United States LGBT History for 1958
President Dwight Eisenhower
National
Joel Grey and Jo Wilder were married. Joel was an actor and photographer that had his work published starting in 2003.
Joel Grey
Oregon
The Oregon Supreme Court rejects the challenge of the parents of a murdered boy to the Governor’s commutation of the death sentence of their son’s murderer. It was a sex crime in the Medford area.
National
The last edition of the "Gym" is published.
National
The Supreme Court rules in favor of gay rights. After the U.S. Post Office refused to deliver America’s first widely distributed pro-gay publication, ONE: The Homosexual Magazine, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court — and the court ruled in favor of gay rights for the first time, making it a major landmark case in LGBTQ history.
National
The Homosexual in Our Society recording is the earliest known radio recording to overtly discuss homosexuality - features Elsa Knight Thompson, then the Public Affairs Director of KPFA, interviewing Hal Call, the editor of the Mattachine Society's newsletter, the Mattachine Review; Dr. Blanche Baker, a psychologist noted for her then-rarely-shared belief that homosexuality was not an abnormality nor an illness; and Lee Gailey, the mother of a gay man. Galey recounts her shock at first learning her son is gay and her eventual embrace of her son's sexuality. Call asserts that "every tenth person...is predominantly homosexual". The conflict of the society versus the individual and whether the root of homosexuality is a product of biology or environment. Flamboyant individuals - elimination of effeminate gestures that distinguish homosexuals vs. educating public that these mannerisms are not significant.
National
One, Incorporated v. Olesen, 355 U. S. 371 (1958) (per curiam) First SCOTUS case dealing with homosexuality; held for right to free speech
State equality and discrimination bills
New York
Joe Cino, an Italian-American theater producer, opens Caffe Cino. Caffe Cino is credited with starting the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. Six years after Caffe Cino opens, it hosts the first gay plays, The Madness of Lady Bright, by Lanford Wilson, and The Haunted Host, by Robert Patrick.
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