TRAILBLAZERS

 

The LGBTQ community is one of strength, resilience and beauty. As we celebrate Pride this month and always in June it's important to remember those of the Stonewall Uprising among many others who were brave enough to be outspoken, and brave enough to live their lives and not be hushed. Today, as we celebrate Pride, we know that recognizing a community so beautiful, diverse, and resilient isn't just reserved for one month of the year, because a community isn't reserved for a moment in time because creating an inclusive and equitable society is not reserved for a moment in time. It's an ongoing fight for a world where all people-are valued and treated with respect. In celebration of the month, here is some of my list of trailblazers we should know, who came before us, and helped pave the way for getting us today a better life, acceptance, and civil rights in some form or other, and refused to run and hide. You can also check out this month's In Three Words too.

Marsha P Johnson

Miss Marsha was right on the frontline of the Stonewall Uprising and was one of the most vocal that night when the raid took place. She took no shit. Though she was practically one step from a street person, she was always very vocal and involved in civil rights and formed the Gay Liberation Front. Marsha was extremely frustrated with the absence of the trans community's rights in the conversation. Her and good friend Slyvia Rivera were both the founders of the Street Transvestite Activists Revolutionaries, a safe place and home for young trans who lived on the street.

Slyvia Rivera

I'm amazed at how many don't know who she is. She has a unique place in LGBT history as not only a trans woman but also a Latina who helped lead the charge on the night of the Stonewall riots in NYC. While Rivera had a very turbulent life, she always led charges, protests, would never back down and was quoted as saying "I'm not missing a moment of this-it's the revolution!" Yet she remains little known even in our community, and at one point was even whitewashed out of a recent movie about Stonewall in favor of a fictional white character. Mind you she was only 19 when she and Marsha founded the STAR home.

Bayard Rustin

Bayard was an openly gay Black man, and first worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr in the civils rights movement before turning his attention to LGBT rights. In fact, he was a key player in organizing the March on Washington. As with most societal issues, he brought to light the intersectionality of economic equality within the civil rights movement and the need for social rights for the LGBT.

Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk finally proved a gay man could get elected...and made history when he became one of the first openly gay officials in the US in 1977 when he was elected to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors...and went to do a lot of good things for the community till his assassination.

Barbara Gittings

Hailed as being one of the longest-serving and the most fearless activists in the lesbian community, Gittings founded the New York chapter of The Daughters of Bilitis, picketed the White House in the 60's numerous times, and set up and helped counsel gay people who were discriminated by the government.

Jewel Box Revue

WAY before Drag Race there was the spectacular Jewel Box Revue. In 1939, during a time when gay people were viewed as abhorrent subversive and a threat to society, two gay lovers, Danny Brown and Doc Benner created and produced America's first racially and in your face inclusive traveling revue of all female impersonators and drag queens. Surprisingly it was a hit, and tickets were often hard to get and sold out. Many famous people were often seen in its audiences. The revue launched and made nationally famous the careers of Laverne Cummings, Lynne Carter, Mr. Titanic, Jan Britton, and the fabulous Guilda, who later took Paris by storm. Not to mention Storme De Laviere, the only female who was a drag king with the revue. I've done to many posts to mention about the Jewel Box.

Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer was a high-profile, high-volume, one-man crusade against the AIDS disease and a titan of activism and protest. Kramer was known as the founder of Act-Up, whose collective organizing pushed for more AIDS drugs research and an end to discrimination against the gay community. When he founded the organization in 1987, the AIDS epidemic was devasting the gay community.

Gladys Bentley

Gladys was a wildly popular singer, pianist and entertainer during the Harlem Renaissance and her career skyrocketed at Harry Hansberry's Clam House, a speak easy in the 1920's. But this Blues singers, who often sang her own raunchy lyrics to popular songs, was also black, lesbian, tough, and one of the very first drag kings around, dressing as a man 24/7 and reportedly married her lover publicly in 1931. Enough said.

Barbara Jordan

In 1972, Jordan became the first southern black female, and closeted Lesbian elected to the US House of Representatives. Although she never came out publicly, those she knew and worked , and friends and family, were aware, and she was with her partner Nancy Earl for 20 years. Yet we don't hear of her extraordinary accomplishment.

April Ashley

April Ashley was a pioneering model, socialite and a major key figure in trans history. She is well known for being outed in the press in the early 60's for her divorce case, and her work towards transgender equality when little was even known about it. In the 30's she was among one of the earliest people known to have had sex reassignment surgery. Now that is making new territory not to mention brave.

Allan Horsfall

These days he's often called the grandfather of the gay rights movement, for openly campaigning as a gay man when homosexuality was still extremely illegal. In 1964 he and a group of friends set up the North West Homosexual Law Reform Committee, even giving out his home address as the base for the organization. To be SO open at that time was very brave.

We must always remember them and their work and bravery.

Happy Pride!!!!!