Pioneer and tireless activist for the LGBT civil rights movement, Frank Kameny was fired from his job as an astronomer for the US government in the late 1950s because he was gay. He
co-organized the Mattachine Society of Washington,
campaigned for equal treatment of gay employees in the Federal government, was the
first openly gay candidate for Congress and worked to remove the classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder from the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
The Library of Congress holds his papers, the
Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History includes in its collections Kameny's picket signs carried in front of the White House in 1965, his home has been made a DC Historic Landmark, and a street near Dupont Circle was declared Frank Kameny Way in 2010. In 2009, John Berry, Director of the Office of Personnel Management, formally apologized to Kameny on behalf of the United States government.
Frank Kameny died on
National Coming Out Day this October 11, 2011.
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posted by Morrigan
on Oct 12, 2011 -
56 comments
Earlier this week, the Republicans in the Minnesota House of Representatives
asked Bradlee Dean to give the morning prayer.
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posted by jiawen
on May 21, 2011 -
80 comments
Right before the
10th anniversary of the first same-sex marriage in Canada, Saskatchewan's highest court has
ruled that a proposed law allowing provincial marriage commissioners to refuse to wed same-sex couples is unconstitutional.
Thecourt.ca gives its thoughts on the decision and the social context surrounding it.
posted by Lemurrhea
on Jan 19, 2011 -
40 comments
With a
ruling scheduled today on Prop 8 — the California ballot measure that took away the right to marry from same-sex couples — Dave Fleischer has an in-depth
analysis of all of the
polling data on Prop 8, and his findings include some counter-intuitive numbers, like that the confusing wording actually ended up helping the No vote more than the Yes.
posted by klangklangston
on Aug 4, 2010 -
619 comments
Choice of Broadsides is a choose-your-own-adventure game set in an alternate 19th Century world that is much like our own, where Albion and Gaul fight for naval supremacy. You can choose to be a gentleman in a standard patriarchal society, or a gentlewoman in a matriarchal one. Later on in the game you can choose your sexual orientation. Originally there were no options for a same-sex relationship, but after demands from players,
it was added in. Spoilers below the cut.
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posted by Kattullus
on Jul 14, 2010 -
42 comments
Lesbian Hipster Chic "I represent a small community of high fashion dykes, and I’m not talking about femmes or lipstick lesbians, to use the terms so popularized in culture today. We are often mistaken for straight fashionistas. We are the women who popularized chic undercuts, skinny jeans with patent leather wingtips, sexy flannel, fitted motorcycle jackets, Doc Martens and James Dean vibes minus the James. We are grrls, we are bois, we are young women with a taste for rock n’ roll, a penchant for sex appeal and an undying love for Alexander McQueen, may he rest in peace... It is our duty, as (NSFW)
model lesbians, lesbian models, (NSFW)
hipster dykes and purveyors of lesbian chic to establish ourselves as a force within the canon of high fashion... We’re fashion fagettes and we’re taking over the runways of New York, London, Milan and Paris. So let’s wrangle the model lesbians like
Freja,
Cat McNeil,
Milou,
Myf,
Nimue editors like
Kate Lanphear... and show fashion that as gay ladies, we not only epitomize the high fashion street style that has taken the world by storm, but we invented it."
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posted by Suparnova
on May 26, 2010 -
155 comments
Cul-de-sac is a new independent film (
trailer, briefly NSFW) by London-based directors
Ramin Goudarzi Nejad & Mahshad Torkan. It tells the story of Kiana Firouz, a filmmaker, actress, and lesbian activist who fled Iran after authorities learned of her attempt to make an underground documentary about the lives of
Iranian gays and lesbians. According to
this interview, Firouz didn't write the film, but plays herself. Earlier this month, her asylum petition was allegedly
denied. The denial shouldn't have been surprising according to statistics in a
report (pdf) by the
UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group, which states that the refusal rate for lesbians and gay men is as high as 98-99%. Although the Home Office claims it takes the sexual orientation of asylum seekers into consideration, laws which permit deportation of gay and lesbian asylum seekers have recently been
challenged in the supreme court.
posted by treepour
on May 13, 2010 -
10 comments
LGBT Immigration Some countries such as
Australia and
Canada already allow same sex couples to immigrate.
In the United States Senator Chuck Schumer of New York has said he will introduce a comprehensive immigration reform bill early this year. A window is opening to pass the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA)....
posted by ginky
on Jan 19, 2010 -
26 comments
1969: The Year of Gay Liberation is an online exhibit of the New York Public Library focusing on the radical gay rights movements of the late sixties and early seventies, focusing on the organizations The Mattachine Society of New York, Daughters of Bilitis, Gay News, Gay Liberation Front, Radicalesbians, Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries and the Gay Activists Alliance, and the events of the Stonewall Riot and Christopher Street Liberation Day. This is but one part of the NYPL's fine
LGBT collection, which includes, among other things,
resources for teens,
AIDS/HIV collections, and digital collections on
ACT UP,
Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen,
Bessie Bonehill,
Gertrude Stein,
Gran Fury,
Julian Eltinge,
Richard Wandel and
Walt Whitman.
posted by Kattullus
on Oct 1, 2009 -
14 comments
Take my arm, my love. Don't write a check from a joint bank account. Hide all the photographs in your home and office which would identify you as a couple. Take off your wedding rings. Touch each other, and talk to each other, in public, in ways that could only be interpreted as you being "friends." A thoughtful post on "self-editing," homophobia, and the day-to-day experience of many LGBT folks, at
Shakesville (aka Shakespeare's Sister), by
Teh Portly Dyke.
posted by fiercecupcake
on May 6, 2008 -
177 comments
VisibleVote08.com On Thursday, August 9th, at 9PM EST, the
LOGO television network along with the
Human Rights Campaign are going to host a televised forum with some of the leading Democratic presidential candidates for the discussion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trangendered issues. According to the network, if you are unable to see the program on cable, it will be available to you live via the special website. And as of August 2nd, surfers are invited to submit questions to be asked of the candidates live.
posted by FunkyHelix
on Aug 1, 2007 -
27 comments
