12 important moments in the history of the gay rights movement
June 1 marks the start of Pride month. Here are 12 important moments in the pride movement and the fight for LGBTQ rights.
Talking about transgender
Christine Jorgensen, a former U.S. Army private, made headlines in the 1950s after having sex reassignment surgery and talking widely about her experience, one of the first people in the U.S. to do so. Her gender conversion began with hormone injections in 1950, when she was 24, and was completed in 1952 with surgery at the Danish State Hospital in Copenhagen.
Fighting back
Early on June 28, 1969, New York police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in Greenwich Village. The raid set off a riot among bar patrons and neighborhood residents as police roughed up customers, leading to six days of protests and clashes with police.
The Stonewall riots were a defining moment for the nascent gay rights movement and the reason behind June being chosen as Pride Month.
PFLAG is started
The idea for PFLAG, which originally stood for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, began in 1972 when Jeanne Manford marched with her son, Morty, in New York's Christopher Street Liberation Day parade, the precursor to today's pride parades. In March 1973 the first meeting of what would become PFLAG was held.
The group went national as Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays in 1982. Since 2014, PFLAG is no longer considered an acronym but rather the entire name of the organization.
Pride parades are born
The first pride parade was held in New York on June 28, 1970, one year after the Stonewall raid on Christopher Street. A few thousand people took to the streets in New York, and gay activist groups on the West Coast held a march in Los Angeles and a march and gay-in in San Francisco. In Chicago people marched the day before New York and marked the Stonewall anniversary with a week of events.
Today, millions around the world march and rally for LGBTQ pride around the world, including in West Hollywood, pictured, which has one of the biggest and best-known pride events in the country.
Winning elected office
Gays and lesbians also made strides in the 1970s by running for office. Kathy Kozachenko became the first openly LGBT American elected to public office when she won a seat on the Ann Arbor, Mich., City Council in 1974. Elaine Noble was the first openly gay candidate elected to a state office when she was elected to the Massachusetts legislature, also in 1974.
And Harvey Milk won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. Milk was loud and unapologetic about his sexuality, earning widespread attention. His remarkable career was cut short when he was gunned down about a year after taking office.
Pop culture representation
Billy Crystal, pictured in 1998, played one of the first openly gay characters in a recurring role on a prime-time television show on "Soap," which ran from 1977 to 1981.
Making noise
Writer and AIDS activist Larry Kramer's work with ACT UP and the Gay Men’s Health Crisis brought attention to the AIDS crisis at a time when many people preferred ignorance. He loudly demanded attention for the disease that was felling thousands of gay men, and his writing, including the play "The Normal Heart," captured the ordinary lives caught up in the ordeal of AIDS.
Political action
The Democratic Party added “sexual orientation” to its platform’s anti-discrimination protections at the 1980 convention in New York. It was the first American political party to officially incorporate such a plank. Jimmy Carter and his running mate, Walter Mondale, along with their wives, are pictured at the convention.
Same-sex marriage
In 2004 Massachusetts became the first state to make it legal for same-sex couples to wed. It followed a controversial decision from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
Nooni and Alicia Hammarlund, pictured, were among the couples securing a license on May 17, 2004, the first day for legal marriages.
Supreme Court ruling
On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that the Constitution guarantees a person's right to same-sex marriage.
“No longer may this liberty be denied,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the historic decision.
The Colorado case being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court involves a graphic artist and website designer who says her religious beliefs prohibit her from promoting same-sex weddings.
Lincoln City Council is set to consider a motion on Monday to rescind the so-called Fairness Ordinance — a broad update that extends protections to include sexual orientation and gender expression.
Bennie Shobe, the only council member not to say publicly how he would vote, ultimately sided with Richard Meginnis, Tom Beckius and James Michael Bowers in voting to rescind the ordinance the council passed on a 5-0 vote in February.
Mental health services, which are difficult for many LGBTQ+ people to access, will be a top priority, the group said. The community center will aim to meet the needs of individuals and families in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa.
The ACLU is warning Northwest Public Schools in Grand Island that closing the school paper and ending the journalism program because of LGBTQ+ articles is a violation of students' rights.
Omaha Archbishop George Lucas said Wednesday that the archdiocese is delaying the implementation of its policy on gender identity and gender dysphoria.
The Grand Island city clerk confirmed that the proclamation was submitted to the city and forwarded to Mayor Roger Steele, who chose not to take action on it.
Action on the floor of the Nebraska Legislature has slowed to a crawl, largely because Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha is working to stall bills she says "legislate hate."
LPS recently approved the use of the signs, which display a rainbow pride flag above the words "all means all" and next to a brief statement supporting LGBTQ students.
