Dorothy Louise Taliaferro "Del" Martin and Phyllis Ann Lyon were an American lesbian couple known as feminist and gay-rights activists.
A domestic partnership is a legal relationship, usually between couples, who live together and share a common domestic life, but are not married. People in domestic partnerships receive benefits that guarantee right of survivorship, hospital visitation, and other rights.
Patrick Califia is an American writer of non-fiction essays about sexuality and of erotic fiction and poetry. Califia is a bisexual trans man. Prior to transitioning, Califia identified as a lesbian and wrote for many years a sex advice column for the gay men's leather magazine Drummer. His writings explore sexuality and gender identity, and have included lesbian erotica and works about BDSM subculture. Califia is a member of the third-wave feminism movement.
Same-sex marriage in California has been legal since June 28, 2013. The U.S. state first issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples on June 16, 2008 as a result of the Supreme Court of California finding in the case of In re Marriage Cases that barring same-sex couples from marriage violated the Constitution of California. The issuance of such licenses was halted from November 5, 2008 through June 27, 2013 due to the passage of Proposition 8—a state constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriages. The granting of same-sex marriages recommenced following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry, which restored the effect of a federal district court ruling that overturned Proposition 8 as unconstitutional.
In the United States, domestic partnership is a city-, county-, state-, or employer-recognized status that may be available to same-sex couples and, sometimes, opposite-sex couples. Although similar to marriage, a domestic partnership does not confer any of the myriad rights and responsibilities of marriage afforded to married couples by the federal government. Domestic partnerships in the United States are determined by each state or local jurisdiction, so there is no nationwide consistency on the rights, responsibilities, and benefits accorded domestic partners.
The San Francisco 2004 same-sex weddings took place between February 12 and March 11, 2004, after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom directed the city-county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and a number of interest groups sued to end the practice. About 4,000 such licenses were issued before the California Supreme Court ordered a halt to the practice on March 11. On August 12, 2004, the California Supreme Court voided all of the licenses that had been issued in February and March.
The Pink Pistols are an LGBTQ gun rights organization in the United States and Canada. Their motto is "Pick on someone your own caliber".
Equality California or EQCA is a non-profit civil rights organization that advocates for the rights of LGBT people in California. It is the largest statewide LGBT organization in the United States and the largest member of the Equality Federation. The organization is based in Los Angeles.
In re Marriage Cases, 43 Cal. 4th 757 was a California Supreme Court case where the court held that laws treating classes of persons differently based on sexual orientation should be subject to strict judicial scrutiny, and that an existing statute and initiative measure limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violate the rights of same-sex couples under the California Constitution and may not be used to preclude them from marrying.
Proposition 8, known informally as Prop 8, was a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment intended to ban same-sex marriage; it passed in the November 2008 California state elections and was later overturned in court. The proposition was created by opponents of same-sex marriage in advance of the California Supreme Court's May 2008 appeal ruling, In re Marriage Cases, which followed the short-lived 2004 same-sex weddings controversy and found the previous ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Proposition 8 was ultimately ruled unconstitutional by a federal court in 2010, although the court decision did not go into effect until June 26, 2013, following the conclusion of proponents' appeals.
Florida Amendment 2 is an amendment made to the Constitution of Florida in 2008. It added Article I, Section 27 to the constitution, which defines marriage as a union only between one man and one woman, and thus bans the creation of similar unions, such as civil unions or same-sex marriage.
Strauss v. Horton, 46 Cal. 4th 364, 93 Cal. Rptr. 3d 591, 207 P.3d 48 (2009), was a decision of the Supreme Court of California, the state's highest court. It resulted from lawsuits that challenged the voters' adoption of Proposition 8 on November 4, 2008, which amended the Constitution of California to outlaw same-sex marriage. Several gay couples and governmental entities filed the lawsuits in California state trial courts. The Supreme Court of California agreed to hear appeals in three of the cases and consolidated them so they would be considered and decided. The supreme court heard oral argument in the cases in San Francisco on March 5, 2009. Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar stated that the cases will set precedent in California because "no previous case had presented the question of whether [a ballot] initiative could be used to take away fundamental rights".
The Marriage Equality Caravan, or Marriage Equality Express, was an educational bus tour organized by the California chapter of Marriage Equality USA, in response to the invalidation by the California Supreme Court, on August 11, 2004, of 4,000 same-sex marriages that had taken place between February 12 and March 11 of that year. The tour was led by Davina Kotulski, Molly McKay, Belinda Ryan, Wendy Daw, Jacqueline Frank, and Bev Senkowski.
Writers With Drinks is a literary event that has run monthly since 2001 in San Francisco, California. It is a spoken word variety show hosted by Charlie Jane Anders, who MCs and introduces the six readers from six different genres including literary fiction, poetry, stand-up comedy, erotica or porn, science fiction and fantasy, blogging, reporting, memoir, and non-fiction.
Katherine Magdalene Rose is a transgender author and social activist from San Francisco. She was formerly a member of the Episcopal religious community known as the Brotherhood of Saint Gregory before coming out publicly as transgender in 2016. Rose is the author of In Love and Service Bound: The First Forty Years of the Brotherhood of Saint Gregory; The Skillfulness of Shepherds: Gregorian Reflections on the Spiritual Life and co-author of Equipping the Saints – two volumes currently used in the Brotherhood's formation program; and For the Balance of My Natural Life – a reflection on Life Vows in the Gregorian Way. She is also the subject of the award-winning documentary "Changing Habits" by Sara Needham, and has appeared in the nationally released via media series produced by Every Voice Network, an advocacy organization in the Episcopal Church for progressive causes.
The history of LGBT residents in California, which includes centuries prior to the 20th, has become increasingly visible recently with the successes of the LGBT rights movement. In spite of the strong development of early LGBT villages in the state, pro-LGBT activists in California have campaigned against nearly 170 years of especially harsh prosecutions and punishments toward gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people.
California is seen as one of the most liberal states in the U.S. in regard to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) rights, which have received nationwide recognition since the 1970s. Same-sex sexual activity has been legal in the state since 1976. Discrimination protections regarding sexual orientation and gender identity or expression were adopted statewide in 2003. Transgender people are also permitted to change their legal gender on official documents without any medical interventions, and mental health providers are prohibited from engaging in conversion therapy on minors.
Amy Sueyoshi is the provost of San Francisco State University. Sueyoshi is a trained historian specializing in sexuality, gender, and race. Her publications and lectures focus on issues regarding race and sexuality such as cross-dressing, pornography, and marriage equality.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in the United States.
Why You Should Give a Damn About Gay Marriage is a 2004 book by Davina Kotulski in which the author advocates the legal recognition of same-sex marriage. It received generally positive reviews in the LGBT press.
