Anti-LGBTQ Bills Being Introduced Today Echo Movements From Years Past

By Andrew Shaffer–

Each of the last two years has set a record for the number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures across the U.S. This year is likely to smash these records yet again.

Some bills would prohibit trans kids from accessing vital healthcare services, team sports, or even using the bathroom. Others ban teachers from discussing LGBTQ history in schools, or force them to out students against their will. Still others remove pride flags and drag performances from public display. All of them seek to disconnect LGBTQ people—from each other, from history, and even from ourselves.

This is not the first time we have seen these anti-LGBTQ crusaders. The bills being introduced today echo movements from years past, when figures like John Briggs and Anita Bryant argued that “saving the children” required pushing LGBTQ people and our history back into the closet.

Proposition 6, also known as the Briggs Initiative, was a failed California ballot proposition that would have banned gay and lesbian people from working in California schools. Although it was spearheaded by state legislator Briggs, the public face was Bryant, a singer and former beauty queen who was the spokesperson for the Florida Citrus Commission. Bryant’s successful efforts to repeal a Dade County ordinance banning discrimination based on sexual orientation had galvanized opposition to LGBTQ rights in several states, including Oklahoma and Arkansas, which banned queer people from teaching in public schools.

The defeat of the Briggs Initiative was a significant turning point in queer history. Opposition to the proposition was swift, passionate, and creative. Queer people canvassed, wrote letters to the editors, and came out to loved ones and neighbors to teach the public that they were already a part of civic and professional life. In the end, the Briggs Initiative became the first anti-LGBTQ bill defeated in the voting booth.

The GLBT Historical Society’s archives are full of stories of both repression and resistance, of joys and struggles. The latest exhibition in our museum, You Are Here: Claiming Your Place in History, offers an invitation to connect to this history, from 1950s gender-bending performers, to the movements for marriage equality today.

This interactive exhibition is an invitation to find where you belong in history, and to understand how your own life is shaped by the movements and struggles of the past. You Are Here: Claiming Your Place in History opens on Thursday, April 11, at the GLBT Historical Society Museum in the Castro district. Learn more at https://www.glbthistory.org/museum

Andrew Shaffer is the Director of Development and Communications for the GLBT Historical Society.

Community Treasures from the GLBT Historical Society Archives
Published on April 4, 2024