Barbara Gittings

Barbara Gittings was a pioneering gay rights activist who helped challenge discrimination and increase the visibility of LGBTQ+ people. In 1958, she founded the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis and later edited The Ladder (1963–1966), introducing photo covers of lesbians at a time when gay people were largely invisible in the media. She took part in some of the first gay rights pickets in 1965 at the White House and Independence Hall. Gittings later led the Gay Task Force of the American Library Association (1971–1986), promoting LGBTQ+ literature and programming. She also played a role in advocacy within psychiatry, participating in a 1972 APA panel challenging the classification of homosexuality as a mental illness and producing exhibits such as “Gay Love: Good Medicine” (1978), which presented gay people as healthy and normal.