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In 1994, Gilbert Baker created a mile-long rainbow flag for the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

Photographed by Eric Miller.

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If you’re open to resources in the form of an audio interview, OutCasting’s episode on the Stonewall uprising might be helpful! it’s a discussion with activist and professor Karla Jay about the Mattachine society and other homophile groups at the time, before and after the uprising

Hey Peyton! I'm interested in learning more about The Mattachine Society - do you have any recommended reads?

do i ever!

Bullough, Vern L. —. editor. Judith M. Saunders and Sharon Valente, assoc. editors. C. Todd White, asst. editor. Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context. Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press.D’Emilio, John. 1983. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940–1970. Chicago: University of Chicago PressFaderman, Lillian and Stuart Timmons. 2005. Gay L. A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians. New York: Basic Books.Hay, Harry (with Will Roscoe). 1996. Radically Gay: Gay Liberation in the Words of its Founder. Boston: Beacon Press.Jennings, Dale. 1953. Address to Mattachine Society Banquet. Homosexual Information Center.Jennings, Dale. 1954. The Gingerbread Man. Homosexual Information Center.Kepner, Jim. 1988. Gay Los Angeles: The Early Days. Homosexual Information Center.Kepner, Jim. 1998. Rough News, Daring Views: 1950s’ Pioneer Gay Press Journalism. Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press.Legg, W. Dorr, Editor. Homophile Studies in Theory and Practice. San Francisco: GLB Publishers and ONE Institute Press, 1994.Marcus, Eric. 1992. Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945–1990. An Oral History. New York: HarperCollins.Nardi, Peter M., David Sanders, and Judd Marmor. 1994. Growing Up Before Stonewall: Life Stories of Some Gay Men. New York: Routledge.Nealon, Christopher. 2001. Foundlings: Lesbian and Gay Historical Emotion Before Stonewall. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Sears, James T. 2007. Behind the Mask of the Mattachine: The Hal Call Chronicles and the Early Movement for Homosexual Emancipation. Binghampton, NY: Harrington Park Press.

Timmons, Stuart. 1990. The Trouble with Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement. Boston: Alyson Publications.

White, C. Todd. 2009. Pre-Gay L.A.: A Social History of the Movement for Homosexual Rights. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.

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Watch our new end-of-year fundrasing video and vote for us on Project for Awesome - THANKS! @projectforawesome VOTING ENDS SUNDAY NIGHT, 12/17, so please vote today!

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NOVEMBER 28: Rita Mae Brown (1944-)

Happy birthday to Rita Mae Brown! The iconic lesbian writer, feminist activist, and leader of the Lavender Menace was born on this day in 1944.

Rita Mae Brown photographed sitting at her typewriter (x).

Rita Mae Brown was born on November 28, 1944 in Hanover, Pennsylvania. She faced stigma right from the start, being the daughter of two unwed teenagers. Her mother originally left her at a local orphanage, but her mother’s cousin and her husband, Julia and Ralph Brown, eventually retrieved the infant Rita and raised her as their own. The fafmily originally lived in the town of York, Pennsylvania, but then later moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. After graduating high school, Rita started out attending the University of Florida at Gainesville but was expelled by the segregated university for her participation in the Civil Rights Movement. She then moved on to Broward Community College, but only stayed briefly. Her life changed radically when she decided to hitchhike all the way from Florida to New York in 1964. 

Once making it to New York, Rita began attending NYU but was often homeless and struggled to make a living. Although she was previously involved in the anti-war movement and the Civil Rights Movement, it was in the city of New York where her legacy as an LGBT activist was made. She started out by joining Columbia University’s Student Homophile League, but eventually left because of the group’s exclusion of lesbian voices. She would go on to revolutionize both the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the National Organization of Women (NOW) by demanding that the organizations include lesbian specific issues and perspectives. She was a crucial leader of the formation of the Lavender Menace, the Radicalesbians, and the Furies Collective.

Rita stands defiant in her Lavender Menace shirt amongst a group of NOW members during the “zap” of the 1970 Second Congress to Unite Women (x). You can read more about the Lavender Menace’s protests here!

Rita eventually moved to California and found success as a writer. To date, she has written over 50 works of poetry, prose, nonfiction, and screenplays but her most resounding success is undeniably the novel Rubyfruit Jungle. The semi-autobiographical novel was published in 1973 and tells the story of a young lesbian who grows up in an unloving family in Florida only to leave for New York City to study film making and to achieve what she believes to be her full potential - to find the “rubyfruit jungle.” It is now considered a classic piece of lesbian literature and Rita has since been awarded the Lee Lynch Classic Book Award from the Golden Crown Literary Society for the novel. Rita has also made news for dating fellow lesbian celebrities such as Fannie Flagg and Martina Navratilova. Today, she lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia.

-LC

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Today marks the anniversary US politician and gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk.

Milk was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, winning a post on the Board of Supervisors as a result of changes in the social makeup of San Francisco after three unsuccessful attempts to gain office. 

Having finally been elected in 1977, Milk only held his position for 11 months before he and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a former colleague who had lost his position in city administration.

Milk, born in Woodmere, New York, died aged 48.

His legacy continues to live on. Writing recently in The Huffington Post, former US ambassador Nancy Brinker said: “Harvey Milk did something that few people ever do – he started a movement that changed the nation. His legacy lives on through the great work being done by his nephew, Stuart Milk, who accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Harvey’s behalf posthumously in 2009”.

Dan White was subsequently convicted of voluntary manslaughter, rather than of first degree murder. The verdict sparked the “White Night riots” in San Francisco, and led to the state of California abolishing the diminished capacity criminal defence.

White died by suicide in 1985, a little more than a year after his release from prison.

Harvey Milk was posthumously inducted into the California Hall of Fame after being portrayed by Sean Penn in the film ‘Milk’, and awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama in 2009.

A collection of stamps featuring Milk were officially launched at a White House ceremony in 2014 on the annual Harvey Milk Day.

One of Milk’s core messages was visibility.

He famously said: “You must come out. Come out… to your parents… I know that it is hard and will hurt them but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth! Come out to your relatives… come out to your friends… if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbours… to your fellow workers… to the people who work where you eat and shop… come out only to the people you know, and who know you. Not to anyone else. But once and for all, break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions.”

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7 LGBTQ Ancestors To Invite to Your Sukkah

On Sukkot, it is traditional to invite honoured ancestors (“ushpizin/ushpizata”) to join your festive meals in the sukkah. As some of you know, I am currently compiling an anthology of primary sources for LGBTQ Jewish history for publication (more info on that coming soon — stay tuned!) and my friend gave me the brilliant idea to pick some LGBTQ ancestors to invite as ushpizin/ushpizata this year. There are so so many wonderful stories to honour, but if I had to pick seven — here are the ancestors that my boyfriend and  I are inviting in this year. Feel free to share, or add your own!

1. Rabbi Abbahu of Caesarea, a Palestinian amora [rabbinic scholar] ca. 300 CE. Rabbi Abbahu taught his students a midrash from his colleagues that Mordekhai nursed Esther himself; when his students heard him talking about a man nursing, they burst out laughing at him. What I would say to him: “Thank you for reminding us to amplify marginalized voices, even when they are ridiculed or dismissed. And thank you for your courage in imagining a diversity of bodies and gender expressions for our Biblical ancestors — that makes it possible to continue broadening our vision of Jewishness today. Welcome, Rabbi Abbahu of Caesarea, to our sukkah.”

2. Ishaq Ibn Mar Sha'ul of Lucena, a Spanish poet and grammarian, ca. 975-1050. He was the first medieval Hebrew writer to compose homoerotic poetry, a genre which blossomed into such richness in the following centuries, comparing his beloved to figures like Joseph and David. What I would say to him: “Thank you for bringing such beauty to the expression of love, in words which resonate across the centuries. It doesn’t matter whether your poems reflect your experience or not — what matters is that you brought them into the world, and in so doing gave a language for others to speak their feelings. Welcome, Ishaq Ibn Mar Sha'ul, to our sukkah.”

3. Issach Mardofay [Isaac Mordekhai], a Catalan rabbi who was burnt at the stake for “sodomy” in Barcelona in 1365. What I would say to him: “Your death was a tragedy, a crime, and an unhealed wound in our historical memory. But you have not been forgotten — I draw my strength from you. Welcome, Issach Mardofay, to our sukkah.”

4. Sarmad Kashani, a Persian Jewish poet, ca. 1590-1660, whose love for a Hindu youth inspired him to devote his life to the pursuit of spiritual unity, reciting mystical poetry and teaching across the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent, and who was executed by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb for heresy. What I would say to him: “Your life and work are an inspiration to all of us whose sexuality and gender do not push us farther away from our spiritual lives but rather draw us in. Thank you for refusing to live any other way but as your truest self. Welcome, Sarmad Kashani, to our sukkah.”

5. Berel-Beyle, a young man from a small Ukrainian shtetl who was assigned female at birth, but always knew himself as a man. Born around 1870, he left his home for Odessa at the age of 23, where “a famous professor” helped him become the man he knew himself to be. When he returned to his shtetl, he was welcomed with open arms; he married his childhood sweetheart Rachel, joined the minyan, and was known by all as an upstanding Jew. What I would say to him: “Thank you for your courage to make your way in a world which barely had the words to acknowledge what you were. And thank you for returning home, allowing them to demonstrate that open-mindedness and communal hospitality to LGBTQ folks are part of our ancestral heritage too. Welcome, Berel-Beyle, to our sukkah.”

6. “Agnes W.,” the pseudonym for a Jewish lesbian who was interviewed by Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin around 1910, at the age of 18. A music student, she admitted that she had struggled with social rejection and suicidal thoughts in the past, but declared that now “I consider myself innocent, totally healthy, and natural… I am satisfied with my natural sexual tendency and do not think any change is worthwhile or in my case even possible.” What I would say to her: “Your strength of conviction in yourself was right — your love is innocent, healthy, and natural. We welcome and celebrate you for everything you are, and you have no need to hide anything anymore. Welcome, Agnes, to our sukkah.”

7. Leo Skir (1932-2014), a gay Jewish activist, poet, and writer from New York, who was friends with beat poets like Allen Ginsberg and other activists like Frank Kameny. Skir published articles, theatre reviews, and even a novel, but after the 1970s was ignored and forgotten. He died in Minneapolis (where he had lived for decades), alone and unknown, the year before I moved here. What I would say to him: “We have forgotten our responsibilities to honour and respect our LGBTQ elders, even as we benefit from your legacy. We commit ourselves this year to doing better. If you are willing to forgive us, we would be honoured by your presence. Welcome, Leo Skir, to our sukkah.”

Hag sameah to all!

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lgbt_history: “I don’t know what I am if I’m not a woman.” – Marsha P. Johnson, 1971 . Picture: “S.T.A.R. PEOPLE ARE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE,” Marsha P. Johnson (August 24, 1945 – July 6, 1992), Albany, New York, March 1971. Photo by Diana Davies, c/o @nyplpicturecollection. [TW] . Marsha P. Johnson, who was born seventy-two years ago today, was one of the founders of the queer liberation movement. She was, among other things, part of the Stonewall Riots, a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance, and a co-founder (with Sylvia Rivera) of the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.), the first organization dedicated to assisting homeless drag queens, trans women, and survival (i.e., sex) workers. . While the story of Johnson having thrown “the first” brick at Stonewall oversimplifies the events that triggered the riots (she later told @makinggayhistorypodcast, for example, that she “didn’t get downtown until about two o’clock, because when I got downtown the place was already on fire…The riots had already started”), she was on the front lines of the queer liberation movement from the outset (to be clear: police treatment of drag queens and trans women played a large part in starting the riots, and Johnson was there for much of the most intense fighting). . In the face of constant attempts to exclude trans people from the movement, Johnson remained a symbol of her community’s courage, kindness, and resolve. . Johnson, who relied on survival work for much of her life, struggled with mental health issues, and was prone to bouts of great anger; she was not, however, known to be depressive or suicidal. . On July 6, 1992, days after New York’s Pride, Johnson’s body was pulled from the Hudson River near Christopher Street; she was forty-six. . Despite friends telling police that Johnson had been facing increasing harassment, and that she had been missing for days, her death was ruled a suicide; in 2002, police ruled there was, in fact, not enough information to call the death a suicide, instead classifying it as “undetermined.” . In December 2012, the NYPD officially reopened the case. #Resist #BlackTransLivesMatter #MarshaPJohnson

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“When Trump made office it put the fear back into the idea of it all. These kids were feeling fear for the first time and had never been touched. Why? Because we worked so hard to make sure they were never touched.”

This is Lynn Koval. She’s owned a gay bar in Biloxi, Mississippi for over twenty years.

I started writing down quotes from this interview, but eventually gave up because I SWEAR every single thing she said was quotable. She talks about the challenges of building intergenerational community, the continued importance of gay bars, knowing our history, and her hope for our future. Listen to her. It’s such a breath of fresh air to hear people covering LGBTQ issues and history in the American South. We don’t all live on the coasts, y'all.

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I forgot to post this when it was posted but I wrote a thing!!! 

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JULY 15: Bi Any Other Name is published (1991)

On this day in 1991, the book Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out was published. Edited by Loraine Hutchins and Lani Ka'ahumanu, the anthology was one of the cornerstone publications in the bisexual rights movement of the modern age.

You can purchase the anthology and read more about its “sequel” productions here!” 

Spearheaded by its editors Loraine Hutchins and Lani Ka'ahumanu, who was a seminal bisexual rights activist and the only bisexual speaker to attend the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, Bi Any Other Name is an anthology book that ponders bisexuality in the internal and external through a collection of poetry, art, and personal essays. The book was an instant success and sold so many copies that it quite literally invented the formal category of bisexual literature – after Bi Any Other Name was forced to compete in the category of “Lesbian Anthology” at the 1992 Lambda Literary Awards, the American bisexual community raged a protest that successfully concluded in the creation of multiple bisexual specific Lambda Literary Award categories in 2006.

The book’s success also led to the publication of 10 other books by the same contributors, making Bi Any Other Name a series! Today, the original book has been republished 3 different times, has over 4,000 copies in circulation, and was even translated and sold in Taiwan beginning in 2007. Despite the original controversy with the Lambda Literary Awards, Lambda has included the book in its “Top 100 Queer Books of the 20th century” list. Bisexual rights legend and former president of BiNet USA, Wendy Curry, once wrote of Bi Any Other Name: “This groundbreaking book gave voice to a generation of previously unseen bisexuals. Rather than arguing statistics or debating the sexuality of long dead celebrities, Hutchins and Ka'ahumanu gave a space to normal bisexuals who told their lives. This created a new genre for books on bisexuality.”

-LC

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Lesbian activist Martha Shelley inside the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, c. 1969 Shelley was born Martha Altman and was raised in Brooklyn, New York to Russian-Polish Jewish parents in December 1943. After graduating from college in the mid-1960s, Shelley began her activism, first in the anti-war movement during the time many Americans were drafted to the Vietnam War. In 1967, Shelley joined the New York City chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis, where she later became president. Because of FBI surveillance at the time, many DOB members went under aliases. She used “Shelley” as her alias. While working at Barnard College, she worked with bisexual activist Stephen Donaldson and joined the Student Homophile League. She was in Greenwich Village the night of the Stonewall uprising and was one of the first to propose a protest march after recognizing the political awareness of that event. Her proposal led to the Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Society to sponsor a demonstration. When the Gay Liberation Front started, Shelley was one of the first to join the organization. She also wrote for the LGBT publication, Come Out! In 1970, Shelley was instrumental in the Lavender Menace zap of the Second Congress to Unite Women and later wrote articles such as Notes of a radical lesbian and Terror to the 1970 anthology Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings From The Women’s Liberation Movement. After relocating to Oakland, California, in October 1974, she was involved with the Women’s Press Collective where she worked with Judy Grahn to produce Crossing the DMZ, In other words, Lesbians speak out and other books. Unlike some lesbian activists of her time (like Jean O'Leary), Shelley didn’t advocate for lesbian separatism from the gay rights movement, and argued that the splintering of the Gay Liberation Front “weakened the movement as a whole”. A socialist, Shelley was allied to other leftist groups such as The Young Lords and the Black Panthers and the pro-choice movement groups. 

Prior to homosexuality being removed as a “mental illness” in 1973, Shelley was one of the outspoken critics against homosexuality being deemed so during the 1960s, arguing that the stigmatization of homosexuality as a mental illness was a major contributing factor to psychological issues within the gay and lesbian community. She later appeared in the PBS documentary, Stonewall Uprising, in 2010.

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a collections of links to readings on asian-american gay and lesbian history

“Asian Lesbians in San Francisco: Struggles to Create a Safe Space, 1970s-1980s,” Trinity A. Ordona, in Asian/Pacific Islander American Women: A Historical Anthology, 2003 [starts on p. 319]

“Tomboy, Dyke, Lezzie, and Bi: Filipina Lesbian and Bisexual Women Speak Out,” Christine T. Lipat, Trinity A. Ordona, Cianna Pamintuan Steward, and Mary Ann Ubaldo, in Pinay Power: Peminist Critical Theory (2005)

“Slicing Silence: Asian Progressives Come Out,” Daniel C. Tsang, in Asian Americans: The Movement and the Moment, 2001

“Sexuality, Identity, and the Uses of History,” Nayan Shah, in Q & A: Queer in Asian American, 1998 [starts on p. 141]

“Subverting Seductions,” Gupta, Unruly Immigrants, 2007 [starts on p. 159]

“Queer Asian American Historiography,” Amy Sueyoshi, in The Oxford Handbook of Asian American History, 2016 [contains discussion of csa]

“Miss Morning Glory: Orientalism and Misogyny in the Queer Writings of Yone Noguchi,” Amy Sueyoshi, in Amerasia Journal, 2011

“Breathing Fire: Remembering Asian Pacific American Activism in Queer History,” Amy Sueyoshi, in LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History, 2016

“Looking for Jiro Onuma: A Queer Meditation on the Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II,“ Tina Takemoto, in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 2014

”Gay Asian Community Oral History Project“ (abstracts only)

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A book about a chubby lesbian Puerto Rican girl who’s discovering feminism that you all need to read 💜

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Butch/Femme Clarification

I’ve seen a lot of stuff going around about the butch/femme identifiers, and how people don’t really know what they are and want an explanation. So here is a butch/femme masterpost from your friendly neighborhood lesbian. 

What are butch/femme identities? Are they sexualities?

Butch and femme are not sexualities, they are unique identifiers used by lesbians to describe how they relate to being a lesbian and a woman or woman-aligned. Butches and femmes are still lesbians.

Butch/Femme identifiers are lesbian specific and should not be used to describe anyone else.

Not all lesbians are butch or femme, nor do they have to identify with those terms at all. Butch and femme are not aesthetics that certain lesbians aspire to, because they are not based on appearance, which is why reducing them to gender presentation is misleading (butch =/= masculine, femme =/= feminine).

What does it mean to be butch?

The butch identifier is used by lesbians to describe themselves as gender non-conforming in their relationships, personality, and/or appearance. Butches often reject societal ideas of femininity, but that does not subtract from their womanhood. There is no one specific ‘butch experience”. There are as many ways to be butch as there are butches.

Some common traits seen in butches (but not required to be butch)

short hair

“tomboy” behavior

dominant personality

masculine presentation

wants to spoil girlfriend

What does it mean to be femme?

The femme identifier is used by lesbians who are reclaiming femininity as a personal decision and not as a way to attract the male gaze. Femmes often embrace feminine presentation, but that does not subtract from their being a lesbian. Just like with butch, there is no one “femme experience”.

Common traits seen in femmes (but not required to be femme)

long hair

wears make up

submissive personality

feminine presentation

enjoys being spoiled by girlfriend

What is futch?

Futch is a recently coined identifier that combines butch and femme to describe those who identify between butch and femme. This often leads to the misunderstanding that the butch/femme identifiers are a scale that all lesbians must fall on. While it is not inherently bad to identify as futch, the ideas it supports can lead to harmful behaviors. Before identifying as futch you should honestly evaluate your identity and make sure you aren’t just saying it because you want to be a little bit of both masculine and feminine, as that is a complete disregard of the historical and cultural importance of the butch/femme identities in the lesbian community.

Summary

Butch/femme are lesbian specific identifiers that are used to describe a lesbian’s relationship to womanhood and being a lesbian. They are not simply ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’, nor do butch + femme relationships mimic heterosexuality. Any lesbian can identify with either term and not fit the butch/femme stereotypes.

I hope this clears things up for some people, and other lesbians feel free to add on. If you have any questions, my ask box is always open!

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OutCaster Alex is featured on this episode of This Way Out: The International LGBT Radio Magazine. Also available for download here.

How To Survive A Plague in many not-so-easy lessons! A young gay man considers the "queer" in his ear! A Rainbow Minute ballad for British composer Sir Michael Tippett! Chechnya's gay purge engulfs lesbians and trans-people, Malta's Parliament makes marriage equal, the Church of England damns "the cure" and blesses the trans, and more international LGBTQ news!