1969 is etched in LGBTQ+ history as a landmark year because of Stonewall, but there’s another year that’s just as significant or maybe more so — 1973.
That was the year the American Psychiatric Association declared that homosexuality is not a mental illness. It was also the year that saw the founding of three major LGBTQ+ organizations, all still active: Lambda Legal, the National Gay (now LGBTQ) Task Force, and PFLAG, all observing their 50th anniversary this year.
They all had roots in the activism that rose up in the first few years after Stonewall. LGBTQ+ Americans — generally referred to then simply as gays or gays and lesbians — were fed up and ready to fight back. Forty-five states still had sodomy laws on the