Our History

The two couples that sued the state for marriage equality

As my generation passes the torch to the new generations we must make sure that our history is not lost. All we have to do is look how the uprising at Stonewall is being made in to a white gay movement (and the lesbians that were also leaders in the uprising are also being written out of the history).

Last night I attended a reception at the Connecticut Historical Society for a traveling exhibit on LGBT history.

The exhibit was a collaboration between the historical society and Central Connecticut State University’s class in LGBT history and will be on exhibit around the state. It is heavy in LG history and weak on the b & t but hopefully that will change with more contributions by trans people are made.

So what was covered?

The exhibit is made up of five panels, an introduction panel, a 1600 – 1899 panel, a 1900 – 1945 panel, a 1946 – 1969 panel, and a 1970 – Present panel*. Some of the highlights from the panels…

1600 – 1899 (I am not linking this yet because the website is not public.)
HIDDEN LIVES
Among some Native American nations, those who transcended the binaries of gender and sexuality (known today as the Two-Spirit tradition) were often honored and revered. But for European colonists, the LGBTQ experience was one of isolation and persecution. Behavior that expressed same-sex love or transgressed gender through cross-dressing or other means, while not yet the basis for identity, was nonetheless defined as criminal, and was sometimes punishable by death. Still, court records, personal letters and other documents provide evidence of LGBTQ lives and relationships. Not yet a recognizable community, people still fought against lives of isolation.

INTIMATE LETTERS: GENERAL GRIFFIN A. STEDMAN
Brigadier General Griffin Alexander Stedman came from a wealthy family in Hartford. He was well-educated and a decorated Union soldier. Stedman never married; there is no record of correspondence between him and women. The only evidence of any close relationship comes in letters exchanged with Charles Jeremy Hoadley, an unmarried lawyer also from Hartford. The correspondence is intimate and reveals a close, affectionate friendship between the men.

1900 – 1945
KATHARINE "JIMMY" HEPBURN EXPLORES GENDER IDENTITY
Her mother a prominent Connecticut suffragist, movie icon Katharine Hepburn was encouraged from a young age to defy norms and go her own way. “Being a girl was a torment,” she said, and during her gender-noncomforming youth she shaved her head, dressed in boys’ clothes, and called herself “Jimmy.” “I put on pants fifty years ago,” she said later in life, “and declared a sort of middle road. I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man.” Hepburn, who loved both men and women, brought her gender defiance and independent spirit to dozens of classic movies.

MAE WEST PUSHES BOUNDARIES ONSTAGE
In January 1927, Mae West previewed her play, The Drag: A Homosexual Comedy in Three Acts, at Bridgeport’s Poli Theater. (A Stamford theater had refused to show it, calling it “obscene.”) The Drag, featuring an all-gay cast, depicted homosexuality and the cost of living a secret life. Although well-received by audiences, the play was called “inexpressibly brutal and vulgar” by critics and was quickly shut down. As a result, The Drag was banned from Broadway.

A GAY-LA NIGHT AT THE WADSWORTH
In 1934, Chick Austin, the risk-taking director of the Wadsworth Atheneum, debuted lesbian writer Gertrude Stein’s Modernist opera, Four Saints in Three Acts, with music by the gay composer Virgil Thompson. Four Saints, a queer reinterpretation of sainthood, brought bohemian Paris to America and Modernism to mainstream culture. The musical director was Eva Jessye, noted choral conductor during the Harlem Renaissance, who directed an all-black cast. Austin also brought Alwin Nikolais, gay pioneer of modern dance, several times to the Wadsworth.

1946 – 1969
CRACKDOWNS AND PURGES
Hartford judge S. Burr Leikind, announced in June 1952 his intention to clean up all areas of the city where “sex deviates” gathered. Dozens of men were arrested for meeting at train stations and public parks, and their names were published in local newspapers. Since most men at the time were not open about their gayness to their families or employers, many lives were ruined. “This court intends to back up police in cleaning up areas of the city where sex deviates gather and see to it that such offenders are properly punished.” –Judge S. Burr Leikind

PROJECT H AND THE KALOS SOCIETY
One early attempt to mobilize the gay community of Hartford was led by Canon Clinton Jones of Christ Church Cathedral, whose sympathetic research into homosexuality inspired the formation of “Project H,” a group of psychologists, social workers, and clergy who provided counseling services. Out of Project H [more on Project H later] emerged the state’s first gay organization, the Kalos Society, in the mid-1960s. Kalos predated by several years the Stonewall uprising in New York, generally considered the birth of the modern LGBTQ movement.

CANON CLINTON JONES AND PROJECT H BEGIN ADVOCATING FOR QUEER PRISONERS
Project H in Hartford received a complaint that the CT Department of Corrections had established "Cell Block G" to “house all transvestites and gays.” Canon Clinton Jones began negotiations to visit the prison and held a meeting with the warden. It was explained by the warden that this was for protection from the general population of the prison. At the meeting with some prisoners Jones found that separate was not equal, that the prisoners in Cell Block G had limited access to prison yard exercise, and that they had to eat dinner at 3:30 so as not to be seated with other prisoners. Jones was allowed to begin counseling individual prisoners which he continued until his retirement in 1986.

1970 – Present
GAY LIBERATION FRONT CHAPTER FOUNDED IN HARTFORD
The Gay Liberation Front was founded in Hartford, CT. The Front opened an information center on Farmington Ave. The Gay Liberation Front planned to supplement the activities of the Kalos Society.

TWENTY CLUB IS FOUNDED
In 1971, the Twenty Club was founded in Hartford as a support group for transgender people by Canon Clinton Jones of Christ Church Cathedral and Dr. George Higgins, a professor at Trinity College. The club met at Christ Church Cathedral for more than 30 years.

IVAN VALENTIN RESISTS DESCRIMINATION
In March 1976, the State Liquor Commission shut down a drag show performed by Ivan Valentin, a Latinx gender-fluid dancer, at West Hartford’s Finnochio bar. The UCONN School of Law took Valentin’s case and won—ending the ban on male and female “impersonators” and registering a major win for gender-fluid and non-binary people.

GAY SPIRIT RADIO
Gay Spirit Radio, based at the University of Hartford, went on the air in 1980. With longtime host Keith Brown still at the mike, it is America’s longest continuously running LGBTQ radio show. [I have been on the show probably over a dozen times]

CT DMV ALLOWS GENDER CHANGES ON LICENSES [1993]
The Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles began allowing transgender individuals to correct their gender on driver’s licenses.

ITS TIME CONNECTICUT [1998 – ITCT became the CT TransAdvocacy Coalition in 2002]
Its Time Connecticut is founded by Jerimarie Liesegang. The group focused in conjunction with other state level advocacy groups to build a grassroots coalition to effect social and legislative change for the Transgender Community. Much of the early work was one on one advocacy for numerous trans folks who contacted ITCT for assistance.

THE TRANSGENDER REVOLUTION
In the 2000s, Connecticut’s transgender and gender nonconforming communities organized for their own safety and protection while pressing for inclusion in legislation that had, sometimes deliberately, excluded them. In 2000, the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities ruled that sex discrimination encompassed discrimination against transgender individuals.

TRANSGENDER DAY OF REMEMBERANCE
It’s Time Connecticut (ITCT), founded in 1998 by Jerimarie Liesegang, held Connecticut’s first Transgender Day of Remembrance in 2002, an annual event commemorating those lost each year to anti-trans violence. The vigil was co-sponsored by over twenty statewide LGBTQ organizations and attended by nearly 100 trans people and allies. Following the overwhelming success of this event, ITCT transitioned into the Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition.

FIRST STATE TO PROVIDE PROTECTIONS FOR INCARCERATED TRANSGENDER INDIVIDUALS
Connecticut became the first state to pass a law that protects the safety and dignity of transgender people who are incarcerated by acknowledging a person by their gender identity, providing services, clothing, commissary items, programming and educational materials that are consistent with their gender identity. People will also have the right to be searched by a correctional staff member of the same gender identity and will be placed in a correctional institution which is consistent with their gender identity.

These are just a few of the topics highlighted on the panels and there are dozens more topics on the panels and they will be traveling around the state, currently it is at the CT Historical Society. If you have any memorabilia or photos you want to donate to the exhibit once the website becomes public you will be able to submit them.

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I have been donating my memorabilia to the Central Connecticut State University’s Elihu Burritt Library LGBTQ+ collection. So far I have donate at hundreds items including the actual law the Governor Malloy signed, buttons and badges, meeting minutes of the Anti-Discrimination Coalition, talking points and other legislative strategies.

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* The Twenty Club was a spinoff of Project H

I attended the Twenty Club (You can read some of their newsletters here) when it was still moderated Canon Clinton Jones and meeting at Christ Church Cathedral in Hartford in 2002. On slower days we sometimes could get Rev. Jones to talk about the early days of the XX Club.

Rev. Jones said in the early days of Project H they changed the name from Project Homosexual to Project H because the management of the YMCA where they were meeting objected to signs on the meeting days pointing “Project Homosexual” so they changed the name to innocuous “Project H.” At the meetings they we having men attend them who said they were not “gay” but women who were attracted to men.

The Rev. Canon Clinton Jones, Dr. George Higgins, Kathleen Sterner, Ph.D., and if I remember correctly Dr. Snow formed the Gender Identity Clinic of New England. They also had a surgeon who was from the John Hopkins and worked with Dr. Harry Benjamin. Together they created the Twenty Club or XX Club. They chose the name once again to be innocuous and to reflect the female chromosomes.

The Twenty Club is still going strong and meets at the Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective on the second Saturday of the month at 2 PM. The Twenty Club is the oldest trans support group in the nation.