Barbara Gittings, Gay
Rights Activist dies
By AP from the
NYTimes on the Web, February 19, 2007
PHILADELPHIA -- Barbara
Gittings, a gay rights activist since the late 1950s, died Sunday. She was
75.
Gittings died after a lengthy fight with breast cancer, said Mark Segal, a
friend and the publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News.
Gittings helped organize the New York City chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis,
an early lesbian rights organization, in the 1950s. During her work with
that group, she met her life partner, Kay Lahusen. Gittings edited the
group's publication, The Ladder, from 1963 to 1966, and worked with Lahusen on
her 1973 book, ''The Gay Crusaders.''
She first became well known to the public in 1965, when she helped organize
gay-rights demonstrations at the White House and Independence Hall. In
2005, Gittings and Lahusen attended the unveiling of a state historic marker
noting those demonstrations across the street from Independence Hall.
Gittings had served as head of the American Library Association's Gay Task
Force; in 2003, the association presented her its highest honor, a lifetime
membership.
Gittings was also active in the campaign that led to the American Psychiatric
Association's 1973 decision to drop homosexuality from its list of mental
disorders.
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