Community hub
Recent from talks
Contribute something to knowledge base
Content stats: 0 posts, 0 articles, 0 media, 0 notes
Members stats: 0 subscribers, 0 contributors, 0 moderators, 0 supporters
Subscribers
Supporters
Contributors
Moderators
Hub AI
Barbara Gittings AI simulator
(@Barbara Gittings_simulator)
Hub AI
Barbara Gittings AI simulator
(@Barbara Gittings_simulator)
Barbara Gittings
Barbara Gittings (July 31, 1932 – February 18, 2007) was an American LGBTQ activist. She started the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) in 1958, edited the national DOB magazine The Ladder from 1963 to 1966, and worked closely with Frank Kameny in the 1960s on the first picket lines that brought attention to the ban on employment of gay people in the United States government, the largest employer of the country at the time. In the 1970s, Gittings was most involved in the American Library Association, especially its Task Force on Gay Liberation, in order to promote positive literature about homosexuality in libraries. She was a part of the movement to get the American Psychiatric Association to drop homosexuality as a mental illness in the early 1970s.
She was awarded an American Library Association Honorary Membership, and the ALA named an annual award for the best LGBTQ novel the Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award. GLAAD also named an activist award for her.
Barbara Gittings was born to Elizabeth (née Brooks) Gittings and John Sterett Gittings Jr. in Vienna, Austria, where her father was serving as a United States diplomat. Barbara Gittings and her siblings attended Catholic schools in Montreal. At one point in her childhood, she considered becoming a nun. Her family returned to the United States at the outbreak of World War II and settled in Wilmington, Delaware. Although aware of her attraction to other girls, Gittings said she first heard the word "homosexual" when she was rejected for membership in the National Honor Society in high school based on what a teacher believed were her "homosexual inclinations."
While majoring in drama at Northwestern University, Gittings developed a close friendship with another female student, prompting rumors that the two were lesbians, which led Gittings to examine her own sexual orientation, meeting a psychiatrist who offered to cure her. A close friend suggested they see less of each other so as not to further encourage the rumors about them.
She began to read as much as she could on the topic, finding very little; much of what she found described homosexuals as deviants, especially in medical texts. She ended up failing out of Northwestern.
At age 17, she returned from Northwestern "in disgrace" after failing out of school and unable to tell her family why. She found some more information on lesbianism in novels like Nightwood, The Well of Loneliness, and Extraordinary Women. Soon thereafter, her father discovered The Well of Loneliness in her bedroom; in a letter, he instructed her to burn it. Gittings took a night course in abnormal psychology, where she met a woman with whom she had a brief affair. At age 18, she left home to be on her own and moved to Philadelphia.
Gittings began to hitchhike on weekends to New York City, dressed masculinely, to visit gay bars since she knew of none in Philadelphia. However, Gittings found little in common with the women she met in the bars; she also once witnessed a gay male acquaintance get beaten up after leaving a bar.[citation needed]
In 1956, Gittings traveled to California on the advice of Edward Sagarin, to visit the office of the new ONE Inc., an early homophile organization. While in California, she met Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, who had co-founded the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) in San Francisco.
Barbara Gittings
Barbara Gittings (July 31, 1932 – February 18, 2007) was an American LGBTQ activist. She started the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) in 1958, edited the national DOB magazine The Ladder from 1963 to 1966, and worked closely with Frank Kameny in the 1960s on the first picket lines that brought attention to the ban on employment of gay people in the United States government, the largest employer of the country at the time. In the 1970s, Gittings was most involved in the American Library Association, especially its Task Force on Gay Liberation, in order to promote positive literature about homosexuality in libraries. She was a part of the movement to get the American Psychiatric Association to drop homosexuality as a mental illness in the early 1970s.
She was awarded an American Library Association Honorary Membership, and the ALA named an annual award for the best LGBTQ novel the Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award. GLAAD also named an activist award for her.
Barbara Gittings was born to Elizabeth (née Brooks) Gittings and John Sterett Gittings Jr. in Vienna, Austria, where her father was serving as a United States diplomat. Barbara Gittings and her siblings attended Catholic schools in Montreal. At one point in her childhood, she considered becoming a nun. Her family returned to the United States at the outbreak of World War II and settled in Wilmington, Delaware. Although aware of her attraction to other girls, Gittings said she first heard the word "homosexual" when she was rejected for membership in the National Honor Society in high school based on what a teacher believed were her "homosexual inclinations."
While majoring in drama at Northwestern University, Gittings developed a close friendship with another female student, prompting rumors that the two were lesbians, which led Gittings to examine her own sexual orientation, meeting a psychiatrist who offered to cure her. A close friend suggested they see less of each other so as not to further encourage the rumors about them.
She began to read as much as she could on the topic, finding very little; much of what she found described homosexuals as deviants, especially in medical texts. She ended up failing out of Northwestern.
At age 17, she returned from Northwestern "in disgrace" after failing out of school and unable to tell her family why. She found some more information on lesbianism in novels like Nightwood, The Well of Loneliness, and Extraordinary Women. Soon thereafter, her father discovered The Well of Loneliness in her bedroom; in a letter, he instructed her to burn it. Gittings took a night course in abnormal psychology, where she met a woman with whom she had a brief affair. At age 18, she left home to be on her own and moved to Philadelphia.
Gittings began to hitchhike on weekends to New York City, dressed masculinely, to visit gay bars since she knew of none in Philadelphia. However, Gittings found little in common with the women she met in the bars; she also once witnessed a gay male acquaintance get beaten up after leaving a bar.[citation needed]
In 1956, Gittings traveled to California on the advice of Edward Sagarin, to visit the office of the new ONE Inc., an early homophile organization. While in California, she met Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, who had co-founded the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) in San Francisco.