News
Coming Out Day exhibit focuses on GLBT history, awareness
By Boyd Fletcher
fletchar@mscd.edu
As an ongoing part of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Awareness Month, the GLBT Student Services organized Auraria's celebration of National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11.
Around 100 students stopped by the Tivoli Turnhalle where the event was moved from the flagpole area, due to the threat of lingering cold weather, said Dennis Boyd, interim director of GLBTSS.
Close to 50 years of struggles by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered community were represented in a simple, yet detailed display in the Tivoli Turnhalle Oct. 11, "Looking at the Past, Present, and our Leaders: a GLBT Exhibit."
"We unveiled this display at Pride-Fest a while back, and people really seemed to get a lot out of it," said Greg Lowell, events director for the Center, a GLBT community center in Denver, which is responsible for the main display.
The display starts with the June 28, 1969 Stonewall Inn raid in New York City. In the late '60s New York's gay bars and nightclubs were frequently raided and patrons arrested on various indecency charges such as kissing, dancing together, cross dressing and oftentimes being a worker or even a patron in the club during a raid. Prior to 1966, a bar or club in New York could have its liquor license taken away if it served three or more homosexuals.
The raid was carried out under the order of Mayor John D'Emilio to clean up the city's "unruly" bars and clubs in the Sheridan Square area.
But this raid was different for many reasons. One, the raid began at approximately 1:20 a.m., which was later than the usual raids, and out of the eight police officers involved in the raid, only one was in uniform. The police arrested drag queens, cross dressers, employees and people without ID's.
The catalyst for the riot, to many, was the death of actress Judy Garland-a cultural icon of the gay community-just two days prior. Garland's funeral was attended by some 24,000 people, 12,000 of who were gay men. Many of the people at Stonewall that night were still emotional due to her loss.
Details on how the riot started are vague. But, however the riot started, the police became outnumbered and retreated back into the bar where they singled out effeminate men; beating and arresting 13 of them.
The frustration, anger and fear that the Gay community had been feeling for years at the hands of the police had now boiled over, and over the next two months the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) had been created.
In memory of the Stonewall riots, the GLF organized a march the following year, which traveled from Greenwich Village to Central Park with nearly 10,000 people joining in. This march has become a tradition over the years and is held the last Sunday of June.
Denver police in the early '70s owned a bus called the "Johnny Cash Special" that they would use in raids on known homosexual hangouts. A plainclothes officer would walk around the area, talking with men and engaging them in sexual discussions. When a gay man would accept the officer's propositions, he would be arrested and be put in the bus, where they would be told to lay down in the back so they could not be seen.
On Nov.. 15. 1973, the Gay Coalition of Denver took the City and County of Denver to court and got a court order to stop the Denver Police Department from harassing homosexuals. The ruling also caused the reformation of Denver's Loitering Law, as well as ending a law against cross-dressing.
Walking past the different posters that make up the display, a time line is created which ends with prominent people in the GLBT community, including Denver's Terry Mangan, whose efforts started the first GLBT library in Colorado; Kathy Kozachenko, who was the first successful openly gay or lesbian American in politics when she gained a seat on the Ann Arbor, Mich. City counsel; Georgina Beyer, the first openly transgender person elected to a national office when she was elected to New Zealand's parliament in 1999.
Besides the display, many different groups from around Denver set up booths for students to collect information.
Groups such as "Brothas4Ever," a group of same-gender loving African-American men; "Dignity/Denver," a catholic support group for people living with AIDS; "El Futuro," a community center for gay and bisexual Latinos; and the Colorado Anti-Violence Program, which supports victims of domestic abuse, hate crimes, sexual assault and random violence.
"It's important to get this information out to the community," said Michael McLeod, program director for Brothas4Ever.
The GLBT Student Services office will continue to put on events through the end of the month. Information on the groups who participated in Auraria's Coming Out Day celebration, as well as information on Auraria's GLBT support services is available in the GLBT office, Tivoli 213.