7 Historical Queer Activists You Should Know When Celebrating Pride

7 Historical Queer Activists You Should Know, Especially When Celebrating Pride

With Pride Month upon us, it’s important to know our queer herstory.

Over the past five decades there have been many notable activists who have fought for LGBTQ equality. We would not be where we are today if it weren’t for these phenomenal people who risked their lives, so here are 7 historical queer activists you should definitely know about!

1. Marsha P. Johnson

More and more younger LGBTQ folks now know about Marsha P. Johnson: the transgender, bisexual woman of color who protested at Stonewall. Two movies in the past year have documented her life, Happy Birthday Marsha P. Johnson and The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson.

2. Sylvia Rivera

Another bisexual, transgender women of color, Rivera was actually close friends with Johnson. Together, they co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), an organization dedicated to helping young homeless transgender women and drag queens. In addition to STAR, Rivera was a founding member of both the Gay Liberation Front and The Gay Activists Alliance.  

3. Dr. Henry Anonymous

Dr. John E. Fryer, better known by Dr. Henry Anonymous, is in large part responsible for getting homosexuality removed from The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as a mental illness. In 1972, he gave a speech to the American Psychiatric Association while wearing a mask and using a voice modulator to hide his identity. In his moving speech, he spoke about how gay men and women deserve respect, love, and equality. 

4. Pat Parker

Born in 1944, Parker is an African-American lesbian, feminist poet, and activist. As Feminist Campus notes, "Much of her work was about queer love and queer experiences, with sharp social commentary, often focusing on the intersections of her identities as a queer Black woman and how those identities led to conflict within herself. Parker also founded both the Black Women’s Revolutionary Council and the Women’s Press Collective and directed the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Oakland up until her death in 1989."

5. Lani Ka’ahumanu

The bisexual writer and sexual health educator currently serves on the editorial board of The Journal of Bisexuality. She co-founded the first feminist bisexual political action group in 1983, and helped to create the first national bisexual rights org in the late '80s, which have now become BiPol and BiNet USA respectively.  

6. Harvey Milk

Assassinated four decade ago, Milk’s legacy lives on through the Harvey Milk Foundation, co-founded by his gay nephew Stewart Milk. Milk encouraged all members of the LGBTQ community to come out and be visible in order to dispel false stereotypes about the LGBTQ community and to illustrate to the world that we are, indeed, everywhere. 

7. Leonard Matlovich

Probably the second best known gay activist in the '70s, Matlovich purposefully outed himself as gay in the United States Air Force in 1975, sparking a huge, national debate about whether gay people should be allowed to serve in the U.S. military. The gay community rallied behind him, and later that year, he graced the cover of TIME Magazine. Below his image was a big, bold quote that stated, "I am a homosexual."