Fact Sheet
Fast Facts on Gay and Lesbian Philadelphia
- Poet Walt Whitman lived across the Delaware River in Camden, N.J. from
1870 until his death in 1892. The Leaves of Grass author’s modest
wood frame house is now open for tours, and one of the bridges spanning the
Delaware is named in his honor.
- Philadelphia was the site of some of the nation’s first gay rights
protests – before the landmark Stonewall Riots that took place in New York
City. During the "Annual Reminders" held each July 4th
from 1965 to 1969, protesters picketed in front of Independence Hall.
- The Gay Raiders, a Philadelphia-based activist group, led a national
campaign to change the TV networks’ portrayal of gays and lesbians. The
group’s most famous "zap" took place in 1973 when activist Mark
Segal (now publisher of Philadelphia Gay News) interrupted the CBS
Evening News with Walter Cronkite bearing a placard that read,
"Gays protest CBS bigotry."
- In 1975, Pennsylvania, under Governor Milton Shapp, was the first state to
create an official governmental commission to look into the problems of
sexual minorities.
- Philadelphia Gay News,
established in 1976, is one of the nation’s
oldest and most respected gay newspapers.
- In 1982, Philadelphia became one of the first cities in the country to
pass an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.
- Philadelphia’s International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, held each
July since 1995, is now the largest such event in the nation outside of
California.
- Philadelphia’s 1997 domestic partners law was the first in the country
to provide a tax break for gay and lesbian couples. The law eliminated the
city’s real estate transfer tax when property changes hands between
domestic partners or a partner’s name is added to a property’s deed.
- Philadelphia’s William Way Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT)
Community Center, which opened in 1997 as a successor to the former Penguin
Place, was developed with a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development. The Center is one of the few gay community centers in the
nation to be established with federal funds.
- Since 1999, the gay and lesbian community has been the city’s only
minority group to have its own liaison to the police department and a
liaison committee with community representation to ensure a positive working
relationship with the police.
- Longtime area activist Barbara Gittings, for whom a gay and lesbian
collection is named at the Independence branch of the Free Library of
Philadelphia, is nationally known for her work compiling the first gay
bibliography for the American Library Association and lobbying the American
Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its list of mental
illnesses.
- Philadelphia’s gay and lesbian population has developed an extensive
network of support in the community, including having their own GLBT
community center, a separate youth center, a health center, a center for
protecting and advocating civil rights, three churches and a synagogue.
- Philadelphia has two long running gay and lesbian programs on public radio’s
WXPN 88.5 FM, Amazon Country and Q’zine (both more than
25-years-old), as well as one of the nation’s first gay, call-in TV talk
shows, Your Lesbian and Gay Connection, on local PBS affiliate WYBE-TV,
Channel 35.
The Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation is a non-profit
organization dedicated to generating awareness of and visitation to
Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties. For more
information about travel to Philadelphia, visit www.gophila.com
or call the new Independence Visitor Center, located in Independence National
Historical Park, at (800) 537-7676.
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