Barbara Gittings

From the archives:

Date: Thu Mar 8, 2007 8:47 pm
Subject: Barbara Gittings


Hi everyone,

As you might have heard, the legendary, iconic, gay activist Barabara Gittings died late last month on February 18th at the age of 75, after a lengthy fight with breast cancer.

Widely regarded as the mother of the modern Gay Rights Movement, Barbara Gittings was one of the early pioneers of Gay Rights in the 1950s, helped found the NYC chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis, and edited an early lesbian publication called "The Ladder," from 1963 to 1966. In 1965, 3 years before the milestone event of the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969, Gittings helped organize one of the first gay rights protests in modern memory in demonstrations at the White House in Washington DC and Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Along with another Gay Rights pioneer Frank Kameny, Barbara Gittings was instrumental in the campaign that led to the American Psychiatric Association's 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. Ms. Gittings was instrumental in securing the appearance and testimony of that famous, pro-gay masked psychiatrist.

When I heard about her passing I had to jot down my reaction so I've
included it here below at the end of this post.

*****************

The wonderful podcast, Gay USA, hosted by veteran LGBTQ rights
activists Andy Humm and Ann Northrop, dedicated an episode to Barbara Gittings and you can listen to it here:
http://web.mac.com/depeche7/iWeb/Site/Podcast/D874F98A-9418-4D75-805A-0E3D037D54\
62.html

*****************

The following is a partial listing of coverage of her passing by media sources:
http://gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=17884544&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=5\
68864&rfi=8
http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ci=108&ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=1829\
3
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/19/AR2007021900921.\
html
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/counties/phila\
delphia_county/philadelphia/16736722.htm
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-passings20.2feb20,1,29\
04550.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aR_HOK8TU.E0&refer=muse
http://www.generationq.net/articles/Gay-Pioneer-dies-at-75-00001.html
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--obit-gittings0218feb18,\
0,5155742.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

*****************

The following are some articles on Ms. Gittings:
http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/gittings_b.html
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/042299/feat.20q.shtml
http://www.glbthistorymonth.com/glbthistorymonth/bio.cfm?LeaderID=14
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Gittings

*****************

Barbara Gittings has been featured in many documentaries on gay
history. Here is a partial listing:
Before Stonewall http://imdb.com/title/tt0088782/
After Stonewall http://imdb.com/title/tt0244955/
Out of the Past http://www.pbs.org/outofthepast/

*****************

A partial listing of statements released by our community leaders
mourning the passing of Barabara Gittings:
http://www.thetaskforce.org/Update/2007/07_07_0221/index.htm
http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/all/news/record/2039.html
http://www.hrc.org/Template.cfm?Section=Press_Room&CONTENTID=35521&TEMPLATE=/Con\
tentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm
http://www.glaad.org/media/release_detail.php?id=3977&

*****************

I don't know what this is, but I was immediately devastated. I was very angry and then I felt sad, then nauseated I did not know her and have never met her. What I do know is that she is definitely one of our founding mothers for everyone who is LGBTQ in America. Her work laid the groundwork for our movement and we would not have the freedoms today if it weren't for her efforts.

I guess i am upset because it is as if my parent has died. I know this is so contrived and silly to say and to feel but somehow i feel connected to her and am touched by her story. Somehow I always felt that as an activist i might some day be able to meet her and to tell her how much her work has meant to me. That in our times today where so many of our LGBTQ youth do not know anything about their history that someone like me feels so grateful for her and her work. I am incredibly sad that I will never get a chance to tell her this.

Another part of me feels with her passing, we as a community becomes that much more removed from those times of the initial fire that fueled our movement. i guess what i am afraid of is that oftentimes when we protest and fight for justice, we do it not so we ourselves can enjoy the fruits of our labor because we often cant, but in order so that those that come after us can enjoy a level of freedom that we ourselves cannot and did not. But then because the previous generation was so successful, the next often experiences a situation that's so vastly liberating that they mistakenly believe that the freedoms that they have had always been there.

That is why I hope that Stonewall Youth can become a place where the importance of our history and struggle is being passed onto the next generation.

Daughters of Bilitis

Full Disclosure: Stonewallyouth originally started a year ago as a mailing list. We talked about some great topics and thought our blog readers should know about them as well. So there'll be some 'classic' posts from the Stonewallyouth mailing list posted in the future, marked accordingly. Enjoy!

******************************************

Date: Sat Apr 21, 2007 10:40 am
Subject: The Daughters of Bilitis

"Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the
Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement," is the first and only
full-length text to be published about Daughters of Bilitis, a lesbian
rights group around for over fifty years. "Daughters" blends
formidable research and quirky anecdotes to relay the story of
pioneers who helped launch efforts for lesbian and women's equality in
1950s America. It's an important history lessons for the queer youth
of today, as most educational systems do not teach about lesbian
activism. Here's the link, I reccomend checking it out and if you're
intrigued, check out the book!

http://gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=18144030&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=5\
68864&rfi=8

************************************************************

Date: Mon Oct 9, 2006 9:56 pm
Subject: Event and Book: Daughters of Bilitis

So check this out y'all!

Before there was the L Word, before Ellen, and before even the Stonewall
Rebellion, there
was the Daughters of Bilitis. Just as most gay men of "the Greatest Generation"
pointed to
WWII as a pivotal event in their lives, so too did a lot of gay women, but for
different
reasons. While WWII brought American gay men out of the closets of their
hometowns and
into the more gay-friendly cities of the US and Europe, the war allowed women
the
opportunity to enter the workforce in ways never before imagined. The image of
Rosie the
Riveter was born, and for some, the chance to earn their own money was an
experience
they'd never forget.

But when the war ended gay men and lesbians were asked to retreat back into the
conformity of a Leave It to Beaver-America. To counter their silence, a
courageous few
decided to form the Daughters of Bilitis.

*************************************************************************

Nearly 15 years before the Stonewall Rebellion and the birth of gay liberation
came the
Daughters of Bilitis (DOB). DOB was launched in response to the oppressive anti-
homosexual climate of the McCarthy era, when lesbian and gay people were
arrested, fired
from jobs, and had their children taken away on the basis of their sexual
orientation.
Marcia Gallo's new book, Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of
Bilitis and the
Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement, chronicles the history of the Daughters of
Billitis and
introduces us to pioneering lesbian liberators who, during the 1950s, dared to
challenge
the homophobic silence and contempt that surrounded and endangered women-loving-
women for so many generations.

Celebrating the book's publication by Carroll & Graf, Gallo will be joined in
conversation
by Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt, Volumes One and Two.
Everyone
interested in feminism, social and political history, and stories of bold life
journeys in
embattled times will be eager to read Different Daughters.

Frank Kameny is Good

Hi Everyone,

To kick off our first post I thought it'd be appropriate to talk about one of the Founding Fathers of our movement, Dr. Frank Kameny. A terrific interview with Dr. Kameny is in featured in the current issue of the Advocate: http://www.advocate.com/currentstory1_w.asp?id=46138

Some of our peers out there might be asking who is Frank Kameny and why is he considered one of our Founding Fathers? In 1961, eight years before the Stonewall rebellion in 1969, Dr. Kameny founded the Mattachine Society of Washington DC with gay activist Jack Nichols. While most of the other gay and lesbian groups at the time opted for a more quiet and low-key way of organizing---that is, by hiding, Dr. Kameny championed a more aggressive approach by confronting elected officials. He helped organize the first Gay Rights protests in front of the White House in 1965, coined the slogan "Gay is Good," and under his leadership the Mattachine Society surged to the forefront of the Gay & Lesbian Movement (then called the Homophile Movement).

Amongst his numerous achievements he fought to remove discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation from federal employment, a battle which was accomplished in 1975, became the first openly-gay person to run for Congress in 1971, and was instrumental in getting the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality form its list of mental disorders in 1973. Along with the Daughters of Bilitis, and the Mattachine Society of NY, Kameny's group also picketed the Pentagon, US Civil Service Commission, and Independence Hall in Philadelphia, in the years before Stonewall.

Later on, Dr. Kameny co-founded the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, was the first openly-gay municipal employee, and wrote a bill that repealed Washington DC's sodomy law, which was enacted in 1993. Recently in 2006 Dr. Kameny donated his collection of more than 70,0000 letters, documents, and memorabilia of the history of the GLBT Movement to the US Library of Congress, and Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

Frank Kameny's activism led the way for the militarism that would characterize the movement in the years after Stonewall. He is truly one of the greatest men in our community and and example of how the courage of one individual can change the course of history.

To find out more about Dr. Kameny, please visit:

http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/kameny_f.html

http://www.kamenypapers.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_E._Kameny

http://www.planetout.com/news/history/archive/19991220.html