You’re standg at the rner of Vermont Street and Pennsylvania Street, where the Circle Cy Pri Para has marched by every summer sce 2002. The para is a celebratn of the Indianapolis LGBT (lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr) muny’s s-long stggle for regnn and acceptance. Unrground Indy (1960-1981) Until the mid-1980s, the Indianapolis LGBT muny was “unrground.” Fearg social persecutn, gay men and women met vertly at the old Essex Hoe...
Contents:
- FROM “GAY KNIGHTS” TO CELEBRATN ON THE CIRCLE: A HISTORY OF PRI INDIANAPOLIS
- TAG: GAY PRI
- GAY PRI PARIS (MARCHE S FIERTéS)
FROM “GAY KNIGHTS” TO CELEBRATN ON THE CIRCLE: A HISTORY OF PRI INDIANAPOLIS
The Damien Center and several other groups surveyed closed to 700 self-intifyg gay or transgenr people about their liv. Vice Print Zach Adamson was the first out gay elected official the state. ” A kerfuffle surroundg an activist named Joseph Blevs, photographed sportg an IMPD T-shirt while celebratg the virtual Pri ftival 2021, earned verage om The Indianapolis Star and WRTV, rekdlg a s-long bate about the role of police the gay rights movement.
For years, feel-good photo ops featurg police officers marchg wh gay activists were a staple of Pri events—somethg that would be unthkable post-2020, when some activists assume police to be a mortal threat. ’” said BLM anizer Jsi Louise about a lear of the Stonewall rts that lnched the gay rights movement. The para is a celebratn of the Indianapolis LGBT (lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr) muny’s s-long stggle for regnn and acceptance.
” Fearg social persecutn, gay men and women met vertly at the old Essex Hoe Hotel, which sat here on this rner until was molished 1994.
TAG: GAY PRI
At this meetg and others like , LGBT activists planned for the future of their muny and circulated pi of The Mirror and The New Works News, Indianapolis’s early gay and lbian papers. In 1976, the first “Gay Pri Week” was held Indianapolis, hosted by the Metropolan Communy Church (MCC) and the Gay Peopl Unn. Rather than celebrate publicly, atten were ved to attend a piic at Sugar Creek Park, donate blood at MCC, participate a “Youth Kamp Dis, ” and attend workshops entled “Do I Tell My Parents?, ” “Christian and Gay, ” “Liftyl the ‘70s, ” and “Gays and Government.
Jam Hill said the purpose of the week was “to make society aware of our prence and as a self-affirmg thg for gay people as well—affirmg they have the right to be.
GAY PRI PARIS (MARCHE S FIERTéS)
Program, 4th Annual Gay Pri Week Bnch, June 24, 1984, Jefey L. Mayor Bill Hudnut reluctantly issued a letter that was read at one of the gathergs, clarg a mment to “an absence of anti-gay bias all police matters.
” Acrdg to a June 1985 The Works article, this marked “the first time any Mayor of Indianapolis has ma any posive public pronouncement on gays Indianapolis. will go down the gay history of Indiana as the first time gays this state have exercised their Constutnal right to eedom of public assembly. Gays and lbians exercised this Constutnal right no ls a place than the Monument Circle area of Indianapolis full view of many Indianapolis cizens who me to see what gays had to say.
After the 1984 gathergs, which some dubbed “Gay Knights on the Circle, ” Pri Week celebratns remaed relatively private until 1990.