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DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS, QUEER BLACK LOVE IS BROUGHT TO THE STAGE
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Home»Activism»LGBTQ History Month Spotlights: Celebrating Unsung Icons
Activism
LGBTQ HISTORY MONTH SPOTLIGHTS: CELEBRATING UNSUNG ICONS
By Amanda Hurwitz, Entertainment Research & Analysis AssociateOctober 1, 202414
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Today marks the beginning of LGBTQ History Month, an annual month-long
observance that provides role models, builds community, and represents a civil
rights statement about the invaluable contributions of the LGBTQ community.
Founded in 1994 by Rodney Wilson, a gay history teacher from rural Missouri,
LGBTQ History Month was declared a national history month by President Barack
Obama in 2009. This celebration coincides with National Coming Out Day (October
11) and commemorates the first and second marches on Washington for LGBTQ rights
in 1979 and 1987.
Throughout October, GLAAD is spotlighting some of the countless unsung LGBTQ
pioneers, changemakers, and trailblazers whose stories and achievements remain
instrumental in understanding our shared history.
ALVIN AILEY
Alivin Ailey grew up in the violently racist and segregated south, going on to
become an incomparable dancer, a forward-facing visionary, and one of the most
significant choreographers of the 20th century. After finding refuge in the
church and moving to California, Ailey’s classmate and friend Carmen de
Lavallade brought him to the studio of Lester Horton. At Horton’s company—one of
the first racially integrated dance schools in the United States—Ailey studied a
wide range of dance styles and techniques, eventually taking over as artistic
director and choreographer after Horton’s sudden death. Following his Broadway
debut, Ailey founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958 to carry out
his vision of a company dedicated to uplifting the African American experience
while enriching and preserving the legacy of modern dance. In addition to
establishing the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center (now The Ailey School) and
the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble (now Ailey II), Ailey also founded AileyCamp,
a summer day camp for children to explore their creativity through dance and the
arts. Ailey was awarded the highest distinctions in the arts, including the
Kennedy Center Honors in 1988, before his untimely death a year later. In 2014,
Ailey posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of
his contributions and commitment to civil rights and dance in America. Last
year, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater celebrated its 65th anniversary.
ANGELA MORLEY
A pioneering composer, conductor, orchestrator and performer, Angela Morley was
the first out transgender person to be nominated for an Oscar. Morley was a
multi-instrumentalist from a young age, playing piano, accordion and violin,
before settling on the alto saxophone and clarinet. Morley left home to tour
with Archie’s Juvenile Band at just 15 years old and by the time she was 20,
Morley joined the Geraldo Orchestra, which was thought to be the best band in
the UK at the time. Morley soon moved on to the next stage of her career,
composing for television and feature films. In 1970, at the age of 46, Morley
took two years away from the industry before publicly coming out as a
transgender woman with the support of her second wife, Christine Parker. One of
her first projects upon her return to the spotlight was aiding in the
composition of the musical film The Little Prince, which was nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Original Score. Morley was also the composer, conductor,
arranger and orchestrator for the Sherman Brothers’ adaptation of the Cinderella
story, The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella. Though she was only
credited as conductor and arranger, Morley was again nominated for Best Original
Score. Later, Morley was nominated six times for Emmy Awards for composing,
winning three for music direction. Today, Morley is commemorated by a Rainbow
Plaque placed by Leeds Pride at the entrance of the BBC Leeds building, and also
by a blue plaque at her birthplace in Kirkstall.
BRENDA HOWARD
Known as the “Mother of Pride,” Brenda Howard was a radical bisexual+ rights
activist, anti-war advocate and sex-positive feminist. One month after the
Stonewall Uprising in 1969, LGBTQ activists—including Howard—organized the
Christopher Street Liberation Day March. Howard then co-organized a week-long
series of events to mark the anniversary of the Christopher Street Liberation
Day March a year later. According to the Legacy Project, the celebration created
a wave of parallel marches and parades across the world—similar to contemporary
Pride marches. In 1987, Howard founded the New York Area Bisexual Network, which
is a central communications network that still exists today. Ahead of the 1993
March on Washington, Howard was also part of the delegation that worked to get
the word “bisexual” added to the marches’ title. In addition, Howard was an
active member of the Gay Liberation Front, chair of the Gay Activists Alliance’s
Speakers Bureau, and served on the Steering Committee of Stonewall 25. The year
Howard passed away, the Queens, New York branch of PFLAG initiated the “Brenda
Howard Award” in her honor—the first award given by a major U.S. LGTBQ
organization to be named after an out bisexual+ person. Today, the award
recognizes “an individual or organization that best exemplifies the vision,
principals and community service exemplified by the late LGBTQ rights activist
Brenda Howard and who serves as a positive and visible role model for the
Bisexual Community.”
EDITH WINDSOR
The youngest child of Russian Jewish immigrants during the Great Depression,
Edith “Edie” Windsor was a computer programmer, mentor for women in tech, and
revolutionary LGBTQ activist. After receiving a master’s degree in mathematics,
Windsor began her career at IBM, eventually attaining the title designating the
highest level technical position. Despite being known for her “top-notch
debugging skills,” IBM rejected Windsor’s insurance form naming her partner Thea
Spyer as a beneficiary. In 1975, Windsor became the founding president of the
consulting firm PC Classics and helped numerous LGBTQ groups become tech
literate while computerizing their mail systems. Though Windsor and Spyer’s
marriage in Canada was recognized by the state of New York, upon Syper’s death
in 2009, Windsor was not able to claim the estate tax marital deduction that was
available to heterosexual surviving spouses. The following year, Windsor filed a
lawsuit against the federal government to challenge the constitutionality of the
“Defense Against Marriage Act” (DOMA), a federal statute that defined marriage
as a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife. With a 5-4
majority decision, the landmark Supreme Court ruling made all married couples
fully recognized by the federal government for taxes, Social Security benefits,
immigration, and more. This case laid the foundation for the 2015 “Obergefell v.
Hodges” decision, which made same-sex marriage legal in the United States. In
2016, Lesbians Who Tech launched the Edie Windsor Coding Scholarship Fund, which
funds coding-school tuition for queer women and nonbinary people.
GLADYS BENTLEY
A blues pianist, singer, performer, and drag king, Gladys Bentley was one of the
most well-known and financially successful Black women in the United States
throughout the 1920s and 1930s. At age 16, Bentley moved from Philadelphia to
New York City to begin her career at Harry Hansberry’s Clam House, one of the
city’s most notorious gay speakeasies. During the height of the Harlem
Renaissance, Bentley was an out lesbian who performed in her signature tuxedo
and top hat under the stage name Bobbie Minton, singing her own lyrics to
popular tunes in a deep voice while flirting with women in the audience. In
1934, Bentley created her own musical revue with a chorus of eight male dancers
in drag. As the prohibition era came to an end and public acceptance of
queerness waned, Bentley moved to California, where her success picked up again
during WWII with the expansion of gay bars on the West Coast. In 2016, musician
Shirlette Ammons released the album Twilight for Gladys Bentley, which paid
tribute to Bentley’s legacy and “reimagined” her relationship to hip hop
culture. Today, Bentley is remembered as a model of resistance and a pioneer in
pushing the envelope of gender, sexuality, class and race.
JANE ADDAMS
A progressive social reformer, women’s suffragist and peace activist, Jane
Addams was on the frontline of the settlement house movement in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries. While Addams suffered from a congenital spinal defect
due to a childhood case of tuberculosis, she dedicated her life to fighting for
equity. In 1889, Addams and her then partner Ellen Gates Starr founded Hull
House, the first settlement house in the United States, which provided resources
to underserved communities in Chicago, including health services, libraries, and
educational programs. By the 1900s, Addams was a founding member of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (1909), and the co-founder of
the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (1915) and the American
Civil Liberties Union (1920). In 1931, Addams became internationally respected
for her peace activism during World War I, ultimately becoming the first
American woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Today, the Jane Addams Peace
Association aims to deepen understanding of peace and justice through
reflection, dialogue and social action, and the Hull House Museum is a National
Historic Landmark, serving as a memorial to Addams and other resident social
reformers, many of whom were LGBTQ.
KIYOSHI KUROMIYA
Born in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II, Kiyoshi
Kuromiya was a committed civil rights, anti-war, LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS activist.
While studying at the University of Pennsylvania, Kuromiya worked closely with
Martin Luther King Jr. and instigated the largest anti-war demonstration in the
school’s history. Kuromiya later co-founded the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in
Philadelphia, recruiting a diverse array of people who stood in solidarity with
groups such as the Black Panther Party, where he represented the organization as
an out gay delegate to the 1970 Convention. In the 1980s, Kuromiya founded the
Philadelphia chapter of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP)—where he
edited the first medical treatment and cultural competency guidelines for people
living with HIV, produced by people living with HIV/AIDS—and the Critical Path
AIDS Project, which provided comprehensive, reliable information and resources
to thousands of people living with HIV around the world. By 1989, Kuromiya
discovered that he was HIV-positive, emboldening him even further to work
towards destigmatization. Today, The Critical Path Learning Center, an expansion
of the AIDS Library and the Critical Path Project, is an educational commons and
stigma-free space devoted to the intersection of health and literacy for the
digital age.
MICHAEL DILLON
Born in 1915 in England, Michael Dillon was a doctor, philosopher, poet and
pioneer of trans healthcare. After graduating from Oxford University, Dillon
began his groundbreaking transition and succeeded in getting his birth
certificate changed to reflect his gender. In 1946, Dillon published the book
“Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology,” which laid the groundwork for
modern transgender healthcare and is still referenced today for its insights. A
few years later, Dillon became the first person to undergo gender affirming
surgery, while himself training to become a doctor. In an effort to protect his
privacy, Dillon then served as a ship’s surgeon in the British Merchant Navy,
but was outed by the press in the late 1950s. Dillon found refuge in the
practice of Buddhism, becoming a novice Buddhist monk in India before passing
away at the age of 47. In 2016, Dillion’s 1962 autobiography “Out of the
Ordinary: A Life of Gender and Spiritual Transitions”—completed only two weeks
before his untimely death—was published posthumously.
PEDRO ZAMORA
Pedro Zamora was born in Havana, Cuba in 1972 before immigrating to the United
States at eight years old. Attempting to donate blood at seventeen, Zamora
discovered that he was HIV positive and joined the Miami AIDS resource center,
Body Positive, which motivated him to dedicate his life to raising awareness and
educating his peers to help prevent the rise of HIV infection among teens. Soon,
Zamora captivated the nation with his openness, compassion and charisma, making
an appearance on a front page article of the Wall Street Journal and television
screens, including an interview with Oprah Winfrey. In 1993, Zamora testified
before Congress to advocate for HIV/AIDS education in schools, especially for
Spanish-speaking communities. The following year, Zamora joined the third season
of the MTV reality show The Real World [San Francisco], becoming the first
reality TV personality to publicly share their HIV status. Throughout the show,
Zamora spoke openly about being HIV positive while educating viewers and his
housemates about LGBTQ issues. Viewers were also introduced to Zamora’s
boyfriend Sean Sasser, another man of color living with HIV, in a historical
commitment ceremony. Zamora passed away the morning after the final episode of
The Real World aired, showing the world the firsthand consequences of HIV stigma
and misinformation. In addition to numerous organizations and scholarships in
Zamora’s name—including The Pedro Zamora Youth HIV Clinic, The Pedro Zamora
Public Policy Fellowship, and more—the trailblazer has been inducted on the
National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument in New
York’s Stonewall Inn.
TRACEY “AFRICA” NORMAN
Tracey “Africa” Norman, the first Black trans woman to achieve prominence in the
fashion industry, has been a pioneer for trans people in the industry since the
1970s. Norman was discovered after being photographed by Irving Penn for Italian
Vogue just three years after graduating high school. In 1975, Norman memorably
appeared on the front of a box of Clairol hair dye, with the words “Born
Beautiful,” which was sold in drug stores across the nation for six years. As
she skyrocketed to fame, Norman was outed on set of Essence magazine and
struggled to find work. Assuming that her modeling career was over, Norman
entered the drag ball community, ultimately working with the ballroom house
“House of Africa,” where she gained her iconic middle name. Influential in the
scene due to her modeling skills, Norman was soon voted in as “mother” of the
House and was inducted into the ballroom hall of fame in 2001. After a
biographic piece was written about Norman in 2015 by New York Magazine’s digital
fashion site “The Cut,” Clairol reached back out to her to become the face of
their “Nice ‘n Easy Color As Real As You Are” campaign. The following year,
Norman and Geena Rocero became the first two out transgender models to appear on
the cover of an edition of Harper’s Bazaar. Today, Norman is celebrated as an
early trailblazer by fellow trans stars, including Laverne Cox and Janet Mock!
WE’WHA
We’wha, a lhamana individual born around 1849 in what is today New Mexico, was a
cultural ambassador, spiritual leader, and expert craftsperson who helped
preserve the history, traditions, and knowledge of the Zuni people. As early as
age three or four, community members recognized We’wha as Ihamana, a third
gender role within the tribe that often held positions of honor in the
community—predating the 1990 term “Two Spirit,” a modern umbrella to describe
Indigenous people who fulfilled gender-variant roles in their cultures. We’wha
received some instructions specific to men while also training under their
female relatives, learning critical skills for traditionally male and female
roles. They trained for years to master the elements of pottery and weaving
during a period in which Pueblo textiles in the distinctive Zuni style
flourished, becoming one of the first Zuni people to sell their work. We’wha was
also a member of numerous Zuni societies, including the men’s kachina society,
which performed ritual masked dances, and the medicine society, known as
Beshatsilo:kwe. In 1886, We’wha made a lasting impression in Washington, DC when
they met personally with President Grover Cleveland and gave presentations on
Zuni culture and spirituality. Today, the Santa Fe Human Rights Alliance
annually presents the “We’wha Award” to individuals who have made significant
contributions to the LGBTQ community in New Mexico.
WILLIAM DORSEY SWANN
Born into slavery in Maryland in 1860, William Dorsey Swann was the first known
person to identify as a “Queen of Drag” and the first American activist to lead
a queer resistance group. In the 1880s, Swann began hosting private balls in
Washington DC, which soon caught the attention of authorities. After being
convicted on the false charge of “keeping a disorderly house” in 1896, Swann
demanded (and was denied) a pardon from President Grover Cleveland for holding a
drag ball. This act marked the earliest recorded American to take specific legal
and political action to defend the queer community’s right to gather without the
threat of criminalization, suppression, or police violence. Following Swann’s
retirement from the drag scene, his little brother Daniel J. Swann continued the
family tradition into the 1900s. Today, the houses of the contemporary ballroom
scene maintain the same basic format as the House of Swann’s.
Follow along on GLAAD’s Instagram throughout LGBTQ History Month for these
spotlights and more!
Alvin Ailey Angela Morley Brenda Howard Changemakers Edith Windsor Gladys
Bentley HIV/AIDS Jane Addams Kiyoshi Kuromiya LGBTQ History Month Michael Dillon
Pedro Zamora Tracey Africa Norman We'wha William Dorsey Swann
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