“Where there is love, there is life.” — Mahatma Gandhi
This June, cities around the world will be awash in rainbow colors in honor of Pride Month. The annual celebration recognizes and commemorates the LGBTQIA+ community’s accomplishments and contributions. Many U.S. cities will host parades, marches, celebrations, and other events to mark the occasion.
Pride Month traces its roots back to the Stonewall Riots. Early on the morning of June 28, 1969, hundreds of patrons and supporters of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York City, fought back when police raided the bar and roughed up patrons and employees. The incident led to six days of protests and violent clashes with police outside of the bar on Christopher Street and neighboring streets. Their act of defiance of social and political discrimination is considered the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. Several gay rights organizations, such as the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD, and PFLAG, were formed years after the uprising to promote acceptance and equality.
The Stonewall Inn was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999 by the U.S. National Park Service. In 2016, President Barack Obama designated the site as a national monument. Despite decades of progress, LGBTQIA+ citizens continue to fight for equality as political groups, stateside and in other countries, attempt to limit or restrict rights. Learn more about the fight for equality at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
LGBTQIA+ Pioneers in Healthcare
There are many unsung heroes in the LGBTQIA+ rights movement. Below are a few individuals who impacted healthcare.
- Valerie Stone, MD Dr. Stone is a physician and vice-chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She was the first African American to become a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and is a nationally recognized expert on HIV/AIDS. In 2020, the Massachusetts Medical Society honored her with the Society’s LGBTQ Health Award for her contributions to LGBTQ health.
- Admiral Rachel L. Levine, MD Dr. Rachel Levine is a pediatrician and four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and U.S. assistant secretary for health since March 2021. She served as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health from 2017 to 2021 and, in 2021, became the first openly transgender four-star officer in the nation’s eight uniformed services.
- Bertha Wright Bertha Wright founded the first nursing school in Alameda County, established the Berkeley Day Nursery, the first public child daycare center in California, and helped found the Baby Hospital in Oakland, later known as the Children’s Hospital Oakland, the city’s first children’s hospital.
- Alan Hart American physician, radiologist, and tuberculosis researcher Alan Hart helped develop a TB screening program and save thousands of lives when the disease was the largest killer in the U.S. Born Alberta Lucille Hart, Hart graduated from the University of Oregon Medical School and was the first woman to receive the Saylor medal for being the top student in all departments. After graduating, Hart became one of the first trans men to undergo hysterectomy and gonadectomy in the US.
- Dr. John Fryer A year after American psychiatrist and gay rights activist Dr. John Ercel Fryer’s anonymous speech at the 1972 American Psychiatric Association (APA) annual conference in which he told the audience, “I am a homosexual… I am a psychiatrist,” the APA reversed its century-old position and declared homosexuality was not a mental disorder.
- Bruce Voeller, Ph.D. Dr. Bruce Voeller was a biologist, AIDS researcher, and activist who introduced nonoxynol-9 as a spermicide and topical virus-transmission preventative. Voeller won a five-year fellowship at the Rockefeller Institute and was a specialist in human sexuality and sexually transmitted diseases.
- Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer Grethe immigrated to the US from Norway, joined the Army Nurse Corps in 1961 as a student, and volunteered for service in Vietnam. Grethe was forced to leave the Army when she became pregnant with her first son. She would later join the Army Reserves only to later be dishonorably discharged when she disclosed she was a lesbian during a security clearance interview. Grethe challenged the ruling and was reinstated. Her story was depicted in the film “Serving in Silence.”
- Dr. Sara Josephine Baker Dr. Sara Josephine Baker was the first woman to earn a doctorate in public health from New York University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College. She would make significant contributions to public health, particularly within immigrant communities. She helped organize and became the first director of the New York City Bureau of Child Hygiene. Additionally, she is known for tracking down Mary Mallon (Typhoid Mary) twice. Baker was in a long-term relationship with screenwriter Ida Wylie.
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