n 1935, Freud wrote to a mother who had asked him to treat her son’s homosexuality, a letter that would later become famous:
“I gather from your letter that your son is a homosexual. I am most impressed by the fact that you do not mention this term yourself in your information about him. May I question you why you avoid it”
Even though the Stonewall Riots happened a year earlier change did not happen overnight for the lesbian and gay community in NYC especially when it came to the NYPD. Yes, the gay community was a bit more organized but the police continued to raid gay bars and clubs, nearly all of which continued to be mob-owned.
On November 2, 1969, just 4 months after the Stonewall riots Craig Rodwell, his partner Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, and Linda Rhodes of the newly formed Gay Liberation Front proposed the first “gay pride parade” which was then called the “CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATION DAY MARCH.” to be held in New York City by way of a public resolution at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) which meeting in Philadelphia..
Vito Russo (July 11, 1946 – November 7, 1990),was a gay activist, film historian, author, and the co-founder of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). Vito was a true activist and a gay American hero. He fought through words and actions, in literature and in the streets and he kept fighting up until the very end.
On June 4, 1971 less than two years after the Stonewall uprising, a group of men and women from the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) walked into the New York City Marriage License Bureau carrying coffee urns and boxes of cake to hold an engagement party for two male couples and to protest the “slander” of City Clerk Herman Katz,
June 2, 1983 – 1983 – US Congressman Lawrence McDonald (D-GA) proposed that a “user-tax” be imposed on people with AIDS to finance research. 1987 – “A Chorus Line” creator Michael Bennett died of complications from AIDS at age 44 in Tucson, Arizona. 2000 – Bill Clinton, is the first U.S. President to proclaim June as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.
THIS IS SERIOUS! – If you aren’t boycotting Florida you are only helping DeSantis. It has been over one year since Florida Governor Ron Desantis and his GOP-controlled Government set the original “Don’t Say Gay” law into motion. In that one year, it has been expanded to the point that surpasses the damage done by Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children Campaign” in the 1970s and is more in line with Vladimir Putin’s “LGBT propaganda laws” in Russia.
May 15. 356 BC – Alexander the Great is born in Macedonia. One of the greatest conquering generals of all time. Learn all the LGBT history that took place on May 15.
On April 13, 1970, a group of approximately 300 gay rights activists gathered outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to protest an event being hosted by Mayor John Lindsay. The event was a fundraiser for the Cultural Council Foundation, an organization that supported cultural programs in the city.
Now in he twenty-first century there are a plethora of flags and symbols to represent all aspects of the LGBT community. But in the beginning there was just one. The Lambda symbol.