The Mattachine Society, founded in 1950, was an early national gay rights organization in the United States, preceded by several covert and open organizations, such as Chicago's Society for Human Rights. Communist and labor activist Harry Hay formed the group with a collection of male friends in Los Angeles to protect and improve the rights of gay men. Branches formed in other cities, and by 1961 the Society had splintered into regional groups.
The Daughters of Bilitis, also called the DOB or the Daughters, was the first lesbian civil and political rights organization in the United States. The organization, formed in San Francisco in 1955, was conceived as a social alternative to lesbian bars, which were subject to raids and police harassment. As the DOB gained members, their focus shifted to providing support to women who were afraid to come out. The DOB educated them about their rights and about gay history. The historian Lillian Faderman declared, "Its very establishment in the midst of witch-hunts and police harassment was an act of courage, since members always had to fear that they were under attack, not because of what they did, but merely because of who they were." The Daughters of Bilitis endured for 40 years, becoming an educational resource for lesbians, gay men, researchers and mental health professionals.
The homophile movement is a collective term for the main organisations and publications supporting and representing sexual minorities in the 1950s to 1960s around the world. The name comes from the term homophile, which was commonly used by these organisations. At least some of these organisations are considered to have been more cautious than both earlier and later LGBT organisations; in the U.S., the nationwide coalition of homophile groups disbanded after older members clashed with younger members who had become more radical after the Stonewall riots of 1969.
One, Inc., or One Incorporated, was one of the first gay rights organizations in the United States, founded in 1952.
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.
William Dorr Lambert Legg, known as W. Dorr Legg, was an American landscape architect and one of the founders of the United States gay rights movement, then called the homophile movement.
The Society for Human Rights was an American LGBT rights organization established in Chicago in 1924. Society founder Henry Gerber was inspired to create it by the work of German doctor Magnus Hirschfeld and the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and by the organisation Bund für Menschenrecht by Friedrich Radszuweit and Karl Schulz in Berlin. It was the first recognized gay rights organization in the United States, having received a charter from the state of Illinois, and produced the first American publication for homosexuals, Friendship and Freedom. A few months after being chartered, the group ceased to exist in the wake of the arrest of several of the Society's members. Despite its short existence and small size, the Society has been recognized as a precursor to the modern gay liberation movement.
This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place worldwide in the 1950s.
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.
James Lynn Kepner, Jr. was an American journalist, author, historian, archivist and leader in the gay rights movement. His work was intertwined with One, Inc. and One Magazine, and eventually contributed to the formation of the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives.
The National Socialist League (NSL) was a neo-Nazi organization of gay men in the United States that existed from 1974 until 1984. It was originally founded by Jim Cherry, but was quickly taken over by Russell Veh, a neo-Nazi and transplant to Los Angeles, California, from Ohio. Veh financed the party using the profits from his printing business. He also financed the league with a film distribution unit that specialized in Nazi propaganda films, including Triumph of the Will. The National Socialist League had chapters in various parts of California, and implied in their mass mailing on July 4, 1978 that they had established an offshoot organization in Manhattan.
Clark Philip Polak was an American businessman, publisher, journalist, and LGBT activist.
The Janus Society was an early homophile organization founded in 1962 and based in Philadelphia. It is notable as the publisher of Drum magazine, one of the earliest gay publications in the United States and the one most widely circulated in the 1960s, and for its role in organizing many of the nation's earliest LGBT rights demonstrations. The Janus Society takes its name from the Roman two-faced God Janus of beginnings, endings, and doorways. The organization focused on a policy of militant respectability, a strategy demanding respect by showing the public gay individuals conforming to hetero-normative standards of dress at protests.
The Australian Queer Archives (AQuA) is a community-based non-profit organisation committed to the collection, preservation and celebration of material reflecting the lives and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex LGBTI Australians. It is located in Melbourne. The Archives was established as an initiative of the 4th National Homosexual Conference, Sydney, August 1978, drawing on the previous work of founding President Graham Carbery. Since its establishment the collection has grown to over 200,000 items, constituting the largest and most significant collection of material relating to LGBT Australians and the largest collection of LGBT material in Australia, and the most prominent research centre for gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and intersex history in Australia.
The Cloistered Order of Conclaved Knights of Sophisticracy, more commonly known as the Knights of the Clock, was an interracial homophile social club based in Los Angeles, California. The Knights were founded by Merton Bird, an African-American man, and W. Dorr Legg, his white lover. Sources differ as to the founding date of the organization, variously citing it as 1949, 1950, and 1951. Regardless of the exact date, the Knights was one of the earliest gay organizations in the United States, with only the Society for Human Rights, the Veterans Benevolent Association and possibly the Mattachine Society pre-dating it.
The U.S. state of Illinois has an active LGBT history, centered on its largest city Chicago, where by the 1920s a gay village had emerged in the Old Town district. Chicago was also the base for the short-lived Society for Human Rights, an early LGBT rights advocacy organization (1924).
Although often characterized as apolitical, “Los Angeles has provided the setting for many important chapters in the struggle for gay and lesbian community, visibility, and civil rights." Moreover, Los Angeles' LGBT community has historically played a significant role in the development of the entertainment industry.
Queer community archives are a subset of the larger body of community archives, which are archives and personal collections maintained by community groups who desire to document their cultural heritage based on shared experiences, interests, and/or identities. As such, queer community archives are collections that exist to maintain the historical record of the LGBT community and broader queer community. The term queer community archives, also called gay and lesbian archives, refers to a diverse array of community projects, organizations, and public institutions that maintain these histories.
