LGBT awareness project!!!

Long Version:

Hi there! A few years ago I realized how much people Didn't Know about the LGBTQIA+ Community. Even people who were in some way part of said community didn't know terms, individuals, or history that I thought was common knowledge. So I began explaining things to my family and friends.

I was really interested in labels at first, because I thought they were likely the easiest thing to explain. However, because there were so many labels and experiences that didn't apply to me, I felt that I couldn't explain them properly. Thus, this project was started. Originally, I made a google forms survey in hopes of gaining more perspective. This survey blew up. Like, I'm not kidding in the slightest. It got somewhere between 800 and 1,000 responses. I did my best to take that data and those responses and turn them into something, however because I am doing this solo (and other contributing factors) I got quickly overwhelmed and burnt out.

Over the years as I have grown, as historical events, pride months, and personal situations have come and gone I have tried over and over to actually make something of this project. Nowadays, my goal is still to spread information. And still, I do enjoy writing a good ol' essay about it. I can't promise that I'm actually completely, one-hundred percent, here to stay. But I learn a lot through this, and I want to continue sharing what I learn. As you're scrolling through this blog, I hope you learn something. And, if you do, or if you have a question, please let me know! I may not know the answer, but I'd love to find it with you.

That being said, please feel free to reblog, comment, reply, or share my work. Just give me credit, y'know? And if you have something you would like to share, feel free to tag this blog!

Love,

Soul

The Archive:

June 2026 Posts:

Week 1: June 1-7 Week 2: June 8-14 - Bayard Rustin Essay Masterpost Week 3: June 15-21 Week 4: June 22-28 Week 5: June 29-30

Personal Essays:

I went to a Play (Feb 10, 2026) June 2023 Essays (i'm keeping them for posterity sake but they are very out of date and not very well written):

Despite the difficult fight to gain the right to same-sex marriage, the official banning of it wasn't until 1973. This isn't to say that it was always easy or possible to get married as a same-sex couple. In 1971, Richard John Baker and James Michael McConnell applied for a marriage license under Minn.St. c. 517. The clerk, Gerald R. Nelson, refused. Had this been a heterosexual application, both applicants would have succeeded. That being, there was no reason to deny their application aside from the gender of their partner. The trial court were in agreement that Nelson was not required to issue a marriage license, and ordered that the couple not receive one. The Minnesota supreme court affirmed this.

Baker and McConnell tried to argue that, as there was no statute prohibiting it, it could be authorized. However, Minn.St. c. 517 governs "marriage". The Supreme Court decided to use the meaning of marriage as "the state of union between persons of the opposite sex". Claiming that the original writers of the statute would have followed that meaning. They also claimed that the contemporary meaning agreed as well, as the statute included terms such as "husband and wife" and "bride and groom".

The couple also tried to argue that this interpretation was unconstitutional. Baker and McConnell attempted to use the 9th amendment, made arguable at state-level by the 14th amendment, to say they had a right to marry. And, that restriction thereof is irrational and discriminatory. The court in return used Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson (1942) to argue that the institution of marriage revolved around procreation and child-rearing. Baker and McConnell cited Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), which invalidated a ban on contraceptives. The court then argued that the case showed that the states' had no power to intrude on the private life of an already married couple. When they attempted to argue that the State didn't make heterosexual couples make a statement of intent for procreation, the State argued that that wouldn't be enforceable. In reference to the 14th amendment, the Court argued that although Loving v. Virginia showed the amendment had some reach onto marital restrictions, the difference between restrictions based on race and sexuality was too large for it to be applicable.

Same-sex marriages did still happen of course, some more legally than others. Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake never officially married, but beginning in 1807 they lived as a married couple and were treated accordingly by their community. Charity died first, after forty-four years of marriage; Just over sixteen years later, Sylvia joined her. They were buried next to each other and share a headstone. In the 1830s, it was evidently fairly common in Maine to have a female husband, as one newspaper from 1838 was titled "Another Female Husband". In the 1920s, an entertainer from New York, described seeing lesbian couples managing to get legally married because they looked heterosexual enough.

1931 had Gladys Bentley, a Black star performer at Harry Hansborn's Clam House in the 20s and performer at the Ubangi club in the 30s; notorious for dressing like a man; singing raunchy songs about female lovers and flirting with female audience members; publicly marrying her white fiance. In 1971 the Minnesotan couple involved in Baker v. Nelson got married using gender-neutral names. 1972, football player Antonio Molina married his partner, "female impersonator" William Ert by exploiting a loophole in Texas law. A clerk in 1975 substituted the gender of couples as "person" to offer marriage licenses. Hell, Yolanda Daniel and Jo Ann Martinez of California were able to get legitimate marriage licenses while being obviously homosexual! Unfortunately once it hit the news it was nullified, but it had happened! In 1982, Bayard Rustin adopted his partner Walter Naegle. Even though it technically wasn't a marriage, even the social worker involved in the adoption-as-marriage knew what it was really about.

That isn't to mention the countless Boston marriages and Lavender marriages we don't know about. Nor does it include the countless marriages wherein it appeared heterosexual on paper, but one partner was transgender and it was actually homosexual.

Regardless, Happy Gay Day America! And happy anniversary to all those who got married on this day.

https://glaad.org/black-queer-history-is-america-history/

https://law.justia.com/cases/minnesota/supreme-court/1971/43009-1.html

Larry Kramer, born Laurence David Kramer, was born in Bridgeport, California on June 25th, 1935. His mother was a Red Cross official and his father was a lawyer. Kramer had one older brother and the family was Jewish.

According to one source, Kramer had his first homosexual encounter in junior high. In 1953, the same year Bayard Rustin was arrested for "morals charges", Kramer began studying at Yale University. During his first semester, he was alienated because of his homosexuality. He attempted to commit suicide, but ultimately failed. The same school year, Kramer entered what another source refers to as his first romantic homosexual relationship with his German Professor.

At Yale, Kramer joined the Glee club, and started appearing in theater productions. This would influence the rest of his career.

After graduating from Yale, Kramer spent six months serving in the U.S. Army Reserves. He then pursued a career in film and in the 1960s moved to London to work for Columbia Pictures. His screenplay adaption of D.H. Lawrence's "Women in Love" in 1969 earned him an Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay.

In the early 1970s Kramer moved back to U.S.A. in New York. He wrote his first novel "Faggots". The novel was successful but drew a lot of criticisms. Some critics claimed that it reinforced negative stereotypes such as gay men being promiscuous drug-users. But also, that it shamed gay men who did have multiple sexual partners.

The 1980s had the growth of the AIDS epidemic that took the lives of many, many people. It especially made people weak to Kaposi's sarcoma, a rare type of cancer. In July of 1981 the New York Times ran the headline "Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals". A month later, Kramer organized a meeting with a group of gay men and together they raised $6,635 for research. In 2026 this would equal roughly $24,461.

1982 had Kramer and five friends co-found the Gay Men's Health Crisis group for medical research and to answer questions about the health crisis via hotline. Within the first year, they made around $50,000 for medical research.

Kramer left the group in 1983 due to disagreements on how to demand attention. Kramer was arguing the group should be more aggressive, they refused. The same year, Kramer published an editorial demanding more anger from the gay community. He also argued for less sex in the gay community and talked poorly about closeted gays; calling them to come forward and fight, because visibility was needed.

"The Normal Heart" was a play that debuted in 1985, by Kramer. It was based on his fights with the Gay Men's Health Crisis and was a huge hit. The play was about Ned, who was a gay Jewish activist and writer living through an unknown disease spreading through gay men.

In 1987, Kramer helped found the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, otherwise known as ACT UP. The organization got attention for being in your face, but it was also committed to research. According to one activist, "ACT UP was a direct action, educational and protest group, primarily".

1988 had Kramer learn that he had contracted HIV, however it never progressed into AIDS. His 1992 sequel of "The Normal Heart", showed Neds battle with the mysterious disease.

In 1989 members of ACT UP chained themselves to the VIP balcony of the New York Stock Exchange company to fight Burroughs Welcome, the company that owned the only FDA approved treatment for HIV and sold it at very high prices. Days later, the company lowered the price.

It was apparently very hard to work with Kramer, as he fell out with ACT UP, too. Afterwards, he decided to write another book, this one about gay history as uniquely fit for the challenge. Kramer told Fresh Air, "I was, for whatever reason, put on the front lines of the battlefield when the war started in 1981, and there are not many writers of us who are still alive. And I know where all the bodies are buried, both symbolically and literally."

In 2001, Kramer struggled to get his liver replaced as, due to his HIV, he was considered low priority.

Come the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2013, Kramer married his long-time partner David Webster in a hospital, as Kramer was recovering from surgery.

On May 27th, 2020, at 84, Kramer passed away from pneumonia.

Sources:

Britannica

Biography

NPR

Connecticut History

The UpStairs Lounge was a bar in the French Quarter of New Orleans. On the corner of Chartnes and Iberville, the bar was on the second story of a three story building. It was opened on Halloween in 1970 by Phil Esteve, the owner, and Buddy Rusmussen, the bartender. Esteve had come into a small bit of money after his mother passed and bought the bar from Wanda Long, who had owned that bar and another one nearby. The bar welcomed people of diverse sexualities, genders, and races. It even was said to have encouraged interracial gay relationships.

During the years it was active, the UpStairs lounge hosted many things. Including the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), who used the back room for service for several months. MCC was the first openly-gay church in the United States and many members frequented the UpStairs lounge. Especially after service on Sundays, when the bar had a major discount on food and drinks.

The back room was also used as a theater by Betty McAnar, who started a theatrical group composed largely by patrons of the bar. The Nettydramas were incredibly popular and helped the lounge gain even more popularity.

Roger Dale Nunez was the primary suspect for the arson. According to New Orleans Historical the arsonist had to have been someone who was familiar with the door buzzer system. The fire entered through a door that was usually kept locked after repeated buzzing of the doorbell had Rusmussen send Luther Boggs to open it. Nunez was a gay sex worker and had been ejected from the premises earlier that day after causing a fight with another patron. He was quoted threatening to burn the bar down. However, whether or not he was guilty, Nunez killed himself shortly after.

The fire was quick, it started at the Iberville door and quickly spread throughout the building. Many patrons attempted to escape through the second-story windows. Unfortunately, the windows had burglar bars and only the smaller patrons were able to leave that way. Some victims were additionally able to get through the fire on the staircase and others were able to jump off of the fire-escape. The bartender, Buddy, led about twenty survivors through the door behind the bar onto a nearby rooftop. Ultimately, thirty-two people died, but only twenty-nine were identified.

Luckily, a passerby had seen the fire and called the fire-department. They dispatched at 7:56PM and arrived at 7:58PM. The fire-department was instrumental in saving the lives of the survivors and the fire was put out quickly, preventing more lives from being lost.

The day after the fire, Revs. Troy Perry, Paul Breton and John Gill from MCC; Morris Kight from the Los Angeles Gay Community Center; and Morty Manford from the Gay Activists Alliance of New York came to New Orleans to help the families and victims. They helped organize blood drives for the survivors and memorial funds for the dead. Additionally, they helped organize a memorial service for all of the fallen.

Many of the surrounding churches refused to host a memorial service due to the homosexuality and assumed homosexuality of the patrons. St. Marks United Methodist Church decided to allow it. The memorial occurred on July 1st and hosted over 200 attendants. During the service, television cameras were set up outside the front door of the church. Rev. Perry interrupted the final song, "United we Stand, Divided we Fall" to inform the conglomeration. The attendants were offered to leave through the back door, but chose to exit through the front door and face the cameras.