URLF Project: PromotingQueerLiteracy

1960's and 70's

The 1960's and 70's represent the first time that queerness was visible in the United States. Government workers including Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings fought to bring an end to legal discrimination via respectability and calls to normalcy. Growing queer rights riots including the Dewey's Lunch Counter Sit-in, and the Compton's Cafeteria Riot demanded a more radical acceptance based off of other movement's political actions, such as the Black power movement and general counter-culturalism.
The media publicity surrounding these acts of revolt against oppression and societal expectations gave a name and a rallying point for queer people who had before been mostly isolated and confused.
In the 1970's the first comic books by out lesbian women were published by Roberta Gregory and Mary Wings, and calls for community only continued to grow. The 70's represented a massive surge of queer activism and revolution as queer people found each other and began to build out community, from queer unions on college campuses, to drag and ballroom culture in major cities.



 

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