History of LGBTQ+ Rights in Pennsylvania

2020s

  • 2024 - Keystone Equality formed to empower LGBTQ Pennsylvanians to have a strong political voice in PA. The Organization is focused on voter mobilization, electoral advocacy, and political organizing.

  • By 2024, over 75 local LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances have been enacted in our largest cities and in many small towns and rural communities.

2010s

  • In 2011, the Pennsylvania Youth Congress was created to mobilize young Pennsylvanians for freedom and justice for LGBTQ people in our commonwealth.

  • In 2011, a Facebook page called Marriage Equality for Pennsylvania inspired the creation of an organization of community members, initially from Western PA. Following the court rulings ensuring marriage equality, the organization became the Pennsylvania Equality Project and continues on today.

  • LGBTQ community centers open in Harrisburg and Allentown.

  • Trans-specific organizations and queer and trans people of color organizations take hold.

2000s

  • In the early 2000s, several cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh adopted domestic partner benefits for municipal employees. A lawsuit challenges Philadelphia’s right to give domestic partner benefits to the same-sex partners of City Employees, on the basis of the PA’s legislative passage of an anti same-sex marriage bill defining marriage as between one man and one woman. In 2008, the PA Supreme Court decision affirming municipalities’s rights to pass legislations that is good for their own community affirms the right of Philadelphia and other municipalities

  • to grant domestic partner benefits.

  • 2002 - Activists from Pennsylvania Gay and Lesbian Alliance for Political Action help Allentown pass the first Human Relations Ordinance non-discrimination language in the state to include the protected class term “Gender Identity” with a bipartisan vote, fully protecting Transgender and Gender Diverse individuals from discrimination and bias in Employment, Housing, and Public Accommodations. Anti-LGBTQ groups try to overturn the passage through a ballot effort, which pro-LGBTQ activists keep from happening. A lawsuit briefly stalls the protections on a technicality, but the ordinance is upheld in the PA Superior Court, based on a PA Supreme Court Decision affirming municipality’s right to pass anti-discrimination laws for their own communities.

  • 2002 - Philadelphia adds gender identity and expression to its nondiscrimination ordinance after Allentown’s passage.

  • 2002 - The Philadelphia Trans Wellness Conference was created by local trans leaders and made part of the Mazzoni Center

  • 2002 - An LGBTQ-inclusive hate crimes law is passed by the legislature and is signed into law. The successful passage had been spear-headed by the Pennsylvania Gya and Lesbian Alliance for Political Action (PA-GALA) and other pro-LGBTQ+ organizations. That law was unfortunately overturned by state courts in 2008 due to a technicality and a replacement is not adopted.

  • In the late 2000s the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of LGBT Affairs was created. The Pittsburgh Mayor’s LGBTQIA Advisory Council was also launched.

1990s

  • The Statewide Pennsylvania Rights Coalition (SPARC) was formed to coordinate statewide LGBTQ advocacy work. It was a key champion in helping secure the adoption of the hate crimes law in 2002. SPARC dissolved in the early 2000s.

  • Formation of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Rights an LGBTQ legal clinic in Philadelphia. Later this organization became Equality Advocates, and in 2009 became Equality Pennsylvania. That organization effectively dissolved in 2018.

  • Through the 1990s and 2000s, the number of LGBTQ community organizations rapidly expands including LGBTQ student organizations in high schools and colleges across the state.

  • Nondiscrimination ordinances began to be adopted in larger cities like Allentown, Scranton, and Pittsburgh.

1980s

  • 1983 - Harrisburg passes a nondiscrimination ordinance that includes gender identity - the first legal protections for transgender Pennsylvanians in state history.

  • 1982 - Philadelphia passed an ordinance banning discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation.  

  • Through the 1980s LGBTQ communities in Pennsylvania are devastated by HIV/AIDS. Advocacy efforts are galvanized throughout the commonwealth to support those who are positive and living with AIDS. ACT UP becomes a strong force for organizing and activism. LGBTQ communities begin developing outside of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

1970s

  • 1979 - The Gay and Lesbian Community Center, Inc. of Pittsburgh began as a help line associated with PERSAD — and today is the Pittsburgh Equality Center.

  • Late 1970’s - Student groups like “Homophiles” at Penn State University are formed. The Gay Community Center of Philadelphia also opens.

  • 1976 - The first piece of legislation introduced in the state legislature to advance equality on the basis of sexual orientation. It is not passed.

  • 1976 - Governor Shapp issues a proclamation for Gay Pride Week in and his actions are censured by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

  • 1976 - Governor Shapp creates the Governor’s Council on Sexual Minorities, regarded as the first formal governmental body in the world to advance LGBTQ inclusion.

  • 1975 - Through the advocacy of The Gay Raiders, Governor Milton Shapp issued Executive Order 1975-5, the first employment nondiscrimination policy of any state in the nation, which covered state employment.

  • 1975 - The Pennsylvania Rural Gay Caucus is organized.

  • 1972 - PERSAD is formed in Pittsburgh.

1960s

  • In 1969, Le-Hi-Ho, one of the first LGBTQ+ organizations outside of Philadelphia is formed in the Lehigh Valley

  • In 1965, one of the first LGBTQ sit-ins took place at Dewey’s Diner in Philadelphia, which ended in the restaurant once again welcoming LGBTQ patrons. On Independence Day from 1965 through 1969, the Annual Reminders took place in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. These demonstrations are regarded as one of the first public demonstrations in the United States calling for gay and lesbian equality. While it was an historic event, the organizing efforts focused on the presentation of cis gay men and women and was not inclusive of transgender people.

  • In 1962 the Janus Society was launched in Philadelphia, and produced one of the first gay community publications in the United States, called The Drum.

1950s 

  • In the late 1950s a local chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis formed in Philadelphia. It is the first national lesbian organization.