April 21 - New York
Members of the Mattachine Society stage a "sip-in" at the Julius Bar in Greenwich Village, where the New York Liquor Authority prohibits serving gay patrons in bars on the basis that homosexuals are "disorderly." Society president Dick Leitsch and other members announce their homosexuality and are immediately refused service.
Following the sip-in, the Mattachine Society will sue the New York Liquor Authority. Although no laws are overturned, the New York City Commission on Human Rights declares that homosexuals have the right to be served.
National
Huey Newton, founder of the Black Panther Party, welcomes the gay liberation movement as part of the struggle for human emancipation.
George Birimisa
National
The North American Conference of Homophile Organizations, an umbrella organization consisting of homophile groups from around the country, including the Mattachine Society, Daughters of Bilitis and ECHO, forms. It helped fuel activism until the Stonewall riots shifted activism into a more radical approach.
President Lyndon Johnson
State equality and discrimination bills
National
The American Lutheran Church (ALC) releases its first statement on sexuality at its biennial convention.
Oregon
The Oregon Supreme Court upholds the sodomy convictions of a Gay male couple who had been reported to police by a neighbor.
New York
George Birimisa's first produced play, “Degrees” a portrait of a gay relationship, premiered at Theater Genesis in the East Village, Manhattan.
April 19 - National
The oldest collegiate student organization for gays, the Student Homophile League, is founded at Columbia University.
California
“Lesbian” is heard for the first time in a Hollywood movie, The Group.
National
Benjamin, Harry Publishes "The Transsexual Phenomenon" Reprinted in: Sexual metamorphosis: an anthology of transsexual memoirs / edited by Jonathan Ames.
California
First transgender public uprising at San Francisco’s Compton’s Cafeteria
National
George Baxt publishes “A Queer Kind of Death”
National
Lucius Beebe a writer, historian, and social activist died leaving a long list of publications and writing. He was survived by his husband that he had built a life with throughout the entirety of their lives.
United States LGBT History for 1966
California
The world's first the transgender organization, the National Transsexual Counseling Unit, was established in San Francisco..
National
Time Magazine publishes an anonymous two-page story entitled "The Homosexual in America". The article attacks homosexuality as "a pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality, a pitiable flight from life. As such it deserves fairness, compassion, understanding and, when possible, treatment. But it deserves no encouragement, no glamorization, no rationalization, no fake status as minority martyrdom, no sophistry about simple differences in taste-and, above all, no pretense that it is anything but a pernicious sickness."
Lucius Beebe
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