Difference between revisions of "User:Nevada"

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== Nevada Out History Timeline - 1969 to 2009 ==
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== About the Las Vegas, Nevada Outhistory Project ==
  
 
(c) Dennis McBride, 2009
 
(c) Dennis McBride, 2009
  
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[[Category: Timelines]]
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=== Gay History in Nevada and Las Vegas ===
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[[Category: Las Vegas, Nevada]]
 
  
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On October 30, 1861, the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Nevada passed a law which read, "The infamous crime against nature, either with man or beast, shall subject the offender to be punished by imprisonment in the Territorial prison for a term not less than five years, and which may extend to life." For more than a hundred years what became known as Nevada Revised Statute 201.190—Nevada's sodomy law—was used to terrify, blackmail, and persecute gay people. As a result, the queer history of Nevada until the last half of the 20th century is a history of unjust criminal prosecution.
  
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===1969 – 1982: Foundations of a Community===
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Institutionalized repression isolated Nevada’s queer population from the rest of the country where there were stirrings of community through such organizations as the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, and through such shared events as the Stonewall Riots in June 1969.
  
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* '''1969''': Las Vegas entertainer Kenny Kerr remembers being at the Stonewall Riots
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Stonewall, however, was ignored by Nevada’s media. Gay life in the Silver State was restricted to bars, tea rooms, and private parties. Police at both ends of the state routinely conducted sting operations to entrap gay people, while the legislature tweaked NRS 201.190 to broaden its reach and deepen its punishment. In addition, political repression with religious roots--principally from the state’s Mormons--at all levels of government in the state kept Nevada’s gay people fearful and closeted. The concept of community was alien.
  
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* '''January 16, 1970''': Cocktail waitress Marge Jacques buys the Club de Paris and changes its name to [[Le Café]]. [[Le Café]] functions as the de facto gay and lesbian community center for Las Vegas, and in 1971 begins publishing ''Gay Notes'' from [[Le Café]], the gay community's first publication, compiled by Rafaél Navarré. [[Le Café ]]is torched and closes in 1978. [[Le Café]] set a new standard on the quality of gay bars in Las Vegas. Openly gay, Marge's political activities in the 1970s established the political consciousness of Las Vegas's gay community.
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There were activists in the state, however, who were unafraid to work openly. In Northern Nevada, Phil Ragsdale, who was Emperor I of the Silver Dollar Court, conceived of the Reno Gay Rodeo in 1975 as a fundraiser for the organization. The rodeo raised the profile of the state’s gay people and went far toward establishing community and national recognition.
  
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* '''March 14, 1974''': An article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal notes that Rev. Clonnie Lambert is pastor of a Las Vegas chapter of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC). In October, 1979, a new chapter of the Metropolitan Community Church in Las Vegas conducts its first service in St. Matthew's Episcopal Church at 4709 S. Nellis Boulevard. Rev. Ron Gee officiates and from this day MCC-Las Vegas becomes one of the cornerstones of the gay community.
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In Southern Nevada, lesbian Marge Jacques, who owned Le Café in Las Vegas in the 1970s, spoke publicly in behalf of her community. She provided a defacto community center in her bar—until it was torched in 1978. By then, however, Marge’s first efforts toward building community inspired others to be open and proactive. As Nevada’s population boomed in the 1980s and ‘90s, gay people from throughout the country brought their ideas and energy to establish organizations, clubs, and events.
  
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* '''May 1, 1975''': The American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] opens an office in Las Vegas with a $5,000 grant from the national office. In 1977, the ACLU-Las Vegas sponsors a gay rights seminar at the Clark County Library on Flamingo Road. The gay community’s first newspaper, ''Vegas Gay Times'', is published in 1978 "in conjunction with" the ACLU's Human Rights Committee.  
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While Nevada’s queer community was late to develop, its rise was rapid, so that by 1993 it had the political clout necessary to have the state’s notorious sodomy law repealed. By 2009, the community had obtained a variety of equal protections in state law, including employment nondiscrimination, health decisions and hospital visitation, and domestic partnership.
  
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* '''May 13, 1977''': ''Boylesque'' opens at the Silver Slipper Casino, starring Kenny Kerr as "Mr. Barbra Streisand, Mr. Marlene Dietrich, Mr. Carol Channing, and Mr. Diana Ross." The show sets a new standard for female impersonation productions, and soon becomes a Las Vegas institution. Initially reluctant to be openly gay, Kerr goes on to become one of the Las Vegas gay community's most thoughtful and honored leaders.  
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Despite recent gains, however important and hard-won, Nevada’s queer community still has a long way to go before it reaches the constitutional promise of full equality. Nevertheless, the community’s growth in Nevada, together with its increasing social and political capital, has been a remarkable and encouraging evolution.
  
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* '''July 31, 1977''': The ''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' begins a two-part series on gays in Las Vegas. The series is generally positive, but still depicts the gay community in Las Vegas as a shadowy netherworld turned in on itself through fear. Marge Jacques, owner of Le Café, reflects Las Vegas's homophobic attitude when she declines to give addresses for the city's other gay bars, and when she says, "Gays wear a mask here when they are in the straight world."
 
  
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* '''August 20-21, 1977''': The Comstock Gay Rodeo Association holds its "official" First Annual Gay Rodeo at the Washoe County Fairgrounds in Reno. The event is closed to the general public. Their presence in Reno is contentious. In 1981, Lt. Governor Myron Leavitt, remarking on the Reno Gay Rodeo, says, "I'm strongly opposed to queers using public property. ... They call them queers because they've got a screw loose." Governor Robert List follows this up on March 27 by complaining, "I just don't like the notion that the nation looks toward Nevada as the gay rodeo capital." Within a few years, the group reorganizes and moves its base of operation to southern Nevada. On August 10, 2002, the Nevada Gay Rodeo Association celebrates its 10th anniversary at Badlands.
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=== Contributors ===
  
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* '''January 13, 1979''': The first meeting of Nevadans for Human Rights [NHR] is held. Incorporated in the fall of 1978 as a non-profit political group, NHR is Nevada's first gay rights organization. NHR formally adopts the ''Vegas Gay Times'' as its newsletter.
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'''Dennis McBride''', Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas
  
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* '''March 15, 1979:''' Following on the heels of anti-gay state measures such as California’s recently defeated Proposition 6 (the “Briggs Initiative”), Democratic Assemblywoman Karen Hayes announces plans to introduce a bill allowing school officials to fire or refuse to hire gay people.
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'''Crystal Van Dee''', Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas
  
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* '''September 24, 1979''': Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt introduces the Family Protection Act of 1979 [Senate Bill 1808], a 57-page suckfest of conservative religious and social values that was, among other things, anti-abortion and anti-gay.
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'''Paul Ershler''', Lambda Business and Professional Association
  
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* '''January 27, 1980''': The Camp David bathhouse opens at 2631 South Highland Avenue. It becomes not only a center for socializing but an important site for safe sex education and activism.
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== List of Articles ==
  
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* '''June, 1982''': The Southern Nevada Social Service Center, which operates Las Vegas's Gay Switchboard, releases a detailed master plan to establish a Las Vegas Gay Community Center.
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Below is a list of the articles we have submitted to the Since Stonewall Out History Project.  
  
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* [[Nevada]] Timeline: A timeline of events since the Stonewall Riots, '''1969 - 2009'''
  
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===1983 – 1994: Loss, Strength, and Survival=== 
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* [[Las Vegas, Nevada OutHistory Image Gallery]]: A collection of all of the images used throughout our articles.
  
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* '''May 6-14 1983''': Las Vegas's first Gay Pride Celebration, sponsored by the Gay Academic Union, Nevadans for Human Rights, and the Metropolitan Community Church of Las Vegas, is held at UNLV.
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*[[Kenny Kerr]]: Entertainer Kenny Kerr shares memories of the '''1969''' Stonewall Riots.  
  
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* '''February 5, 1983''': The Gay Academic Union of UNLV holds its first official meeting in the Moyer Student Union.
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* [[Le Café]] : Established in '''1970''', Le Café was the base of operations for the emerging gay community in southern Nevada.  
  
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* '''March 10, 1983''': AIDS. A 32-year-old man, resident in Las Vegas just six months, is Southern Nevada's first AIDS death. Just over a year later, in March 1984, Aid for AIDS of Nevada [AFAN] forms in a meeting at MCC-Las Vegas attended by representatives of MCC, Nevadans for Human Rights, ''Nevada Gay Times'', the Gay Switchboard, UNLV's Lesbian Gay Academic Union, the Community Action Committee, and the Buffalo bar. The parent organization is Aid for AIDS, founded in Los Angeles in mid-1983. The organization begins publishing ''AFANews'' in 1985. In 1987, the First Annual Superstar Aid for AIDS Benefit is performed in the Lido showroom at the Stardust Hotel. Entertainers include Norm Crosby, Lola Falana, Robert Goulet, Suzanne Somers, the McGuire Sisters, Roberta Sherwood, the Smothers Brothers, and cast members from a number of Strip shows. The event raises more than $8,000 for AFAN. In 1991, Las Vegas holds its first AIDS Memorial Walk. By 1992, Nevada AIDS cases pass 1,000. In 2001, AFAN's 11th Annual AIDS Walk breaks all previous records for participation and revenue: more than 3,000 people raise $172,483. August 27, 2004: Fighting AIDS in Our Community [FACT] opens a new, larger facility on Wheeler Peak Drive. FACT was founded in 1998 as an outreach to the African-American HIV/AIDS community, and had been operating from a small office at UMC.
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*[[Metropolitan Community Church]]: An article from March <b>1974</b> in the ''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' notes that Rev. Clonnie Lambert is pastor of a Las Vegas chapter of the [[Metropolitan Community Church]](MCC).
  
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* '''June, 1983''': The Las Vegas Gay Archives is founded by Dennis McBride.
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*[[ACLU-Las Vegas]]: In '''1975''', The American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] opened an office in Las Vegas with a $5,000 grant from the national office. ACLU involvement in Las Vegas eventually led to the gay community's first newspaper.
  
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* '''March 29-31, 1985''': The first Desert States Lesbian and Gay Conference [aka the Desert and Mountain States Lesbian and Gay Conference] is held at UNLV.
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*[[Reno Gay Rodeo (RGR)]]: This rodeo, which officially began in '''1977''', raised the profile of the state’s gay people and went far toward establishing community and national recognition.
  
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* '''February 4, 1987''': Women United of Nevada holds its first organizational meeting. At this meeting a faltering lesbian social group established on July 12, 1986 is absorbed. From this point, Women United of Nevada becomes Las Vegas's longest-lived and most popular lesbian organization. Ten years later, on February 14, 1997, for one grand night, Women United of Nevada and Ladies Night Out—both long defunct—resurrect themselves for a Valentine's Dance Reunion at the Flex nightclub. More than 400 women show up.
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*[[Boylesque]]: Female impersonation in Las Vegas, with a focus on ''Boylesque'', which began its long run in '''1977'''.
  
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* '''December 11, 1987''': Taking over where the Las Vegas Community Bookstore left off in 1984, Bright Pink Literature opens at 4310 Paradise Road, Suite 202-A, adjacent to the Body Shop bar. Bright Pink is owned and operated by ''Las Vegas Bugle'' publisher Rob Schlegel and quickly becomes one of the community's most popular hangouts. Bright Pink hosts art shows and autograph receptions and provides gay titles Las Vegas's commercial bookstores won't carry.
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*[[Nevadans for Human Rights]]: Founded in '''1978''', [[Nevadans for Human Rights]] was the first gay rights organization in Las Vegas.
  
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* A'''pril 1, 1990''': the Community Counseling Center opens at 1006-1008 East Sahara Avenue. Within a short time Community Counseling becomes one of the gay community's greatest resources, providing a host of counseling programs tailored for Las Vegas's gay population that are unavailable anywhere else; meeting space for community groups; and outreach efforts to such mainstream group organizations as the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police force, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and the Teamsters Union.
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*[[Gay Academic Union]]: Closely associated with [[Las Vegas' first Gay Pride Celebration]], UNLV's [[Gay Academic Union]] held its first meeting at in '''1982'''.
  
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* '''October 11, 1991''': Las Vegas throws its first National Coming Out Day celebration in Sunset Park, sponsored by the Lambda Pride Association.
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* [[Las Vegas' first Gay Pride Celebration]]: Las Vegas held its first Gay Pride Celebration in '''1983'''.
  
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* '''May 13, 1993''': Senate Bill 466, drafted by State Senator Lori Lipman Brown to repeal Nevada's sodomy law, is introduced in the Nevada legislature. In May, it passes the Senate and in June, the Assembly. On June 16, 1993, Governor Bob Miller signs the bill, decriminalizing consensual sex in private between gay people. Nevada becomes one of the few states whose legislature voluntarily repealed its sodomy law. Nevertheless, the infamous crime against nature is still defined in Nevada as anal intercourse, cunnilingus or fellatio between consenting adults of the same sex.
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*[[AIDS in Southern Nevada]]: In <b>1983</b>, A 32-year-old man, resident in Las Vegas for just six months, was Southern Nevada's first AIDS death.
  
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* '''October 15, 1993''': When the Gay and Lesbian Community Center holds its grand opening at 912 East Sahara Avenue, the ever-vigilant Christian Resistance group puts homophobic fliers on the windshields of cars in the parking lot. In 2000, the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, still going strong, shortens its name to The Center to better include bisexual and transgendered people.
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* [[Stonewall Park]]: In <b>1984</b>, Reno gay activist Fred Schoonmaker and his husband, Alfred Parkinson, initiated a series of efforts to establish a gay town in Nevada known as [[Stonewall Park]].
  
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* '''January-June, 1994''': Lon Mabon exports his fundamentalist organization, the Oregon Citizens Alliance, to Nevada as the Nevada Citizens Alliance [NCA]. The NCA joins with a number of right-wing and religious fundamentalist organizations indigenous to Nevada [including Nevada Concerned Citizens] to get the homophobic Minority Status and Child Protection Act on Nevada's 1994 ballot. Their petition drive fails due in part to the active opposition to it of both Nevada Governor Bob Miller and Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones.
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*[[Women United of Nevada]]: Founded in '''1987''', [[Women United of Nevada]] [WUN], was the first separately founded, lesbian-identified organization in Las Vegas.
  
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*[[Bright Pink Literature (Get Booked)]]: Bright Pink Literature (later becoming Get Booked), opened in '''1987'''. While more famous bookstores across the country, such as A Different Light and the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, have closed as LGBT literature has gone “mainstream,” [[Bright Pink Literature (Get Booked)]] has survived for more than 20 years.
  
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===1995 – 2009: Political Action and Reaction===
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*[[Community Counseling Center]]: In '''1990''' the [[Community Counseling Center]] opened at 1006-1008 East Sahara Avenue. Within a short time Community Counseling becomes one of the gay community's greatest resources.
  
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* '''February 28, 1996''': Gays and Lesbians of Color begin meeting bi-weekly at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center. Also that year, the Center's Equal Right to Marry project sponsors a Speak Out as well as a public town hall meeting and panel discussion at the Flamingo Library.
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* [[Senate Bill 466]]: Until the '''1993''' passage of Senate Bill 466, the history of Gay people in Nevada was largely one of criminal prosecution.
  
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* '''November 5, 1996''': David Parks wins election in Assembly District 41—the first openly gay person elected to public office in Nevada. On March 10, 1999, Parks introduces Assembly Bill 311 prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. The bill goes on to win passage in both the Assembly and Senate, and on May 29, 1999, Republican Governor Kenny Guinn signs AB 311, noting that signing the bill is "a matter of fairness and doing what's right for the people of Nevada. I have always felt that discrimination based on race, gender, religion or sexual orientation is wrong, and I hope this law sends that message loud and clear."
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*[[Center Stage, Inc.]]: Nevada’s first queer theatre troupe was [[Center Stage, Inc.]], founded in '''1999'''.
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* [[Question 2]]: The fight for equal rights suffered a severe blow with the '''2002''' amendment to the Nevada constitution that denied same-sex partners the right to marry.
  
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* '''May 10, 1997''': Las Vegas's first Gay Pride Parade, sponsored by the Las Vegas Bugle and marshalled by Auntee Social, winds its way for several miles through Las Vegas from the Flex nightclub to Sunset Park where the Gay Pride rally is being held. This year's rally only draws about 4600 people, considerably fewer than the year before.
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*[[Las Vegas Transgender]]: Transgender people have long been part of Las Vegas history, even though they have usually been left out of the social and political development of the gay community, and have been far slower in establishing a community of their own. But by '''2009''', Las Vegas held its first annual Transgender Health Fair and participated in the National Transgender Day of Remembrance.
  
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* '''June 15, 2000''': : The Coalition for the Protection of Marriage in Nevada files its anti-same-sex marriage initiative petition with the state, having gathered more than 120,000 signatures—three times the 44,009 required to get the question on the November ballot. In September, Equal Rights Nevada, established to fight the anti-same-sex marriage question (Question Two) scheduled for popular vote in November, holds its first press conference. On November 7, Question 2 passes with a 69.5% vote. The question appears on the ballot again in 2002, passes again, and becomes an amendment to the state constitution.
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*[[SB 283]]: Despite a veto by Governor Jim Gibbons, [[SB 283]], Nevada's Domestic Partnership Act, was passed in '''2009'''.  
  
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* '''September 7, 2000''': The Center Stage, Inc. theater company presents Kate Bornstein's ''Hidden: A Gender'', the first transgender-issue play performed in Las Vegas.
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=== Eyewitness Accounts ===
  
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* '''December 11, 2000''': A new lesbian organization called Betty's Outdoor Adventures—soon changed to Betty's Outrageous Adventures—is founded.
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We have also added several eyewitness/firsthand accounts (indicated by this icon: [[Image:eyewitness.jpg]]. The eyewitness accounts are located throughout the above articles, but are also available here:
  
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* '''March 19, 2001''': Despite his anticipation of intense opposition, Nevada State Assemblyman David Parks introduces Assembly Bill 496, which would allow unmarried couples, gay and straight, to sign a Declaration of Reciprocal Beneficiary Relationship.
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*[[1977 eyewitness account of Le Café]]
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*[[Judy Corbisiero's recollections of women's music in the 1970s]]
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* '''May 17, 2003''': Dan Hinkley, founder of the Stonewall Democratic Club of Southern Nevada, is elected the first openly gay official of the Nevada Democratic Party. At the Democrats' state meeting in Tonopah, Hinkley is elected party secretary.
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*[[Eyewitness accounts of Gay Pride in Las Vegas]]
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*[[1991 eyewitness account of Boylesque]]
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* '''November, 2008''': Assembly member David Parks is elected Nevada’s first openly gay State Senator. The state “turns blue” and elects both Barack Obama as President and Dina Titus as member of Congress.
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*[[Dennis McBride's account of being fired]] from the ''Nevada Gay Times''
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*[[1998 eyewitness account of a mass wedding in Las Vegas]]
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* '''February 17, 2009''': AB 184 is introduced by Senator Parks to prohibit discrimination in Nevada based upon gender identity or expression. In March, the Nevada State Senate Commerce and Labor Committee introduces SB 207, adding sexual orientation to Nevada's anti-discrimination laws in matters of public accommodation. Parks and Senator Bob Coffin introduce SB 283, the Nevada Domestic Partnership Act, to establish a Domestic Partners registry in Nevada.
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*[[an eyewitness account of the 2000 MCC chapel dedication]]
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*[[June 2000 reaction to the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage]]
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* '''April 21-22, 2009''': The Center of Las Vegas organizes the first-ever LGBTQ grassroots lobbying effort, called Equality Days, in Carson City.
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*[[August 2000 Equal Rights Nevada fundraiser]]
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*[[Equal Rights Nevada's first press conference in the fall of 2000]]
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* '''May - June 2009''': On late May, SB 283 is passed to the Nevada Legislature. On May 25th, Governor Jim Gibbons vetoes the bill, only to have his veto overturned by the legislature on June 1st.
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*[[October 2000 journal entry about stealing signs posted by CPM]]
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*[[reaction to the 2002 amendment to the Nevada Constitution]]

Latest revision as of 14:04, 26 March 2010

About the Las Vegas, Nevada Outhistory Project

(c) Dennis McBride, 2009

Gay History in Nevada and Las Vegas

On October 30, 1861, the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Nevada passed a law which read, "The infamous crime against nature, either with man or beast, shall subject the offender to be punished by imprisonment in the Territorial prison for a term not less than five years, and which may extend to life." For more than a hundred years what became known as Nevada Revised Statute 201.190—Nevada's sodomy law—was used to terrify, blackmail, and persecute gay people. As a result, the queer history of Nevada until the last half of the 20th century is a history of unjust criminal prosecution.

Institutionalized repression isolated Nevada’s queer population from the rest of the country where there were stirrings of community through such organizations as the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, and through such shared events as the Stonewall Riots in June 1969.

Stonewall, however, was ignored by Nevada’s media. Gay life in the Silver State was restricted to bars, tea rooms, and private parties. Police at both ends of the state routinely conducted sting operations to entrap gay people, while the legislature tweaked NRS 201.190 to broaden its reach and deepen its punishment. In addition, political repression with religious roots--principally from the state’s Mormons--at all levels of government in the state kept Nevada’s gay people fearful and closeted. The concept of community was alien.

There were activists in the state, however, who were unafraid to work openly. In Northern Nevada, Phil Ragsdale, who was Emperor I of the Silver Dollar Court, conceived of the Reno Gay Rodeo in 1975 as a fundraiser for the organization. The rodeo raised the profile of the state’s gay people and went far toward establishing community and national recognition.

In Southern Nevada, lesbian Marge Jacques, who owned Le Café in Las Vegas in the 1970s, spoke publicly in behalf of her community. She provided a defacto community center in her bar—until it was torched in 1978. By then, however, Marge’s first efforts toward building community inspired others to be open and proactive. As Nevada’s population boomed in the 1980s and ‘90s, gay people from throughout the country brought their ideas and energy to establish organizations, clubs, and events.

While Nevada’s queer community was late to develop, its rise was rapid, so that by 1993 it had the political clout necessary to have the state’s notorious sodomy law repealed. By 2009, the community had obtained a variety of equal protections in state law, including employment nondiscrimination, health decisions and hospital visitation, and domestic partnership.

Despite recent gains, however important and hard-won, Nevada’s queer community still has a long way to go before it reaches the constitutional promise of full equality. Nevertheless, the community’s growth in Nevada, together with its increasing social and political capital, has been a remarkable and encouraging evolution.


Contributors

Dennis McBride, Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas

Crystal Van Dee, Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas

Paul Ershler, Lambda Business and Professional Association

List of Articles

Below is a list of the articles we have submitted to the Since Stonewall Out History Project.

  • Nevada Timeline: A timeline of events since the Stonewall Riots, 1969 - 2009
  • Kenny Kerr: Entertainer Kenny Kerr shares memories of the 1969 Stonewall Riots.
  • Le Café : Established in 1970, Le Café was the base of operations for the emerging gay community in southern Nevada.
  • ACLU-Las Vegas: In 1975, The American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] opened an office in Las Vegas with a $5,000 grant from the national office. ACLU involvement in Las Vegas eventually led to the gay community's first newspaper.
  • Reno Gay Rodeo (RGR): This rodeo, which officially began in 1977, raised the profile of the state’s gay people and went far toward establishing community and national recognition.
  • Boylesque: Female impersonation in Las Vegas, with a focus on Boylesque, which began its long run in 1977.
  • AIDS in Southern Nevada: In 1983, A 32-year-old man, resident in Las Vegas for just six months, was Southern Nevada's first AIDS death.
  • Stonewall Park: In 1984, Reno gay activist Fred Schoonmaker and his husband, Alfred Parkinson, initiated a series of efforts to establish a gay town in Nevada known as Stonewall Park.
  • Senate Bill 466: Until the 1993 passage of Senate Bill 466, the history of Gay people in Nevada was largely one of criminal prosecution.
  • Question 2: The fight for equal rights suffered a severe blow with the 2002 amendment to the Nevada constitution that denied same-sex partners the right to marry.
  • Las Vegas Transgender: Transgender people have long been part of Las Vegas history, even though they have usually been left out of the social and political development of the gay community, and have been far slower in establishing a community of their own. But by 2009, Las Vegas held its first annual Transgender Health Fair and participated in the National Transgender Day of Remembrance.
  • SB 283: Despite a veto by Governor Jim Gibbons, SB 283, Nevada's Domestic Partnership Act, was passed in 2009.

Eyewitness Accounts

We have also added several eyewitness/firsthand accounts (indicated by this icon: Eyewitness.jpg. The eyewitness accounts are located throughout the above articles, but are also available here:

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