- Poet Walt Whitman lived across the Delaware River in Camden, N.J. from 1870 until his death in 1892. The Leaves of Grass author’s modest wood frame house is now open for tours, and one of the bridges spanning the Delaware is named in his honor.
- Philadelphia was the site of some of the nation’s first gay rights protests - before the landmark Stonewall Riots that took place in New York City. During the "Annual Reminders" held each July 4th from 1965 to 1969, protesters picketed in front of Independence Hall.
- The Gay Raiders, a Philadelphia-based activist group, led a national campaign to change the TV networks’ portrayal of gays and lesbians. The group’s most famous "zap" took place in 1973 when activist Mark Segal (now publisher of Philadelphia Gay News) interrupted the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite bearing a placard that read, "Gays protest CBS bigotry."
- In 1975, Pennsylvania, under Governor Milton Shapp, was the first state to create an official governmental commission to look into the problems of sexual minorities.
- Philadelphia Gay News, established in 1976, is one of the nation’s oldest and most respected gay newspapers.
- In 1982, Philadelphia became one of the first cities in the country to pass an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.
- Philadelphia’s International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, held each July since 1995, is now the largest such event in the nation outside of California.
- Philadelphia’s 1997 domestic partners law was the first in the country to provide a tax break for gay and lesbian couples. The law eliminated the city’s real estate transfer tax when property changes hands between domestic partners or a partner’s name is added to a property’s deed.
- Philadelphia’s William Way Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) Community Center, which opened in 1997 as a successor to the former Penguin Place, was developed with a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Center is one of the few gay community centers in the nation to be established with federal funds.
- Since 1999, the gay and lesbian community has been the city’s only minority group to have its own liaison to the police department and a liaison committee with community representation to ensure a positive working relationship with the police.
- Longtime area activist Barbara Gittings, for whom a gay and lesbian collection is named at the Independence branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, is nationally known for her work compiling the first gay bibliography for the American Library Association and lobbying the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.
- Philadelphia’s gay and lesbian population has developed an extensive network of support in the community, including having their own GLBT community center, a separate youth center, a health center, a center for protecting and advocating civil rights, three churches and a synagogue.
- Philadelphia has two long running gay and lesbian programs on public radio’s WXPN 88.5 FM, Amazon Country and Q’zine (both more than 25-years-old), as well as one of the nation’s first gay, call-in TV talk shows, Your Lesbian and Gay Connection, on local PBS affiliate WYBE-TV, Channel 35.
Fast Facts about Gay and Lesbian Philadelphia
By John Fischer, About.com
Explore Philadelphia / South Jersey
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