May 19 - National
Virginia naval aviator Tracy Thorne comes out on Nightline.
February 15 - Minnesota
The Bisexual Connection (Minnesota) sponsored the First Annual Midwest Regional Bisexual Conference, called "BECAUSE (Bisexual Empowerment Conference: A Uniting, Supportive Experience)."
January 1 – Michigan
LGBT swim team the Ann Arbor Queer Aquatics forms.
November 8 - National
Tony Kushner released his play “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes”
August 1 - National
The Unitarian Universalist Association’s Board of Trustees passes a resolution expressing disapproval of the Boy Scouts of America’s policy of discrimination against gay and atheist scouts and leaders. In response to hate campaigns in Oregon and Colorado, the denomination’s General Assembly passes a Resolution of Immediate Witness in opposition to legalized discrimination against gays, lesbians, and bisexuals.
June 1 - Oregon
Bonnie Tinker forms Love Makes a Family. The organization incorporates in 1993. It offers support to gay and lesbian parents.
January 1 - National
Elias Farajaje-Jones founds Moving Violations, a men of color HIV/ AIDS focused direct political action group, in Washington, D.C.
February 16 - National
“The Real World: New York” MTV The first season of MTV’s reality TV show set the tone with “seven strangers, picked to live in a house, work together and have their lives taped.” Among those strangers was Norm Korpi, a well-adjusted openly gay man who goes on dates, enjoys life, and even flirts with gay-baiting roomie Eric Nies.
January 1 – New York
The Lesbian Avengers is founded in New York.
Susan Pittman & Christine Puckett
President George W. Bush
October 22 - National
“The Gay Agenda,” a 20-minute video featuring racy scenes filmed at gay-pride marches, is released by Ty and Jeannette Beeson of the Antelope Valley Springs of Life Church in Lancaster, California. Aired on television by Pat Robertson’s “The 700 Club,” it will become one of the most widely viewed pieces of anti-gay propaganda.
Ten thousand copies of “The Gay Agenda” are distributed to voters in Colorado and Oregon, in time to influence voting on anti-gay initiatives that were on the ballots in those states.
Remarks made by Pat Robertson in a fundraising letter: "The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become
lesbians."
October 1 - National
Felice Picano has a long list of novels, poetry, and short stories that he has published releases and co-authored “The New Joy of Gay Sex”
May 1 - Oregon
Voters in Springfield pass an OCA-sponsored ballot measure that prohibits the city from banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. Voters in Corvallis reject a similar measure.
December 1 - National
Positive Impact, Inc. is formed to provide mental health services for people living with or affected by HIV. It’s later renamed Positive Impact Health Centers.
June 1 - Oregon
Multnomah County becomes the first public employer in Oregon to extend health benefits to domestic partners of county employees. The benefits become effective on July 1, 1993.
June 15 - Washington D.C.
U.S. Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder (D-CO) introduces a bill to end the ban on homosexuals serving in the military.
March 19 - California
Lani Ka'ahumanu served as project coordinator for an American Foundation for AIDS Research grant awarded to Lyon-Martin Women's Health Services. This was the first grant in the U.S. to target young high risk lesbian and bi women for HIV/AIDS prevention/education research. She created the "Peer Safer Sex Slut Team" with Cianna Stewart.
October 11 - Washington D.C.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt was unfolded in its entirety, representing 22,000 people, on the Capitol Mall. Today, it’s too large to be displayed in its entirety in any one place.
October 1 - Michigan
M. Kate Murphy is appointed to the Lansing Community College Board of Trustees. She is the first openly gay person of either gender appointed to a Michigan Community College Board.
January 1 – National
First Congregational United Church of Christ becomes the first mainstream congregation to be “Open and Affirming” to gay men, lesbians and bisexuals and hires openly gay pastor Rev. Paul Davis.
November 1 - National
Michael Thomas Ford publishes his first book “100 Questions & Answers about AIDS: What You Need to Know Now”
January 1 - Oregon
Multnomah County becomes the first public employer in Oregon to extend health benefits to domestic partners of county employees. The benefits become effective on July 1, 1993.
State equality and discrimination bills
January 1 – Utah
The Utah Stonewall Center opens. Today it is the Utah Pride Center.
Patricia Schroeder (D-CO)
January 1 – Michigan
Birmingham parents voice outrage over inclusion of homosexuality in high school curriculum.
November 5 - Virginia
A clause prohibiting anti-gay verbal abuse in schools is repealed by the Fairfax County, Virginia board of education out of concerns that it promotes homosexuality.
Bonnie Tinker
March 31 - National
John Preston an erotic writer begins publishing an anthology “Flesh and the Word”
December 1 - National
Lesbian anthology OH… (B Publications, December 1992) begins and runs twenty-two issues.
June 12 - Washington D.C.
The Government Accounting Office (GAO) releases a report estimating that the cost associated for replacing service men and women discharged for homosexuality is $28,266 for each enlisted member and $120,772 for each officer. The GAO notes that the estimates do not include Investigation, out-processing and court costs.
October 27 - Washington D.C.
U.S. Navy Petty Officer Allen Schindler was murdered by a shipmate who stomped him to death in a public restroom in Japan. Schindler had complained repeatedly about anti-gay harassment aboard ship. The case became synonymous with the debate over gay people serving in the US military that had been brewing in the United States culminating in the "Don't ask, don't tell" bill.
December 10 - Florida
The South Florida Bisexual Network and the Florida International University's Stonewall Students Union co-sponsored the First Annual Southeast Regional Bisexual Conference. Thirty-five people from at least four southeastern states attended
February 4 - National
“L.A. Law” NBC The first kiss between two people of the same sex airs in prime time when bisexual C.J. (Amanda Donohoe) plants one on straight Abby. Unsurprisingly advertisers threatened to pull their ads over the scene.
January 1 – Illinois
Scott McPherson is inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame
March 1 - National
The first of four comics featuring Jeffrey Dahmer, Jeffrey Dahmer: an unauthorized biography of a serial killer, is published
October 11 - Washington D.C.
David Robinson dumped the ashes of his partner, Warren Krause, on the grounds of the White House in protest of President George H.W. Bush’s inaction to fight AIDS. Inspired by David Wojnarowicz's memoir “Close to the Knives”, "what it would be like if, each time a lover, friend or stranger died of this disease, their friends, lovers or neighbors would take the dead body and drive with it in a car a hundred miles an hour to Washington DC and blast through the gates of the White House and come to a screeching halt before the entrance and dump their lifeless form on the front steps." Wojnarowicz's ashes were scattered on the White House lawn when he died.
July 1 - National
Longtime supporting character SHVAUGHN ERIN is revealed to be transgender in LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (v.4) #31, written by Tom and Mary Bierbaum. These writers also imply that reformed villain Lightning Lord is in a gay relationship and that heroines Shrinking Violet and Lightning Lass are more than friends.
January 1 – National
Homosexuality is removed from the International Statistical Classification of Diseases by the World Health Organization.
June 19 - Michigan
Jean Burholter is ejected from the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival by transphobic organizers. “Camp Trans” is pitched outside of the entrance gate to the Festival to protest the Festival’s newly publicized “Womyn-Born-Womyn Only” anti-trans policy. “Camp Trans” continues to date.
January 1 - National
Digital Queers forms. DQ's initial goal is to bring the gay rights movement into the digital age by applying the powerful tools of high-technology to regional, state, and national grassroots organizations. It later evolves into a high-tech consulting firm, fundraising foundation, and e-mail- based grassroots network.
November 1 - Colorado
Colorado voters ban state and municipal rights laws for lesbians and gay men. Amendment 2, preventing any city, town, or county in Colorado from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to recognize gay and lesbian individuals as a protected class. The legislation passes with 53 percent of Coloradans voting in favor.
Lyon Martin
Women's Health Services
November 2 - Oregon
Measure 9 is defeated at the polls in Nov. The OCA vows to take issue to smaller towns, which become commonly known as "Son of 9" measures.
The Oregon Court of Appeals strikes down OCA’s 1988 Ballot Measure 8 as being unconstitutional
Measure 9, which would have added the following to the Oregon Constitution: "All governments in Oregon may not use their monies or properties to promote, encourage or facilitate homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism or masochism. All levels of government, including public education systems, must assist in setting a standard for Oregon's youth which recognizes that these behaviors are abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse and they are to be discouraged and avoided."
Real World New York
November 1 - National
Lev Raphael publishes “Winter Eyes” and is nominated for a Lambada Award for best gay fiction.
Roy Simmons NFL Player
June 13 - Ohio
Rally at City Hall, March to Fountain Square (Greater Cincinnati Gay & Lesbian Coalition)
January 1 – National
Leeane Franson’s self-publishes her first LILIANE mini-comics (1992). They are collected as Assume Nothing: Evolution of a Bi-Dyke (Slab-O-Concrete, April 1997) and Teaching Through Trauma (Slab-O-Concrete, September 1999).
October 4 - Oregon
Conservative Christian political organization the Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA) sponsors Measure 9, the first of many initiatives to amend the Oregon Constitution to prevent “special rights” for homosexuals and bisexuals. The measure fails, and groups formed in opposition become the basis for the next two decades of the state’s LGBT rights movement.
January 1 – Oregon
An Oregon pro-gay benefit book, ESCAPE FROM THE LIVING PERVERTS, is released
U.S. Navy Petty
Officer Allen Schindler
June 1 - National
The National Conference of Catholic Bishops sends U.S. bishops a Vatican document, “Some Considerations Concerning the Catholic Response to Legislative Proposals on the Non- Discrimination of Homosexual Persons.” The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has reservations regarding civil rights for gay and lesbian people in some instances, including adoption, teaching, and the military.
June 1 - National
Eric Marcus publishes “Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945 to 1990”
December 24 - Iowa
The University of Iowa extended its health benefits to the domestic partners of lesbian and gay employees.
November 1 - Washington D.C.
Governor Bill Clinton promises that, if elected, he would allow military service by all who otherwise qualify to serve regardless of sexual orientation.
October 1 - National
Global Guardian TASMANIAN DEVIL mentions in passing that he is gay in a story written by Kevin Dooley in JUSTICE LEAGUE QUARTERLY #8.
July 8 - National
“Melrose Place” Fox Much was made of Doug Savant’s Matt, an openly gay man, being part of the nighttime’s soap’s core cast. But his romantic life was practically nonexistent. The camera would usually cut away from even the chastest of kisses, leading viewers to think gay sex involved a lot of table lamps and roaring fires.
May 5 - Michigan
Affirmations board members Susan Pittman and Christine Puckett are murdered by a neighbor.
February 19 - National
Bishops Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit; Kenneth Untener of Saginaw, Michigan; and William Hughes of Covington, Kentucky conduct workshops at the third annual New Ways Ministry’s national symposium.
August 17 - Texas
At the Republican National Convention in Houston, Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson are granted a platform for their virulently homophobic and avowedly theocratic views. Pat Buchanan famously declares in a prime time speech, “There is a culture war going on in our country for the soul of America.” Cheering audience members wave signs reading “Family Rights Forever, ‘Gay’ Rights Never.”
August 17 - Washington D.C.
Today marks the very first reference to homosexual rights in an RNC platform.
January 1 – Oregon
Human Dignity Coalition is “founded in 1992 as part of a statewide movement to oppose a virulent anti-gay constitutional amendment, Measure 9.” It has continued to this day working “to advance human rights, human dignity and equality for LGBTQ people ever since.”
May 16 - Oregon
In May, voters in Springfield, Oregon pass an OCA-sponsored ballot measure that prohibits the city from offering human rights protection to homosexuals. Voters in Corvallis reject a similar measure.
January 1 – Michigan
Grand Rapids City Commission votes down proposal to add "gender orientation" to civil rights ordinance.
January 1 – Utah
Utah lawmakers pass into law a hate crimes bill based on a person’s religion or race. Absent from the law is any mention of sexual orientation.
November 9 - Michigan
Michigan Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Church in America votes to welcome lesbians and gays.
United States LGBT History for 1992
Tracy Thorne
June 1 - Massachusetts
Same-sex employees begin to receive domestic partner benefits from Levi Strauss & Co. and the state of Mass.
March 1 - National
NORTHSTAR officially becomes the first gay super-hero in the Marvel universe in ALPHA FLIGHT #106 , written by Scott Lobdell.
April 22 - Washington D.C.
Martina Navratilova speaks at the National March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Rights.
January 1 - National
Roy Simmons, NFL player from 1979-83, reveals he is gay.
July 1 - National
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith urges American bishops to “scrutinize laws intended to protect homosexuals and oppose them if they “promote public acceptance of homosexual conduct.” The statement also says that “‘There are areas in which it is not unjust discrimination to take sexual orientation into account,” of which adoption, military service, and teaching are examples. Later, over 1500 members of the Church including 2 bishops come out publicly against the Vatican’s statement.
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