Houston Mayor Annise Parker (Credit: Zblume, via Wikimedia Commons).
The Equality Forum, the nation’s premier LGBT rights summit, has announced that former Houston Mayor Annise Parker will give the keynote address at the dedication of the Barbara Gittings Residence as a historic marker. The dedication will take place at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, July 26, in Philadelphia, which coincides with the week that Democrats will hold their national convention to nominate Hillary Clinton as their presidential nominee.
“As the nation’s first openly LGBT mayor of a major American city, former Houston Mayor Annise Parker is the right person to be dedicating this historic marker to the ‘Mother of the LGBT civil rights movement,'” Malcolm Lazin, founder and executive director of the Equality Forum, said in a statement.
Gittings, who passed away in 2007, lived in Philadelphia with her partner, Kay Lahusen, and was the editor of The Ladder, the first nationally distributed lesbian magazine, which was published by the Daughters of Bilitis, an organization to which Gittings belonged. Along with Frank Kameny, she organized the Annual Reminders at Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, a series of pickets by LGBT organizations, which helped launch the LGBT civil rights movement. Gittings also successfully campaigned to urge the American Library Association include gay and lesbian books in the nation’s card catalogues and libraries. Working with Kameny, she also challenged the American Psychiatric Association for its designation of homosexuality as a mental illness, eventually getting the organization to no longer classify same-sex attraction as a disease.
The dedication of Gittings’ residence will feature a special performance by the Anna Crusis Women’s Choir, the oldest existing feminist choir in the United States. Gittings was previously a member of the choir.
The dedication will be the first of two held that week in Philadelphia. On Wednesday, July 27, Equality Forum will hold a dedication and award ceremony at the Arch Street Meeting House. The house was the site of the Philadelphia Conference, where 300 activists from around the country gathered in February 1979 to organize the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. The march, which included more than 100,000 people, took place on Oct. 14, 1979, bringing the LGBT rights movement to the attention of the wider public.
"The term homosexual was coined in 1869," says Jonathan D. Katz, the co-curator, along with art historian Johnny Willis, of The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939.
"It was actually written originally in a letter between the coiner of the term -- a man by the name of Kertbeny to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the first gay rights campaigner in history. He wrote the first coming out letter and formed the first society for gay rights, and they're having a big fight because it is Ulrichs who has the argument that homosexuals are a third sex, and it's Kertbeny who argues that actually every human being alive has the capacity for same sex or different sex desire, that homosexuality is actually a universal human capacity, just like heterosexuality. He says both are universal capacities.
Graeme Reid will continue as the U.N.'s expert on LGBT rights for another three years, as 29 nations back the mandate despite opposition from China, Pakistan, and others.
The U.N. Human Rights Council has voted to extend the mandate of its LGBT rights expert, ensuring continued global oversight of anti-LGBTQ human rights violations for another three years.
Under the mandate, the U.N.'s Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity is tasked with identifying the root causes of anti-LGBTQ violence and discrimination, and advising U.N. member states on how to better protect LGBTQ communities.
The current independent expert, South African scholar Graeme Reid, will continue in the role for another three years. Reid is the third person to hold the position since it was established in 2016.
Authorities have charged the women with “distributing obscene material” for writing danmei, gay male romance fiction popular among young female readers.
At least 30 women in their 20s have been arrested in China since February for publishing gay-themed erotica. They have been charged with "producing and distributing obscene material."
Many of the women published their work on Haitang Literature City, a Taiwan-hosted platform known for "danmei," a genre of gay male romance and erotica. According to The New York Times, the site is only accessible through software that bypasses China's Internet firewall. Danmei has attracted a largely young, female audience.
Inspired by Japanese manga, danmei emerged online in the 1990s and quickly grew in popularity. Dozens of titles have topped bestseller lists, and in 2021, sixty were optioned for film or TV. Several major Chinese stars launched their careers in danmei-based dramas.
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