Columbia Queer Alliance (CQA) is the central Columbia University student organization that represents lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning LGBTQ students. It is the oldest such student organization in the world, originally called the Student Homophile League, established in 1966 [1] and recognized by the university on April 19, 1967. [2] [3]
During its first year, the Student Homophile League had about ten members who fought with university administrators until the group was officially recognized. [1] Stephen Donaldson, a bisexual-identified LGBT rights activist, is commemorated by a plaque and a portrait in the queer student lounge that bears his name, in one of Columbia's residence halls, for spearheading the creation of the group. [4] One of the key issues over which Donaldson clashed with the administration was the right to keep members' names confidential. [3]
When the group's charter was finally granted in April 1967, Donaldson sent an announcement to every media outlet he knew, but the only response was a radio interview on WNEW, a New York station, [3] and an article in the Columbia Daily Spectator , which reported that some students believed the new group was an April Fools' Day joke. [5] Two weeks later, on May 3, The New York Times reported the story on its front page. [3] [5] Donaldson later wrote: "The next couple days were frantic as media—which had ignored the press release—suddenly wanted the information I had already given them." [3]
Student activists at Cornell University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Rutgers University, and Stanford University formed similar groups of their own within two years. More than 150 such student groups had been established by the end of four years. [3]
Among other activities, the Columbia Queer Alliance has hosted "First Friday Dances" for decades, which at their inception were one of the few places where college-age LGBT people could socialize with one another.
Many of the Columbia Queer Alliance's activities have been historically held in Earl Hall, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018 in recognition of its role in queer history.
Stephen Donaldson, born Robert Anthony Martin Jr. and also known by the pseudonym Donny the Punk, was an American bisexual rights activist, and political activist. He is best known for his pioneering activism in LGBT rights and prison reform, and for his writing about punk rock and subculture.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Although there is not a primary or an overarching central organization that represents all LGBT people and their interests, numerous LGBT rights organizations are active worldwide. The first organization to promote LGBT rights was the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, founded in 1897 in Berlin.
Queer is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender. Originally meaning 'strange' or 'peculiar', queer came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the late 1980s, queer activists, such as the members of Queer Nation, began to reclaim the word as a deliberately provocative and politically radical alternative to the more assimilationist branches of the LGBT community.
A gay–straight alliance, gender-sexuality alliance (GSA) or queer–straight alliance (QSA) is a student-led or community-based organization, found in middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities. These are primarily in the United States and Canada. Gay–straight alliance is intended to provide a safe and supportive environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and all (LGBTQ+) sometimes being referred to as "alphabet soup", children, teenagers, and youth as well as their cisgender heterosexual allies. In middle schools and high schools, GSAs are overseen by a responsible teacher. The first GSAs were established in the 1980s. Scientific studies show that GSAs have positive academic, health, and social impacts on schoolchildren of a minority sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Numerous judicial decisions in United States federal and state court jurisdictions have upheld the establishment of GSAs in schools, and the right to use that name for them.
The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s in the Western world, that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride. In the feminist spirit of the personal being political, the most basic form of activism was an emphasis on coming out to family, friends, and colleagues, and living life as an openly lesbian or gay person.
The origin of the LGBT student movement can be linked to other activist movements from the mid-20th century in the United States. The Civil Rights Movement and Second-wave feminist movement were working towards equal rights for other minority groups in the United States. Though the student movement began a few years before the Stonewall riots, the riots helped to spur the student movement to take more action in the US. Despite this, the overall view of these gay liberation student organizations received minimal attention from contemporary LGBT historians. This oversight stems from the idea that the organizations were founded with haste as a result of the riots. Others historians argue that this group gives too much credit to groups that disagree with some of the basic principles of activist LGBT organizations.
The NYC Pride March is an annual event celebrating the LGBTQ community in New York City. The largest pride parade in North America and among the largest pride events in the world, the NYC Pride March attracts tens of thousands of participants and millions of sidewalk spectators each June. The parade route through Lower Manhattan traverses south on Fifth Avenue, through Greenwich Village, passing the Stonewall National Monument, site of the June 1969 riots that launched the modern movement for LGBTQ+ rights.
This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place in the 1960s.
LGBT movements in the United States comprise an interwoven history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and allied movements in the United States of America, beginning in the early 20th century and influential in achieving social progress for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and transsexual people.
LGBT pride is the promotion of the self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as a social group. Pride, as opposed to shame and social stigma, is the predominant outlook that bolsters most LGBT rights movements. Pride has lent its name to LGBT-themed organizations, institutes, foundations, book titles, periodicals, a cable TV channel, and the Pride Library.
The North American Conference of Homophile Organizations was an umbrella organization for a number of homophile organizations. Founded in 1966, the goal of NACHO was to expand coordination among homophile organizations throughout the Americas. Homophile activists were motivated in part by an increase in mainstream media attention to gay issues. Some feared that without a centralized organization, the movement would be hijacked, in the words of founding member Foster Gunnison Jr., by "fringe elements, beatniks, and other professional non-conformists".
New York state, a state in the northeastern United States, has one of the largest and the most prominent LGBTQ populations in the world. Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote that New York City has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful" LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rises, and Broadway theatre". LGBT travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs". LGBT Americans in New York City constitute by significant margins the largest self-identifying lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities in the United States, and the 1969 Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village are widely considered to be the genesis of the modern gay rights movement.
The first English-language use of the word "bisexual" to refer to sexual orientation occurred in 1892.
New York has a long history of LGBT community building, activism, and culture which extends to the early history of the city.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in San Francisco is one of the largest and most prominent LGBT communities in the United States, and is one of the most important in the history of American LGBT rights and activism alongside New York City. The city itself has been described as "the original 'gay-friendly city'". LGBT culture is also active within companies that are based in Silicon Valley, which is located within the southern San Francisco Bay Area.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of non-heterosexual conforming people of Asian and Pacific Islander ancestry, who may identify as LGBTIQGNC, men who have sex with men, or related culturally-specific identities. This timeline includes events both in Asia and the Pacific Islands and in the global Asian and Pacific Islander diaspora, as the histories are very deeply linked. Please note: this is a very incomplete timeline, notably lacking LGBTQ-specific items from the 1800s to 1970s, and should not be used as a research resource until additional material is added.
The We Demand Rally was the first large scale gay rights demonstration in Canada. The rally occurred on August 28, 1971 in Ottawa, and was organized by the gay rights activist groups Toronto Gay Action (TGA) and Community Homophile Association of Toronto (CHAT). There was a parallel rally in Vancouver that was organized in solidarity with the rally by the Vancouver group Gay Alliance Toward Equality (GATE). The rally plays an important part in the history of queer equity-seeking and gay rights in Canada, as well as the history of feminism in Canada, and has had a lasting legacy in Canadian gay rights activism.
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