October was National LGBT History Month. While celebrating the community and its history, we honor Pride’s radical origins at the Stonewall Inn in 1969. But what we don’t often hear about are the other political actions and uprisings that have advanced the LGBTQ+ rights movement from as far back as the 1920s through today. Crucial milestones like 1920s: The Society for Human Rights, 1950s: Foundation of The Mattachine Society, and The Daughters of Bilitis, Compton’s Cafeteria Riot of 1960s, and starting The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and organizing Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) in 1970s, though spread across a span of a few decades, have helped shape LGBT history. This month, we should proudly celebrate everything and everybody who is queer, known or unknown, from the present or from the past.
