Then & Now: LGBTQIA+ Activism at GW

“Then and Now” is an occasional series featuring the ways the George Washington University has evolved and the stability of its core mission during its 200-year history. 

 

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Pride Month is celebrated every June in tribute to those involved in the 1969 Stonewall Riots, which helped spark the gay liberation movement and the 20th-century fight for LGBTQIA+ rights in the United States. 

At the George Washington University, LGBTQIA+ activism reaches back decades. 

Here is a selection of highlights of gay activism at GW through the years:

 

 

 

In October 1971, the GW Gay Liberation Alliance was founded by a small group of students. The next month, it was recognized by the university as the Gay People’s Alliance (GPA). After some time, the organization lapsed but revived in 1976, briefly under the name Gay Students of GW before reverting back to GPA.

 

 

Gay and lesbian issues were featured often in the Hatchet throughout the 1970s.

 

 

 

 

In the early years, GPA sponsored Valentine’s Day dances, drag shows and a 1979 lecture by Sgt. Leonard Matlovich, the first openly gay service member to purposely out himself to the military to fight its ban on gays. By 1984, there were 350 members of GPA, made up of students, alumni and staff, making it the largest gay student organization in the D.C. area.

 

 

 

In the mid-1980s, as the HIV/AIDS crisis continued in the D.C. region, GW faculty and students were among those working with the gay and lesbian community to generate awareness and education about the disease. In 1983, GW hosted D.C.’s first AIDS forum in Lisner Auditorium. 

 

 

Around 1986, GPA became the Lesbian and Gay People’s Alliance (LGPA).

 

 

 

GW’s gay and lesbian student groups actively combatted misconceptions about the link between HIV/AIDS and the gay community and raised money for programs helping people with the disease, such as the D.C. Whitman-Walker Clinic. In 1997 GW Pride held an “Alumni Gayla” with special guests Candace Gingrich, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and D.C. activist Franklin Kameny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the mid-90s, LGPA became known as the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Alliance. Transgender was added to the name in 2002. In 2002, the LGBT Alliance decided on the neutral and inclusive name of GW Pride, which had been the club’s nickname since about 1999. Other LBGT clubs also began to emerge, and many of them helped to lead the charge on GW’s 1991 change to its non-discrimination policy to include “sexual orientation.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Established in 1994, the AIDS and Cancer Specimen Resource (ACSR), a cooperative agreement with the National Cancer Institute, has the largest collection of annotated HIV malignancy specimens globally available to qualified researchers studying HIV and HIV-associated cancers. Overseen by principal investigators from GW and the University of California, San Francisco, and housed within the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences, the ACSR received in 2019 one of GW’s largest research grants—$22 million from the National Institutes of Health—to continue its cutting-edge research. 

GW continued its long history of HIV/AIDS research in 2005 when it provided the seed money to create the HIV/AIDS Institute, led by Alan E. Greenberg, professor and chair of the department of epidemiology at the Milken Institute School of Public Health. Now known as the District of Columbia Center for AIDS Research (DC CFAR), the institute became one of 19 NIH-funded Centers for AIDS Research (CFARs) in the United States, a network that supports research aimed at reducing the burden of HIV domestically and globally.

In 2014, GW researchers at the Milken Institute School of Public Health and the Rodham Institute in SMHS received a $23.8 million grant from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to study a new healthcare model that aims to improve HIV prevention and care while lowering healthcare costs in D.C. 

The university also has long embraced Pride celebrations and welcomed LGBTQIA+ activists and guests to discuss LGBTQIA+ issues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Unless otherwise noted, historic images courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center of the George Washington University Libraries. This history was compiled by GW Today writer Tatyana Hopkins and researched by Stephanie Mihalik, senior special collections associate for university archives, and Brigette Kamsler, university archivist.