LibGuides: LGBT Rights Movement: Primary Sources

Primary Sources

COM Library has some great collections of primary sources. Primary sources are records created at the time of an event or experience, or as told by people who were present at the event. Must access on campus or login with your COM account for off campus access.

Want more on finding primary sources? Try Tips for Finding Primary Sources or Tips for Finding Primary Sources Open Access.

Defining Documents in American History: LGBTQ+ (1923–2017) This history of LGBTQ+ in the United States begins in the early 1920s with the founding of the Mattachine Society, one of the first homophile organizations in the country. As gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals have continued their fight for basic rights and equal treatment under the law, various court cases and challenges to those cases have continued to refine the debate, starting with Executive order 10450, requiring security clearance for federal employees and barring those guilty of any “criminal, infamous, dishonest, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct…or sexual perversion. In the twenty-first century the struggle for equality continues as cases such as Obergefell v. Hodges, which overruled the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and legalized same sex marriage as well as blocking enforcement of President Trump’s memorandum prohibiting transgender individuals from serving in the military.
Documents of the LGBT Movement This book presents and discusses documents that reflect pivotal moments in the LGBT rights movement in North America, from the First People, through the influx of European settlers and the slave trade from Africa, to the modern era.
Gay and Lesbian Rights in the United States The movement for gay and lesbian rights in America is a response to long-held beliefs that have, at times throughout the history of the United States, made homosexuality legally, politically, and socially unacceptable. This collection of primary documents explores those beliefs and their counter-arguments, providing varying viewpoints on the complex issue of gay and lesbian rights. Personal testimonies, laws, opinion pieces, court cases, and other documents, dating from colonial times to the present day, encourage students to challenge their assumptions and strengthen critical thinking skills. The struggle for gay and lesbian rights in the United States is founded on the idea that feelings of love and sexual attraction between persons of the same sex are natural, moral, normal, psychologically healthy, and deserving of full equality in all aspects of society. The documents presented in this unique collection clearly portray the arguments that have been used to refute this idea, and how homosexuals in U.S. society have fought for acceptance as people worthy of equal rights. The struggle is traced chronologically, providing a multifaceted overview of the issues for anyone studying the history and volatility of this movement.
The Lexington Six: Lesbian and Gay Resistance in 1970s America On September 23, 1970, a group of antiwar activists staged a robbery at a bank in Massachusetts, during which a police officer was killed. While the three men who participated in the robbery were soon apprehended, two women escaped and became fugitives on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, eventually landing in a lesbian collective in Lexington, Kentucky, during the summer of 1974. In pursuit, the FBI launched a massive dragnet. Five lesbian women and one gay man ended up in jail for refusing to cooperate with federal officials, whom they saw as invading their lives and community. Dubbed the Lexington Six, the group's resistance attracted national attention, inspiring a nationwide movement in other minority communities. Like the iconic Stonewall demonstrations, this gripping story of spirited defiance has special resonance in today's America. Drawing on transcripts of the judicial hearings, contemporaneous newspaper accounts, hundreds of pages of FBI files released to the author under the Freedom of Information Act, and interviews with many of the participants, Josephine Donovan reconstructs this fascinating, untold story. The Lexington Six is a vital addition to LGBTQ, feminist, and radical American history.
Soldier of Change : From the Closet to the Forefront of the Gay Rights Movement When ""Don't Ask, Don't Tell,"" the official U.S. policy on gays serving in the military, was repealed in September 2011, soldier Stephen Snyder-Hill (then Captain Hill) was serving in Iraq. Having endured years of this policy, which passively encouraged a culture of fear and secrecy for gay soldiers, Snyder-Hill submitted a video to a Republican primary debate held two days after the repeal. In the video he asked for the Republicans' thoughts regarding the repeal and their plans, if any, to extend spousal benefits to legally married gay and lesbian soldiers. His video was booed by the audience on national television. Soldier of Change captures not only the media frenzy that followed that moment, placing Snyder-Hill at the forefront of this modern civil rights movement, but also his twenty-year journey as a gay man in the army: from self-loathing to self-acceptance to the most important battle of his life - protecting the disenfranchised. Since that time, Snyder-Hill has traveled the country with his husband, giving interviews on major news networks and speaking at universities, community centers, and pride parades, a champion of LGBT equality.