He notes that a pioneer Denver physician warned fellow doctors about the evils of “male prostitution” in an 1882 address to the Colorado Medical Society. Noel also suggests that the demographics of nineteenth-century Denver, with its dominance of young, sexually aggressive males, could have created favorable conditions for homosexuality. He cites an 1885 story linked to an alleged homosexual male leaving “Moses’ Home,” a saloon on Fifteenth and Larimer Streets. Noel mentioned in a 1978 essay what could have been an early Denver gay bar. However, court records and a few Denver newspaper articles addressed the act of sodomy, sometimes called “buggery” or “crimes against nature.” Thomas J. Leffler - Library of Congressīecause homosexuality was not an open topic for discussion throughout much of human history, its presence in nineteenth-century Colorado went largely undocumented. Gay rights activists demonstrate at the Democratic National Convention, New York City, 1976. The riots’ first anniversary initiated gay pride marches in New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago three years after that anniversary, the public displays of activism would come to Denver. Following the riots, the first gay rights organizations formed in New York City, then spread across the nation and world.
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The lilies of the valley had become carnivorous jungle plants.” Gay men, transvestites, and lesbians fought the police during riots that lasted six days and, according to author David Carter, sparked the gay rights movement. The girls instinctively reached for each other. The New York Daily News wrote that “while ridiculing the effeminate men and drag queens among the patrons, ll hell broke loose when the police entered the Stonewall. However, according to media and eyewitness accounts, what motivated the police raid on the night of June 28, 1969, was not that the bar patrons slept with people of the same sex, but that they were gender-nonconforming men, or drag queens-men who dress up as women for entertainment purposes. At the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village, police harassment was nothing new. Gay community life initially centered around gay bars, which became hubs of many social and activist movements in the late 1960s and 1970s. Not only does PrideFest serve as a time for members and friends of the GLBT community to connect, have fun, demonstrate gay pride, and show support for gay rights it also commemorates a pivotal moment in gay rights history, the Stonewall Riots. The event’s evolution in Denver reflects social and political changes affecting the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) community through the decades.
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Contact National & State Register StaffĪlthough no designated landmark pays tribute to Denver’s gay and lesbian history, the annual PrideFest celebration has anchored the community since June 1974.Recent Listings in the National & State Registers.Colorado State Register of Historic Properties.Preservation Planning Unit Resource Center.Information for Archaeologists, Paleontologists and Researchers.Information for Students and Volunteers.Information for Museums and Curatorial Repositories.State-Approved Museums and Curatorial Repositories Expand.Office of Archaeology & Historic Preservation.Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation.Federal Historic Tax Credit Impact in Colorado.Archaeology & Historic Preservation Month.Program for Avocational Archaeological Certification (PAAC) Expand.
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About the State Historic Preservation Office Expand.