Seven lesbian couples who have fought to change our world

.Rachael Fulton article published on the PinkNews website (Great Britain) on December 1, 2016, liberation translated by Silvia Lanzi

Along the whole story, the lesbians fought for the rights of LGBTQ people in the classes, in the classrooms and in the streets all over the world. Here are some of the lesbian couples who have helped change the story.

1. The Daughters

In 1955 in San Francisco, it was illegal to dance in public with a person of the same sex. The lesbian bars were also victims of raids, harassment and abuse. To fight all this, the couple formed by Of Martin and Phyllis Lyon he founded the first social and political organization of the United States, The Daughters of Bilitis ("Daughters of bilitis", also abbreviated to DOB).

Del and Phyllis spent the subsequent fifty years fighting for gay rights and were the first homosexual couple who got married in California in 2008, just before he died.

2. A couple destroyed by a tragedy

In the 80s the couple made up of Karen Thompson and Sharon Kowalski viveva una vita tranquilla e senza clamore in Minnesota, senza però che le rispettive famiglie lo sapessero. Le loro esistenza fu sconvolta quando un autista ubriaco si schiantò contro Sharon, causandole un danno cerebrale irreversibile.

Ciò che segue è un decennio di battaglie di Karen per prendersi cura di Sharon. I genitori di quest’ultima rifiutarono di ammettere che la loro figlia fosse lesbica e proibirono a Karen di andarla a trovare in clinica. Anche quando Sharon imparò a battere a macchina messaggi per comunicare, chiedendo frequentemente di essere riportata da Karen, il tribunale lo rifiutò.

Nel 1991, la corte d’appello del Minnesota si pronunciò nello storico caso ‘la tutela di Kowalski’: Sharon avrebbe potuto tornare a casa con Karen. L’impegno senza sosta di Karen aumentò la consapevolezza sui problemi della tutela e influì positivamente sulli diritti della coppie omosessuali.

3. L’INFERMIERA CHE CURAVA L’AIDS E L’ATTIVISTA

Nel 1979 Roma Guy e Diane Jones fondarono insieme il San Francisco Women’s Building e per decenni combatterono insieme per la giustizia sociale. Diane durante gli anni ’70 era un’infermiera che si occupava HIV/AIDS impegnandosi in prima linea durante l’epidemia e dedicandosi con la moglie Roma ad aumentare i diritti delle donne e delle persone LGBT, e a educare sulla crisi di HIV. I loro sforzi sono stati raccontati nel documentario HBO ‘When We Rise’.

4. LA COPPIA CHE DIFESE IL MARRIAGE ACT

Despite the opposition and lack of support of LGBT groups, Mary Bishop and Sharon Baldwin refused to surrender and continued to fight for the egalitarian wedding in Oklahoma.

Their legal crusade, which has now become a point of reference, lasted more than a decade, reaching the Supreme Court, Court, accelerating, in the end, the approval of the Gay Marriage law in many states and thus allowing the two women to get married.

5. The first activists

Born in 1899, Ruth Ellis was an important one is declared a black woman who has lived, incredibly, for 101 years. She and her partner Babe Franklin lived together since the early 1920s, and Ellis became the first woman owner of a Michigan printing house. Their house became the meeting of the African American LGBT people in a period in which discrimination was widespread.

In 1999 the Ruth Ellis Center was founded - a social service center dedicated to young people with the aim of providing children who fled home, homeless, gay and lesbians at risk, bisexuals, transsexuals, and undecided about their sexual identity, a safe place to stay for short or long periods. '

6. Let's trigger hell

Mina Meyer and Sharon Raphael have been together for more than 40 years. During their life as a couple they activated to create health centers for lesbians, they supported Hospice for AIDS patients, participated in rally for the egalitarian wedding - just to mention some of their crusades.

To fight religious groups that stake LGBT events with signs such as'Gay People Burn in Hell'('Gay people will burn in hell'), at the gatherings the couple proudly wore T -shirts with the writing'Dykes From Hell'(' Lesbians from Hell ').

They have never given up fighting for LGBT rights, and in recent years they have started a group of mature gays and lesbians to take care of the elderly and no longer self -sufficient LGBT people. Mina died in 2016.

7. We preserve the lesbian history

In 1974, when they were still a couple Joan Nestle and Deb Edel founded, in the pantry of their home, The Lesbian Herstory Archives, a way to keep documents and lesbian artifacts that today has more than 20,000 books and 12,000 photographs relating to lesbian history.

Original text: 7 Real-Life Lesbian Love Stories That Changed the World We Live in Toray