Frank Kameny
"Gay Is Good" + So Was He
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."
Sir Isaac Newton
One hundred years ago today, Frank Kameny was born. An astronomer by training and a government worker by trade, Kameny never set out to become one of the most influential figures in the American LGBTQ rights movement. But history had other plans for this queer pioneer.
In the early 1950s, Kameny earned a doctorate in astronomy from Harvard, then landed a promising civil service job with the U.S. Army Map Service.
It was a dream trajectory for a gifted scientist.
But in 1957, he was fired for being gayāan act that was routine at the time, part of a sweeping government campaign against queer employees during the Lavender Scare.
Instead of quietly retreating, Kameny fought back.
And kept fighting.
What followed was a lifetime of so-called accidental activism, ignited by an unjust dismissal and propelled by an uncompromising belief in dignity, equality, and the constitutional promise of justice for all. Kameny appealed his firing all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1961.
SCOTUS declined to hear his case, but the fight didnāt end thereāit only escalated.
Later that same year, Kameny co-founded the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Mattachine Society, one of the first organized LGBTQ rights groups in the US.
Under his leadership, the group challenged discriminatory policies, protested federal hiring bans, and laid the groundwork for what would become a broader civil rights movement.
Kameny's unapologetic stanceāāGay is Good,ā he declared in the late 1960sāwas radical in its affirmation and helped shift public discourse from shame to pride.
He wrote politicians and picketed the White House and other federal agencies in a suit and tie, demanding that gay men and lesbians be treated as full citizens. He helped change the conversation at a time when silence was the norm and survival was often the only strategy. Kamenyās archive of protest signs, letters, and legal documents now sits at the Library of Congressāa testament to how much one voice, however reluctantly raised, can matter.
Frank Kameny passed away in 2011, but his legacy lives on in every pride parade, every queer legal victory, every moment of LGBTQ visibility and resistance.
His life reminds us that sometimes, historyās most lasting impacts come not from carefully plotted plans, but from the courage to say, āThis isnāt right. And I refuse to pretend it is.ā
So today, on what would have been his 100th birthday, light a candle for the life and legacy of Frank Kamenyānot just as an astronomer who studied the stars, but as an activist who helped others reach for them.
Happy birthday, Frank. Thank you.
And thank YOU for helping keep LGBTQ History alive and well!
Clint šāļø
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Thank you. Yes, YOU, boo!
FOR YOUR (SUBSTACK) CONSIDERATION
ON THIS DAY = MAY 21
BIRTHDAYS
1471 = Albrecht DĆ¼rer = German painter, engraver, and mathematician š
1688 = Alexander Pope = English poet, essayist, and translator
1844 = Henri Rousseau = French painter
1857 = Frederick of Hohenau = German aristocrat š
1901 = Sam Jaffe = American film producer and agent
1904 = Fats Waller = American singer-songwriter
1904 = Robert Montgomery = American actor and director
1916 = Harold Robbins = American author š
1917 = Raymond Burr = Canadian-American actor and director š
1925 = Frank Kameny = American astronomer, activist, and Mattachine Society co-founder š
1945 = Richard Hatch = American actor, writer, and producer
1951 = Al Franken = American actor, screenwriter, and politician
1952 = Mr. T = American actor and wrestler
1953 = Kathleen Wynne = Canadian politician š
1957 = Judge Reinhold = American actor and producer
1959 = Nick Cassavetes = American actor and filmmaker
1972 = The Notorious B.I.G. = American rapper
1980 = Anika Moa = New Zealander singer-songwriter š
1994 = Tom Daley = British diver and television personality š
EVENTS
1904 = The FƩdƩration Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is founded.
1927 = Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
1932 = Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
1951 = The opening of the Ninth Street Show, otherwise known as the 9th Street Art Exhibition: A gathering of a number of notable artists, and the stepping-out of the post-war New York avant-garde, collectively known as the New York School.
1979 = White Night riots in San Francisco following the manslaughter conviction of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.
1980 = The Empire Strikes Back premieres in theaters.
1981 = Transamerica Corporation agrees to sell United Artists to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $380 million after the box office failure of the 1980 film Heaven's Gate.
1982 = Annie is released in theaters.
1992 = Johnny Carson hosts his penultimate episode of The Tonight Show.
HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES
PORTRAIT + QUOTES OF THE DAY
āLet more than mere lip service be given to laudable-sounding ideals!ā
Frank Kameny
āHomosexuality is neither a sickness, disease, neurosis, psychosis, disorder, defect, nor other disturbance, but merely a matter of the predisposition of a significantly large minority of our citizens.ā
Frank Kameny
Thanks for bringing this history out. Good to know.
Thank you, CIint.
I have spent 30 frustrating minutes frantically sifting through my memories of the early 1970s. If I did not meet Frank at the first international gay rights meeting in the UK then he wasn't there. I hope that I did meet him. There were people from the Mattachine Society in Buffalo, NY and from Washington. We talked about using "gay" rather like the black people had reclaimed the N word. We debated about whether to coin GLB and finally decided that women were already marginalised and thus lesbians doubly so, We agreed on LGB, which later added more letters. I would have been in my mid 20s. Frank, if he was there, would have been 22 years older in his late 40s. I do not recognise him from photos of when he is about my now current age. If I was introduced to him as the founder of the Mattachine, it wouldn't have meant much to me, as I knew very little of US gay politics at that time.
This meeting was before I met Lenny Matlovich in 1976. I didn't warm to Lenny because he wasn't glad to be gay (internalised homophobia). I was interested to read Frank's letter to Lenny. I am in accord with that letter. I was on the commitee that invited Lenny to be a guest speaker but I didn't agree to the invitation.
I sit a little sadly at (looks at my watch) 11.00 pm. I need to shift my focus before I go to bed.