LGBTQIA history

When lesbians led the women’s suffrage movement

None of these women publicly claimed a lesbian identity. Nonetheless, like other leaders in women’s rights, higher education and social reform, all three women had significant same-sex relationships.

“Keepers of the Light”: A Musical History of the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus

by Bridget Keown

Music forms a critical part of every documented human culture, providing a functional and emotional form of communication.

Queer Like Pete

by Jim Downs

Buttigieg is getting slammed for being a type of gay man America doesn’t understand.

Recalling Purple Hands protests of 1969 on Halloween

by Marc Stein

Halloween has long been one of the queerest of holidays, but on October 31, 1969, San Francisco LGBT activists found new ways to confront their terrifying fears of media misrepresentations and police violence.

9 Landmark Supreme Court Cases That Shaped LGBTQ Rights in America

Regardless of how the justices rule in the cases, the court’s decisions would not be the first time that the Supreme Court made major decisions impacting LGBTQ people’s civil rights in the United States. 

Eric Gonzaba Uses T-shirts, address books to explore LGBTQ history

by Susan Gill Vardon

Dr. Gonzaba is excited about finding ways to involve his students in a project he has been working on since 2014 — Wearing Gay History, an award-winning digital mapping project that explores the global history of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people through T-shirts.

Merriam Webster added 'they' as a non-binary pronoun. Here's a brief history of gender neutral pronouns

These identifiers are nothing new and have actually been used throughout the history of literature.

Bayard Rustin: Prophet Of Freedom, Justice, And Humanity

by Stephen G. Hall

Rustin’s work combined a passion for social justice with a firm commitment to LGBTQ and human rights.

Stonewall and Queens

by Marc Stein

The overlooked importance of Queens, New York in LGBT history. 

Illinois Governor Signs Bill Mandating Public Schools Teach LGBTQ History

The measure is being praised as a “life-saving law” that has placed the state “on the right side of history.”  

Reconsidering Journalist and Gay Activist Randy Shilts

by Andrew E. Stoner

The story of Shilts and the mixed legacy that remains a quarter century later has connecting points to our contemporary lives.

The Beginning of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic – and One Doctor's Search for a Cure

by Seema Yasmin

It was unparalleled, this confluence of public health, politics, clinical medicine, and public anxiety. The unknown disease was spreading faster than imagined. Humanity had never seen anything like it. 

Jane Addams and Lillian Wald: Imagining Social Justice from the Outside

by Michael Bronski

Addams and Wald were women who loved other women and that these relationships – as well as the female friendship networks in which they were involved – were profoundly instrumental to their vision of social justice that changed America. 

How Schools Reinvigorated the Stonewall Revolution

Perhaps, the theory was, just by existing, Gay-Straight Alliance groups could make gay kids feel less alone, and that itself could reduce suicide risk, which was common among gay teens at the time.

James Polchin's "Indecent Advances" Reviewed: The Theory That Justified Anti-Gay Crime

by Caleb Crain

Fifty years after Stonewall, the gay-panic defense seems absurd. But, for decades, it had the power of law.

Before Stonewall, There Was a Bookstore

by Jim Downs

Networks of activists transformed Stonewall from an isolated event into a turning point in the struggle for gay power.

Video of the Week: Why the Stonewall Riots represented a ‘sea change’ for LGBTQ rights

On a June night in 1969, patrons of a New York City gay bar called the Stonewall Inn battled with police and set in motion the modern movement for gay rights. Fifty years later, the milestone anniversary of the event has sparked observations and celebrations nationwide -- as well as reflections from LGBTQ Americans about what cultural acceptance has meant to them.

Tangled Lives, Tangled Culture, Tangled History

by Bruce Chadwick

Today, Falsettos is more than a good play; it is an historic look backwards at the suddenly open lives of gay men and women and the troubles they were besieged by--legal, cultural and medical--in the early 1980s.

The Stonewall Exhibit in New York Needs Sturdier Walls

by Bruce Chadwick

Stonewall was a momentous event and its 50th anniversary is being celebrated in many ways across the country, including the exhibit Stonewall 50 exhibit at the New York Historical Society.

A gay first lady? Yes, we’ve already had one, and here are her love letters.

 A new book, “Precious and Adored: The Love Letters of Rose Cleveland and Evangeline Simpson Whipple, 1890-1918,” makes it clear that Rose Cleveland and Evangeline Simpson Whipple were more than just friends, according to its editors.