Tuckahoe NY Pride

Barbara Gittings was a pioneering U.S. LGBTQ+ advocate whose organizing helped transform public attitudes and institutional policies. In the 1950s and 1960s she led the Daughters of Bilitis chapter in New York and edited The Ladder, expanding lesbian visibility and community. She organized early “Annual Reminder” pickets for gay rights and pushed for frank, positive representation in libraries, co-founding the ALA’s first gay task force and promoting inclusive collections. Her most lasting influence came from challenging psychiatry’s stigma: she helped pressure the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from the DSM in 1973, reshaping civil rights debates for decades.