davidmixner.com
Feb 24 2007
By David Mixner

In Remembrance: Barbara Gittings (1932 – 2007)

Without LGBT pioneers like Barbara Gittings, I doubt that my own life journey would seem so infinite today. When the story of the heroic struggle of the LGBT movement is written, Barbara will be revered. Maybe her most important accomplishment, as the battle for marriage equality rages still, was her powerful and loving relationship of 46 years with Kay Tobin Lahusen.

Barbara Gittings fought the battle when there was everything to lose. She was out and organizing during a time when police raids, forced lobotomies and total isolation were a way of life for LGBT Americans. While Barbara experienced great challenges, she rarely, if ever, displayed fear. Her courage and passion for equality and justice made her a role model for many, inspiring people like me to give more to the movement.

She began fighting for justice in 1958 when there were only a few LGBT organizations in the entire world - groups like the Mattachine Society, One and the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB). These organizations often had to work underground, and some even carried membership lists in the trunks of cars to avoid confiscation during police raids.

Once Barbara met Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) founders Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, the couple opened the door to her activism. Gittings formed the first DOB chapter in New York City in 1958. It was at a chapter picnic that she met her life partner Kay Tobin Lahusen. Barbara later became editor of the DOB publication The Ladder, and she was one of the first lesbians to advocate for political action, protests and civil disobedience.

Soon, she became one of the most prominent advocates to call on the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. Barbara knew that as long as we existed on that list, it could be used by society as justification for discrimination in every aspect of our lives. Year after year, she attended workshops, meetings and conventions to fight for the removal of this stigma. In 1973, the APA finally removed homosexuality from the list and stated that homosexuality did not require treatment. Linda Rapp in writing about Gittings, recalled a headline in one of the Philadelphia papers that read, “20 Million Homosexuals Gain Instant Cure.”

Barbara continued the fight for equality by urging American libraries to include books and literature about homosexuality in their collections. She knew that young members of the community needed access to honest and positive writings about their lives. And she remembered going to the library when she first came out and finding nothing to guide her and much that condemned her. She worked with the American Library Association to make dramatic changes and to educate librarians across the country. Without Barbara, books like mine may not have been published and certainly would not be available in public libraries today.

Until her death last Sunday, Barbara Gittings was unrelenting in her struggle for freedom and equality. Today, the LGBT community stands on her shoulders and in the shadow of her work. Indeed, all of us would be delinquent if we did not take a moment to say, “Thanks Barbara for a job well done.”