Canon Clinton Robert Jones Jr. (November 8, 1916 – June 3, 2006) was an Episcopal priest and gay rights activist based in Hartford, Connecticut.
[2] Jones was appointed canon (senior administrative priest) of Hartford's Christ Church Cathedral in 1948.
[1] In 1963, Jones founded Project H alongside George Higgins, a professor from Trinity College, and attorney Donald Cantor.
[1] Members of the group would go on to found the Kalos Society in 1968, considered the state's first LGBT political advocacy organization.
[1][4] In 1966, the Hartford Council of Churches agreed to pay for a private phone line in Jones' office, to protect the privacy of the individuals he was working with.
[6] In 1971, Jones and Project H colleague George Higgins founded the Twenty-One Club, which primarily served transgender individuals, providing them with counseling and psychiatric services.
[1] Later in the 1970s, Jones founded the Gender Identity Clinic of New England, which connected transgender people to social and healthcare workers who helped patients access affirming mental health treatments, hormone therapy, and gender-affirming surgery.
[1] In late 1973, Jones gave a seminar on "transsexualism" to Hartford's Police Community Relations Department.
[4] Jones was gay, and was in a domestic partnership with church musician Kenneth Woods for 40 years; however, he was not open about his sexuality during his lifetime.
[1] The award was to be given annually to "a person of faith who works quietly in the community on issues at the cutting edge of change".
[5] Jones' personal papers, which include his correspondence, are held at the GLBTQ Archives at Central Connecticut State’s Elihu Burritt Library.