Barbara Gittings, LGBTQ+ Activist

In 1950s America, there was no such thing as a gay rights movement.  LGBTQ+ wasn’t a shorthand term for the non-heterosexual population.  Because homosexuality was a crime in some states and considered a perversion by many in the medical community, gay men and lesbians lived double lives hiding their identities.  Coming out wasn’t a term and anyone who did risked career and social suicide.

Barbara Gittings, however, was one of the very few women who had the courage to defy societal norms and family disapproval. She not only declared her sexuality but helped build a movement to gain equal rights and respect for non-heterosexuals. But before she could create a campaign, she had to take the first step in her own personal journey.

One of three children, Barbara Gittings was born in Vienna, Austria on July 31, 1932.  Her father, John Sterett Gittings, was a diplomat posted in Europe. The family lived abroad until the start of World War II, when they headed for the safety of the United States, settling in Wilmington, Delaware.  

During adolescence, Gittings began to have stirrings about her sexual identity although she didn’t know the terms “homosexual,” or “lesbian.” At 16, when one of her teachers told her she was rejected by the National Honor Society most likely because of “homosexual inclinations,” it further fueled her curiosity about herself and why her feelings for other females were considered unacceptable and taboo.

After graduating from high school, she headed for Northwestern University in 1949 to study drama. But her schoolwork quickly took a backseat when learning about homosexuality became an obsession. There were no organizations or support groups, so Gittings scoured the libraries. The information in psychology books was judgmental and “dismal,” she said. Homosexuals were “perverts,” “sick,” or “deviants.” There was nothing written by a homosexual and in an interview in 2001, she recalled how depressing it was to read what she was uncovering. “There was nothing about me…nothing about love or happiness.” And she thought, “There has to be something better.”

At the end of her freshman year, Gittings dropped out of college. She returned home but couldn’t tell her family about her feelings and frustrations. When her father found a copy of the classic lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness in her bedroom, he was so shocked, he couldn’t bring himself to talk to her about it. Instead, he wrote her a letter, telling her the book was immoral and that she had to destroy it.

Gittings knew a new life beckoned but there was still so much she needed to know. She moved to Philadelphia in 1950 and supported herself by working at clerical jobs.  She met gays and lesbians in San Francisco and New York City throughout the decade, and together they became a fledgling community of support.

In 1958, after visiting the West Coast founders of The Daughters of Bilitis, a feminist lesbian organization, she organized a New York City chapter of the group. In 1963, she became the editor of the organization’s newsletter, The Ladder, and used it as a platform for advocacy.  She put photos of real gay couples on the cover, covered protests, printed interviews with experts and editorialized on discriminatory practices and policies. The militant tone clashed with the founders of the organization and she was fired.

Gittings took her activism to the streets.  Between 1965-’69, she organized many of the first demonstrations in front of the White House, Pentagon and State Department to protest the government’s discriminatory hiring policies against homosexuals.  Gittings’ picket with the words, “sexual preference is irrelevant to federal employment,” is in the Smithsonian today.  For years, she and fellow gay activist Frank Kameny held “Annual Reminder” protests on July 4th at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, to remind the public that homosexuals did not have equal rights.  In 1970, the year after the Stonewall Uprising, the Annual Reminder was suspended and protesters were urged to take part in a march in New York City on June 28, 1970 to commemorate the riot. More than 10,000 people attended and the march became the first Pride Parade, an annual event now celebrated in communities all around the world.

 “We can’t get anywhere if we’re a hidden people,” Gittings declared in an August 2005 interview with Philadelphia Gay News, adding, “I’ve always promoted visibility as the key to our success.” Gittings also borrowed tactics from the civil rights movement.  If “black is beautiful,” she thought, it’s also possible that “gay is good.” 

In the 1970s, Gittings took on one of the most powerful voices in the medical community, the American Psychiatric Association (APA), which had declared homosexuality a “perversion and mental illness.” At the APA’s national convention in 1972, Gittings and Kameny produced an exhibit with photographs of healthy and happy gay couples to counter the Association’s claim that gay people were tormented, miserable and needed to be “cured.” The photos were taken by Gittings’ partner, photojournalist, Kay Tobin Lahusen.

At the same event, Gittings and Kameny convinced Dr. John E. Fryer, a professor at Temple University and a gay psychiatrist to speak at an Association panel.  To avoid being identified, he wore a mask, a clown costume and his voice was distorted through a special microphone. Introducing himself as “Dr. H. Anonymous,” he declared “I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist.”  He went on to talk about the tortured double life he led as a professional in a profession that scorned homosexuals. The problem, Dr. Anonymous said was not homosexuals but toxic homophobia. The association’s “treatment” of shock therapy, lobotomies and institutionalization was damaging and wrong.  A year later, the APA removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders, a big step in changing the image of gays that would impact discriminatory policies in the workplace, the military and schools.

As the gay rights movement started building steam throughout the 80s and 90s, Gittings played a major role in the creation of many consequential organizations. She helped found the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, known today as the National LGBTQ Task Force.  

While Gittings was not a librarian, she always had a soft spot in her heart for the resources and support she found in libraries as a teenager in search of her identity.  When the American Library Association started its Gay caucus in 1970, today known as the Rainbow Table, she became its coordinator.   The group was formed to provide support for gay librarians and increase positive books and materials about homosexuals. In 1999 in honor of her contributions, the ALA awarded her a lifetime membership in the organization and created the annual Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award for works of fiction that exhibit “exceptional merit relating to the LGBT experience.”

Well into her sixties, Gittings remained a dedicated activist.  When she and her partner, Kay Lahusen moved into a senior assisted living facility in 1997, they were the first same sex couple to come out on the cover of the home’s newsletter.  After a long battle with breast cancer, Gittings died on Feb. 8, 2007.

©2023 Alice Look

Executive Producer, Remarkable Women Project