This excerpt is om "Crossg the Barriers: The Autobgraphy of Allan H. Spear." Spear served for 28 years the Mnota Senate. In 1974, he beme the first male legislator the Uned Stat to e out as a gay man.
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MNOTA SEN. ALLAN SPEAR: ‘TIMG WAS KEY MY CISN TO E OUT AS A GAY MAN’
Nearly 50 years after Mnota’s Allan Spear beme one of the natn’s first openly gay legislators, LGBTQ lawmakers walked to the 2023 legislative ssn wh the cril mass need to form a uc and flex some polil mcle. They’re ready to e . * gay senator from minnesota *
I., and the first openly gay mayor of a state pal -- has reprented Rho Island's First Congrsnal District sce 2011. She mak history as Kansas's first LGBTQ member of Congrs and the first gay Native Amerin woman elected to Congrs. Gay ngrsman Sean Patrick Maloney won reelectn 2018 to ntue reprentg New York's 18th District.
Mark Pon is a gay polician and former small-bs owner who first took office the U. Stt Dibble was often the sole openly gay person the room when he started out polics. The three — cludg Allan Spear, one of the natn’s first openly gay lawmakers, and Karen Clark — never served together but jokgly referred to themselv as the Queer s later, the jok are over.
We’re at the table’The Hoe DFL Queer Cc marks the newt pot on a 50-year arc om Spear’s 1972 electn and his 1974 cisn to say publicly that he was gay, to the state’s move 2013 to dify same-sex marriage swiftly after voters rejected a nstutnal amendment to ban members the new ssn will foc on health re accs, equy and banng nversn therapy, said Rep. Allan Henry Spear was the first openly gay man the Uned Stat to serve as a state legislator.
Allan Henry Spear was the first openly gay man the Uned Stat to serve as a state legislator. In 1993, he won a twenty-year fight to clu the LGBT muny Mnota's Human Rights Act. He served as print of the Mnota Senate for nearly a , tght history at the Universy of Mnota for thirty-five years, and was a lifelong lover of travel, food, mic, and lerature. * gay senator from minnesota *
When Spear was lnchg his twenty-eight-year reer as a Mnota senator and begng to e out as gay 1972, he already had a lifetime of experienc behd him. Spear later admted that he started to realize he was “different” om his iends at about age twelve and began privately discsg his homosexualy wh a sympathetic iend at age neteen. Spear publicly revealed his homosexualy two years later an terview wh the Mneapolis Star newspaper and beme the first openly gay Mnota legislator.
After he me out, Spear endured polil attacks om gay activists who found his approach lackg fiance and aggrsn.
His first draft of a gay rights bill failed to pass 1975, but Spear was unterred. He tried aga 1977, troduced a gay and lbian human rights bill wh Reprentative Karen Clark 1981, and add protectns for transgenr people to the proposed legislatn 1991. In 2010 he voted to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, ” a policy that barred openly gay men and women om servg the U.
* gay senator from minnesota *
Spear, who served for 28 years the Mnota Senate, beme the first male legislator the Uned Stat to e out as a gay man.
Elae was the first openly gay person to be elected to a state office anywhere the untry, and om the acunts I read the gay prs, her district was siar to me. Fateful weekend nferenceOn Thanksgivg weekend of 1974, I went to New York to speak at the nference of a new natnal gay anizatn, the Gay Amic Unn. The nference self was held at New York Universy on Washgton Square, and unlike the gay uc that later emerged the var amic profsnal anizatns, foced not on empiril scholarship but on theori and ias about gay liberatn.
I spoke about my own experienc and how I thought gay people need to relate to electoral polics. I remember one speaker, a man, who mataed that a male erectn, whatever the ntext, was an act of vlence agast women, and that if gay men wanted to velop alns wh women they would have to learn to have sex whout havg erectns.