Gittings/Kameny LGBTQ Pioneer Award
This award is named in honor of Barbara Gittings and Frank Kameny, two significant
pioneers in the gay civil rights movement.
Frank Kameny began his activism for gay equality when he was fired by the U.S. Civil
Service Commission due to his homosexuality, Mr. Kameny argued this case all the way to
the United States Supreme Court in 1961. Although the court denied his petition, it is
notable as the first civil rights claim based on sexual orientation. Mr. Kameny co-founded
the Mattachine Society of Washington, an organization that pressed aggressively for gay
and lesbian civil rights. Kameny and the Mattachine Society launched a campaign to
overturn Washington, D.C. sodomy laws; he personally drafted a bill that finally passed in
1993.
Barbara Gittings organized the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB, the first
lesbian rights organization in the United States) from 1958 to 1963, edited the national
DOB magazine, The Ladder, from 1963 to 1966, and worked closely with Frank Kameny in
the 1960s on the first picket lines, including those at Independence Hall in Philadelphia,
that brought attention to the ban on employment of gay people by the largest employer in
the U.S. at that time: the United States government. Ms. Gittings was also part of the
movement with Frank Kameny to get the American Psychiatric Association to drop
homosexuality as a mental illness in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM), which it finally did in 1972.
Both Barbara Gittings and Frank Kameny spoke at West Chester University in 2004.
The Gittings/Kameny LGBTQ Pioneer Award will be given to an individual (WCU student,
faculty, staff, or alumnus/alumna) who, in the spirit of these two pioneers, demonstrates a
commitment to LGBTQ civil rights and equality. Anyone can nominate a candidate by
submitting a nomination form, available on the LGBTQA website
(www.wcupa.edu/_SERVICES/stu.lgb/), that explains in a short narrative why the
candidate should be honored, including specific examples of his or her demonstrated
efforts to advocate for gay civil rights and equality. Forms should be submitted to one of the
co-chairs of the LGBTQA Advocacy Committee (Dr. Jacqueline Hodes or Dr. Lisa Ruchti) by
April 1. The award will be given at the annual LGBTQA awards ceremony held on a date to
be determined at the end of April.