September 18 - National
The movie “Maurice” is released. In 1909, Maurice Hall enters Cambridge, where he befriends wealthy Clive Durham. Clive confesses he is sexually attracted to Maurice, who realizes he is a homosexual when he begins to return Clive's feelings. The two embark on an intense but chaste affair to avoid tarnishing Clive's reputation, but eventually the relationship ends, and Clive marries Anne. While visiting Clive, Maurice is drawn toward his friend's servant, Alec Scudder.
February 1 - National
Mark-Wayne Harris has one issue of DANSE, featuring a lesbian lead character, published.
April 1 - National
The Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLOC) is founded with the goal of fighting against ageism and for lesbian rights.
November 6 - National
Threatened with a gay boycott, Atlanta-based Delta Airlines apologizes for discriminating against people with AIDS.
Lady Elaine Peacock
Founder Peacock in the Park
January 1 – California
“Principles of Community” from the Vice President of Student Affairs is the first published announcement in the Daily Trojan.
October 15 - National
Jerry Smith, Washington Redskins (1965-77) dies of AIDS. Smith never came out, but Dave Kopay writes in his book that Jerry Smith was his first love.
United States LGBT History for 1987
March 25 - Washington D.C.
ACT UP stages its first major demonstration, seventeen protesters are arrested
January 1 – California
The Bay Area Bisexual Network, the oldest and largest bisexual group in the San Francisco Bay Area, was founded by Lani Ka'ahumanu, Ann Justi and Maggi Rubenstein.
January 1 - Oregon
Governor Neil Goldschmidt signs an executive order that forbids discrimination against gays in the hiring and firing of state employees.
January 1 – National
Vincent Lardo a gay genre writer publishes his novel “Mask of Narcissus”
August 2 - Washington D.C.
Reagan prohibits federal agencies from discriminating against employees infected with HIV, but refuses to seek a law banning such discrimination nationwide, as recommended by his AIDS commission. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., comments: "The Reagan administration has done its best to avoid making even a single helpful AIDS decision in the eight years of the Reagan presidency. They handpick a commission and then don't even have the courage to accept its recommendations."
January 1 - Massachusetts
Boston’s Gay Community News publishes a satire of anti-gay propaganda, beginning “Tremble, Hetero Swine! We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lives. We will raise vast private armies ... to defeat ... the family unit.” Anti-gay groups seize on the article as proof of a “secret homosexual agenda.”
June 1 - National
The Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly calls for UUs to support legal equality for gays and lesbians by working to overturn legislation restricting rights of gays and lesbians, including boycotting products and services of organizations that have a policy of discrimination.
September 27 - Oregon
Cascade AIDS Project announces the creation of an AIDS Hot Line for the state of Oregon. Local and Toll-free numbers make it available to all for free. Staff would answer questions on a wide range of topics: how the virus is transmitted, how the disease progresses and how to avoid exposure to the virus that causes the incurable disease.
President Ronald Reagan
October 1 - National
GREGORIO DE LA VEGA, soon to become the first gay super-hero EXTRANO, and the first clearly LGBT character in CCA-approved comics, first appears in MILLENIUM #2
ACT UP Demonstration
April 2 - Washington D.C.
After years of negligent silence, President Ronald Reagan finally uses the word "AIDS" in public. By then, 25,000 people have died of it. Reagan sides with his Education Secretary, William Bennett, and other conservatives who say the Government should not provide sex education information. On April 2, 1987, Reagan states: "How that information is used must be up to schools and parents, not government. But let's be honest with ourselves, AIDS information can not be what some call 'value neutral.' After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don't medicine and morality teach the same lessons?"
January 1 - New York
Veneita Porter, director of the New York State Office of AIDS Discrimination, helped design the first educational projects and trainings for state workers, hearing judges and legal staff.
January 1 - Washington D.C.
Rep. Barney Frank (D) becomes the first member of the U.S. Congress to come out publicly as homosexual.
January 5 - National
After a motion from the Vatican more DignityUSA chapters are informed by their Bishops that they can no longer use Church property for their meetings. Included are Atlanta, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Nassau, New York, Pensacola, Richmond, Suffolk, Vancouver, BC, Washington DC. The evictions are a direct result of the October 1986 Vatican Letter which states that groups which do not agree with church teachings cannot meet on church property.
October 11 - Washington D.C.
National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights drew over 500,000 people, making it the
largest civil rights demonstration in U.S. history. This date became National Coming Out Day. The march is organized to demand that President Ronald Reagan address the AIDS crisis. Although AIDS had been reported first in 1981, it is not until the end of his presidency that Reagan speaks publicly about the epidemic. The event, the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt is displayed for the first time. At that time, the quilt covers the area of two football fields. It is stretched over 2 city blocks and integrates 1,920 panels, commemorating more than 200 persons who have died of AIDS. October 11 later becomes National Coming Out Day as an annual celebration of the march.
Over 70 lesbian and gay Latina/o activists representing 13 states and 33 cities participate in the second national March on Washington. They meet and decide to create a national network. National Latino/a Lesbian and Gay Activists.
January 1 - National
Toby Johnson publishes “Plague: A Novel about Healing”
January 1 – Michigan
Gay Community News is barred from Michigan prison system.
Jerry Smith
Washington Redskins
January 1 – Michigan
Uproar cancels Ann Arbor speech by representative of the North American Man-Boy Love Association.
April 4 - National
First Counselor Gordon B. Hinckley tells priesthood session of general conference “marriage should not be viewed as a therapeutic step to solve problems such as homosexual inclinations or practices…” This reverses decades-long church policy formulated by Spencer W. Kimball.
February 2 - California
Archbishop Roger Mahony of Los Angeles establishes an archdiocesan Ministry with Gay and Lesbian Catholics.
Neil Goldschidt
Oregon Governor
January 1 - Oregon
The Portland City Council approves an ordinance stating that city employees cannot be fired solely because they are gay or lesbian. The ordinance pulls together all the existing city personnel policies including the resolution adopted in 1974.
January 1 - National
The first issue of Ivan Velez, Jr.’s TALES OF THE CLOSET, a series about gay and lesbian teens comes out (Hettrick-Martin Institute, Summer/Fall 1987). Planned to run ten issues, nine have been published.
June 7 - Ohio
Marched to Fountain Square for Rally (Greater Cincinnati Gay & Lesbian Coalition)
Barney Frank (D)
November 1 - National
N. Leigh Dunlap produces the strip “MORGAN CALABRESE,” which is collected in two trade paperbacks
July 5 - Oregon
Lady Elaine Peacock hosts first "Peacock in the Park" celebrations in Washington Park Rose Garden & raises funds for Audria Edwards Youth Scholarship fund.
March 10 - New York
The AIDS advocacy group ACT UP (The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) is formed in response to the devastating effects the disease has had on the gay and lesbian community in New York and inaction in response to the epidemic in the U.S. Using direct action civil disobedience techniques, the group holds demonstrations against pharmaceutical companies profiteering from AIDS-related drugs as well as the lack of AIDS policies protecting patients from outrageous prescription prices. The group’s activism forces the federal government to take substantial action to fight AIDS for the first time.
October 15 - National
The Names Project Foundation is founded. It is the custodian of The AIDS Memorial Quilt, which also begins in 1987. The Quilt memorializes the lives of people who died of AIDS.
State equality and discrimination bills
January 1 – Delaware
During the initial AIDS crisis and resulting hysteria, a Delaware “sodomy” law is re-introduced in the Delaware House. After harsh condemnation by health officials and legislators, Speaker of the House B. Bradford Barnes (R) withdraws the bill with a “tearful apology.”
August 1 - National
Dancin’ nekkid with the angels: comic strips & stories for grown-ups collects Howard Cruse work.
January 1 - Utah
Representative Stephen J. Reese introduced SB 156 known as “Recognition of Common Law Marriages into the 1987 general session. The bill prohibited and “declared void” the marriage of a person “afflicted with acquired immune deficiency syndrome.” The bill passed, making Utah the only state to invalidate marriages if one partner contracted AIDS.
October 10 - Washington D.C.
Nearly 7,000 people witnessed a wedding on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Men and women cheered and threw rice and confetti as family, friends, and community members took part in the largest mass wedding in American history...But this was no ordinary wedding. And these were not typical brides and grooms. This wedding held special significance for its participants. Beyond the 'mass' nature of the celebration, something else was unique. The newlyweds that Saturday paired off as brides and brides, grooms and grooms. 'The Wedding,' as it came to be known, marked the symbolic beginning of nearly 2,000 same-sex marriages."
Copyright © Proud Scholars 2023.