FROM STONEWALL TO THE AIDS EPIDEMIC: 1969-1981

Gay and lesbian life in Bloomington in the summer of 1969 responded to the same currents that moved similar communities nationwide. The Stonewall Riots did not result in a sudden break with past, but they did inspire a new wave of activism, and new forms of organizing, that gradually gathered strength. Within a year of Stonewall, Bloomington had a Gay Liberation Front organization; over the next decade it experienced many of the same successes and failures that characterized queer experience elsewhere in the United States: a new sense of pride and visibility, the first wave of community-based service organizations, contentious intra-community struggles over sexism and racism, disagreements about politics, and a serious right-wing backlash that overturned some early civil rights victories.

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Gay Liberation Front in Bloomington

Christine Jorgensen Visits the IU Campus

Famous Queer Visitors at IU and in Bloomington

Women's Spaces and Lesbians in Feminism

a room of one's own ad, editorial drawing

Bloomington's Early Queer Conferences and Gatherings

invitation, kameny photo

Gay and Lesbian Academe at Indiana University

picture of martha vicinus, gay studies excerpt, homosexuality course

film poster

Bloomington Human Rights Ordinance

Queer-centric Spaces

coffee house ad

Queer Community Organizations of the 1970s

new horizons poster/newsletter