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Pride month: All you need to know about American gay rights activist Frank Kameny
Franklin Edward Kameny is credited for creating one of the first gay rights advocacy groups in the United States' history.
As the world celebrates Pride Month in June, Google honoured American gay rights activist Franklin Edward Kameny with a doodle on Tuesday. Kameny, hailed as one of the most prominent figures of the LGBTQ+ rights movement in the United States, is credited for creating one of the first gay rights advocacy groups in the country's history.
In 1957, the then 32-year-old Kameny was denied federal employment for being gay. After being dismissed from his position as an astronomer in the US army, he became the first gay rights activist to file an appeal in the US Supreme Court. He was also among the first to challenge the American Psychiatric Association's classification of homosexuality as a 'mental disorder' in the early 1970s.
Though his appeal to the SC was denied, from that point onwards began his lifelong struggle to fight the system that denied equal opportunities to homosexuals.
Born in 1925 in Queens, New York, Kameny graduated from Harvard University with both a master's degree and a doctorate in astronomy in 1956 before becoming properly involved in activism. After being fired from the Army Map Service in 1957, he began launching spearheading against homosexuality from 1961 onwards.
The landmark 1975 lifting of the ban on hiring LGBTQ employees in the Civil Service Commission is seen as a direct result of his efforts against the homosexual policies of the American government.
The Pride Month, observed to pay homage to those who took part in protests against a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, is marked by the LGBTQ+ community showcasing support for the cause from across the world. The police raids, when they became violent, gave birth to the uprising by various lesbian and gay communities, eventually leading to the gay liberation movement.
