Philadelphia

First Out Federal Judge

b. April 13, 1947
d. February 3, 2020

“I'm a mother, I’m an African American. I’m a lesbian.”

Deborah Batts was the first openly gay federal judge. She presided over prominent cases involving political corruption, terrorism and criminal justice. A trailblazer for women, African Americans and LGBTQ people, she is remembered as a devoted jurist whose humanity inspired generations of lawyers.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Batts graduated from Harvard Law School in 1972. She worked in private practice before becoming an assistant U.S. attorney in the Criminal Division of the Southern District of New York. In 1984 she joined Fordham University as a law professor.

In 1994, President Clinton nominated Batts for a federal judgeship. Her sexual orientation, about which she was open, was not an issue. The Senate unanimously confirmed her. Batts, who addressed her sexual orientation publicly, did not want to be known for that single aspect of her identity. “I’m a mother, I’m an African American, I’m a lesbian, I’m a former professor,” she said.

Batts presided over many high-profile cases, including the decade-long civil litigation brought by the Central Park Five, a group of minority youth who were wrongly convicted of the widely publicized assault and rape of a female jogger in 1989. In 2007 Batts denied the motion to dismiss the case against the City of New York, which lead to $41 million settlement. She presided over the civil lawsuit in which New York residents accused the former EPA Administrator, Christine Todd Whitman, of making misleading statements about the air quality at the World Trade Center site after the attacks of September 11.

A lifelong advocate for equality and justice, Batts worked closely with a mentoring program that sought to increase diversity among lawyers appointed for indigent defenders. She also worked with RISE, a program aimed at reducing recidivism among at-risk offenders.

Batts’s presence on the bench served as an inspiration for the openly gay federal judges who followed. According to Judge Pamela Chen, Batts “literally broke down the closet door and allowed the rest of us to walk through it.”

Batts died at age 72. She is survived by her wife, Dr. Gwen Zornberg, and her children, Alexandra and James McCown.

Filmmaker

b. May 13, 1966

“… There are other people with stories to tell.”

Cheryl Dunye is a Liberian-born American lesbian filmmaker, actor and educator. Her films highlight social and cultural issues surrounding African-Americans and the LGBT community, most notably, black lesbians.
 
Dunye grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Temple University and her Master of Fine Arts from Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts. In 1992 Art Matters Inc. awarded her a fellowship. The following year, her work appeared in the Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Dunye has made more than 15 films whose themes explore the intersection of race, sexuality and personal identity. Emerging as part of the Queer New Cinema movement of the 1990s, she began her career producing short film narratives. A compilation of her work from 1990 to 1994, “Early Works of Cheryl Dunye,” is available on DVD.

In 1996 Dunye wrote, directed, edited and starred in the romantic comedy-drama “The Watermelon Woman,” her first feature film and the first full-length narrative made by and about a black lesbian. It won the Teddy Award for Best Feature Film at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Feature at L.A. Outfest. Her next project, “Stranger Inside” (2001), an HBO drama about black lesbian prison inmates, earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination for best director.

Dunye’s other films include “My Baby’s Daddy (2004),” a comedy that grossed $18.5 million against a $12 million budget; “The Owls” (2010); “Mommy is Coming” (2012); and “Black is Blue” (2014), a sci-fi film set in a futuristic Oakland, California, that explores black queer transgender love.

Dunye cites American film directors Woody Allen and Spike Lee as her artistic influences and Charles Burnett’s “Killer of Sheep” (1978) as a significant source of inspiration. Her distinctive style often breaks the fourth wall: characters directly address the camera, blurring the line between the actors and the audience. Industry insiders have labeled her creative mix of fact and fiction “Dunyementary.”

In addition to filmmaking, Dunye is a professor at San Francisco State University School of Cinema. She has taught at universities from coast to coast, including UCLA and Temple University. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Among other honors, Dunye received the Community Vision Award from the National Center for Lesbian Rights in 2004 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016.

She lives in Oakland, California, with her two children.

Blues Performer

b. August 12, 1907
d. January 18, 1960

“It seems I was born different. At least, I always thought I was.”

Gladys Bentley was a celebrated African-American blues singer and pianist. Her cross-dressing lesbian persona, deep voice and bawdy lyrics catapulted her to fame during the Harlem Renaissance.

Born in Philadelphia, the eldest child of an African-American father and a Trinidadian mother, Bentley grew up poor. She felt scorned, particularly by her mother, who wanted a son. Bentley believed the rejection helped shape the gender nonconformity she exhibited from an early age.

In school Bentley faced ridicule for wearing boys’ clothes and for her crushes on female teachers. Doctors eventually diagnosed her with “extreme social maladjustment.” At age 16, no longer able to endure the abuse she received from her family and peers, she moved to New York City’s Harlem neighborhood.

The 1920s welcomed an explosion of African-American arts and culture in Harlem, and Bentley flourished there. Wearing men’s formal attire, which became her trademark, she quickly found success performing at local speakeasies and blues clubs. She recorded with a variety of music labels and signed for a year with OKeh Records.

Bentley adopted the stage name Bobbie Minton and headlined at Harry Hansberry’s Clam House, a popular nightspot frequented by gays and lesbians. She later headlined at the Ubangi Club, backed by a chorus of drag queens. Bentley sang unabashedly about sexuality and male abuse of power. She quickly became one of the most famous entertainers—and famous lesbians—in Harlem. After earning acclaim in New York, she toured nationwide, performing in Chicago, Hollywood and other major cities.

Though interracial and same-sex marriage were illegal, Bentley married a white woman in 1931 in a public civil ceremony in Atlantic City, New Jersey. As the decade pressed on and the Great Depression shrouded the nation, social mores began to shift. Prohibition ended, and Bentley tried unsuccessfully to bring her act to Broadway. Her performances were often shut down by police. In 1937 she moved to Los Angeles, where her success continued, but some club owners forced her to wear dresses.

In the 1950s, McCarthyism all but extinguished tolerance in America, and Bentley tried to transform her image. In a 1953 Jet magazine article, she announced that she had transitioned from the “third sex” to a “true female.” She dressed like a woman and claimed to have married a man, Charles Roberts, a Los Angeles cook.

Bentley died of pneumonia at her Los Angeles home. Almost 60 years later, The New York Times published her obituary as part of its “Overlooked” series.

Trailblazing Politician

b. May 8, 1929
d. December 16, 1981

“BFR—a black, female Republican, an entity as rare as a black elephant and just as smart.”

Dr. Ethel Allen was an osteopath and a groundbreaking Republican politician. She became the first African-American woman on the Philadelphia City Council.

A Philadelphia native, Allen expressed an interest in medicine from the age of 5. Her father did not attend high school and worked as a self-employed tailor. Allen’s uncle, a dentist, helped spark her interest in becoming a doctor. A back injury she sustained in early adulthood influenced her interest in osteopathy.

Allen faced deeply entrenched discrimination as an African-American woman. Most medical schools made her admission nearly impossible. After graduating from the all-black West Virginia State College, she persevered for seven years before gaining admission to the Philadelphia College of Osteopathy. Prior to medical school, she trained as a chemist and worked for a time at the Atomic Energy Commission.

Allen became an osteopath in 1963. She practiced in many of Philadelphia’s poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods. She founded the Community Committee on Medical School Admissions to help increase the numbers of African-American students applying and gaining admission to medical schools.

Allen described herself as a “BFR—a black, female Republican, an entity as rare as a black elephant and just as smart.” In 1972 she was elected to the Philadelphia City Council, making her the first African-American woman to hold the position. After her reelection in 1976, she became the first African-American member to hold an at-large seat.

As a councilwoman, Allen sponsored legislation to tackle crime—a problem she witnessed firsthand—and legislation to combat urban gangs through creation of the Philadelphia Youth Commission. During this time, Esquire magazine named her one of the 12 most outstanding female politicians in the United States.

In 1976 Allen delivered a speech at the Republican National Convention in support of Gerald Ford’s presidential nomination. In 1979 she was appointed Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which made her the highest-ranking African-American woman in the state.

Although she kept her sexuality private, Allen was openly lesbian among her close friends. In February 1976 Governor Milton Shapp of Pennsylvania issued an executive order to create the Pennsylvania Council for Sexual Minorities. A few months later, Allen successfully requested that the governor issue a proclamation in support of gay pride week.

Allen died at age 52, after undergoing heart surgery. The New York Times published her obituary. The Dr. Ethel Allen Elementary School in Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion neighborhood was named in her honor.

Documentary Filmmaker

b. October 12, 1957
d. November 7, 2017

“We all know plenty of gay people who have won Academy Awards, but we’re all just quiet about it. I couldn’t imagine having that profound of an honor and not acknowledging my partner.” 

Debra Hill Chasnoff was an American documentary filmmaker and activist. She won the 1992 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject for “Deadly Deception.” In her acceptance speech, Chasnoff became the first Academy Award recipient to acknowledge a same-sex partner during the ceremony’s live national telecast. She came out in doing so. 

Chasnoff was born in Philadelphia and grew up in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. Her father, Joel Chasnoff, was a Maryland state legislator and her mother, Selina Sue Prosen, was a psychologist. In 1978 Chasnoff graduated with a degree in economics from Wellesley College.

Chasnoff made 12 documentary films. With her production company, GroundSpark, she produced and distributed documentaries covering social issues such as income inequality, environmental rights and LGBT rights. The company’s mission was to “create films and dynamic education campaigns that move individuals and communities to take action for a more just world.” Films like “That’s a Family” (2000) exposed students nationwide to diverse households of multiracial families and same-sex parents. 

Chasnoff’s influential first film, “Choosing Children” (1984), showcased six same-sex American couples raising children through adoption, biological donors or fostering. It won Best Short Documentary at the New York Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and First Prize from the National Educational Film Festival. The New York Times reported that the film “inspired many gay and lesbian couples to start raising families of their own.” 

In 1991 Chasnoff directed and produced “Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment.” The exposé earned her the 1992 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject. In accepting the award, Chasnoff thanked her then partner, Kim Klausner.  

In addition to filmmaking, Chasnoff was a visiting scholar in public policy at Mills College in California. Mayor Art Agnos of San Francisco appointed her vice chair of the city’s Film and Video Arts Commission. She also served on the advisory boards of the San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and the Jewish Voices for Peace organization. 

At age 60, Chasnoff died of breast cancer. She was survived by her spouse Nancy Otto, an artist and nonprofit fundraiser, and two sons from her relationship with Klausner. The New York Times published Chasnoff’s obituary.

Gay Pioneer

b. January 5, 1930
d. May 26, 2021

“Whatever the Founding Fathers envisioned as the rights and privileges of our citizens, we wanted for ourselves.”

Kay Lahusen, also known as Kay Tobin Lahusen and Kay Tobin, is the first openly lesbian photojournalist in America. She was among the first women to chronicle and participate in the early gay rights movement. Her photographs appeared on the covers of some of the first LGBT publications in the nation, including The Ladder and Gay Newsweekly. 

In 1961 Lahusen joined the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), the first lesbian organization in the United States. Shortly thereafter, she met Barbara Gittings, an activist who started the East Coast Chapter of the DOB and who is regarded as the mother of the LGBT civil rights movement. The pair began a lifelong relationship and became one of the most influential, pioneering lesbian couples in America.

Lahusen initially garnered national attention in 1965, when she photographed and also protested in the first of what became a series of seminal public demonstrations for gay and lesbian equality. Spearheaded by Barbara Gittings and Frank Kameny, these first organized pickets were held in Philadelphia each Fourth of July from 1965 to 1969 in front of Independence Hall. Known as Annual Reminders, the demonstrations paved the way for the Stonewall riot in 1969.

In addition to her work as a photojournalist, Lahusen worked at one of the first gay bookshops in the country, the Oscar Wilde Bookstore in New York City, and with Gittings for the gay caucus of the American Library Association. Lahusen cofounded the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) and later the Gay Women’s Alternative in New York City. 

Lahusen collaborated with many Gay Pioneers, including Frank Kameny and Jack Nichols, to publicize LGBT issues and present accurate, positive depictions of gays and lesbians. In 1972 she co-authored “The Gay Crusaders,” the first collection of short biographies of gay activists. 

During her lifetime, Lahusen photographed thousands of events and activists of the gay rights movement. Her collection of writings and photos, along with Gittings’s writings and papers, is archived at the New York Public Library.

Lahusen and Gittings remained together for 46 years. Shortly before Gittings’s death in 2007, the couple moved to the Philadelphia suburb of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Lahusen will be buried alongside Gittings at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. The New York Times published her obituary.

Updated May 26, 2021.

Psychiatrist and Dr. H. Anonymous

b. November 7, 1937
d. February 21, 2003

“I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist.”

John E. Fryer, M.D., challenged the designation of homosexuality as a mental illness at the 1972 convention of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Seated on a panel and disguised as Dr. H. Anonymous, he announced his homosexuality at a time when a medical license could be revoked on that basis. Fryer declared himself a proud member of the APA and explained that homosexuality was not the illness, but rather the toxic effects of homophobia.

Since 1952 the APA had listed homosexuality as a mental disorder in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Fryer’s actions were pivotal in the declassification of homosexuality as a disease.

The DSM classification was first attacked in the 1960s by Gay Pioneer Frank Kameny, a Harvard-educated Ph.D. astronomer. Kameny and fellow activist Barbara Gittings waged a multi-year campaign against the APA. In 1971 after storming the APA’s annual meeting, they were permitted to organize a panel discussion on homosexuality for the 1972 convention. 

When no other gay psychiatrist would participate, Gittings recruited Dr. John Fryer. Concealing his identity with a mask and a voice modulator, he declared, “I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist.” He described the hardships homophobia imposed on homosexual psychiatrists and patients. “This is the greatest loss, our honest humanity,” he said, “and that loss leads all those around us to lose that little bit of their humanity as well.” The conventioneers were transfixed. Subsequently, the APA formed a panel to evaluate the basis for the DSM classification. In 1973 homosexuality was delisted as a mental illness.

Fryer earned his medical degree from Vanderbilt University and began his psychiatric residency at the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas, but grew depressed from hiding his sexual orientation. He relocated to pursue his residency at the University of Pennsylvania, but was forced to leave for being gay. He completed his residency at nearby Norristown State Hospital. 

In 1967 Fryer joined the medical faculty at Temple University where he became a professor of psychiatry and family and community medicine. He was employed at Temple at the time of his panel appearance. Having been forced from residency and at least one job for being gay, he took a considerable risk, even disguised. “It had to be said,” he wrote in 1985, “But I couldn't do it as me. I was not yet full time on the faculty.” 

Fryer lived in Philadelphia until his death. In 2006 the APA named an annual civil rights award after him. Barbara Gittings and Frank Kameny were its first recipients.

Marriage Equality Hero

b. June 20, 1929
d. September 12, 2017

“I trust the Constitution. Sometimes there’s a mistake but mostly we move forward. I think justice will prevail.”

Edith “Edie” Windsor was the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case United States v. Windsor, a landmark legal victory for marriage equality.

Windsor is a former top-ranking technology manager at IBM, where she began her employment in 1958. In 1987 the National Computing Conference honored her as a Pioneer in Operating Systems. 

In 1963 Windsor met Thea Spyer, a psychologist, in New York. The two began a lifelong relationship, which they hid from their employers for many years. The couple were engaged for 42 years.

When Spyer was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Windsor became her caregiver, eventually entering a domestic partnership with her in New York in 1993. Because the state did not yet offer same-sex marriage rights, the couple wed in Canada in 2007, two years before Spyer’s death. 

The couple’s inability to legally marry prompted Windsor to publicly advocate for marriage equality and to take her case to court. No stranger to LGBT activism, Windsor provided leadership in numerous LGBT organizations and regularly participated with Spyer in history-making LGBT rights events. 

In New York, Windsor volunteered for East End gay organizations, the LGBT Community Center, and the 1994 Gay Games. She helped form Old Queers Acting Up, an improv group that uses comedy to address social issues, and she served on the board of the Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE).

Windsor’s court battle propelled her into the national spotlight. When she filed a lawsuit in 2010, she sought to claim the federal estate tax exemption for surviving spouses. Although she and her partner were legally wed in Canada, the U.S. Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) limited the federal definition of “spouse” to heterosexual unions only. In 2013 the Supreme Court ruled in Windsor’s favor, overturning Section 3 of DOMA and setting a precedent that laid the groundwork for national marriage equality. Shortly after the 2015 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage in the United States, Equality Forum honored Edie Windsor's contributions with its 20th Annual International Role Model Award.

Windsor’s story is featured in the 2009 documentary “Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement.” Windsor died in New York in 2017. She was 88.

Tennis Champion

b. February 10, 1893
d. June 5, 1953

“Never change a winning game; always change a losing one.”

Bill Tilden is considered one of the greatest men’s tennis champions in history. He was the No. 1 player in the world for six years, from 1920 to 1925. During that time, he became the first American to win Wimbledon.

Born to privilege in Philadelphia, he first picked up a racket as a small child. By the time he was 22, he had lost both parents and his brother. Struggling with immense grief, he preoccupied himself with tennis, which became his primary means of recovery. He wrote about the game in several noteworthy books, including “Match Play and the Spin of the Ball.” By 27, he had attained championship status.

Tilden’s countless wins include 14 major singles titles: a World Hard Court Championship, 10 Grand Slams and three Pro Slams. He also won a record seven U.S. Championships. His all-time tennis achievements include a career match-winning record and winning percentage at the U.S. National Championships. 

Tilden won his third and final Wimbledon in 1930 at age 37, before turning pro. He was the oldest man to win a Wimbledon singles title. He went on to tour and was notorious for holding his own against much younger players. When Tilden was 52, he and his longtime doubles partner, Vinnie Richards, won the professional doubles championship—the same title they had won 27 years earlier.

Tilden was considered quite flamboyant. He dabbled in acting on stage and in film, and rumors about his homosexuality circulated. When he was arrested and imprisoned twice for sexual misbehavior with teenage boys, his world collapsed. He was shunned by his fans and fellow players and banned from teaching tennis at most clubs. Questions remain about whether he was targeted because of his sexuality. At the time, homosexual sex was illegal.

In 1959, Tilden was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island.

Singer

b. April 7, 1915, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

d. July 17, 1959, New York, New York

“I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my way of it.”

If one has to live the blues to sing the blues, it is no wonder that Billie Holiday became a legendary jazz/blues vocalist and songwriter and a seminal influence in phrasing, tempo and style.

Born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia, Holiday was raised in Baltimore. Her mother, Sadie Fagan, was a young teen when she gave birth to Billie. While Billie’s paternity is uncertain, jazz guitarist Clarence Holiday accepted that he was probably her father.

Holiday dropped out of school around the fifth grade when she started housekeeping for a brothel. At age 10, she was sexually assaulted and sent to a reform school. At age 13, she moved to Harlem to be with her mother. Captivated by the 1920s jazz sounds of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith, Holiday began singing at Harlem night clubs.

At age 18, she recorded songs with Benny Goodman, and by age 20, she had signed as a recording star with Brunswick Records. During this time, she recorded with the swing era’s greatest musicians.

In her mid-20s, Holiday was the lead vocalist for the Count Bassie Band. She moved to the Artie Shaw Band, where she was one of the first African-Americans to work with a white orchestra.

Holiday’s best-known recordings include “Summertime,” “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” “Easy Swing,” “Strange Fruit,” “I’ll Get By,” “Lover Man,” “Lady Sings the Blues,” and many other classics.

Holiday married jazz trombonist Jimmy Monroe. She divorced Monroe and married an abusive mafioso, Louis McKay. Though married, she is said to have had affairs with Hollywood stars and starlets, most notably Tallulah Bankhead.

Due to heroin addiction and fiscal mismanagement, Holiday died destitute at 44 years old.