Barbara Gittings | |
|---|---|
 Gittings in 1971 | |
| Born | (1932-07-31)July 31, 1932 Vienna, Austria |
| Died | February 18, 2007(2007-02-18) (aged 74) |
| Resting place | Congressional Cemetery[1] |
| Education | Northwestern University |
| Organization(s) | Daughters of Bilitis,American Library Association |
| Movement | Gay rights movement |
| Partner(s) | Kay Lahusen (1961-Gittings' death, 2007) |
| Awards | GLAAD Barbara Gittings Award; Lifetime Honorary Membership,American Library Association |
Barbara Gittings (July 31, 1932 – February 18, 2007) was an AmericanLGBTQ activist. She started theNew York chapter of theDaughters of Bilitis (DOB) in 1958,[2] edited the national DOB magazineThe Ladder from 1963 to 1966,[2][3][4] and worked closely withFrank Kameny in the 1960s on the first picket lines that brought attention to the ban on employment of gay people in theUnited States government, the largest employer of the country at the time. In the 1970s, Gittings was most involved in theAmerican Library Association, especially itsTask Force on Gay Liberation, in order to promote positive literature abouthomosexuality in libraries. She was a part of the movement to get theAmerican Psychiatric Association to drop homosexuality as amental illness in the early 1970s.[2][5][6]
She was awarded anAmerican Library Association Honorary Membership, and the ALA named an annual award for the best LGBTQ novel theStonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award.GLAAD also named an activist award for her.
Barbara Gittings was born to Elizabeth (née Brooks) Gittings andJohn Sterett Gittings Jr. inVienna, Austria, where her father was serving as a United Statesdiplomat. Barbara Gittings and her siblings attendedCatholic schools inMontreal. At one point in her childhood, she considered becoming anun.[7] Her family returned to the United States at the outbreak ofWorld War II and settled inWilmington, Delaware. Although aware of her attraction to other girls, Gittings said she first heard the word "homosexual" when she was rejected for membership in theNational Honor Society in high school based on what a teacher believed were her "homosexual inclinations."[8]
While majoring in drama atNorthwestern University, Gittings developed a close friendship with another female student, prompting rumors that the two were lesbians, which led Gittings to examine her own sexual orientation, meeting a psychiatrist who offered to cure her. A close friend suggested they see less of each other so as not to further encourage the rumors about them.[9]
She began to read as much as she could on the topic, finding very little; much of what she found described homosexuals as deviants, especially in medical texts.[10][11] She ended up failing out of Northwestern.[6][12]
At age 17, she returned from Northwestern "in disgrace" after failing out of school and unable to tell her family why.[13] She found some more information on lesbianism in novels likeNightwood,The Well of Loneliness, andExtraordinary Women. Soon thereafter, her father discoveredThe Well of Loneliness in her bedroom; in a letter, he instructed her to burn it.[2] Gittings took a night course inabnormal psychology, where she met a woman with whom she had a brief affair.[13] At age 18, she left home to be on her own and moved toPhiladelphia.[14]
Gittings began tohitchhike on weekends to New York City, dressed masculinely, to visitgay bars since she knew of none in Philadelphia.[15] However, Gittings found little in common with the women she met in the bars; she also once witnessed a gay male acquaintance get beaten up after leaving a bar.[citation needed]
In 1956, Gittings traveled toCalifornia on the advice ofEdward Sagarin, to visit the office of the newONE Inc., an earlyhomophile organization.[16] While in California, she metPhyllis Lyon and Del Martin, who had co-founded theDaughters of Bilitis (DOB) inSan Francisco.[17][18]
In 1958, Martin and Lyon asked Gittings to start a chapter of the DOB inNew York City, which she did; fewer than a dozen women responded to her notice in theMattachine Society newsletter asking for "all women in the New York area who are interested in forming a chapter of the DOB" on September 20, 1958.[19][3][20] Gittings served as the chapter's first president for three years, from 1958 until 1961.[21] While she was president attending members numbered between ten and forty per meeting. They met twice a month and often invited doctors, psychiatrists, ministers, and attorneys to address their meetings, even if their message was disparaging to lesbians.[22]
Gittings admitted that early meetings and writings in the Daughters of Bilitis urged their members not to upset mainstream heterosexual society. The New York chapter of the DOB distributed a newsletter to about 150 people, which Gittings worked on. During this time, she spent ten years as amimeograph operator for an architectural firm. In 1959, after using company envelopes to mail the newsletter out, someone wrote to the firm to notify them that a newsletter about lesbianism was being distributed. She was not fired but was cautioned to be more careful.[23]
From 1963 to 1966, Gittings edited the DOB's magazine,The Ladder.[2][24] Articles and essays inThe Ladder sometimes carried viewpoints of medical professionals speaking negatively about homosexuality, since it was difficult to get psychiatrists and doctors to address homosexuality in any form.[25] However, Gittings was profoundly influenced byFrank Kameny's advocacy against homosexuality being viewed as a sickness, and began to diverge from the DOB's policies.[26]
Gittings began to implement changes inThe Ladder that included adding the subtitle "A Lesbian Review" and featuring photographs of actual lesbians on the cover. Gittings distributedThe Ladder in six bookstores in New York and Philadelphia; oneGreenwich Village store displayed the magazine prominently, selling 100 copies a month.[12] The focus of the magazine shifted to tackling more controversial issues for debate.[27][28][29][30]
Gittings participated in many of the earliestLGBT actions in the United States. In 1965, Gittings marched in the first gaypicket lines at theWhite House,[2][31] theState Department, andIndependence Hall to protest thefederal government's policy on discrimination of homosexuals.[32][33][34][11] Leaflets were distributed to passersby that described their reasons for picketing. The evening prior to the group's picketing the State Department, Secretary of StateDean Rusk announced the pickets at a press conference. Gittings connected the high-profile visibility with a "breakthrough into mainstream publicity."[35]
From 1965 to 1969, she andFrank Kameny led theAnnual Reminder, picketing at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 4, until theStonewall Riots in June 1969. After the riots, the annualGay Pride Parade commemorating the riots took its place. Differences between Gittings' political stance and that of the DOB leadership began to show, and came to a culmination in 1966 when she was ousted as the editor ofThe Ladder for. One source claims it was for the lateness of one issue,[26] but another source claims it was because she removed the "For Adults Only" on the cover of the magazine without consulting the DOB.[36]
In November 1967, Gittings and Kameny worked together as co-counsels in hearings held by theDepartment of Defense to discredit expert witnessCharles Socarides, who testified that homosexuals could be converted toheterosexuality, and to criticize the DoD's policy that known homosexual employees could be fired.[37] Kameny and Gittings dressed conservatively, but wore buttons that said "Gay is Good" and "Pray for Sodomy", with increased publicity being their goal.[38] Although neither was an attorney, at the end of their cross-examination, the Department of Defense removed Socarides from their lists of expert witnesses.[39][40][41]
Gittings made hundreds of appearances as a speaker in the late 1960s, continuing her mission to convince the public that homosexuality was not an illness.[42][33]
In the 1970s, Gittings continued her search for resources in libraries that addressed homosexuality in a positive, supportive way.[43] She joined theTask Force on Gay Liberation that formed in 1970 in theAmerican Library Association, the first gay caucus in a professional association, and became its coordinator in 1971. She staffed akissing booth at the national convention of the ALA in Dallas in 1971, underneath the banner "Hug a Homosexual," with a "women only" side and a "men only" side.[44][45] When no one came to the booth, she andAlma Routsong kissed in front of rolling television cameras. Gittings described it as a success, despite most of the reaction being negative, due to the increased visibility on television news.[6]
Gittings spent years working with libraries and campaigning to get positive gay and lesbian-themed materials into libraries and to eliminatecensorship andemployment discrimination. She wrote "Gays in Library Land: The Gay and Lesbian Task Force of the American Library Association: The First Sixteen Years", a brief history of theRainbow Round Table.[46]
In 1972, Gittings and Kameny organized a discussion with theAmerican Psychiatric Association entitled "Psychiatry: Friend or Foe to Homosexuals: A Dialogue", where a panel of psychiatrists were to discuss homosexuality. When Gittings' partner Kay Tobin Lahusen noticed that all the psychiatrists were heterosexual, she protested.[47] A gay psychiatrist in Philadelphia agreed to appear on the panel in heavy disguise and with a voice-distorting microphone, calling himself "Dr. H. Anonymous".[5] This wasJohn E. Fryer, and he discussed how he was forced to becloseted while practicing psychiatry. Gittings read aloud letters from psychiatrists she had solicited who declined to appear for fear of professional ostracism.[48] In 1973, homosexuality was removed from theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.[49] She held exhibits at American Psychiatric Association conventions in 1972, 1976, and 1978; her last one was called "Gay Love: Good Medicine".[50][51]
Gittings made an appearance onThe Phil Donahue Show in 1970 and onThe David Susskind Show in 1971, along other lesbians, includingLilli Vincenz andBarbara Love. They were among the first open lesbians to appear on television in the US, and debated long-heldstereotypes about gay people.[52][44]
In 1977, she gave a presentation at theUniversity of Manitoba called "Gay Liberation Is for Children Too", about the importance of development of non-sexist and non-homophobicchildren's literature. The event was sponsored by the University of Manitoba's Students' Union and Gays for Equality.[53]
She helped start theNational LGBTQ Task Force, then called the National Gay Task Force.[54][55] She also inspired nurses to form theGay Nurses Alliance in 1973.[5][56]
Gittings appeared in the documentary filmsGay Pioneers,[57][32]Before Stonewall,[58][59]After Stonewall,[60][61]Out of the Past,[62][63] andPride Divide.[64]
In 1999, Gittings was honored for her contributions to the LGBT movement at the seventh annual PrideFest America, inPhiladelphia.[65] She was sometimes described as the "Rosa Parks" of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement.[66]
In 2001,GLAAD honored Gittings with the first Barbara Gittings Award, highlighting dedication to activism.[65] Also in 2001, theFree Library of Philadelphia announced its Barbara Gittings Collection of books dedicated to gay and lesbian issues.[67][32] There are approximately 1500 items in the collection, making it the second largest gay and lesbian collection of books in the US, after theSan Francisco Public Library.[68][69][70]
In 2002, theGay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table of theAmerican Library Association renamed one of their three book awards theStonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award.[71] In 2003, theAmerican Library Association rewarded her with lifetime honorary membership.[72]
In 2004, Gittings received theMichele Karlsberg Leadership Award from thePublishing Triangle.[73]
ThePhiladelphia "Pride and Progress" mural by Ann Northrup, located atWilliam Way LGBT Community Center, features an image of Barbara Gittings.[74]
In 2006, Gittings andFrank Kameny received the firstJohn E. Fryer, M.D. Award from theAmerican Psychiatric Association.[75][47] In October 2006, theSmithsonian Institution acquired a sign she carried in her picketing in 1965, donated by Frank Kameny.[76]
In 2007, readers ofThe Advocate included Gittings on a list of their 40 favorite gay and lesbian heroes.[77]
Gittings and her partner Kay Tobin Lahusen donated copies of some materials and photographs covering their activism to theCornell University Library's Rare and Manuscript Collections.[78] In 2007, Lahusen donated their original papers and photographs to theNew York Public Library.[33]
TheUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst Department of Special Collections and University Archives received a donation of over 1,000 of Gittings' and Lahusen's books in 2007, named the Gittings-Lahusen Gay Book Collection.[79]
On October 1, 2012, the city ofPhiladelphia named a section of Locust Street "Barbara Gittings Way" in Gittings' memory.[80]
Also in 2012, she was inducted into theLegacy Walk, an outdoor public display which celebratesLGBTQ history andpeople.[81]
| Designations | |
|---|---|
| Official name | Barbara Gittings (1932-2007) |
| Type | City |
| Criteria | Civil Rights, Education, Science & Medicine, Publishing & Journalism |
| Designated | July 26, 2016[82] |
| Location | 21st andLocust Sts.,Philadelphia |
| Marker Text | Known as the mother of the LGBT civil rights movement, Gittings, who lived here, edited The Ladder, the first wide-spread lesbian journal. She led initiatives to promote LGBT literature in libraries and to remove homosexuality's classification as a mental illness. |
In 2016, a historical marker in remembrance of her was erected in Philadelphia, at the intersection of South 21st Street andLocust Street, by thePennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.[83]
In June 2019, Gittings was one of the inaugural fifty American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on theNational LGBTQ Wall of Honor within theStonewall National Monument.[84][85]
Two episodes of the podcastMaking Gay History are about her and Lahusen.[86][87]
Gittings sang in choral groups for most of her life, spending over 50 years in the Philadelphia Chamber Chorus.[88] She and her life partner,Katherine Lahusen aka Kay Tobin, met in 1961 at a picnic inRhode Island.[5] Gittings and Lahusen were together for 46 years.[6]
In 1997, Gittings and Lahusen pushed theAARP to grant couple's membership to them, for a reduced price onhealth insurance.[88] One of their last acts as an activists was tocome out in the newsletter published by theassisted living facility they resided in.[39]
On February 18, 2007, Gittings died inKennett Square, Pennsylvania after a long battle withbreast cancer. She was survived by her life partner, Kay Tobin Lahusen, and her sister, Eleanor Gittings Taylor.[2]
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| National | |
| Other | |
