Barbara Gittings (1932-2007) Historical Marker

Barbara Gittings was born July 31, 1932 and passed away February 18^th, 2007. Ms. Gittings is most famously known for being the mother of the LBGTQ civil rights movement due to her decades-long activism in the fight for the rights of lesbians and gay men. Barbara Gittings passed away after a long fight against breast cancer in February of 2007 with her life-long partner Kay Lahusen at her side ⁵. After residing the majority of her life in Philadelphia, the city installed and dedicated a historical marker to her near her home on intersection of South 21^st Street and Locus Street ².

Life and Background of Barbara Gittings:

          Barbara Gittings started her activism in the 1950s; a time when discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community was at its highest, and a whole decade before the Stonewall uprising. When she was 17 and while still coming to terms with her attraction towards women, Gittings attended Northwestern University to study drama. While there, she became interested in learning about homosexuality, but realized that the vast libraries of Chicago offered few resources that didn’t refer to homosexuality as a mental illness ³. Offended, angry, and upset that literature referred to people like her using these terms, Gittings left Northwestern after her first there.

           Gittings moved to Philadephia and in the years following, she began to realize that advocating for her community was her calling. On a trip to California, she met with leaders of a new women’s “homophile” group called the Daughters of Biltis; a group who was beginning an effort to change society’s ideology about homosexuality ⁴. In the late 1950s and although living in Philadelphia, Gittings founded the New York chapter of Daughters of Biltis (DOB) after the society’s founders in California proposed the idea to her. It was at a DOB picnic in 1961 where Gittings met Kay Lahusen, an activist herself, and her partner for life. In 1962, Gittings became the editor of the organization’s magazine, and also the first national lesbian magazine, The Ladder ⁴.

           Beyond founding the New York chapter of DOB and maintaining her role as the editor of The Ladder, Gittings also found herself playing an active part in early gay rights demonstrations. She was a part of picketing the White house in 1965 to protest federal employment discrimination and participated in annual demonstration of July 4^th at Independence Hall ¹. After eventually leaving the DOB due to contention over the tactic of picketing, Gittings helped lobby the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to change its stance on homosexuality, where the term was classified under a list of mental disorders. After numerous conferences, the APA removed homosexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders ¹. She continued to work closely with the APA after this to ensure the removal of the classification in their print resources. Building off of her frustration that started back when she attended numerous libraries at Northwestern University, she continued her journey to promote gay literature and eliminate discrimination in the nation’s libraries. She volunteered with the Gay Task Force of the American Library Association where she eventually became the group’s coordinator ⁵. In this role, Gittings oversaw and edited the association’s literature that was written by and about gay men and lesbians.

           For the remainder of her life, Gittings continued to support LGBT+ organizations and found herself involved with numerous efforts to maximize visibility in libraries, printed publications, and other forms of media. In 1998, Gittings appeared in the documentary, Out of the Past; a film that presents the lives of a number of American gay men and lesbians. Gittings work is also showcased in the documentary Cured, which discusses the campaign that led to the removal of the term homosexuality under the American Psychiatric Association's list of mental disorders.

¹ Barbara Gittings, Gay Pioneers. Accessed May 6th, 2023. https://lgbt50.org/barbara-gittings.

² Barbara Gittings (1932-2007), The Historical Marker Database. March 8th, 2020. Accessed May 6th, 2023. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=146386.

³ Brightwell, Jimmy. LGBT+ Hisotry Month 09/28: Barbara Gittiings, 28 DAys of Queeros- Queer Heros, LGBT+ History. February 9th, 2021. Accessed May 6th, 2023. https://blogs.bath.ac.uk/kaleidoscope/2021/02/09/lgbt-history-month-09-28-barbara-gittings/

⁴ Fox, Margalit. Barbara Gittings, 74, Prominent Gay Rights Activist Since '50s, Dies, New York Times. March 15th, 2007. Accessed May 6th, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/obituaries/15gittings.html.

⁵ Rapp, Linda. Gittings, Barbara (1932-2007), GLBTQ. Accessed May 6th, 2023. http://www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/gittings_b_S.pdf.