LGBTQ history in California
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.
Prior to 1850, the 1821 independence of Mexico largely resulted in the end of the colonial Spanish Inquisition and its violent anti-LGBT persecution in the then-Mexican territory of California.
However, economically driven settlement in the region by United States citizens resulted in the import of historically-English anti-sodomy laws from their home country, which was cemented by the U.S. annexation of California in 1848.
[2] In fall of 1914, some 500 gay men were arrested as "social vagrants", leading to the legislative passage of a unique law which prohibited "acts technically known as fellatio and cunnilingus.
The law against fellatio and cunnilingus would have interesting effects in the courts due to disputes regarding the exact medical definitions of both terms; the State Supreme Court rulings in In Re Application of Soady (1918) and Ex Parte Lockett (1919) would reveal the schism between the sitting justices, particularly Justices Henry A. Melvin and Curtis D. Wilbur, on those definitions.
[6] In 1952, using Virginia Prince's correspondence network for its initial subscription list, a handful of other transgender people in Southern California launched Transvestia: The Journal of the American Society for Equality in Dress, which published two issues.
His trial drew national attention to the Mattachine Society, and membership increased dramatically after Jennings contested the charges, resulting in a hung jury.
The most famous individual to be arrested under the oral copulation and vagrancy law was civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who received 60 days in jail in 1953 after pleading guilty in Pasadena to a lesser charge of "sex perversion" (as consensual sodomy was known in California at the time).
[7] The 1956 appellate court case People v. Giani stood out against the majority of judicial cases which sent numerous people to prison or involuntary psychiatric incarceration for a wide variety of sexual offenses; Justice Fred V. Wood noted for a unanimous court that based on "the absence of expert medical testimony on the subject we hesitate to equate the word 'homosexual' with the term 'sexual psychopath,'" and called for a new trial for the defendant.
Also in 1961, José Sarria became the first openly gay candidate for public office in the United States when he ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
[11] In 1964, Life magazine named San Francisco the "Gay Capital of the U.S."[12] In 1965, José Sarria established the Imperial Court System, which is now one of the largest LGBT charity organizations in the world.
This culmination of these efforts was the National Transsexual Counseling Unit (NTCU), established in 1968, which is said to be the first support and advocacy organization for transgender people in the world.
[16] The NTCU was funded by the Erickson Educational Foundation and was staffed by two full time peer counselors who provided street outreach, walk-in counseling, and answered mail that was received from around the world.
[17] On New Year's Eve 1967, a raid by undercover LAPD officers on the Black Cat Tavern in Los Angeles, California, a gay bar, ended in several beatings and the arrests of 16 people.
The demonstration was organized by a group called PRIDE (Personal Rights in Defense and Education) – founded by Steve Ginsberg – and the SCCRH (Southern California Council on Religion and Homophile).
[23] One of the earliest organizations for bisexuals, the Sexual Freedom League in San Francisco, was facilitated by Margo Rila and Frank Esposito beginning in 1967.
[24] Two years later, during a staff meeting at a San Francisco mental health facility serving LGBT people, nurse Maggi Rubenstein came out as bisexual.
The Examiner was publishing anti-gay articles and the full names and addresses of gay men who had been arrested in bars, clubs, or tearooms.
When the GLF crowded outside the Examiner and started to chant and riot, employees from a few stories up in the building dumped large containers of ink onto the protesters.
On December 31, 1969, The Cockettes, a psychedelic drag queen troupe, performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre on Union and Columbus in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco.
that were included in its nameplate until April 2011 and was originally distributed to gay bars in the South of Market, Castro District, and Polk Gulch areas of San Francisco.
Privacy was appended to the California Constitution's Declaration of Rights for the first time, protecting gay people from being outed by certain public organizations.
[6][30][31] In 1975, a Consenting Adult Sex Bill was passed in California[32] due to an extensive lobbying effort led by State Assemblyman from San Francisco Willie Brown.
AB 607, by Orange County Assemblyman Bruce Nestande, passes 23–5 in the Senate and 68–2 in the House and defines marriage as "between one man and one woman".
The change came after same-sex couples seeking marital recognition apply in Orange County courthouses for marriage licenses alarming the clerks there.
In 1982, Armand Boulay and Tom Brougham (who coined the term "domestic partnership") founded a political club in Alameda County (Oakland, Berkeley, etc.)
Its mission is "to connect our diverse community to opportunities, resources and each other to achieve our vision of a stronger, healthier, and more equitable world for LGBT people and our allies."
According to Davis, one of the group's main organizers, Kevin Norte, wrote on The California Log Cabin blog, "Someone had to fire the first shot.
On November 4, 2008, the Supreme Court ruling was struck down by when Proposition 8 passed in California, resulting in nationwide protests and judicial cases.
The report showed, among other things, that self-identified bisexuals made up the largest single population within the LGBT community in the United States.
