered to be the first LGBT youth shelter, the first transgender sex worker labor union and the first organization to be led by women of color.

1970: STAR writes its manifesto outlining the groups political ideology and demands. The Manifesto identifies themselves as the revolutionary army against the system. They condemn transphobia, sexism, racism, mass incarceration and police harassment. They point out the exclusion by the gay rights movement and the feminist movement of trans peoples. Among their demands are the rights to self-determination, the end to job discrimination, the right to change identification to match correct names and gender. They have a distinctly socialist perspective in the demand for free education, healthcare, food and other social services for all oppressed peoples.

1970: Members of the Kalos Society stand at the corner of Main and State Street in Hartford CT. handing out leaflets declaring, THE PERSON WHO HANDED YOU THIS LEAFLET IS A HOMOSEXUAL. An action that many considered a very revolutionary act of coming out. The flyer had a button attached that read, “Kalos Smile On Your Brother.”

1970: The Gay Liberation Front is founded in Hartford Connecticut. The Front opens an information center on Farmington Ave. The Gay Liberation Front plans to supplement the activities of the Kalos Society.

1970: Members of the Kalos Society publish the Griffin Magazine. Included in the first issue is a Hartford Courant article declaring that homosexuality was not an illness and addressing equality for homosexual couples. Also, in that issue is an article about four Gays who spoke to a sociology class at UCONN and an article about the conspiracy trial of gay poet Allen Ginsberg.

1970: The Snake Pit, an afterhours gay bar in New York City is raided by the police. 167 customers are arrested. One of those arrested is a twenty-year-old man, Diego Vinales who jumped from a window of the 6th precinct on Charles Street. Vinales is impaled on a fence below. The GLF, GAA, Women’s groups and others call for a demonstration and over 200 people gathered in Sheridan Square to demonstrate against police repressions of Gays. Those gathered marched to the hospital and then back through the West Village. Despite political difference a variety of other groups join the demonstrations.

1970: The Kalos Society/Gay Liberation Front circulates a petition in order to bring into political focus the concerns of voters both homosexual and heterosexual who oppose the abrogation of civil rights on the basis of sexual orientation. Plans were made to submit the petition to the Democratic and Republican state headquarters in Hartford addressed to members of each party running for office. The petition read as follows:  We the undersigned urge you, as candidates for public office, to consider the following proposals aimed at ending discrimination against the homosexual minority. We ask that, as candidates, each of you address yourselves to these issues and make known your plans in regard to these proposals. 1.We recommend that final action be taken on the revised Penal Codes of Connecticut without alterations. 2. We recommend that legislation be introduced on both the State and Federal levels that would make unlawful discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation or practice. 3. We recommend that Federal legislation be introduced which would end the denial of Federal Security clearance, visas, or the granting of citizenship on the basis of sexual orientation or practice. 4. We recommend that Federal legislation be introduced which would establish the practice of reviewing less-than-honorable military discharges, granted for homosexual orientation or practice, with the goal of upgrading such discharges. 5. We recommend that both the State and Federal governments take legislative action which would end all limitations of personal freedom based solely on sexual orientation or practice. The candidates were asked to respond to the Kalos Society.

1970: Rita Mae Brown joins The Gay Women’s Liberation Front. Through discussion groups the women begin to conclude that Lesbian oppression and Gay male oppression had less in common that was first believed. The group stated, “We are no longer willing to be token Lesbians in the women’s movement, nor are we willing to be token women in the Gay Liberation Front. In February Brown speaks at Yale University in New Haven as a out open Lesbian Woman.

1970: The first meeting of the New Haven Women’s Liberation Front is held. The group formed after listening to Rita Mae Brown speak.

1970: The New Haven Women’s Liberation Center is founded at Yale. Yale allocated “two rooms and a carpet,” for the center but not without a struggle. A guerrilla demonstration at the Alumni Luncheon is held to demand that serious concern be shown towards women on campus. The group published Sister, a single mimeographed sheet as their publication. A rape crisis center offering support and accompanying women to the hospital is formed. The center offered Wednesday night discussion series. The center begins to house many other affiliated women’s organizations. In 1980 the Center opened a new home on Orange Street in New Haven.

1970: New Haven Women’s Liberation Rock Band is formed.

1970: Out Lesbians take over The Congress to Unite Women wearing tee shirts with the slogan, “Lavender Menace.” At the close of the congress the women voted to adopt a set of resolutions put forth by the “Menace.” The eventual result of this action was a more cooperative policy of NOW towards Lesbian issues and the forming of a consciousness raising groups. From these groups Radicalesbians was formed.

1970: Leaders of NOW, including Gloria Steinem and Susan Brownmiller hold a press conference to express their solidarity with the “homosexual liberation movement.”

1970: Bella Abzug openly solicits the gay vote, becoming the first politician in New York to do so in LGBT activist history. Abzug wins the democratic primary and goes on to win the general election.

1970: The Black Panther Party calls for a Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention, to draft a new constitution that would represent all oppressed people. The Gay Liberation Front is invited to attend. In attendance were Sylvia Rae Rivera, Jim Fouratt, Allen Young and Kiyoshi Kuromiya a leader in the Gay rights movement of Philadelphia and the national civil rights movement among others. While at the convention the Gay Liberation Front pickets two Gay bars due to the racist practices of the bar owners and patrons.

1970: Panther Party leader Huey P. Newton publicly expresses his solidarity with the Gay Power movement and proclaims that “homosexuals might be the most oppressed people in society.” In his speech “A letter to the Revolutionary Brothers and Sisters About The Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements, he points to the intersectionality of racism, sexism and homophobia, and speaks of women and homosexuals as an oppressed group. He declared that the Gay movement and the women’s movement were the Black Panthers friends and that “they are our potential allies, and we need as many allies as possible.” Newton called on his followers to examine the roots of their own homophobia.

1970: The Vatican reaffirms its condemnation of homosexual unions as a moral aberration.

1970:  Hartford’s Gay Liberation front turned out in support of a Women’s Liberation rally held in front of the Old State House in August. Members join women carrying signs reading, Women’s Lib + Gay Lib =Sexual Equality, and Strength ISN’T Phallic. A crowd of over 200 people gathered to hear Wilbur Smith and Vivian Kellems speak. At the time Women’s Lib activists expressed an interest in working with Gay Liberation.

1970:  The Los Angeles Gay Liberation Front announced plans to take over Alpine County in northern California. Over 1,179 people signed up to move into the area. The strategy is to move enough gays into the country to out-vote the locals in order to elect all gay leaders. Committee were set up to study legal, financial, ecological and other aspects of the takeover. According to one of the projects heads, “The Alpine project can do more to end the oppression of homosexual than the combined efforts of the homophile groups during the past 20 years. Resistance to the project came from the International Council of Christian Churches who declared he would move in an army of missionaries to fight off the gay invasion, along with the Alpine Sheriff who organized vigilantes and a Superior Court Judge issued “Queer Hunting Licenses, adding that “Fruits aren’t welcomed up here.” The project eventually fell apart and was abandoned but it was noted by the LGF that the broad media coverage of the issue has been a boom to Gay Liberation and has brought a new awareness, a new pride, and a new group of members and a understanding that all oppressed people need to have a place of their own. Support for the project poured in from across the U.S.

1970: The Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee is formed to plan a march to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising. Foster Gunnison Jr. is on the planning committee. The march began at the Stonewall Inn and marched up 6th Ave to Central Park with many of the marchers stopping at the Women’s House of Detention to articulate solidarity with the prisoners inside taking up the chant “Free Our Sisters! Free Ourselves!” Black Panther members Joan Bird and Afeni Shakus were being held at the detention center at the time. In the following years Lesbian and Gay Activists took up the call, “What’s outside is inside” and publications devoted regular columns to prison advocacy and created projects to get more news to people in jail.

1970: In June the first anniversary of Stonewall is held in New York City. An estimated 10,000 people celebrate with a march to Central Park. The Kalos Society and the Gay Liberation Front of Hartford participate in the march.

1970: A protest march by the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activist Alliance leads to rioting on Christopher Street. The protest was organized due to increased police harassment since the first anniversary of Stonewall.

1970:  Hartford’s Kalos Society and Gay Liberation Front merge. The merger was called for and motivated by the desire among Gay people for unity in working for causes for the betterment of the community. Ten proposals were presented by Keith Brown and Ronald Carrier to the Kalos board members that Hartford’s Gay Liberation Front considered vital to a merger. All points were unanimously accepted except for one that called for the group to take a position on the War in Vietnam. It was agreed by the majority that as a homophile organization that they could not speak for their members on issues that did not concern the Gay Liberation Movement.

1970: The Lutheran church calls for legislation to end discrimination against Lesbians and Gays.

1970: A NACHO convention is held in San Francisco. Pre-registration figures include over twenty-organizations and one hundred individuals. Radical groups take over the convention and pass their multi-issue agenda. Many Lesbian organizations refuse to participate calling NACHO too male-orientated. This convention was the organizations last and it ceased to exist.

1970: Connecticut Motor Vehicle Commissioner, John T. Tyan, refuses to reinstate a New London’s resident’s driver license on the grounds that he is “an admitted homosexual and that his homosexuality makes him an improper person to hold an operators license.” According to the attorney involved with the case, the suspension of the license was not at any time the result of any matter pertaining to the use of a motor vehicle or the use of any public highway.

1970-today: What began as the Christopher Street Liberation Day March to recognize the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco is now the annual celebration of LGBTQ + PRIDE held worldwide.

1971: Candidate for president of the U.S Senator George McGovern issues a seven-point plank supporting gay rights.

1971: Angela Davis is arrested by the FBI hundreds of sympathizers gathered in Foley Square NYC to demonstrate. Among the demonstrators were a group of women who carried a banner reading Gay Liberation Women. Marshalls from a Communist Party delegation tried to prevent them for hoisting their banner. Gathering around the women were a vocal contingent of Lesbian women and gay men, along with supporter of the group Youth Against War and Fascism, Yippies, Revolutionary women, and former Communist Party members who insisted on the Gay Women’s Liberation right to march with their banner and providing protection for the marchers.

1971 –Look Magazine includes a gay couple from Minnesota, Jack Baker and Mike McConnell, as part of that week’s cover article on “The American Family.” Baker and McConnell are also noteworthy as they are the first same-sex couple in the U.S. to be granted a marriage license.
Jack Baker and Mike McConnell were married by a young Methodist minister in Mankato, MN in 1971. Baker had legally changed his name to the gender-neutral Pat Lynne McConnell to get the marriage license. By the time the state of MN figured out that the bride was actually a male it was already too late. The two were officially married. While Minnesota did try to null and void their marriage Baker and McConnell fought back furiously and predicted they would win eventually, but the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that their marriage was illegal. However, their license was never revoked

1971: The Loft sponsored by the Kalos Society and the Gay Liberation Front opens on Farmington Ave as an after-hour gathering place, when the community got tired of the bars. People could go there for food, conversation, and relaxation until the early morning hours. Gay and Lesbian bars historically have been a somewhat safe haven for LGBTQ people to meet, socialize, dance, cruise and to celebrate ourselves and others. One of the few safe spaces that our community could be themselves unless of course the bar was raided by the police, hit by an arsonist, gay bashers intervened or in the case of the Pulse Club shot dead. Bars for LGBT people have operated for centuries. Reports from as early as the 17th century record the existence of such clubs. Connecticut has seen its share of bars from the Hofbrauhaus, a long-established meeting space in downtown Hartford for gay men to the Evergreen a Lesbian bar. The Warehouse was a popular dance club which many compared to Studio 54 in New York to the more mainstream Nicks Café. Park West Café labeled itself as CT’s only Women’s bar at one time. It was the site of a Kalos Gay Liberation front picket protesting the restrictive dress code for women. The Pub in Springfield where many CT men went advertised, “Come to the Pub for Some Love,” and the Lib where “Gay Men and Women Get It On.” The Sanctuary hosted Club Lucy that brought Gay men and Lesbian women together and our own lawyer turned comedian Maggie Cassella opened her bar in Hartford’s West End. The Chez Est is the only bar still operating in Hartford and Partners and 168 York Street Café still operate in New Haven. Many bars such as the Polo, Franks, Nicks, The Banana, Corral Café, Stanchion are now closed and only exist in the memories of those who frequented them or in ads found in LGBT publications.

1971: Hartford’s Gay and Lesbian community is invited to plan and participate in a Good Friday “Stations of the Cross” march through downtown Hartford. The march is intended to point to “the crucifixion of individuals in modern times. A planned stop on the march is Hartford’s Union Station, which activists stated, “stands as a symbol of Gay oppression in this city.” “It is there that our people are arrested and beaten by police, robbed by heterosexuals, preyed upon by blackmailers and spied upon by the vice squad.”

1971: A Kalos-Gay Liberation Front picnic planned for Goodwin Park and advertised in the Griffin becomes a public controversy. Four hundred South End residents claiming that homosexuality goes against God and stating fears for their children sign a petition to prevent gays from using the park. An ordinance by the city council prepared hastily would prevent the use of the park by any group that would “distract from the general public enjoyment of the park.” The Kalos Society states at a press conference that they intended to hold the picnic. After meeting with the police, the police assure the group that protection would be provided. The picnic is held on September 21, 1971.

1971: The fight to pass a Gay Rights Bill by the Gay Activist Alliance in New York begins.

1971: The Transvestites Legal Committee, Chicago’s first Transgender political organization is formed after the shooting death of James Clay Jr. by Chicago Police. The Chicago Gay Alliance demanded that the FBI investigate the shooting. Alliances of Black and Gay Activists against the killing of Clay, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark begin through the Alliance To End Repression.
After an organized tour of the Hampton and Clark apartments lead by the Black Panthers the Mattachine Midwest a homophile liberal group joined with the Gay Liberation Front and Panthers and released a joint statement challenging the police account of the raid and the murders.

1971: Eleven members of the Kalos Society are arrested and verbally and physically abused by the police while protesting at The Park West a local “Gay” bar. Lesbians were being harassed by management for not dressing properly. Owners of the bar eject those who ignore the gender norm of the day for women. Members of Kalos continue their nightly pickets until the owners of the bar capitulate. After this a “wake up” call went out that “the Park West is presently the only Gay establishment that has been liberated,” compared to other Gay bars in Hartford. It was discovered that the owner of the bar, Pat Shea was a relative to Cornelius Shea the chief prosecutor of the district court in Hartford.

1971: Connecticut becomes the second state to abolish its laws prohibiting homosexual acts between consenting adults.

1971: NOW convention passes a resolution recognizing the oppression of Lesbians and a woman’s right to define and express her own sexuality.

1971: The XX Club is founded in Hartford which is a support group for Transgender people created by Cannon Clinton Jones and Dr. George Higgins a professor at Trinity College. The club met at Christ Church Cathedral for over 30 years. The club is incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1976.

1972: Gay Pride week June 17-24 is held in Hartford. A Friday and Saturday night dance was held, a Saturday picnic in Elizabeth park, a church service on Sunday morning and a march to the CT State Capitol is held. The week featured a gay guerrilla theater a panel on homosexuality, gay book fair, buffet dinner, a gay-in and a bus trip to New York City to join in the 3rd annual march to Central Park.

1972: Kalos Women begin rap sessions several times a month to socialize and get to know one another. The group was non-political and not a part of the formal Kalos structure.

1972: The Kalos Society joins the “Meeting of The Tribes” a gathering of groups interested in multi-issue work. Among the groups present along with Kalos were Roots, Shanti School, the Angela Davis Defense Committee, Black Sash, Children’s Day Care Center, New Morning Bookstore, Hartford Food Co-op, Telephone Tax Resistance a well as other groups and individuals. The main purpose of the meeting was to find out how to work together, help one another, share ideas and resources and unite as a family of individual groups.

1972: Jeanne Manford marches with her son in the June Pride march in New York City becoming the first known parent to do so. She carried a sign, “Parents of Gays, Unite in Support of Our Children.”

1972: Cannon Clinton Jones publishes, What About Homosexuality? a book for young people.

1972: Sweden becomes the first country in the world to allow Transgender people to legally change their sex and provides free hormone therapy.

1972: Women from the Gay Activist Alliance and Radicalesbians break away from both groups and formed The Lesbian Feminist Liberation Front. The departure was led by Jean O’Leary.

1972: A Quaker group, the Committee of Friends on Bisexuality, issued the “Ithaca Statement on Bisexuality” supporting Bisexuals. The statement which may have been the first public declaration of the bisexual movement was the first statement on bisexuality issued by an American religious assembly.

1972: George Mc Govern gives the first speech advocating for a gay rights plank in the Democratic Party Platform at the party’s convention in Miami Beach Florida.

1972: National Bisexual Liberation Group is formed in New York City. They produce what is the earliest Bisexual newsletter, “The Bisexual Expression,” with over 5,500 subscribers.

1973: The American Psychiatric Association votes that Homosexuality is no longer classified as a mental illness.

1973: The first formal meeting of parents in New York City to support their Lesbian and Gay children is held at the Metropolitan-Duane Methodist Church with 20 people in attendance. The meeting was called by Jean and Jules Manford. The Manford’s had developed the idea for an organization of parents who would be a bridge between the gay community and the heterosexual community. For these early meetings came the organization PFLAG. Groups began forming across the U.S.

1973: The first attempt to pass a Gay Civil Rights Bill in the state of Connecticut by the Kalos Society fails.

1973: The Metropolitan Community Church is founded in Hartford. Their theological outlook states, “We are an ecumenical liberal Christian Church with a minimum of dogma. We want people to think and feel for themselves.” The first worship service is held in November at St. Paul’s Methodist Church on Park Street Hartford. MCC operated a Gay and Lesbian Switchboard, information center connecting the community to housing, doctors, clinics, and counselors. The group published MCC news which later involved into the Metroline.

1973: At Pride in New York City, Lesbian feminist Jean O’Leary speaks out against drag performers at the June event. Her group The Lesbian Feminist Liberation passed out leaflets during the event denouncing drag queens as being misogynist and coitizing the march. Sylvia Rivera of the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries took the microphone and spoke against that sentiment and about the harassment and arrests of drag queens on the street. At this time Rivera asked the crowd “what are you doing for your gay brothers and sisters in jail? Have you been beaten up and raped in jail, she continued, I have been beaten up and raped many times by men. Do you do anything for them? No!” As the crowd became angrier and booed louder, Bette Midler took the stage and sang the song “Friends.” This event became one of many in the LGBT community where Lesbian, Gay men and Transgender activists clashed. Years later O’Leary apologized saying, “looking back I find this so embarrassing because my views have changed so much since then.”

1973: Homosexual Action West Berlin becomes the first group in the world to officially adopt the pink triangle as a gay rights logo. Members of the group stated that “this symbol is not just a reminder of the past that had been silenced for decades but a symbol also to highlight the continued oppression of homosexuals in Germany today.” The pink triangle was established in the U.S by gay rights activists as a pro-gay symbol with the triangle turned upright rather than inverted as an effort to turn a symbol of humiliation into one of transcontinental solidarity and resistance. Lesbians meanwhile reclaim the Black triangle as a symbol of oppression and resistance.

1973: The Upstairs Lounge a Gay bar and meeting place for The Metropolitan Community Church is attacked by an arsonist on the final day of Pride Weekend. Thirty-Two people died as a result of the fire or smoke inhalation. At the time of the fire over 60 people were attendance at the second-floor space. The fire was the third attack to affect Metropolitan Community Church with arson reported in Los Angeles and Nashville Tennessee. Coverage of the fire by news outlets minimized the fact that LGBT patrons constituted the majority of the victims and many churches refused to hold funerals for the dead. The Kalos Society in Hartford along with local bars held a blood drive and 67 pints of blood were donated for the victims.

1973: In the fall an early morning explosion at the Arch Café In Springfield Mass. The Arch Café was a popular cruising bar was leveled by the blast and damage to surrounding buildings is reported. The Springfield Union described the bar as, “long acknowledged gathering place for Homosexuals in the Connecticut Valley and beyond.” According to bar owners the bar had received obscene and threatening phone calls and other bars in the area confirmed that they had also. Many Hartford Gay men visited this bar and details of the incident are reported in The Griffin Magazine. No arrests were made in the bombing. One month later The Stanchion another Gay bar in Springfield had a fire and the cause is deemed to be faulty wiring. After the fires local bars began a tighter security program.

1973: Beverly Eacewicz and Kay Hathorn a Lesbian couple living in Manchester, CT are married at the Unitarian Meeting House in West Hartford. Both expressed their intentions of opposing and questioning the legality of their union.

1973: The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is founded which lends support to state and local groups to force change from the ground up.

1974: First Gay Rights Bill introduced into the U.S. Congress by Bella Abzug. The Bill was the first piece of legislation to address discrimination based on sexual orientation.

1974: Another attempt to pass a gay civil rights bill in CT when the Kalos Society presents a bill to Hartford City Council. The bill would prohibit discrimination in jobs, housing, public accommodations. The bill is never brought up for a vote.

1974: Lesbian activist Elaine Nobel wins a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

1974: Corba Lily and Her Renegade Nuns or Corba Lily opens at the Women’s Center 11 Amity Street in Hartford. Corba Lily is a feminist lounge for women only safe space for dancing and socializing.

1974: A Gender Identity Clinic is founded at Mount Sinai Hospital in Hartford by Dr. Michael Baggish. The first surgery took place in the summer of the same year. Gender Reassignment Surgery techniques were developed by Magnus Hirschfeld and surgeon Eugen Steinach. A number of incomplete surgeries were done and in 1931 the first male to female reassignment surgery was performed by Dr. Levy-Lenz and Dr. Felix Abraham two of Hirschfeld’s co-workers at the Institute of Sexual Science which had been established in 1919. The first publicly acknowledged male to female gender reassignment was of Lile Elbe. A book based upon her personal writings about her experiences made her the most famous pre WWII transsexual.

1974: The Lesbian Herstory Archives is founded in New York. The Archives begins an education program to make Lesbians and their contributions visible and known to each other, to the movement, and to the public. The Archives become a depository for material concerning Lesbians, the movement for equal rights and their stories.

1974-1975: The FBI sweeps through the Lesbian/Feminist and Women’s movement communities in Hartford and New Haven looking for Kathy Power and Susan Saxe who are anti-war archivists living underground. Four women refuse to cooperate with the FBI questioning and are given subpoenas to appear before a Grand Jury. Two women, Ellen Grusse and Terry Turgeon, are imprisoned and charged with Civil Contempt for continuing to not cooperate with the FBI and the Grand Jury. They serve 7 months before their release in December 1975.

1975: Every Sunday evening, “Come Out Tonight” CT.’s only gay radio program is on the air. The program’s sponsor is the Gay Alliance at Yale and features, music, news, commentary, personal stories, poetry, weekly events and is on New Haven radio.

1975: On December 10, a Connecticut law barring female impersonators is resurrected to close Ivan Valentin’s “Leading Ladies of New York,” drag show an act that was to become a blow to oppression, a fight for freedom and a big thumbs up for Queer Culture. Connecticut state law prohibited entertainers at a liquor establishment where men dressed as women or women dress as men. Ivan Valentin brought the matter to the University of Connecticut School of Law which took on the case and after a hearing and the threat of a lawsuit new regulations were put in place which would eliminate the ban on male and female impersonators. In January 1977 Ivan and his leading ladies put on shows in Connecticut in celebration of the ban being lifted.

1975: Bob Marche begins Somewhere Coffee House at MCC. Somewhere was an alternative to the bar scene and a non-threatening first contact for Gay people just coming out. The coffee house featured discussions, board games, poetry readings, an array of goodies, herbal teas, coffee and Gay folk singers.

1975: Kalos Society members attend a police roll call in Hartford to brief the police on what is it like to be gay. Police Chief Hugo J. Masini arranged the sensitivity sessions which he declared to be successful.

1975: Minneapolis becomes the first city in the U.S. to pass Transgender inclusive Civil Rights Legislation.

1975: Fantasia Fair is conceived in response to a “need for crossdressers and transsexuals to learn about themselves in an open and socially tolerant environment.” The fair is held in Provincetown and continues to be held each year. The fair is considered to be the longest running transgender event in the world. By the 1990’s the fair becomes more diverse and includes Trans men, and Trans women, cross-dressers and genderqueer people.

1975: Clela Rorex, a clerk in Boulder County Colorado, issues the first same sex marriage licenses in the U.S. Six-same sex marriages are performed as a result of her giving out licenses, but all the marriages are overturned later this year.

1975: An attempt is again made to pass a Connecticut Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights Bill. the bill was called “The Sexual Orientation Bill” and the committee responsible for the bill was the Sexual Orientation Lobby. Lesbian feminist Christine Pattee was the lobbyist working on the bill and a member of the Sexual Orientation committee from 1973-1978. Feminist Senator Betty Hudson introduced the bill and said about it, “People say I am a pain in the ass, I guess I am. But I’m not going away. I always feel if you are on the right side of an issue, you would ultimately prevail even if it takes a while.” This bill was raised by the Human Rights and Opportunities’ Committee. The bill was approved by the state Senate but defeated in the state House. This was the first successful gay rights vote by any state legislative chamber in the nation.

1975: A WFSB TV 3 editorial by Thomas Eaton in April speaks out against the defeat of the Sexual Orientation Bill, calling the debate one of misinformation, ignorant comments and myths without foundation. The editorial stated that this defeat “was not exactly a step forward as we approach the two hundredth birthday of the land of the free.”

1975: Real Art Ways (RAW) is founded in Hartford. Over the years the contemporary art space has exhibited and showcased some of the best LGBTQ artists working in contemporary art or working in issues that are important to the LGBTQ community. In 1978 Allen Ginsberg read his poetry and performed with Brian Johnson on percussion, John Cage’s American premier, Empty Words, a 10 hour work based on the writings of Thoreau and broadcasted by National Public Radio was aired, the exhibition Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl, curated by Carry Leibowitz, AIDS/SIDA an exhibition in 1990 and outstanding queer performers, Ethyl Eichelberger, Frank Maya, Carmelita Tropicanna, Mark Davis, David Cale, Kate Bornstein, poet Assoto Saint and a host of others over the years. Real Art Ways has always risen to the occasion and exhibited artists who have been banned from public art spaces out of fear, content of their work, or
right-wing pressure.

1975: The United States Civil Services Commission eliminates its ban on hiring Lesbians and Gays.

1975: The Dyketactics of Philadelphia take the Philadelphia Police to court charging the Philadelphia Civil Defense Squad with police brutality in the case of Dyketactics vrs.The City of Philadelphia. The women who are the “Dyketactics Six” were beaten in a demonstration for Gay and Lesbian Rights.

1975: Hartford / Springfield chapter of Dignity, a Catholic group for Lesbians and Gays is formed. Dignity was first formed in San Diego, California as a rap group.

1975: The Hill Center invites community groups to participate in a West End/ Asylum Hill Hartford fair on the grounds of St. Joseph’s Cathedral. Among the invitees are Metropolitan Community Church and Planned Parenthood both providing services to the community. The fair opens at noon. Father Ferrigno of the Cathedral orders that both groups have to move off of the Cathedral’s ground. Other presenters move their booths or pack up and go home in support of MCC and Planned Parenthood. T.V stations and the local paper feature news stories about the event. On Monday a group of Catholics led by civil rights activist Ned Coll staged a protest prayer vigil in support of MCC on the Cathedral Steps.

1975: Air Force technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich declares his homosexuality to the Secretary of the Air Force. This began the battle to overturn the U.S. military’s policy barring Lesbians and Gays. During the Reagan and Bush years over seventeen thousand Lesbians and Gays were discharged from the armed forces including CT activist, John Dwyer.

1975: The Matrix Gallery opens within the Wadsworth Atheneum. The gallery is dedicated to exhibition, performances, and lectures reflecting the diverse trends in contemporary art. Longtime friend and supporter of the LGBTQ community Andera Miller-Keller becomes the curator of the gallery. The Matrix Gallery exhibited and showcased many contemporary LGBTQ artists who were showing for the first time in an art museum. Artists Jasper Johns, Jess, Robert Mapplethorpe, Harmony Hammond, Keith Haring, Pauline Oliveros, Donald Moffett, Rachel Rosenthal, Group Material, Sister Mary Corita Kent all have shown at the Matrix. Many LGBTQ artists such as David Wojnarowicz, Paul Wynne, Donald Moffett, Harmony Hammond, Felix Gonzales-Torres and Robert Rauschenberg are all in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. The 1998 PRIDE Art Show held in June was dedicated to Andrea Miller Keller.

1976: The Outreach Institute for Gender Studies is established to help facilitate the Fantasia Fair. The Institute hold programs to help educated and share ideas for the cross-dressing community, to help further personal growth of individuals facing gender related issues, support resources for health care professionals and advancing the accumulation of knowledge about gender identity and role development.

1976: Jonathan Ned Katz and Team Members publish Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. A ground-breaking work of our stories the books begins this way, “We have been the silent minority, the silenced minority, invisible women and invisible men.”

1976: Gay Rights activists hold a march at the Democratic National Convention. Over 60 percent of the delegates and 600 of the delegates or alternates signed a declaration of support but party officials wouldn’t recognize Gays and Lesbians as a legitimate caucus of the Democratic Party. Platform proposals had been brought up and voted down twelve times. Restrictions were put in place on gaining a caucus room with passes required to enter. The general feeling of the Gay Rights activists was, “not only is the door still tightly shut, but the party doesn’t even bother to pretend it’s listening.”

1976: New York’s public television station, WNET, featured a live, three-hour special called, Out Reach: Lesbians and Gay Men. The special focused on services: legal, educational, medical and religious available to the Lesbian and Gay communities. The station stated in a press release, “We recognize the need of the Gay community, a minority that suffers discrimination and resultant legal, social and psychological problems. This program will be put together from the experiences of the Gay and Lesbian community to serve the needs of that community.” Members of the Lesbian and Gay community staffed 30 phones for the call-in section of the program.
According to the program director, “any discussion of anything gay on television is still pretty rare.”

1976: Iowa repeals the “sexual psychopath” law that had been used to detain dozens of gay men in mental institutions in the 1950s.

1977: A historic partnership between the LGBT community and the Teamsters begins. The partnership began when Coors started union busting and in part to a question on a Coors application asking if the applicant was a homosexual. If the answer was yes, that terminated a person’s application. Part of the anti-union campaign was to fire LGBT workers. The result was a bar boycott of Coors beer organized by a new labor and LGBT alliance. The boycott became a powerful national boycott against the notoriously right wing brewery. The Coors beer boycott showed the power of the LGBT community and in other union campaigns LGBT folks allied with and came out within other unions proving that we are indeed here, there, and everywhere.

1977: New York Supreme Court rules that transgender woman Renee Richards could play at the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament as a woman.

1977: Harvey Milk is elected city-council supervisor in San Francisco.

1977: Anita Bryant begins her “Save The Children” a militant anti-homosexual campaign in Dade County Florida against a Human rights Ordinance. The Ordinance was repealed by city officials. The local county ordinance banned discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations based on sexual orientation. When the ordinance went to a vote over 70% of the public voted to repeal it. Other cities followed suit and supportive civil rights ordinances were overturned in many of them.

1977: F. Jay Deacon, the pastor at Metropolitan Community Church car is torched in Hartford the day after the vote in Dade County Florida. F. Jay Deacon responds with a message blaming the vote and saying, “I am not surprised, for Save Our Children has now given license to the ugliest possibilities of the human heart.” He also called for the Lesbian and Gay community to come out, be ourselves and that we need each other. “We do not need these institutions and churches that cannot and will not affirm our rights and our humanity. We must build communities and institutions of our own.” He goes on to tell Mrs. Jimmy Carter who was on a world-wide Human Rights speaking tour to come home, “for your nation is unqualified to speak to the world of human rights and I am insulted that it should try.”

1977: The State Department eliminates its ban on hiring Lesbians and Gays.

1978: SAGE (Senior Action in a Gay Environment) is founded in New York City establishing a friendly visitor program with the idea of “taking care of our own,” and working to create a high quality of life for LGBT seniors.

1978: A civil rights ordinance is passed by the Hartford City Council 5-2. Mayor George Athanson vetoes the ordinance the next morning. The bill was introduced by Deputy Mayor Nick Carbone and Majority Leader Richard Suisman and would have banned discrimination against people on the basis of sexual orientation within establishments doing business with the city.

1978: Gilbert Baker of San Francisco designs and creates the first Rainbow Flag. The original flag flew at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade on June 25, 1978. The flag today is recognized worldwide as a symbol of LGBTQ Pride.

1978: Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone are assassinated by Dan White a city supervisor in San Francisco. A massive candle light march is held from the Castro to City Hall. Holly Near writes the song, We Are a Gentle Angry People, Singing for Our Lives and it is performed at the vigil.

1978: National coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays is formed.

1978-1985: Heartroots Feminist Therapy Collective is founded by Loretta Wrobel. The collective is dedicated to releasing creative energy within the self and using that vital life force to bring harmony and loving concern to all others, especially our Mother Earth. Collective functioning defies the patriarchal paradigm of superiority-inferiority concept and looks instead to our early matriarchal systems where all living beings are equal and allowed to develop their own potential. Workshops focused on Woman Anger, Women and Depression, Empowerment and Self Defense, Stuffing our Stuff and Lesbian Awareness Series. The Lesbian Awareness Series consisted of four sessions: Self Images—How we view ourselves, assessing our strengths, Exploring Coming Out Process, Sharing survival skills, how to be, who to tell, risks, homophobia,  Relationships -Breaking down myths and stereotypes, new alternatives, and Developing Supportive Environment—Focus on self and others, political climate, individual and social change. The main focus was on individual functioning within the political, social and community framework, healing by building community and teaching cooperation and sharing. The task was to take a holistic view, Ecofeminist approach that explored the personal, sexual, social and political environment.

1978: The Hispanic Health Council is founded in Hartford. ORGULLO which means pride in Spanish is a project of the Council. ORGULO later addresses HIV / AIDS prevention and other health needs of Latino males who are Gay or Bisexual, who are having sex with other men.

1978: Gay and Lesbian Advocates & Defenders is founded by Attorney John Ward in response to a “sting operation” conducted by Boston police that resulted in the arrest of more than one hundred men in the men’s room of the main building of Boston Public Library. GLAD filed its first case and eventually all those arrested were either found not guilty or had the charges against them dismissed. In 1980 GLAD represented Aaron Fricke a student at Cumberland High School in Rhode Island who won the right to bring a same-sex date to a high school dance. Over the years GLAD has taken on many cases pertaining to the LGBTQ communities’ legal rights. The organization works to end discrimination based on sexual orientation, HIV status and gender identity and expression. In addition, they operate a legal information line. The Gay and Lesbian Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) has played an important role in advocating for the LGBTQ community at the side of Connecticut activists, and others in New England and Northeastern United States.

1979: The American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) openly expresses its support for legislation banning workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. LGBT caucuses began to form in many unions to protect their rights. This momentum slowed in the early 1990s when the AFL-CIO failed to support marriage equality and LGBT activists then formed Pride At Work.

1979: Dan White is found guilty on two counts of voluntary manslaughter in the assassination of Harvey Milk and George Moscone. The “White Night” riots cause an estimated one million dollars’ worth of damage in San Francisco. A group of over 3,000 people marched on city hall chanting “Avenge Harvey Milk.” Later in the evening police retaliated and raided a gay bar beating and arresting patrons.

1979: The first national march on Washington DC for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights. Over one hundred thousand participate. The march focused on single issue politics so not to dilute the idea that there was a united Lesbian and Gay community. The National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays sponsor, “Third World Lesbian and Gay Conference.” Groups of parents from around the country join the march and two parents speak in support at the rally. Also, this year the first parents group is formed in Fairfield Country in support of their Lesbian and Gay children.

1979: In a vote of 6 to 2 the Hartford City Council overrides the veto of Mayor George Athanson on a measure to prohibit discrimination in regard to race, color, by reason of being an ex-offender, age, national origin, physical or mental handicap, religion, sex. or sexual orientation.

1979: The Hartford Women’s Center and Feminist Library is founded. The Women’s Center publishes a newsletter Women In Hartford. The Center amassed an important collection in their library including newsletter that documented the women’s movement in Hartford.

1979: Jerry Falwell forms the “Moral Majority.” The organization is composed of conservative evangelical Christian activists and is based in Lynchburg, Virginia. Their stated goals are opposition to gay rights, abortion, feminism, pornography, Communism and the Salt II Treaty.

1979: The New London’s Gay Men’s Forum is organized for Gay men to meet and feel a connection to the community. Later the Forum changed its name to The New London People’s Forum and became inclusive. The Forum published The Closet Light a monthly newsletter.

1979: Radical Faeries is founded by Harry Hay, John Burnside and others who wanted to create an alternative to what they saw as the assimilationist attitude of the mainstream U.S Gay community. Regional Faerie groups were formed throughout the country including one in Connecticut. Participants in the first Faerie gathering help to establish the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in San Francisco.

1979: The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence a leading Order of Queer nuns first appear in San Francisco on Easter Sunday in full traditional habits walking through the streets. The Sisters devote themselves to community service, ministry and outreach to those on the edges and to promoting human rights, respect for diversity and spiritual enlightenment. The Sisters are a national and worldwide order.

1979: Mary Collins police force veteran of 13 years returns to active duty in Bridgeport after a June sex-change. She states, “I see no reason why I cannot return to my job. I am not ashamed of what I have done or who I am. I expect some flak.”

1980: The first Black Lesbian Conference took place in San Francisco, California. A development stemming from the first National Third World Lesbian and Gay Conference held in Washington, D.C., the previous year, over 200 women were in attendance. One of the conference goals was reportedly to address the wide spectrum of needs for black lesbians and “to provide the courage and strength necessary to make those needs felt in places where it becomes necessary.” Angela Davis gave the conference’s keynote address.

1980: Dean Wycoff, a leader of the “Moral Majority” declares, “I agree with capital punishment, and I believe that homosexuality is one of those crimes that could be coupled with murder and sin.”

1980: The Human Rights Campaign is founded. The group follows a middle-class reformist tradition via legal and social reforms.

1980: The Democratic Party adopts a Lesbian and Gay Rights plank for its 1980 party platform.

1980: Yale Scholar John Boswell publishes Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality. The books seeks to clarity the origins of modern Christian hostility, and challenges that the hostility was inherent in the Christian faith.

1980: Gay Spirit Radio, one of the longest running gay radio programs in the United States, is founded at the University of Hartford. Keith Brown, the long-time host, still interviews LGBTQ folks on this weekly show.

1980: The National Association of Black and White Men Together is founded in San Francisco. The organization is a Gay, multiracial, multicultural organization committed to fostering supportive environments wherein racial and cultural barriers can be overcome. Goals consists of two major themes: combating racism within the LGBT community and combating homophobia in general society. An overall goal is to witness an American free of racism and homophobia.

1980: Anti-Lesbian and Gay legislation named, “The Family Protection Act,” is introduced into the U.S. Congress.

1981: On Labor Day Weekend women gather at the New England Women’s Musical Retreat (NEWMR) . These retreats were weekends of women’s music, workshops, crafts, camping, and community building.

1981: In March a concert series began called “Women’s Music For Everyone,” at the Lincoln Theater in Hartford organized by Chris Pattee and Korky Vann. The concerts brought thousands of women from throughout the state together.

1981: PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) forms in Los Angeles by representatives from around the country. In 1982, the Federation of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays was incorporated in California, then representing some 20 groups. The first chapter is started in the Hartford area by Helen and Bob Brill, long time civil rights activists for various human rights issues, they were Quakers and the first meeting was held at the Quaker Meeting House in West Hartford, Ct. The Helen and Bob Brill Scholarships are awarded annually to students in honor of the Brill’s enormous contribution to PFLAG. In 1999 at the CT Coalition for LGBT Civil Rights OUT AWARDS, Helen Brill received the Emma Goldman Award for OUTstanding ally. The award was given to recognize the outstanding contributions of an individual or organization ally to the LGBT community.

1981: The Federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention report an alarming occurrence of a rare cancer among otherwise healthy gay men. An article in the New York times called the disease “GRIDS” (Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome.) By years end 279 cases had been reported of severe immune deficiency among Gay men and 121 of those individuals have died.

1981: Lesbian Historian, Lillian Faderman publishes Surpassing The Love of Men- Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women From The Renaissance to the Present.

1982: Lesbian and Gay History Stamp Club is founded in Hartford to study and collect material depicting Lesbian and Gay awareness. The Hartford branch of the Stamp Club shows its extensive collection at the CT Stonewall Congress as a part of a one-day conference. The Stamp Club lends parts of its collections to other exhibitions held in the LGBTQ community.

1982: GRIDS is renamed AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.) In June the first American AIDS clinic is established in San Francisco.

1982: The Gay Men’s Health Crisis is founded by Larry Kramer, Nathan Fain, Larry Mass, Paul Popham, Paul Rapoport, Edmund White who officially establish the Collective in New York City.

1982: A newsletter A Lesbian Position is published in New Haven CT. The newsletter contains information on social gatherings, political events and other information for Lesbians.

1982: Wisconsin becomes the first state to enact a statewide Gay Rights Bill.

1982: Michael Hardwick is arrested on sodomy charges when police in Atlanta, Georgia enter his bedroom. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court which ruled that “the right to privacy did not extend to homosexuals.” Seventeen years later the decision is overruled in Lawrence V Texas. This case was brought by Lambda Legal and the Court ruled that all anti-sodomy laws in the United States were invalid.

1982: Men of All Colors is founded in Connecticut. This group was part of the National Association of Black and White Men Together. Chapters of the group felt that the original name was limiting and there was a need to include all men of color in the organization. Chapters could be found in all major cities of the U.S.

1982: The first annual Lesbian and Gay Pride is held in Hartford on June 26th at the Old State House. Over four hundred people attend to celebrate their pride and the thirteenth anniversary of Stonewall. The event was planned by members of The Greater Hartford Lesbian and Gay Task Force. Plans were made at that time to meet with Hartford’s Mayor Milner to talk about a Gay Rights Ordinance for the city and for the introduction of a civil rights bill in the 1983 Legislative session.

1983: Another attempt in Connecticut to pass a Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights Bill (Senate Bill #389) fails.

1983: During the summer a group of Lesbians and Gay men discouraged by the continual defeat of the Gay Civil Rights Bill, unite to discuss the issue. This group decided to form a statewide organization and by the spring of 1984, The Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights is formed. Charlotte Kinlock and Crispin Hollings were the first co-chairs of the Coalition.

1983: Patrick Buchanan declares, “AIDS is God’s judgement on a society that does not live by his rules.”

1983: Massachusetts Representative Gerry Studds reveals he is Gay on the floor of the House, becoming the first openly gay member of Congress. Voters re elect him in 1984.

1983: A group of Gay medical professionals start The Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective, offering services to Gay men to obtain diagnosis and treatment for STD’s and Lesbians to obtain important health information. The Collective’s first clinic is located at the Community Health Services opening in 1984 with a Thursday evening clinic. In 1986 the clinic is one of two sites funded by the state to provide HIV counseling and testing. An office was opened at the Community Center on Broad Street in Hartford in 1992 and the Collective began sponsorship of Your Turf, a youth support group. Clinical services were moved to the Broad Street location in 1996. The Health Collective received funding from the Ryan White Title 1 program in 1996 resulting in the first dental clinic for people living with HIV /AIDS in Connecticut opening in 1997. A Women’s Service Clinic was begun in 1997 offering a variety of services including breast exams, pap smear tests, mammogram referrals, testing for HIV and treatment and counseling. The Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective remains to this day a safe, welcoming environment free of judgmental attitudes or prejudice.

1983: Lesbian feminists, Carolyn Gabel and Tollie Miller, with a diverse group of 30 other investors, established a feminist/progressive bookstore/café in Hartford as a community gathering place. On November 26th, The Reader’s Feast Bookstore/Café opened. The feminist/progressive bookstore offered expanded sections on political issues, women, Lesbians and Gays, racial and ethnic authors and a full selection of general and best seller titles. The Café offered homemade goods, special coffees and teas. The Feast also had a display of visual arts and held concerts, poetry readings and book signings. In 1999 The Readers Feast received the Connecticut Coalition for LGBT Civil Rights, Gianni Versace Award for Business for its years of dedication to the community.

1984: The first East Coast conference on Bisexuality is held at Storrs at the University of Connecticut. Members of the bisexual community in Hartford and around the state attend.

1984: Berkeley California becomes the first city in the U.S. to extend domestic partnership benefits to Lesbian and Gay employees and their live-in partners.

1984: Ronald Reagan is elected President of the U.S. Many believed the quote by Virginia Appuzzo who said, “The Reagan Administration has served notice that all our yesterdays should be restored tomorrow,” summed up the feelings of the Lesbian and Gay community.

1985: People With AIDS Coalition is formed in New York City.

1985: At a memorial candlelight vigil on the anniversary of the Milk/Moscone assassinations Cleve Jones learned that 1,000 people had died of AIDS. He proposed the creation of a quilt, in remembrance of those who had died. Cleve Jones launches the NAMES PROJECT AIDS MEMORIAL QUILT.

1985: AIDS Project Hartford is founded with the mission to provide education and support services for all people affected by HIV / AIDS in the Greater Hartford region, empowering them to maintain dignity and improve their quality of life. During the next two decades APH evolved from an organization fighting to help people face an imminent death into one focused on helping people live a longer life with hope and dignity.

1985: The Connecticut Stonewall Foundation is founded and states its purpose, “To serve to educate the general public on the role of homosexual men and women in our society,” and “to provide for the well-being of homosexual women and men in our society through educational and charitable activities.”

1985: Connecticut’s Women’s Education and Legal Fund (CWELF) publishes “Legal Rights of Lesbian and Gay Men in Connecticut.” The booklet was revised in 1999.

1986: Gay Men of African Decent (GMAD) is founded in New York City.

1986:  Bayard Rustin as a public advocate for Gay and Lesbian causes testifies on behalf of New York State’s Gay Rights Bill. He gave a speech, “The New Niggers Are Gays,” in which he asserted. “Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination. The new “niggers” are gays…It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change. The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people”

1986: The National Cancer Institute announces that a new drug, Azidothymidine or AZT seems to help with some AIDS patients.

1986: Members of the statewide Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights rename the group, The Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights. A political action committee is formed in January 1988. The first co-chairs were Charlotte Kinlock and Crispin Hollings.

1987: Six Gay rights activists form the Silence=Death project in New York City and began plastering the city with posters. The posters featured a pink triangle on a black back ground with the words: Silence = Death. The poster would eventually be used by ACT UP as its central visual. The posters were intended to draw parallels between the Nazi period and the AIDS crisis, declaring that ‘silence about the oppression and annihilation of gay people then and now, must be broken as a matter of our survival.’

1987: ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), a coalition of diverse individuals united in anger and committed to direct action, is founded in New York. ACT UP groups begin to form across the nation.

1987: The first hate crime law is passed in Connecticut. The act called, “An Act Requiring the State Police to Monitor All Crimes Motivated by Bigotry and Bias,” The law required the state police to collect and disseminate data and statistics. The law did not include specific categories like race or sexual orientation. These categories were specified later by community activists, legislators and state police.

1987: Alternatives, a Gay and Lesbian Cultural Organization is founded in Hartford by Lesbian activist Terri Reed and Gay activist Bill Mann. Publishes Invert magazine containing poetry and short stories. The Gay and Lesbian film festival which is still in existence today was founded as a part of Alternatives with the first Lesbian/Gay film Festival held in June 1988

1987: The progressive third-party People for Change candidates are elected to Hartford City Council. Their platform was pro-union, LGBT friendly, and populist. The People For Change party continued until 1993.

1987: The US House of Representatives voted 368-47 to approve an amendment to withhold federal funding from any AIDS education organization which encourages homosexual activity. The senate approved a similar amendment the previous week by a vote of 94-2. It was introduced by Sen. Jesse Helms. / The US House Judiciary Committee voted 21-13 to approve a bill requiring the justice department to collect statistics on hate crimes, including anti-gay violence.

1987 : Over fifty ACT-UP members are arrested during an act of civil disobedience protesting President Reagan’s lack of action to the AIDS epidemic. In another demonstration a few days earlier about 150 people protested across the street from the United Nations building during the UN General Assembly’s first debate on AIDS. The General Assembly resolved to mobilize the entire UN system in the worldwide struggle against AIDS, under the leadership of the World Health Organization.

1987: National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership is founded. The African American Gay Men’s Support group is formed in Hartford.

1987: The Ecumenical Catholic Church, a denomination inclusive of sexual minorities is incorporated in California. In 1994 the first service of St. Francis St. Claire is held in Hartford with Fr. Richard Cardarelli presiding. The parish becomes official part of The Ecumenical Catholic Church in September 1994. In June 1996 some clergy and laity of the five ECCC parishes form a separate denomination called, The American Apostolic Catholic Church.

1988: The first Lesbian and Gay Community Center is opened at 495 Farmington Ave. in Hartford.

1988: Two Hartford teenagers murder Richard Reihl on May 15th. The two had, on the night before, tied up, tortured and robbed another gay man. The judge in the trial sentences the teenagers to thirty-five and forty years in prison.

1988: The Anti-Violence Project, a committee of The Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights, is founded in Hartford on June 27th in response to the Richard Reihl murder. Steve Gavron and Shai Cassell are the first co-chairs of the Project. The Anti-Violence Project mission was to monitor the Reihl case and assist the prosecution, educate the community on how to protect themselves from anti-gay violence, combat anti-gay hate crimes in CT by working toward the passage of an inclusive Hate Crimes bill, and to attack the root causes of anti-gay sentiment. The AVP also discovered and reported that 251 incidents of violence against our people took place in Connecticut in 1988.

1988: A Lesbian Convergence is held in Hartford and more than 100 women join together for a day of “learning, listening, and love for ourselves and each other.” The Convergence held more than 18 workshops, crafts, dancing and dinner and a keynote address by Kate Millett. Ms. Millett encouraged participants to remember the ancient ways as we come of age and spoke of the need to discover the beauty of women loving women. “Rediscover the grace, sensuality and outrageous daring of two beautiful women loving. We are the solution to many problems. We are the way to live in the future.”

1988: World Health Organization declares December 1 to be World AIDS Day. By the end of the decade, there are at least 100,000 reported cases of AIDS in the U.S.

1988: Peter’s retreat opens in Hartford with the goal of helping individuals and families living with HIV/AIDS to receive comprehensive and compassionate services necessary to live healthier lives and break the cycle of homelessness.

1989: John Bonelli an out and open Gay man announces his run for Hartford’s City Council on the progressive People for Change ticket. 150 people attend his announcement at City Hall.
Bonelli says, “Together we can build the links, which will unite Blacks, Hispanics, Lesbians and Gay men, workers, women, the elderly, persons with disabilities, Asians, neighborhood leaders, youth and all those working for a more just and equitable city.”

1989: Greg Drayton and others establish the House of Freedom in Hartford the first house. By 1993 there were 4 Houses established.

1989: Speak Out! formed by the Anti-Violence Project to educate and prevent violence is one of the first organized efforts in Connecticut to educate society by talking directly to groups on the realities of our lives. Ten years later the speaker’s bureau is the only remaining active part of the Anti-Violence Project and is now called the Stonewall Speakers Bureau.”

1989: Members of The Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights hold a rally at the State Capitol. A direct-action group is formed, and the group interrupts the CT General Assembly by chanting and hanging banners from the visitor’s gallery in June. Two affinity groups, one women’s and one men’s participated in the action. The men’s banner listed all the names of the legislators who had voted against the civil rights bill with the words, “You are killing us”, The other banner had the words “We Will Not Disappear”. Some of the group are forcibly removed. The direct-action group becomes a separate entity with no affiliation with the Coalition. The new group in 1990 took the name Queer Nation / Hartford. Maintaining their presence at the Capitol, Kathleen Linares, Pat Needham and Carolyn Gabel interrupted a speech by Gov. O’Neil on February 7th, on the opening day of the Ct. General Assembly. Twelve people were arrested.

1989: Caving in to pressure from the political and religious right, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C. cancels an upcoming exhibition, Robert Mapplethrope The Perfect Moment.

1989: The Connecticut Outreach Society is founded. It grew out of what was originally called the ConnecticuTView. The original ConnecticuTView was founded in 1985 which was mainly a correspondence club, with no regular meetings. In 1989 an Advisory Council is formed, and the name was changed to The Connecticut Outreach Society which published The Outreach News wrote a constitution and bylaws. The society is a support group for Transgender people, their spouses and significant others. The group has a Speakers Bureau program to assist the general public and professionals on understanding the life of Transgender persons.

1989: The American Bar Association votes 251 to 121 in favor of supporting federal legislation to prohibit discrimination against Lesbians and Gays.

1989: The United States Postal Service issues a special Lesbian and Gay Pride Postmark to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Stonewall.

1989: With full support of the Board of Directors of the Wadsworth Atheneum, Director Patrick McCaughey defends the exhibit, Robert Mapplethrope, The Perfect Moment and states that the museum has every intention of holding the exhibition. The exhibition opens in October breaking all attendance records. Only a few protesters come out for the opening.

1989: Act UP disrupts trading on the New York Stock Exchange, to protest the high price of AZT and the high profits of Burroughs-Wellcome. Burroughs-Wellcome owned the patent to AZT charging up to $10,000 per year for treatment. Burroughs-Wellcome finally reduced the cost of AZT. Through ACT UPS work The Federal Food and Drug Administration announced a new system that would permit access to experimental drugs, some at no cost to patients who could not afford them.

1989: Connecticut AIDS Resource Coalition (CARC) is formed to work with mutually supportive organizations wishing to create AIDS housing by sharing resources, skills, and information. Lesbian Activist Shawn Lang becomes the Director of Public Policy in 1991. Lang had been an AIDS activist since the early 1980s founding with others the Middlesex County AIDS Buddy Network, a network that was all volunteer run and provided support and companionship to people with HIV/AIDS. Lang continues to serve the HIV/ AIDS communities through various projects and organizations.

1989: Gran Fury an art collective launches a bus campaign with posters declaring, “Kissing Doesn’t Kill: Greed And Indifference Do,” a political art action used to reach a broad audience with information about AIDS. The first part of this campaign was a mass mailing of a postcard image of the kissing couples of mixed race and sex using the same words as the bus campaign but on the other side of the card are the words, “Corporate Greed, Government Inaction and Public Indifference Make AIDS A Political Crisis.

1989: Lesbian and Gay activists clashed with New Haven Police during the third annual conference of the Lesbian and Gay Studies Center at Yale University. Over 200 protesters took to the streets of New Haven after William Dobbs a member of Art Positive posted posters depicting sexual activity with the slogan, “Sex Is, Just Sex.” Nine people were arrested by the police. Conference attendees attempted to block police cars and were met with police brutality and homophobic insults which were witnessed and heard by dozens of people.  Those arrested were released later that evening, but the charges were not dropped. The conference continued and demonstrations were held throughout the weekend. Investigations were promised by both the New Haven and Yale campus police. Charges were finally dropped against the 9 who were arrested by both Yale University and the New Haven Police. In December Yale University disciplined two of its campus police officers for harassment of gay people stemming from this confrontation. However both Yale and the New Haven Police maintained that the arrests were not motivated by anti-gay sentiment but by a mistake of judgement by the police.

1989: A proposal brought to the Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights to include the Bisexual community in the title of the organization is met with debate over Bisexual strength or the lack of it to warrant inclusion into the title. Members of the Coalition who were opposed to the addition stated that the Coalition would still conduct outreach and educational programs on bisexual issues. The Coalition agreed to add the term bisexual to any brochures as well as to discussion topics.

1989:  The third Greater Hartford Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual (note the use of the Bisexual community) Town Meeting is set to take place in October. The meeting is attended to stimulate discussion about what the community needs and what the LGB community would like to see happen in the Greater Hartford Community. The Town meeting is sponsored by over 20 state-wide organizations.

1989:  The Hartford Police Department agrees to a number of programs in an effort to improve relations and responsiveness to the gay and lesbian community. Representatives from the Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights, The Anti-Violence Project, and Ct. Women’s Educational and Legal Fund. The meetings took place in response to a police crackdown on a known cruising area. Police Captains responsible for the area will participate in a town meeting with the community, all Hartford Police Captains will participate in a sensitivity training program on homophobia and the Police Academy will include sensitivity training for all new recruits.

1989: Connecticut AIDS Resource Coalition is incorporated and states as its aim to work with and mutually support organizations wishing to create AIDS housing by sharing resources, skills, and information.

1989: Linda Estabrook is appointed Executive Director of The Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective. She is also instrumental in developing targeted intervention in areas including HIV/AIDS and breast cancer. As Executive Director Estabrook led discussions on Lesbian health and added woman services including clinical breast exams, Pap tests, mammogram referrals, STD testing and treatment and HIV testing and counseling to the programs that the Health Collective had already been offering. She is the co-founder of Transgender Lives: The Intersection of Health and Law Conference and a longtime leader in the LGBT community. Under her leadership the Collective became a sponsoring organization for Your Turf a support group for LGBT and questioning youth (now known as the Rainbow Room, hosting the annual Queer Prom) and in 1997 the first dental program in the state for people living with HIV/AIDS who were denied dental care because of their HIV status.

1989: Alexandra Burack, Director of The Greater Hartford Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Community Center, a community activist, organizer and educator is selected to represent Connecticut at the East Coast Bisexual Network Conference entitled “Cultural, Community, Coalition Building held in Boston. Ms. Burack will be coordinating the area of programing, outreach and networking for the conference. The conference is open to everyone who is Bisexual and to those who wish to learn more about Bisexuality. This is the groups 5th annual conference.

1989: A Visual AIDS Happening at Carl Andre’s Stone Field Sculpture is held in downtown Hartford on, A Day Without Art, World AIDS Day. Alternatives the Gay and Lesbian Art organization and Real Art Ways sponsors the event where participants wore black clothing and stood silently on the rocks of the sculpture while others distributed literature.

1990: Queer Nation is founded in New York with branches across America. The Nation applied militant AIDS tactics to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender issues. The word “Queer” was to be an all-embracing name. The group used direct action and “in your face visibility.”

1990: The Community Center moves to Broad Street in Hartford. By 1991 Project 100 merges with the Center and in 1992 The Metropolitan Community Church opens an office and a chapel there. The Center provides space for meetings, dances and other events.

1990: Congress passes The Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency ACT. Also passed was the American with Disabilities Act and extending anti-discrimination protection to people with HIV / AIDS.

1990: A second piece of legislation on Hate Crimes, increasing the penalties if a crime was committed due to the victim’s race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation is passed in Connecticut. This was the first time in Connecticut that the words, “sexual orientation” were codified into state law.

1990: The first annual HIV Service Awards are held in Hartford’s City Hall, honoring community members for their work on HIV / AIDS issues.

1990: First annual AIDS walk to benefit AIDS Project Hartford.

1990: Hate Crime Statistics Act is signed into law by George Bush. The Justice Department at first refused to keep track of violence against Lesbian and Gay People.

1990: Representative Joseph Grabarz Jr. of Bridgeport identifies himself as a gay man at a rally and then held a press conference to announce that he was gay.

1990: Leslie Brett, chairwoman of The CT Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities and Executive Director of CWEALF, wrote a public letter to all state legislators urging their support for the Lesbian/Gay Civil Rights bill and identifying herself as a Lesbian.

1990 In April responding to the 120% increase in violence against gays and lesbians, Queer Nationals climb the billboard on the roof of Badlands, a Greenwich Village bar and hang a 40 foot banner that reads: “Dykes and Fags Bash Back!”

1990 On April 28 a pipe bomb explodes in Uncle Charlies, a Greenwich Village gay bar, injuring three. In protest Queer Nation mobilizes 1000 gays and lesbians in a matter of hours. Angry marchers filled the streets, carrying the banner, “Dykes and Fags Bash Back!”

1990: Bay area television reporter Paul Wynne dies of AIDS. Wynne had chronicled the development of his disease and his feelings as he neared death on a weekly video diary aired on KGO. In September twenty segments made between January 11, 1990 to his final taping on June 20, 1990 are shown together for the first time at The Matrix Gallery, in the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. Also, at this time Group Material, a group of four young artists exhibit, AIDS Timeline Hartford at The Matrix Gallery. The timeline begins in 1979 and traces the social, political and health concerns, using art, archival material and annual statistics. The timeline also addresses the impact homophobia and racism had on the formulation of effective public policy.

1990: Real Art Ways sponsors, Group Material bus poster campaign quoting President George Bush and addressing the insurance industry based in Hartford. The quote stated: “Like many of you, Barbara and I have had friends who have died of AIDS. Once disease strikes, we don’t blame those who are suffering…We try to love them and care for them and comfort them. We don’t fire them, we don’t evict them, we don’t cancel their insurance.” To many this quote conveyed positive norms of behavior at odds with the actions of the administration in Washington. A pamphlet about the insurance industry and AIDS written by Mary Anne Staniszewski was also distributed by Real Art Ways to tie in with the poster publicity.

1991: Co-chairs of the Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights, Anne Stanback, Shawn Lang, and Meg Bachtell lead the Coalition and supporters to victory when the Connecticut General Assembly enacts a comprehensive statute prohibiting discrimination against Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual people in the areas of employment, public accommodations, education, membership on professional boards, rental and sale of housing and credit transactions. On May 1st Governor Lowell Weicker signs the bill into law.

1991: Democratic Progressive Carrie Saxton Perry is elected Mayor of Hartford, ushering in a period of progressive change for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people. The first LGBT commission is formed chaired by Terri Reed.

1991: Real Art Ways hosts the NEA 4, Tim Miller, John Fleck, Holy Hughes and Karen Finley in response to the NEA Chairman’s veto for approved grant awards for each artist. A theater peer panel to the NEZ had unanimously recommended grants to the NEA 4. Congress then passes the “decency standard” for the NEA, a substitute for the previous law. The NEA 4 bring suit and in 1992 a federal district judge rules the Congressional requirement violates the First and Fifth Amendment. The NEA 4 settle out of court for damages totaling $252,000. The part of the lawsuit that challenges the Congressional requirement of a “General Standard of Decency,” taken in to account in its grant-making procedures, continues through the court. According to Real Art Ways sold out shows breathed new life into the organizations and in particular generated support from the LGBT community.

1991: The Red Ribbon is first used as a symbol against HIV/AIDS.

1991: Lesbian Avengers is formed in New York City. The Avengers use direct action tactics to promote Lesbian survival and visibility. Branches begin across America including a group in Hartford.

1991: In Hawaii three couples, two Lesbian and one Gay bring a lawsuit with Lambda Legal challenging the state government’s denial of their application for marriage licenses. In May the Hawaii Supreme Court rules that refusal to issue marriage licenses to same gender couples seems to violate the state constitution. In 1994 Hawaii state legislature passes a law reaffirming its desire to bar same gender marriage and citing procreation and that allowing same gender couples to marry would not be in the best interest of children. The Trial Court then found no evidence to support that claim. Before the Supreme Court could decide the issue, the legislature was able to have the constitution amended by referendum.

1991: Nancy Burkholder is ejected from the grounds of The Michigan Women’s Music Festival after refusing to answer if she was Transgender. The MWMF maintained a woman born women policy since its inception with the first festival in 1975.

1991: Queer Nation’s Transgender Focus Group creates a Transgender Flag which consists of a white background and a centered downward pointing pink triangle with a transgender symbol overlaying it in black.

1991: The Victory Fund was founded by LGBTQ activists and donors who recognized the success of EMILY’s List at attracting attention and support for women candidates for public office. With less than 50 openly LGBTQ elected officials across America at any level of government, the founders understood that boosting our numbers in public office would be a key to advancing equality.

1992: Camp Trans is founded by Transgender and cisgender women at the Michigan Women’s Festival. Each year after the Burkholder incident protests and educational workshops were held at Camp Trans about Transgender issues.

1992: A lobbying campaign to include Bisexuals in the title and organization of the upcoming March on Washington begins. Bisexual, Lesbian, and Gay activists sign a letter in support of Bisexual inclusion. Openly Bisexual people take key leadership roles in local and regional organizing for the march. The title of the march is changed to the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Rights and Liberation.

1992: Center Church in Hartford embarks on the process of becoming an “Open and Affirming” church which values Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual people and welcomes their participation in the life of the church. The process includes three forums at the church and informational packets made available to the congregation. In October 1994 the Open and Affirming Resolution passes by a sizable majority.

1992: Robin McHaelen studying for her master’s degree in Social Work begins organizing the first Children From The Shadows Conference. The University of CT School of Social Work approved the idea of creating a conference about LGBT youth and the risks associated with sexual minority status. Connecticut State Department of Children and Families, The Department of Education, Mental Health and Addiction Service and more than 30 grassroots organizations join.

1992: Leslie Feinberg writes a pamphlet for the World Forum. Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come, is considered to be a groundbreaking Marxist analysis of Transgender oppression and liberation. The first paragraph of the pamphlet says: “This pamphlet is an attempt to trace the historic rise of an oppression that, as yet, has no commonly agreed name. We are talking here about people who defy the (man-made) boundaries of gender. Gender: Self-expression not anatomy.” In Feinberg’s usage, Transgender became an umbrella term used to represent a political alliance between all gender-variant people who do not conform to social norms for typical men and women, and who suffer political oppression as a result.

1992: Lesbians of Color in Kinship (LOCKS) is formed in Hartford. Regina Dyton and Cheryl Linear are instrumental in starting this organization. Open to all Women of Color and their partners, LOCKS is a statewide social organization.

1992: The Mayor’s Commission on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues is formed in Hartford. Work begins by the Education/Youth branch of the Mayor’s Commission on implementing an anti-discrimination and harassment policy in Hartford’s schools. In 1997 the new policy became law.

1992: The Republican Party’s platform denounces civil rights protection at the local, state, and national levels for LGBT people. The party terms this attack as “protecting family values.”

1992: The San Diego Police Department announced that it was severing its ties with the Boy Scouts of America due to a local chapter’s dismissal of a gay police officer who was involved with the Explorer program.

1992: In January, drag queen Joan Jett Blakk announced her candidacy for president  under the slogan “Lick Bush in ‘92!” She ran as a part of the Queer Nation Party, having helped found the Chicago branch of the activist organization. In doing so, she became the first ever drag queen to run for president. The presidential run was also a way for the Queer Nation Party and its Chicago branch to draw attention to how much of a joke the entire election process was — together they saw both potential candidates, Clinton and Bush, as a loss, since they felt neither placed any real value on queer rights. So, as Blakk put it, she tossed her wig into the presidential race, with platforms — the seven-inch ones she wore as well as the desire to fire everyone in Washington and start calling the White House the Lavender House; to have, she said, “Dykes on Bikes patrolling the borders;” to abolish all student debt; to “make the Supreme Court more fun by making it the Supremes Court;” moving the nation’s capital to someplace more interesting, like Palm Springs; returning Kennebunkport to Native Americans; as well as, of course, gay rights, universal healthcare, and a woman’s right to choose

1993: SEIU Lavender Caucus is formed. The caucus states that their purpose is to facilitate communication between the LGBT communities and the labor movement. At SEIU’s Western Conference, A Lavender Caucus is formed in Oakland and caucuses form nationwide.

1993: Hartford’s first drag ball, “Hartford Sizzles” spearheaded in part by the Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective, is held at the Community Center. Other balls were held from 1993-1997 by The House of Everlasting Empire, The House of Nations, The House of Freedom, the House of Flava, The House of Ebony and the House of Pleasure. All Houses generously donated thousands of dollars to various community projects and non-profit institutions.

1993: The Imperial Court of Connecticut, The Nutmeg Empire is founded by Lola and Ron La Mothe. Throughout the years the Court raised thousands of dollars for many groups in Connecticut.

1993: The US Congress enacts the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy that prohibits Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual military personnel from disclosing their sexual orientation while serving in the military. due to the policy from 1993 to 1999 5,435 men and women were discharged under this policy. By the late 90s a quarter of discharges were women and similar proportions were racial minorities.

1993: Out and Open Bisexual Democratic City Council candidate Susan Hyde wins election in Hartford.

1993: Stone Butch Blues written by Leslie Feinberg is a genderqueer narrative. The book is centered around Jess a butch lesbian in 1970 America. Jess does not feel at home in her female body, and not at home in her community. The book traces Jess’s search for self, while working in factories in Buffalo NY, hanging out in bars, discussing union organizing and the treatment of working class people. The novel shows how gender and class shape Jess’s identity.

1993: A Bisexual married Women’s group is formed in Boston and in Hartford.

1993: An opera based on Gertrude Stein’s children book, The World Is Round, with music by composer James Sellers and libretto by Juanita Rockwell has its world premiere in Hartford at the Wadsworth Atheneum. Sell out crowds attend all of the performances.

1993: In an effort to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS the New Haven Connecticut Board of Education vote 6 – 1 to provide condoms at the New Haven School’s health clinics. New Haven is the first city in the country to adopt such a program for children as young as 5th grade. The program authorized school health workers to give students condoms only on request along with sex education counseling.

1993: The Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles allows Transsexual persons to change their gender on driver’s licenses.

1993: The city of Hartford establishes domestic partnership registration that allows same gender couples to register and is available to all Connecticut residents.

1993: The first nation-wide Dyke March is held in Washington D.C. The event is planned by the Lesbian Avengers and over 20,000 women march. Marches were held in major cities across the country.

1993: National AIDS Housing Coalition is founded. NAHC is a coalition of national and community-based organizations and individuals which provides strong advocacy, representation and training for thousands. NAHC stresses the need for safe, stable, affordable housing for people living with HIV/AIDS. Since 1995 CT Lesbian Activist Shawn Lang has served on the board, as past president and co-chair of the Advocacy Committee.

1993: The Transsexual Menace or “The Menace” was a Transgender rights activist organization founded in New York City. It was the first direct action group of its kind and grew to be a national organization with twenty-four chapters. The group was founded by Transgender activists Ricki Wilchins and Denise Norris, in response to the exclusion of Transgender people from LGB Pride marches happening at the time. The Transsexual Menace showed support of victims of anti-transgender crimes by demonstrating outside courthouses. Connecticut formed a chapter of Transsexual Menace which joined protests and demonstrated at the Human Rights Campaign Offices.

1993: From a proposal by Cedric Shaw a board member of the University of Connecticut’s School of Social Work’s Greater Hartford LGB community action, the group the Hartford’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Inner City Youth Project, a multicultural group with a mission to provide support in a safe an comfortable space is founded. Over a dozen community groups and businesses joined in sponsorship allowing the group to make impressive progress in a short time. Dance parties, events, counseling, a safe space to gather, a youth hot line and a resource guide are a part of the plans for the group.

1994: Children From The Shadows, A Sexual Minority Youth Support Education Advocacy volunteer organization, holds its first conference. The conferences offer workshops, discussions, and networking for youth and organizations which address youth issues. The mission of CFS is to enrich the lives of LGBT youth, to help educate themselves and society about their issues, to advocate for positive change and to build leadership among LGBT youth and those responsible for their well-being.

1994: Gender Identity Clinic New England approves Transsexual surgery for legally married persons without requiring a divorce.

1994: The twenty fifth anniversary of Stonewall. More than a million people march in New York City.

1994: The Living Center opens in Hartford to provide a resource center dedicated to serving people infected with and affected by HIV/AIDS.

1994: Hermaphrodites With Attitude a newsletter edited by Cheryl Chase and published by The Intersex Society of North America is founded. Hermaphrodites With Attitude was also a political group that worked for Intersex rights. In 1996 the name Hermaphrodites With Attitude was displayed on a banner by Intersex people and allies for the first public demonstration outside a pediatric conference in Boston.

1995: The first Queer Prom is organized by members of The Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective. The prom is to give youth a safe environment for their participation, to be themselves and to not have to hide as at a high school prom.

1995: The first Lesbian and Gay art exhibition is held by the newly formed PRIDE Art Committee at the Pump House Gallery in Bushnell Part. These exhibitions continue until 1997.

1995: Hartford area Bisexuals form BICONN (which is later renamed Conn-Bi-Nation) is the first statewide political, social and educational group dedicated to the support and visibility of Bisexuals.

1995: Art Feltman, a Gay man runs for Hartford City Council and wins election.

1995: Members of the newly formed Bi-Conn raise the issue of inclusion of Bisexual and Transgender in the name of the Congress of Lesbian and Gay Organizations. The demand is answered with a newly formed organization called the Stonewall Congress.

1995: Bi-Conn meets in Norwalk and changes its name to Conn-Bi-Nation-BI.W.A, “Bisexuals with Attitude.

1995: Conn-Bi-Nation-BI.W.A is the first out and open Bisexual Group to march in Connecticut’s Pride parade.

1995: The Kwanzaa Project is formed by Mel Thomas, Regina Dyton and Cheryl Linear in Hartford. The Project’s mission statements reads: “To provide supportive education and outreach to same gender loving people of African Ancestry and to address overt and internalized racism, homophobia and heterosexism in the African American Community.

1995: Queer Wobblies working at the End-Up Bar in San Francisco go on strike. The strike was caused by discriminatory hiring and firing practices, arbitrary firings, job security and some measure of control over the conditions in which they worked. The End-Up bosses fired the workers and pickets were begun. Management of the bar hired a top-notch union busting law firm. Rather than face trial on unfair labor practices the End-Up management paid a large amount to a worker with a pending case for dropping their charges. The IWW workers stated, “The real victory at the End-Up, however is that queer workers organized to fight back within our own community. As a ruling caste, gay establishment bosses simultaneously maintain a stranglehold on the community’s resources while simultaneously proclaiming that “we’re all family.” Fiercely anti-union, gay bar owners also publish the local gay papers and own the boutiques in “our” neighborhoods, where we sometime get to work.” Signs at the pickets included, Build A Militant Queer Labor Union,” Support Militant Labor” and “Free Speech a Labor Right.”

1995: Domestic Partnership (soft benefits) are made available to Hartford City Employees. 1995: The Rainbow Flag flies over City Hall during the week of Pride.

1995: The Kwanzaa Project begins to publish The Kwanzaa Project News.

1996: Openly Gay City Councilman Art Feltman wins election from Hartford’s sixth district to The Connecticut House of Representatives. He is re-elected in 1998.

1996: Project 100/The Hartford Community Center members elect the first Bisexual and Transgender people to sit on the Board of Directors.

1996: LGBT groups, NARAL, Conn-Bi-Nation, American Friends Service Committee, Socialist Party USA and other allies unite under the banner, “THE RIGHT IS WRONG” at an educational street fair when Ralph Reed, Michell Shinsecki, Molly Ivins, James Carville and Oliver North speak on A Changing Political Landscape: A left/right preview to the 1996 elections at the Bushnell in Hartford. Attendees to the CT Forum receive leaflets from the groups out front and are asked to “Ask the questions that they are not answering.”

1996: The Defense of Marriage Act is signed into Federal Law, defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

1996: Representatives of LGBT groups, American Friends Service Committee, The Connecticut Coalition for Cuba and others form “The Coalition for A Real Debate.” to speak out on the issues that the candidates for President are ignoring. A rally in Bushnell Park and a march to the Bushnell is held during the debate between candidates Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. Jesse Jackson who attends the debate at the Bushnell announces to the media that he is in support of The Coalition for A Real Debate and in full support of LGBT rights.

1996: In Romer vs. Evans, the United State Supreme Court votes 6 to 2 to overturn Colorado’s Amendment II declaring, “A state cannot deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws.” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said that the provisions have singled out the state homosexuals as “a solidarity class, creating a legal disability so sweeping, it could only be explained by ‘animus.’

1996: Gender Pac (Gender Public Advocacy Coalition) is a national organization whose mission entailed ending discrimination on the basis of gender identification and stereotypes. Rather than focus on single-identity based advocacy, Gender Pac recognized and promoted understanding of commonality among all types of oppression, including, racism, sexism, classism, and ageism.
The group begins to hold National Gender Lobby days, during which activists would meet with members of congress to discuss discrimination and violence. In 1997 Gender Pace produced the first National Study on Trans violence, a research project on violence against Transgender and gender variant people.

1996: PFLAG begins a Transgender outreach network.

1997: State Representative Evelyn Mantilla comes out as a Bisexual woman and proposes to her partner Babette at LGBT Pride in Hartford. Mantilla was elected to represent Hartford’s 4th House district in a special election in 1997 and came out as the state’s first openly Bisexual representative.

1997: Pride at Work is formed as an organization dedicated to defending and promoting the rights of LGBT workers affiliated with the AFL-CIO. Branches of Pride at work are formed nationally and one in Connecticut is formed. Their mission statement reads, “We seek full equality for LGBTQ Workers in our workplace and unions. We work towards creating a labor movement that cherishes diversity, encourages openness, and ensures safety and dignity. We aim to educate the LGBTQ community abut the benefits of a union contract for working people and to build support and solidarity for the union movement in the LGBTQ community.”

1997: UCONN Gay and Lesbian Law Student Association votes to change its name to Lambda Law Student Association after 3rd year law student Jennifer Hadlock asks for inclusion of Bisexual and Transgender in its name.

1997: The Stonewall Congress holds a one-day conference at Trinity College. The conference Celebrating Our Stories: Embracing Our Future, A Proud LGBT Culture offers a day of panel discussions, art displays, music, poetry and educational community tables.

1997: Dr. Simon Karlinsky, a renowned scholar of Russian Studies and out Gay man speaks at the Wadsworth Atheneum on Sergei Diaghilev, The Culture Revival, and the Gay Movement in Pre-Soviet Russia. Sponsored by The Committee for Truth in Art: Breaking the Silence of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Invisibility, a committee of the Connecticut Stonewall Foundation with support from many community groups and institutions, the lecture was in response to the invisibility of any Gay or Bisexual content in the exhibition, Design, Dance, and Music of The Ballet Russes.”

1997: The Connecticut State Legislature expands anti-discrimination laws to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in public schools K-12. This legislation was the direct result of nearly two years of effort by a coalition of 24 groups working through SANE (Safe and Affirming Network for Education.)

1997: The Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Civil Rights hold the First Annual OUT Awards to recognize individuals, community groups, organizations and businesses who have made outstanding contributions to the LGBT community. Nominations were accepted from the community in the following categories: Community Organizing, Achievement in the Arts, Youth Leadership, Political Leadership, Business Achievement, and a Non-Profit Organization. By the second award ceremony the OUTstanding Ally Award was added.

1997: Connecticut becomes the 4th state in the country to protect LGBT youth from harassment. True Colors is awarded a grant by the Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective for the creation and administration of Connecticut’s first Sexual Minority Youth and Family Service Bureau. An Executive Director position is funded, and the scope is expanded to include LGBT adults and families.

1998: The Reverend Irene Monroe, a Public Theologian, Harvard Divinity student and out Lesbian Activist, gives a keynote address on The Role Religion Plays in Fostering Homophobia and Discrimination. Following Reverend Monroe’s talk a panel discussion with religious leaders from throughout the state is held. The event is sponsored by The Connecticut Stonewall Foundation.

1998: Children from the Shadows name is changed to True Colors INC, Sexual Minority Youth and Family Service of CT and is incorporated. The conference has more than 1,000 participants.

1998 True Colors acquires federal non-profit status.

1998: Fifty posters intended to promote diversity come under fire by the Reverend Gabriel Carrera because one of the children is wearing a gay pride tee-shirt. Carrera begins his campaign attacking CT Representative Evelyn Mantilla, an out Bisexual woman, and fourth district representative. Carrera asks Hartford’s City Hall to remove the posters. City Hall responds that they have no intention of removing the posters.

1998: The Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Civil Rights and LLEGO (National Latina/O LGBT Organization) director Martin Ornelas Quintero, along with other groups and concerned community members hold a press conference and rally at City Hall in Hartford in support of Representative Mantilla and to denounce the attacks made against her by Reverend Carrera.

1998: Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old Gay Student, is beaten, tied to a deer fence and left to die in Laramie Wyoming. He died on October 12th.

1998: Over seven hundred people gather in Hartford for a candlelight vigil and memorial march in memory of Matthew Shepard. The Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Civil Rights, The American Apostolic Church, The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Teachers Network organized and sponsored the memorial.

1998: In November, Rita Hester a Trans woman of color is murdered in Allston Massachusetts. Over 250 people attend a candlelight vigil in remembrance of her. This evening inspired the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

1998: Two West Hartford Gay couples, Michael Antisdale and Mark Melanson and Barry Amos and Andrew O’Brien, question the town as to why they are not eligible for reduced family rates at the Cornerstone Aquatics Center. These two couples along with four other families file a complaint against the town for discrimination based on sexual orientation and marital status with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities.

1998: Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays adds support for Transgender people to its mission statement.

1998: State Representative Evelyn Mantilla is re-elected eight to one over Rev. Gabriel Carrera. She serves in the Ct. House until 2006 when she chose not to run again for re-election.

1998: The Bisexual Pride Flag is unveiled in December.

1998: Its Time Connecticut is founded by Jerimarie Liesegang. The group focused in conjunction with other state level advocacy groups to build a grassroots coalition to effect social and legislative change for the Transgender Community. Much of the early work was one on one advocacy for numerous trans folks who contacted ITCT for assistance.

1998: Tammy Baldwin is elected to the United States House of Representatives. She is the first open Lesbian and the first non-incumbent lesbian candidate to be elected to federal office.

1998: Simon Tseko Nkoli dies of AIDS in South Africa. In 1983 he joined the mostly white Gay Association of South Africa. He spoke at rallies in support of rent boycotts in the townships and in 1984 was arrested and faced the death penalty for treason. He came out while a prisoner and helped change the attitude of the African National Congress to gay rights. He was released from prison in 1988. Along with other activists he organized the first pride parade in South Africa. He met with President Nelson Mandela in 1994 and campaigned for inclusion of protection from discrimination in the Bill of Rights in the new South African constitution. He initiated the Positive African Men’s group in Johannesburg after publicly coming out as HIV positive.

1999:  Black Trans Activist Monica Helms created the first Transgender Flag which was flown at a pride parade in Phoenix Arizona in 2000. Helms described the meaning of the flag as follows; The stripes at the top and bottom are light blue, the traditional color for baby boys. The stripes next to them are pink the traditional color for baby girls and the white stripe is for people that are nonbinary, feel that they don’t have a gender. The original flag was donated to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History by Ms. Helms in 2014. Over the years other flags were created by different Transgender groups.

1999:  The Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Civil Rights, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and statewide groups hold, “Equality Begins At Home,” a week-long program of events around the state and across the nation. Connecticut becomes the first state to fly the rainbow flag over a state Capitol Building.

1999: A CT State House bill to allow a partner in a same gender relationship to adopt the biological child of the other partner was approved 97 to 50. However, the adoption bill was derailed when an amendment to the bill defining marriage as between a man and a woman was added. This amendment passed the House 84 to 63. The adoption bill was sent to the senate where no action was taken before adjournment.

1999: The Thirtieth anniversary of Stonewall, LGBT Pride is held in Hartford. The event is entitled, A Proud Past: A Powerful Future.

1999: James Baldwin: A Soul On Fire written by Howard Simon opens in New York. The setting is Baldwins apartment on May 1963 before the meeting with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Two actors Baldwin and Ethereal, a figure in dialogue with Baldwin assumes the role of the meeting participants.

1999: San Francisco Trans Man Johnathan Andrew designed and published a flag for those within the Transgender community. This Trans flag consists of seven stripes alternating in light pink and light blue separated by thin white stripes and featuring, in the upper left hoist, a twinned Venus and Mars symbol in lavender.

1999: On July 22 Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual elected officials from around the nation meet with President Bill Clinton to educate him on local and federal issues facing the community. Hartford’s 4th District representative Evelyn Mantilla attends the meeting and talks about the second parent adoption bill, the addition of a DOMA like amendment to it and the need for inclusion of Transgender issues in civil-rights legislation.

1999: The Pentagon begins to issue new broad guidelines intended to end abuse of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. The new guidelines will require that troops receive anti-gay harassment training and new requirements on the handling of investigations of military personnel. The Pentagon admitted that Lesbians and Gays have been discharged at a higher rate due to poorly trained investigators, who base much of their investigations on rumor and suspicion.

1999: The National Organization of Women CT, members of the Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Civil Rights and other groups join together for an educational demonstration against the Promise Keepers who were meeting in Hartford.

1999: The Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities issue a “good cause” ruling that West Hartford has violated the law by failing to give unmarried same gender and heterosexual couples a family discount at the Municipal pool The town, the Commission and the six couples are now required to seek a solution.

1999: Con-Bi-Nation and BiNet USA host the First International Celebrate Bisexuality Day at the Macaroni Grille in West Hartford. The event is held to promote visibility of Bisexuals in mainstream society. The day is celebrated nationwide as a day for members of the Bisexual Community and their supporters to recognize and celebrate Bisexual history, the community and culture.

1999: Camp Trans is again erected, after a 5-year hiatus, along the road to the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. These demonstrations were held to protest the Festivals policy of excluding trans women. Joining in the camp were Leslie Feinberg, Riki Ann Witchins, Boston and Chicago Lesbian Avengers and many allies. A number of trans women were admitted to the festival that year.

1999: The Transgender Day of Remembrance is begun by Gwendolyn Ann Smith as a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester a transgender woman who was killed in 1998. The vigil commemorated all the transgender people lost to violence since Rita Hester’s death and began the tradition that has become the annual world-wide Transgender Day of Remembrance. Additionally, during the week of November 13-19, people and organizations around the country participate in Transgender Awareness Week to help raise the visibility of transgender people and address the issues trans people face. About this day, Gwendolyn Ann Smith said, “Transgender Day of Remembrance seeks to highlight the losses we face due to anti-transgender bigotry and violence. I am no stranger to the need to fight for our rights, and the right to simply exist is first and foremost. With so many seeking to erase transgender people—sometimes in the most brutal ways possible—it is vitally important that those we lost are remembered, and that we continue to fight for justice.”

1999: The Connecticut Stonewall Foundation holds an all-day conference “Celebrating our Life Stories and Our Relationships at Trinity College in Hartford. Keynote speaker is Sylvia Rae Rivera a Transgender Woman who participated in the uprising at the Stonewall Inn in 1969, was a long time “gay” rights activist, and a transgender warrior fighting for her people whenever it was necessary. . The day featured panel discussions, music, and art. Over a hundred people attended the event.

1999: The Stonewall Foundation, The Her/His Story Archives of The CT Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Civil Rights, and the Hartford Collection opens an exhibition, Challenging and Changing America: The Struggle for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Civil Rights 1900-1999, at the Hartford Public Library. The exhibition is made up of archives from the Foster Gunnison Jr. Collection at the Dodd Center UCONN, The Equity and Diversity Collection at CCSU, community members archives, and research. After a month showing at the Hartford Public Library, the exhibition travels to the Dodd Center at UCONN and then to Elihu Buritt Library at Central CT State University.

Thank you to the people who made this exhibition and timeline possible.
The gathering of information from archives for the timeline.

Richard Nelson, Tim Denman, Linda Estabrook, Paul Hartung, Joseph Terzzo, Ed Centeno, Ronald Seeds, Frank Gagliardi.

Timeline Information References and Lenders to the Exhibition.

Foster Gunnison Jr. Archives, Dodd Center University of Connecticut ,Equity and Diversity Archives Central Connecticut State University, Cannon Clinton Jones Collection, Equity and Diversity Collection, CCSU, Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective, The Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Civil Rights, PFLAG, Hartford, True Colors, Metroline, Connection, Griffin, MCC News, Carolyn Gabel-Brett, Leslie Gabel-Brett,  Tim Denman, Helen Gilbert, Linda Estabrook, Robin McHaelen, Joseph Terzzo, Frank Gagliardi, Paul Hartung, Dr. Richard Stillson, Ed Centeno, Ronald Seeds, Regina Dyton, Jennifer Hadlock, Alice Lebowitz, Terri Reed, Francie Ault, Christine Pattee, Keith Brown, Cannon Clinton Jones, John Crowley, MCC Hartford, Rev. Irene Monroe, Bishop Lorraine Bouffard, Rev. Sarah Flynn, Rev. Richard Cardarelli, Rev. George Chien, Fred McDarrah, Mariette Pathy Allen, Mimi Boland, Lesbian Herstory Archives, Red Letter Press / Freedom Socialist Party,  New York Public Library

All of our people who fought for freedom, justice, equality and liberation. A special thank you to The Hartford Public Library for providing space for this exhibition. This exhibition was also shown at The Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut and Central Connecticut State University.

Reference Books
Gay Resistance, Sam Deaderick and Tamara Turner
Stonewall, Martin Duberman
Gay American History, History of Lesbians and Gays in America, Jonathan Ned Katz
Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation, Karla Jay and Allen Young, eds.
Radically Gay, Harry Hay
Living My Life, Emma Goldman
The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals, Richard Plant

A big thank you to Keith Brown and Carolyn Gabel-Brett for proofing reading this document.

Refuse! Resist! Rebel