Lesbian Crusader

An appreciation of Barbara Gittings.

by Lewis Whittington

Gay Americans, sexual minorities and all Americans who cherish liberty should pause in memoriam at the passing of gay civil rights pioneer Barbara Gittings. She died Sunday at 75, after a long battle with breast cancer. Kay Lahusen, her partner of 45 years, was with her when she died.

Mark Segal, Philadelphia Gay News publisher and a friend of the couple, told the Associated Press that Gittings and Lahusen were in an assisted living center in Kennett Square when Gittings slipped into a coma and died.

Gittings was born in 1932 in Vienna, Austria, where her father was in the U.S. diplomatic corps. After attending Catholic school in Montreal, Canada, she studied theater at Northwestern University. Early on, Gittings challenged the status quo, passing up offers to be "cured" of her homosexuality after being labeled and ostracized for being lesbian. She was an early activist and uncompromised leader of lesbian and women's rights in a time when homosexuals couldn't lawfully congregate in most states and women were second-class citizens. Gittings helped found the first East Coast chapter of the lesbian organization Daughters of Bilitis in the '50s, and edited the pioneering lesbian publication, The Ladder, from 1963 to 1966. She met Lahusen in 1961 and the couple lived in Philadelphia for many years. Gittings also fought to get the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.

American culture looks to movies and TV to signal advances in GLBT civil rights, but they are mere byproducts of the revolutionary sociopolitical actions taken by Gittings. Gittings is famously seen in news footage from the 1960s carrying the sign "Homosexuals should be judged as individuals" in front of Independence Hall. In the pre-Stonewall years, she was part of a small band of activists who staged yearly protests in Philadelphia and in front of the White House.

In 1999 former City Paper editor David Warner interviewed Gittings and asked her what she thought about being called the Rosa Parks of gay civil rights. "I never thought of myself as doing that kind of a singular act. ... It was always the result of a collaborative effort. ... It was called annual Reminder Day. The purpose was to remind the public that the guarantees of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that are in the documents we celebrate on July 4 are not extended to gay people," she told him.

Gittings was head of the Gay Task Force of the American Library Association for 15 years. In 2001, The Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies opened the Barbara Gittings Gay/Lesbian Collection at the Independence Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Gittings said, "I felt as though they had brought a little bit of heaven to earth for me." Sadly, this singular collection sustained damage last summer due to burst pipes.

Cathleen Miller, archivist at the William Way Center on Spruce Street, commenting this week on Gittings' death said, "Her whole life was activism and so much of it was about normalizing the gay experience for everyone. She was always doing something new, while always maintaining her ties to the past. She did so much to make gay literature visible in libraries. She made it possible for everybody to get more accurate and positive information about being queer."

Gittings continued her work after her cancer diagnosis, appearing at several events with fellow advocate Frank Kameny in 2005 during the 40th anniversary observances of the freedom marches. When I talked to Gittings at a "Gay Pioneers" presentation, she said she was more interested in moving forward than looking back. She was completely engaged in the Q&A with the audience, joking and commenting on current gay politics.

Gittings' death didn't make the network or cable news on Monday, but there were still stories about the NBA barring Tim Hardaway from All-Star weekend in Las Vegas because of his anti-gay remarks. Something tells me that Barbara wouldn't have been surprised.

Thank you, Barbara Gittings, for the courageous steps you took for all of us.

(editorial@citypaper.net)

Lewis Whittington is an occasional Slant contributor.