National LGBTQ Wall of Honor

The National LGBTQ Wall of Honor is a memorial wall in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, dedicated to LGBTQ "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes".^[1] Located inside the Stonewall Inn, the wall is part of the Stonewall National Monument, the first U.S. National Monument dedicated to the country's LGBTQ rights and history. The first fifty nominees were announced in June 2019, and the wall was unveiled on June 27, 2019, as a part of Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019 events.^[2][3] Five honorees will be added annually.^[1]

Nominations

In February 2019, the National LGBTQ Task Force and Imperial Court System announced their plans for the Wall of Honor.^[4] The monument committee accepted nominations to honor "the lives of LGBTQ trailblazers, pioneers and s/heroes who have passed", and have had a positive impact on LGBTQ civil rights.^[3]

The nominations are administered by a Board of Governors, consisting of eighteen LGBTQ leaders including transgender activist Marsha Botzer,^[5] Black LGBTQ activist Mandy Carter, LGBTQ youth advocate Wilson Cruz, LGBTQ human rights activist Stuart Milk, and founder of the Metropolitan Community Church Troy Perry.^[3]

Honorees

The first fifty honorees were announced in June 2019.^[2][a][6] In June 2020, the first additional five were announced: Lorena Borjas, Larry Kramer, Phyllis Lyon, Sean Sasser, and Aimee Stephens.^[7]

A

• lesbian feminist writer and reporter. In 1969 she became the first executive director of the National Organization for Women (NOW) but resigned. She later founded the feminist restaurant Mother Courage.^[8] She was added to the wall in 2022.^[9]
• Gloria Allen was a transgender activist who ran a non-profit charm school for trans youth. In addition to inspiring the play Charm, she received the Living Legend Award at the Trans 100 Awards and a Carmen Vázquez Award for Excellence in Leadership on Aging Issues from SAGE. She was added to the wall in 2023.^[9]
• Wanda Alston was an LGBTQ feminist activist who organized for NOW, national LGBTQ marches, and the Democratic Party.

B

• Rainbow flag
  without license so the LGBTQ symbol would spread worldwide.
• James Baldwin was a gay novelist, playwright, and activist who explored intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in America.
• Melvin "Mel" Boozer was a gay and Black activist for African American, LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS issues. He was active in both the Democratic and Socialist Party USA, becoming the first openly gay person ever nominated for Vice President of the United States in 1980.
• transgender and immigrant rights activist, known as the mother of the transgender Latinx community in Queens, New York. Her work on behalf of immigrant and transgender communities garnered recognition throughout New York City and the United States. She was added to the wall in 2020.^[7]
• Ivy Bottini was a lesbian artist, activist and co-founder of the New York branch of the NOW, for whom she designed the logo in 1969. She was added to the wall in 2021.^[10]

C

• Michael Callen was a gay singer, songwriter, composer, author, and influential early AIDS activist.
• Rutgers University student who was cyberbullied into suicide by homophobic classmates. He was added to the wall in 2022.^[9]

• Guinness Book of World Records.^[11] She was added to the wall in 2023.^[9][12]
• Stormé DeLarverie was a biracial butch lesbian whose scuffle with police was, according to some eyewitnesses, the spark that ignited the 1969 Stonewall uprising. She has been hailed as "The Rosa Parks of the gay community" and a gay civil rights icon. She was also a singer, drag king, MC, and volunteer street patrol worker, the "guardian of lesbians in the Village".

E

• Ruth Ellis was an African American activist recognized as the oldest living out lesbian, passing away at 101. The Ruth Ellis Center is named in her honor. She was added to the wall in 2021.^[10]
• International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and led the Stonewall Community Foundation.^[13]

• transgender activist, whose writings have been foundational in the field of gender studies
  , as well as setting the standard for much of the terminology around gender identity.

• graffiti-like work grew out of the New York City street culture of the 1980s addressing political and societal themes—especially homosexuality and AIDS
  —through his own iconography and sexual allusions.
• openly gay Black author best known for his depictions of African-American men who were on the down-low and closeted in ten consecutive books that made The New York Times Best Seller list
  , making him among the most successful African-American or gay authors of his era.
• earliest public protests by gays and lesbians—as well as co-founding the Radical Faeries
  , a worldwide loosely-affiliated gay spiritual movement.
• Heklina was a drag queen and stage actress. She co-founded Trannyshack (now called Mother), a long-running series of drag shows, and frequently collaborated with fellow drag queen and filmmaker Peaches Christ. She was added to the wall in 2023.^[14]
• kink community".^[15]
• spoken word poet, author and activist known for his insights into issues of the African-American
  gay community.
• United States Ambassador to Luxembourg under the Clinton administration, the first openly gay man to hold such a post. He was added to the Wall in 2022.^[9]
• rights activist, sex-positive feminist, and polyamorist who is known as the "Mother of Pride" for coordinating the first Christopher Street Liberation Day March in 1970, and originating the idea for a week-long series of pride events that we know today. She also helped popularize Pride to describe the festivities. Among the LGBTQ groups she worked with over her decades of activism were: Gay Liberation Front, Gay Activists Alliance, BiNet USA, ACT UP, Queer Nation and New York Area Bisexual Network
  .
• C. Wayne Hussey was one of the first openly gay residents of Anchorage, Alaska. He was a drag queen and LGBTQ activist who founded the Alaskan Imperial Court System.^[16] In 1974 he was the first recipient of the Peter Dispirito Public Service Award, presented "to the person elected by the Alaska Gay and Lesbian Community who has contributed most to the advancement of the community."^[17]

J

• gender nonconforming artist, drag queen, and activist who fought for gay liberation and AIDS awareness. A Stonewall riots combatant and founding member of the Gay Liberation Front NYC, Johnson was the co-founder of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, and a member of ACT UP
  .
• Black English Vernacular, and influenced feminist, and queer theory
  .
• Leslie Jordan was an openly gay, Emmy Award-winning actor best known for playing a supporting role on Will & Grace. Over a forty-year long career, he appeared in many films, plays, and TV shows, and became a popular Instagram personality during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was added to the wall in 2023.^[14]
• sex reassignment surgery returning to the U.S. in the early 1950s an instant celebrity, and used her platform to advocate for transgender people and enlighten on gender identity
  .

• Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Washington, D.C. His activism laid the groundwork for the American Psychological Association to remove homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010
  .
• Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. He is best known for the Kinsey Reports in the late 1940s/early 1950s, as well as the Kinsey scale which, with his research on human sexuality and in the field of sexology changed worldwide attitudes on female sexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality among other previously taboo
  topics.
• AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) which changed public health policy and the perception of people living with AIDS.^[18] He was added to the wall in 2020.^[7]
• legalization of marijuana for medical uses
  .

• Crystal LaBeija was a Black gay Manhattan drag queen who founded the House of LaBeija in 1977 to counter systemic racism in the drag pageant system. The house is known internationally and is often credited as having started "house" ball culture for drag queen families countering heteronormativity.
• misgendering
  him led to the 2014 California Respect After Death Act.
• J. Frederic "Fritz" Lohman was a gay art collector who, along with his partner Charles W. Leslie, founded the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, a gathering of over 22,000 pieces of queer art, including works by Robert Mapplethorpe, Jean Cocteau, and Andy Warhol. He was added to the wall in 2023.^[14]
• civil rights, feminism
  , lesbianism, and the exploration of Black female identity.
• California Supreme Court's decision In re Marriage Cases. She was added to the wall in 2020.^[7]

• Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), for which she was awarded the 2012 Presidential Citizens Medal
  .
• California Supreme Court's decision In re Marriage Cases
  .
• Technical Sergeant Leonard Philip Matlovich was a gay Vietnam War veteran who fought to stay in the United States Air Force after coming out of the closet. He became a cause célèbre around which the gay community rallied. His photograph appeared on the cover of the September 8, 1975 issue of Time magazine, making him a symbol for thousands of gay and lesbian service members and gay people generally.^[19][20][21] Matlovich was the first named openly gay person to appear on the cover of a U.S. news magazine.^[22]
• Drama Desk Awards. He was added to the wall in 2023.^[14]
• the first openly gay elected official in the history of California, where he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He was the most prominent LGBT politician in the United States at the time. On November 27, 1978, Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated in city hall, leading to the White Night riots.^[23] Despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in the city and a martyr in the gay community.^[24] He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom
  in 2009.
• Jeffrey Montgomery was an American LGBT activist and public relations executive. In 1984, his partner was shot to death outside a Detroit gay bar, prompting Montgomery to engage in LGBT advocacy. He started work on LGBT anti-violence issues upon learning that the police were not spending many resources on solving the murder, calling it "just another gay killing".^[25] In 1991, Montgomery helped found the Triangle Foundation (now Equality Michigan) in order to advocate for LGBT victims of violence and to improve handling of LGBT related cases. He became nationally known for his work and served at numerous organizations.

P

• Women's Press Collective.^[29] She participated in many forms of activism especially regarding gay and lesbian communities, domestic violence, and rights of people of color.^[30]
  After she became too ill to perform, other poets and musicians continued to perform her work at music and arts festivals, "Movement in Black" being particularly popular.
• Jimmy Pisano was a gay man who purchased the original Stonewall Inn location and reopened it as a bar called "Stonewall" in 1990. It never turned a profit, but Pisano and his then-partner kept the bar open until Pisano's death from AIDS complications in 1994.^[31] He was added to the wall in 2021.^[10]
• Achebe Betty Powell was the first Black lesbian to serve on the board of directors of the
  National Gay Task Force, and a founding member of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. She attended the historic meeting of lesbian and gay leaders at the Carter White House in 1977, and worked with several feminist organizations around the world. She was added to the wall in 2023.^[14]

• Leather Archives and Museum with Tony DeBlase in Chicago in 1991.^[32][33]
• Adrienne Rich was a lesbian feminist poet and essayist, called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and credited with bringing "the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse." Rich criticized rigid forms of feminist identities, and valorized what she coined the "lesbian continuum"; a female continuum of solidarity and creativity which has impacted and filled women's lives. She famously declined the National Medal of Arts, protesting then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich's attempt to end the National Endowment for the Arts.
• trans women
  .
• Monica Roberts was an African-American blogger, writer, and transgender rights advocate. She was the founding editor of TransGriot, a blog focusing on issues pertaining to trans women, particularly African-American and other women of color. Roberts' coverage of transgender homicide victims in the United States is credited for bringing national attention to the issue. She was added to the wall in 2021.^[10]
• gay rights
  activist in the homophile movement of the 1960s.
• National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. He wrote or edited twelve books. One of his last projects was co-creating "Gay Men's Health Leadership Academies" to combat what he saw as a "pathology-focused understanding of gay men" in safe-sex education
  .
• Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), a watchdog organization that strives to end anti-LGBTQ rhetoric
  , and advocates for LGBTQ inclusion in popular media.
• nonviolent direct action. Rustin organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which was a turning point in the movement for civil and economic rights for Black Americans, and an inspiration to those working for social justice, worldwide. Due to the homophobia directed at him, he usually had to organize behind the scenes, uplifting civil-rights leaders who were not openly gay. In the 1980s, he was able to become a more public advocate on behalf of gay causes. In November 2013, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which Rustin's partner, Walter Naegle
  , accepted on his behalf.

• José Sarria better known as Absolute Empress I de San Francisco, and the Widow Norton, was a gay community organizer and political activist who became the first openly gay candidate for public office in the United States in 1961. He performed for years as a live-singing drag queen doing parodies of operas at the Black Cat Bar and founded the Imperial Court System, one of the oldest and largest LGBT organizations in the world, with chapters throughout North America.
• commitment ceremony in which the two exchanged vows, the first such ceremony for a same sex couple on television, and considered a landmark event in the medium.^[35] He was added to the wall in 2020.^[7]
• LGBT rights activist and established the Matthew Shepard Foundation
  . His death inspired films, novels, plays, songs, and other works.
• Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf
  , was published in 1993.
• hate crime laws in New Jersey. In 2009 she became the only openly transgender member of the Democratic National Committee
  serving in various roles until 2017.
• Stephen Sondheim, a New York gay man, was a composer and lyricist of some of the most influential musicals of the modern era. He was added to the wall in 2022.^[9]
• Aimee Stephens was an American funeral director known for her fight for civil rights for transgender people.^[36] She worked as a funeral director in Detroit and was fired for being transgender. Based on her court case, in a historic 2020 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination based on sex.^[37] She was added to the wall in 2020.^[7]
• transitioning
  making the process "orientation blind".

U

• dropout rate of, LGBTQ students in the Los Angeles Unified School District
  .

• Super PAC. She was added to the wall in 2022.^[9]
• Carmen Vázquez was a Puerto Rican lesbian and advocate for LGBT health, serving in or founding numerous organizations. She was added to the wall in 2021.^[10]
• gay and lesbian rights in the White House. Within the first few years
  of the AIDS pandemic, Voeller coined the term acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) that is still used today.

• gay life in a small town
  .
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Services Center in New York.^[38] In the 1980s, an illness disabled her to the point that she required a wheelchair.^[39]
• Edith "Edie" Windsor was a lesbian LGBT rights activist and a technology manager at IBM. She was the lead plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court case United States v. Windsor (2013). The case overturned Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which was a major victory in the struggle for same-sex marriage in the U.S. The decision led federal agencies in the Obama administration to extend rights, benefits, and privileges to same-sex married couples.
• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office so they could trademark their name.^[41]

• commitment ceremony, in which they exchanged vows, was the first such same-sex ceremony in television history, and is considered a landmark in the history of the medium.^[43][44]

• OCLC 7948538.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
  )

• LGBT culture in New York City
• List of LGBT people from New York City
• Transgender culture in New York City

References