Harvey Milk was Not The First Openly Gay Polician — LGBTQ Instute

Contents:

• HARVEY MILK BE THE FIRST OPENLY GAY PERSON ELECTED TO PUBLIC OFFICE CALIFORNIA
• PETE BUTTIGIEG MAK HISTORY AS 1ST OPENLY GAY CABET MEMBER NFIRMED BY SENATE
• 40 YEARS AFTER ASSASSATN OF FIRST OPENLY GAY ELECTED OFFICIAL IN CALIFORNIA
• HARVEY MILK WAS NOT THE FIRST OPENLY GAY POLICIAN
• WISNS’S TAMMY BALDW IS FIRST OPENLY GAY PERSON ELECTED TO SENATE
• GAY RIGHTS

HARVEY MILK BE THE FIRST OPENLY GAY PERSON ELECTED TO PUBLIC OFFICE CALIFORNIA

Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official the history of California, tak his place on the San Francis Board of Supervisors on January 8, 1978. The first and, for years, most visible openly gay polician Ameri, Milk was a longtime activist and pneerg lear of San Francis’s LGBT servg the Navy durg the Korean War, Milk held several whe-llar jobs New York Cy. Inially nservative and reluctant to advote for gay rights, Milk’s views changed around the time he and his then-partner opened a mera shop on Castro Street, the heart of the San Francis’s LGBT muny, many bs owners and cizens of the largely-gay Castro District, Milk was harassed by police and lol officials.

Dpe alienatg many Democrats, cludg other gay activists, wh his bombastic language and flower-child persona, he won the Castro district handily and me 10 out of 32 ndidat. Still, Milk and the Castro’s rise to power cid wh the rise of anti-gay reactnari like Ana Bryant, and Milk unrstood both the power and the danger of his posn as facto lear of the largt gay muny Ameri. On the nth anniversary of the Stonewall Rts, shortly after his partner mted suici and the face of nservative backlash across the untry, Milk addrsed San Francis’s gay pri para, begng wh his tchphrase “My name is Harvey Milk and I’m here to rec you” and endg wh a msage of “Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to e to if the prsur at home are too great.

On the 50th anniversary of Stonewall 2019, Milk was an gural ductee onto the Natnal LGBTQ Wall of MORE: The Gay Rights MovementAlso on This Day History January | 8. "I n remember watchg the news -- 17-years-old Indiana, seeg a story about an appotee of Print Clton named to be an ambassador attacked and nied a vote the Senate bee he was gay -- ultimately able to serve only by a recs appotment, " he said.

PETE BUTTIGIEG MAK HISTORY AS 1ST OPENLY GAY CABET MEMBER NFIRMED BY SENATE

Eric Fanng served as Secretary of the Army durg the Obama Admistratn, the first openly gay dividual to hold an armed service's top civilian posn. In the Tmp admistratn, Richard Grenell served as actg director of Natnal Intelligence, the first openly gay dividual to serve a Cabet-level posn an actg pacy, but his posn was not 's Cabet also clus the first female treasury secretary, first female director of Natnal Intelligence and first Black fense secretary.

40 Years After Assassatn Of First Openly Gay Elected Official In California This week marks the 40th anniversary of the assassatn of gay rights lear and San Francis Supervisor Harvey Milk and San Francis Mayor Gee Mosne. Today the seat Milk held when he was killed is occupied by another openly gay man, Rafael MANDELMAN: As someone who was 5 years old when he was shot, I am ntually grateful, not jt for Harvey but for the folks of that generatn who really did change the But first, Manlman not, Milk changed himself. Gwen Craig, who me to San Francis the 1970s and worked wh Harvey Milk before he was killed, trac all back to Milk phg people to e out of the CRAIG: I do thk that he sort of started this path that ma possible for the openly gay officials that were elected this last round.

40 YEARS AFTER ASSASSATN OF FIRST OPENLY GAY ELECTED OFFICIAL IN CALIFORNIA

—died November 27, 1978, San Francis, California), Amerin polician and gay-rights graduatg om the New York State College for Teachers Albany (1951), Milk served the U.

His populary grew when he challenged the cy’s gay learship, which he thought was too nservative s attempts to ga greater polil rights for 1973 Milk ran for a seat on the cy’s Board of Supervisors but was feated. Navy vsel to be named for an openly gay person, and at the ship’s christeng Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said, “For far too long, sailors like Litenant Junr Gra Milk were forced to the shadows or, worse yet, forced out of our beloved Navy.

HARVEY MILK WAS NOT THE FIRST OPENLY GAY POLICIAN

On April 2, 1974, when the Human Rights Party ndidate bted a Democrat to bee the first openly gay person to w elected office the Uned Stat (and most likely worldwi as well) the rponse was equally nonchalant. Jerry DeGrieck and Nancy Wechsler, both then U-M graduat, were the first people anywhere to e out while holdg public office, a dramatic stand taken amid their emotnal pleas to the police chief to actually enforce the natn’s first cy ordance guaranteeg gays equal accs to public acmodatns. All of this set the stage for Kozachenko’s further step of lettg voters ci whether they would support an openly gay or lbian the official annals of LGBT history, though, neher Ann Arbor nor Kozachenko is given much cred.

The primary source for a brief Wikipedia entry about Kozachenko is, somewhat appropriately, a 2008 letter to the edor prted the Washgton Post that lled for a rrectn to a story that ced Milk, not her, as the first openly gay person Human Rights Party was a left-wg polil party based Michigan durg the early and mid 1970s.

”Kozachenko theoriz that the reason she’s been largely fotten is that she was never a “gay” activist per se; her sexual orientatn was never the central fact of her public inty. ”Meanwhile, by the time Kozachenko realized how thoroughly she’d been omted om the monly told versn of gay history, she was her fay’s sole breadwner and nervo that notoriety uld harm her abily to get or keep a job.

WISNS’S TAMMY BALDW IS FIRST OPENLY GAY PERSON ELECTED TO SENATE

“Well, yeah, I felt left out, bee I am particularly proud of the fact that is was a third party and not the Democratic Party that elected the first gay person, ” she says. It may seem revolutnary now, but many ways the ltle world that was HRP was a great example of what would happen later the untry that you get to know gay people—they’re your iends, your hoemat—and then you go, ‘Why the hell are we puttg such a great stigma on this? She disvered Ptsburgh when a iend om New York who knew of her place as the first out elected official flew her there to speak to a gay group amid the Florida orange juice boytt that followed pchwoman Ana Bryant’s anti-gay activism—the only time her life she ever received such an vatn.

The Three Rivers Cy sued her well, a big cy wh a strong unn prence and a Midwtern flavor that was jt far enough om her fay Michigan and Oh for a while, she ntued her activism Ptsburgh, most notably as an anizer for the 1979 March on Washgton, the first large-sle monstratn for gay rights.

GAY RIGHTS

”Then me the 1980s wh s Reagan Revolutn nservatism to stymie social progrs and the AIDS crisis to refoc the gay movement squarely on survival rather than civil rights. Kozachenko brought Geiger to the 1993 March on Washgton for gay rights and the fay attend a 1998 vigil for sla gay llege stunt Matthew Shepard, but never took her son to, say, a gay pri event.

“I’ve e to that place wh myself where I felt really guilty for a long, long time that I didn’t live up to my potential, not as a gay activist but as an activist, perd, jt makg change. "Beyond the fact that Kozachenko was, as she put on a mpaign flier, “an out-of-the-closet lbian, ” her 1974 mpaign was only vaguely about gay rights. A mpaign statement January 1974 the Ann Arbor News illtrated the broad range of issu that animated her: “Opprsive sex rol and attus which brand homosexuals as sick and perverted mt be attacked alongsi such thgs as the U.