There are videos at the link below. I don’t know where we are a species right now. It seems more and more people are willing to give in to the lowest of our natures while mocking those who try to live up to the best we could be. The Christians trying to keep books that have LGBTQ+ characters out of schools can’t be bothered by the shooting of starving people including kids trying desperately to get something to eat. They are not doing anything to help, just everything they can to lash out bashing a minority group just for existing using their god to do it. Yet did not their god say to feed the hungry? To help the immigrants among you? They are so desperate to control others sexuality but they don’t care about those acting cruelty to the ones most needing help. Hypocrites, which side of god do they get to sit on? Hugs
American contractors guarding aid distribution sites in Gaza are using live ammunition and stun grenades as hungry Palestinians scramble for food, according to accounts and videos obtained by The Associated Press.
Two U.S. contractors, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were revealing their employers’ internal operations, said they were coming forward because they were disturbed by what they considered dangerous and irresponsible practices. They said the security staff hired were often unqualified, unvetted, heavily armed and seemed to have an open license to do whatever they wished.
They said their colleagues regularly lobbed stun grenades and pepper spray in the direction of the Palestinians. One contractor said bullets were fired in all directions — in the air, into the ground and at times toward the Palestinians, recalling at least one instance where he thought someone had been hit.
“There are innocent people being hurt. Badly. Needlessly,” the contractor said.
He said American staff on the sites monitor those coming to seek food and document anyone considered “suspicious.” He said they share such information with the Israeli military.
Videos provided by one of the contractors and taken at the sites show hundreds of Palestinians crowded between metal gates, jostling for aid amid the sound of bullets, stun grenades and the sting of pepper spray. Other videos include conversation between English-speaking men discussing how to disperse crowds and encouraging each other after bursts of gunfire.
The testimonies from the contractors — combined with the videos, internal reports and text messages obtained by the AP — offer a rare glimpse inside the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the newly created, secretive American organization backed by Israel to feed the Gaza Strip’s population. Last month, the U.S. government pledged $30 million for the group to continue operations — the first known U.S. donation to the group, whose other funding sources remain opaque.
A spokesperson for Safe Reach Solutions, the logistics company subcontracted by GHF, told the AP that there have been no serious injuries at any of their sites to date. In scattered incidents, security professionals fired live rounds into the ground and away from civilians to get their attention. That happened in the early days at the “the height of desperation where crowd control measures were necessary for the safety and security of civilians,” the spokesperson said.
Aid operation is controversial
Gaza’s more than 2 million Palestinians are living through a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, setting off the 21-month war, Israel has bombarded and laid siege to the strip, leaving many teetering on the edge of famine, according to food security experts.
For 2 1/2 months before GHF’s opening in May, Israel blocked all food, water and medicine from entering Gaza, claiming Hamas was stealing the aid being transported under a preexisting system coordinated by the United Nations. It now wants GHF to replace that U.N. system. The U.N. says its Gaza aid operations do not involve armed guards.
Over 57,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since the war erupted, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants.
GHF is an American organization, registered in Delaware and established in February to distribute humanitarian aid during the ongoing Gaza humanitarian crisis. Since the GHF sites began operating more than a month ago, Palestinians say Israeli troops open fire almost every day toward crowds on roads heading to the distribution points, through Israeli military zones. Several hundred people have been killed and hundreds more wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and witnesses.
In response, Israel’s military says it fires only warning shots and is investigating reports of civilian harm. It denies deliberately shooting at any innocent civilians and says it’s examining how to reduce “friction with the population” in the areas surrounding the distribution centers.
AP’s reporting for this article focuses on what is happening at the sites themselves. Palestinians arriving at the sites say they are caught between Israeli and American fire, said the contractor who shared videos with the AP.
“We have come here to get food for our families. We have nothing,” he recounted Palestinians telling him. “Why does the (Israeli) army shoot at us? Why do you shoot at us?”
A spokesperson for the GHF said there are people with a “vested interest” in seeing it fail and are willing to do or say almost anything to make that happen. The spokesperson said the team is composed of seasoned humanitarian, logistics and security professionals with deep experience on the ground. The group says it has distributed the equivalent of more than 50 million meals in Gaza in its food boxes of staples.
GHF says that it has consistently shown compassionate engagement with the people of Gaza.
Throughout the war, aid distribution has been marred by chaos. Gangs have looted trucks of aid traveling to distribution centers and mobs of desperate people have also offloaded trucks before they’ve reached their destination. Earlier this month, at least 51 Palestinians were killed and more than 200 wounded while waiting for the U.N. and commercial trucks to enter the territory, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and a local hospital. Israel’s military acknowledged several casualties as soldiers opened fire on the approaching crowd and said authorities would investigate.
Videos, texts, internal reports document havoc at food sites
AP spoke to the two contractors for UG Solutions, an American outfit subcontracted to hire security personnel for the distribution sites. They said bullets, stun grenades and pepper spray were used at nearly every distribution, even if there was no threat.
Videos of aid being dispensed at the sites seen by the AP appear to back up the frenetic scenes the contractors described. The footage was taken within the first two weeks of its distributions — about halfway into the operations.
In one video, what appear to be heavily armed American security contractors at one of the sites in Gaza discuss how to disperse Palestinians nearby. One is heard saying he has arranged for a “show of force” by Israeli tanks.
“I don’t want this to be too aggressive,” he adds, “because this is calming down.”
At that moment, bursts of gunfire erupt close by, at least 15 shots. “Whoo! Whoo!” one contractor yelps.
“I think you hit one,” one says.
Then comes a shout: “Hell, yeah, boy!”
The camera’s view is obscured by a large dirt mound.
The contractor who took the video told AP that he saw other contractors shooting in the direction of Palestinians who had just collected their food and were departing. The men shot both from a tower above the site and from atop the mound, he said. The shooting began because contractors wanted to disperse the crowd, he said, but it was unclear why they continued shooting as people were walking away.
The camera does not show who was shooting or what was being shot at. But the contractor who filmed it said he watched another contractor fire at the Palestinians and then saw a man about 60 yards (meters) away — in the same direction where the bullets were fired — drop to the ground.
This happened at the same time the men were heard talking — effectively egging each other on, he said.
In other videos furnished by the contractor, men in grey uniforms — colleagues, he said — can be seen trying to clear Palestinians who are squeezed into a narrow, fenced-in passage leading to one of the centers. The men fire pepper spray and throw stun grenades that detonate amid the crowd. The sound of gunfire can be heard. The contractor who took the video said the security personnel usually fire at the ground near the crowds or from nearby towers over their heads.
During a single distribution in June, contractors used 37 stun grenades, 27 rubber-and-smoke “scat shell” projectiles and 60 cans of pepper spray, according to internal text communications shared with the AP.
That count does not include live ammunition, the contractor who provided the videos said.
One photo shared by that contractor shows a woman lying in a donkey cart after he said she was hit in the head with part of a stun grenade.
This photo, provided by an American contractor on condition of anonymity because they were revealing their employers’ internal operations, shows a woman slumped over in a donkey cart after the contractor said she was hit in the head with part of a stun grenade at a food distribution site in Gaza run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in June 2025. (AP Photo)
An internal report by Safe Reach Solutions, the logistics company subcontracted by GHF to run the sites, found that aid seekers were injured during 31% of the distributions that took place in a two-week period in June. The report did not specify the number of injuries or the cause. SRS told the AP the report refers to non-serious injuries.
More videos show frenzied scenes of Palestinians running to collect leftover food boxes at one site. Hundreds of young men crowd near low metal barriers, transferring food from boxes to bags while contractors on the other side of the barriers tell them to stay back.
Some Palestinians wince and cough from pepper spray. “You tasting that pepper spray? Yuck,” one man close to the camera can be heard saying in English.
SRS acknowledged that it’s dealing with large, hungry populations, but said the environment is secure, controlled, and ensures people can get the aid they need safely.
Verifying the videos with audio analysis
To confirm the footage is from the sites, AP geolocated the videos using aerial imagery. The AP also had the videos analyzed by two audio forensic experts who said they could identify live ammunition — including machine-gun fire — coming from the sites, in most cases within 50 to 60 meters of the camera’s microphone.
In the video where the men are heard egging each other on, the echo and acoustics of the shots indicate they’re fired from a position close to the microphone, said Rob Maher, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Montana State University and an author and research expert in audio forensic analysis. Maher and the other analyst, Steven Beck, owner of Beck Audio Forensics, said there was no indication that the videos’ audio had been tampered with.
The analysts said that the bursts of gunfire and the pop sequences in some of the videos indicated that guns were panning in different directions and were not repeatedly aimed at a single target. They could not pinpoint exactly where the shots were coming from nor who was shooting.
GHF says the Israeli military is not deployed at the aid distribution sites. Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an army spokesman, said the army is not stationed at the sites or within their immediate proximity, especially during operating hours. He said they’re run by an American company and have their own security.
One of the contractors who had been on the sites said he’d never felt a real or perceived threat by Hamas there.
SRS says that Hamas has openly threatened its aid workers and civilians receiving aid. It did not specify where people were threatened.
Palestinians carry boxes containing food and humanitarian aid packages delivered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S.-backed organization approved by Israel, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana,File)
American analysts and Israeli soldiers work side by side, contractors say
According to the contractor who took the videos, the Israeli army is leveraging the distribution system to access information.
Both contractors said that cameras monitor distributions at each site and that American analysts and Israeli soldiers sit in a control room where the footage is screened in real time. The control room, they said, is housed in a shipping container on the Israeli side of the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The contractor who took the videos said some cameras are equipped with facial recognition software. In live shots of the sites seen by the AP, some videos streams are labeled “analytics” — those were the ones that had the facial recognition software, said the contractor.
If a person of interest is seen on camera — and their information is already in the system — their name and age pops up on the computer screen, said the contractor. Israeli soldiers watching the screens take notes and cross-check the analysts’ information with their own drone footage from the sites, he said.
The contractor said he did not know the source of the data in the facial recognition system. The AP could not independently verify his information.
An internal SRS report from June seen by the AP said that its intel team would circulate to staff a “POI Mugs Card,” that showed photos of Palestinians taken at the sites who were deemed persons of interest.
The contractor said he and other staff were told by SRS to photograph anyone who looked “out of place.” But the criteria were not specified, he said. The contractor said the photos were also added to the facial recognition database. He did not know what was done with the information.
SRS said accusations that it gathers intelligence are false and that it has never used biometrics. It said it coordinates movements with Israeli authorities, a requirement for any aid group in Gaza.
An Israeli security official who was not named in line with the army’s protocol, said there are no security screening systems developed or operated by the army within the aid sites.
July 3, 1835 Children employed in the silk mills at Paterson, New Jersey, went on strike for an eleven-hour workday and a six-day workweek rather than 12-14 hour days. With the help of adults, they won a compromise settlement of a 69-hour week. More on the Baby Strikers
July 3, 1966 4000 Britons chanting, “Hands off Vietnam,” demonstrated in London against escalation of the Vietnam War. U.S. warplanes had recently bombed the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi as well as the port city of Haiphong. Police moved in after scuffles broke out at the demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square; 31 were arrested. Actress Vanessa Redgrave joins 25,000 two years later at Anti-Vietnam war protest, Grosvenor Square. Read more
July 3, 1974 At the Moscow Summit talks between President Richard Nixon and President Leonid Brezhnev, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to hold bilateral talks on the prohibition of chemical weapons.
July 4, 1776 The United States declared its independence from King George III and Great Britain, thus beginning the first successful anti-imperial revolution in world history. Signed in Philadelphia by 56 British subjects who lived and owned property in thirteen of the American colonies, the document asserted the right of a people to create its own form of government. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were members of the 2nd Continental Congress which had voted two days earlier to separate from the British crown. Read the Declaration see some quotes on nationalism and patriotism
July 4, 1827 Slavery was outlawed in New York State as the result of the Gradual Emancipation law passed ten years earlier. This freedom applied only to those who had been 18 at the time of its passage. Enslaved children born during the subsequent ten-year period were not be freed until they reached the age of 21. At the urging of Reverend William Hamilton, a freedman and carpenter, and others, the end of slavery was celebrated in churches. The Fourth of July had in the past been marred by young white men attacking black Americans. More on William Hamilton and others
July 4, 1829 Speaking at Boston’s Park Street Church, newspaper editor and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison gave a seminal speech on “Dangers to the Nation.” Though Massachusetts had banned slavery in 1781 and there was strong anti-slavery sentiment, most understood that a national ban of slavery would threaten the union of the states. Compensation to slaveholders and return of the enslaved to Africa was considered the best solution. Garrison, on the other hand, called attention to the hypocrisy of celebrating the the day the document was signed declaring, “All men are created equal” while two million were in bondage. He proposed four propositions that day to guide the abolitionist movement: 1. Above all others, slaves in America deserve “the prayers, and sympathies, and charities of the American people.” 2. Non-slave-holding states are “constitutionally involved in the guilt of slavery,” and are obligated “to assist in its overthrow.” 3. There is no valid legal or religious justification for the preservation of slavery. 4. The “colored population” of America should be freed, given an education, and accepted as equal citizens with whites. William Lloyd Garrison
July 4, 1894 The Republic of Hawaii was proclaimed with Sanford B. Dole as president. It was recognized immediately by the United States government under President Grover Cleveland. This was the result of the successful overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, then held by Queen Lydia Liliuokalani, and the support by white Americans involved in the sugar trade on the islands for annexation by the United States. Shortly after she had come to office, she had promulgated a new constitution which increased the power of the monarchy and that of native Hawaiians.
July 4, 1965 Barbara Gittings at the Philadelphia picket The first of an annual picket in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall was held by gay and Lesbian Americans. Jack Nichols and Frank Kameny and members of the New York and Washington Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis had earlier demonstrated in Washington, and wished to change the general perception that homosexuals were perverted or sick.
“By those protesters coming out publicly, and placing themselves very strategically in front of the building that evoked the Declaration of Independence and the idea that all men are created equal, it suggested it [gay rights] was no longer a moral or national security or psychiatric issue … it was a civil-rights issues,” David K. Johnson wrote in The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government.
July 4, 1966 The Freedom of Information Act, P.L. 89-487, became law. It established the right of Americans to know what their government is doing by outlining procedures for getting access to internal documents.
July 4, 1969 “Give Peace a Chance” by the Plastic Ono Band was released in the United Kingdom. The song was recorded May 31, 1969, during the “Bed-In” John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal as part of their honeymoon. John and Yoko stayed in bed for 8 days, beginning May 26, in an effort to promote world peace. Some of the people in the hotel room who sang on this were Tommy Smothers, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, and Petula Clark. Smothers also played guitar. This event promoting peace received a great deal of media attention.“All we are saying . . .” watch & listen – give it a chance
July 4, 1969 A national anti-war conference in Cleveland, Ohio, mapped out activities against the Vietnam War and resulted in the founding of New Mobe (mobilization). More about the Mobes
July 4, 1983 The Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice began an eight week stay on a farm just outside the Seneca Army Depot near Romulus, New York. The purpose of the gathering was for the women to learn about and together protest the escalation of militarism and the weapons build-up being led at the time by the Reagan administration. visit PeaCe eNCaMPeNT HeRSToRy PRoJeCT
July 4, 2007 The first of several Peace Caravans (Caravanes de Paix) set out from South Kivu and traveled across Africa’s Great Lakes region, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi and Rwanda. The Scout Associations of the countries in the violence-ridden area trained hundreds of young people in conflict resolution through their focus on education for peace. Members of the Caravan for Peace in Burundi The classes and the caravans included hundreds of young people in Scouts and Girl Guides from many ethnic groups (often with a history of mutual hostility) who act as community mediators.
July 2, 1776 New Jersey became the first British colony in America to grant partial women’s suffrage. The new constitution (temporary if there were a reconciliation with Great Britain) granted the vote to all those “of full age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation money,” including non-whites and widows; married women were not able to own property under common law.
July 2, 1777 Vermont became the first of the United States to abolish slavery.
July 2, 1809 Alarmed by the growing encroachment of whites squatting on Native American lands, the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh called on all Indians to unite and resist. By 1810, he had organized the Ohio Valley Confederacy, which united Indians from the Shawnee, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Winnebago, Menominee, Ottawa, and Wyandotte nations. For several years, Tecumseh’s Indian Confederacy successfully delayed further white settlement in the region. Chief Tecumseh Tecumseh’s efforts
July 2, 1839 Slave ship Early in the morning, captive Africans on the Cuban slave ship Amistad, led by Joseph Cinquè (a Mende from what is now Sierra Leone), mutinied against their captors, killing the captain and the cook, and seized control of the schooner. Jose Ruiz, a Spaniard and planter from Puerto Principe, Cuba, had bought the 49 adult males on the ship, paying $450 each, as slaves for his sugar plantation. More about Amistad Joseph Cinquè
July 2, 1964 Jobs and Freedom march April 28, 1963, Washington DC U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, thus barring discrimination in public accommodations (restaurants, stores, theatres, etc.), employment, and voting. The law had survived an 83-day filibuster in the U.S. Senate by 21 members from southern states. “I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come,” said President Johnson to his press secretary, Bill Moyers later that day. He anticipated a shift in white southern voting from the Democratic to the Republican party in response to the law. Massive demonstrations a year earlier ensured passage of the Act.
July 2, 1992 President George H.W. Bush (the elder) announced that the United States had completed the worldwide withdrawals of all its ground- and sea-launched tactical nuclear weapons [see September 27, 1991].
CINCINNATI — The Ohio Lesbian Archives in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood started with a friendship.
Phebe Beiser said that when she and co-founder Victoria “Vic” Ramstetter met in the 1970s, they bonded over being “hidden, secret, teenage lesbians,” growing up in what was then a conservative city and region where there were few gay role models. For a time in their 20s, they shared group houses in Clifton, where they now joke that they “survived the lesbian commune together.” They were young and idealistic. They wanted to “turn being an activist lesbian into something fun and interesting, and maybe help change the world.” Beiser, now in her mid 70s, told The 19th that they had a mantra: “We never wanted to be invisible again.”
When the Crazy Ladies Bookstore, named for the women who history brushed off as “crazy,” opened in Northside in 1979, it became the center of gravity in the Cincinnati lesbian community of which Beiser and Ramstetter were a part. Women bought homes in the neighborhood, gathering at the feminist bookstore for coffee, tea and conversation about being women, and about being gay. In 1989, the Archives opened on an upper floor.
It seemed that the visibility of the Crazy Ladies Bookstore and the Ohio Lesbian Archives — and of the women who made them happen — would be cemented in history in 2023, when the Ohio History Connection, the state’s nonprofit historical society, “embarked on a three-year project to diversify Ohio’s historical markers to include ten new stories of LGBTQ+ Ohioans” via its Gay Ohio History Initiative, or GOHI. At the time, there were roughly 1,800 historical markers in Ohio’s program, but only two commemorated places, events or people from the state’s queer history. A third, recognizing Summit Station, a lesbian bar in Columbus that operated from 1970 to 2008, was dedicated during Pride Month that year. The Archives and bookstore were selected for joint recognition.
That long-overdue acknowledgement has been derailed by the Trump administration’s sweeping war on DEI, which extends beyond diversity, equity and inclusion programs to seemingly include anything that acknowledges the country’s diversity of experience. But the archives — and the volunteers who sustain it — are undeterred, carrying on as the queer community has throughout history, documenting their existence.
We never wanted to be invisible again.” Phebe Beiser
The Ohio Lesbian Archives first began in 1989 in a small room on the third floor above the Crazy Ladies Bookstore in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library)
The Marking Diverse Ohio program was financed by a $250,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an independent agency created by a Republican-led Congress in 1996 that is the main source of federal funding for libraries and museums. Beiser and Branstetter were interviewed for an oral history. Ohio History Connection researchers visited the Archives to peruse the collection. A location was secured in a city park near where the since-shuttered Crazy Ladies Bookstore once was. By early this year, preparations to forever commemorate the Archives and bookstore with a plaque were all but complete. Its installation was expected in June, Pride Month.
Then, in late March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order regarding “The Continuing Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy,” singling out seven agencies for elimination — including the Institute of Museum and Library Services, or IMLS. Nearly all of its employees were put on leave and their emails were disconnected. Days later, his administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, canceled $25 million worth of already-awarded IMLS grants, including the $250,000 for Ohio History Connection’s Marking Diverse Ohio program. The federal agency’s seemingly final Instagram post stated: “The era of using your taxpayer dollars to fund DEI grants is OVER.” The last photo listed erecting “LGBTQIA+ historical markers across Ohio” among the alleged government excesses that would be cut.
Svetlana Harlan, a former project coordinator for Marking Diverse Ohio, recalled that when she looked at the list, and saw the program with other projects she admired, “it almost seemed like a positive thing, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, these are nice initiatives!’”
“And it turns out that [DOGE] was just taking over the account. So then I was like, ‘Oh, they’re cutting those. Oh, our name is on the list,’” she said.
DOGE’s cancellation of the $250,000 IMLS grant to Ohio History Connection threw into question the future of the markers that were supposed to ensure that Ohio’s public displays of its history include LGBTQ+ people. Along with the Ohio Lesbian Archives and the Crazy Ladies Bookstore, there were markers in the works for an LGBTQ+ district in Akron; the first professor of gay and lesbian studies at Kent State University; 19th-century sculptor Edmonia “Wildfire” Lewis; LGBTQ+ journalism in Ohio; Toledo’s first LGBTQ+ member of city council; a Columbus hospice care center for HIV and AIDs patients; an open lesbian pastor in Athens; the screen-printing company Nightsweats and T-Cells in Lakewood; and the Rubi Girls, a Dayton-area drag group that has raised more than $3 million for HIV/AIDs and LGBTQ+ causes since the 1980s.
Ephemera collected at the Ohio Lesbian Archives include buttons from past Pride marches, political campaigns and other symbols of lesbian life. (Courtesy Ohio Lesbian Archives)
Preservation on hold
Marking Diverse Ohio and other programs recognizing specific communities weren’t the only programs impacted in the state when DOGE cut IMLS grants and the federal agency essentially shuttered. And, given that more than $250 million is granted annually to libraries and museums nationally, the economic chaos at the country’s museums, libraries and historical institutions wasn’t confined to Ohio.
In Ohio, other entities that received recent IMLS funding include the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Westcott House in Springfield, for post-pandemic, on-site programming; the Cincinnati Zoo for a big cat breeding program; Dayton Metro Library programs that helped low-income Ohioans secure Internet access; and Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center, which lost $175,000 slated for programming aimed at the 3,000 or more teens it serves each year.
Institutions in Pennsylvania warned the economic upheaval could scuttle the digitization of The Rosenbach museum’s collection of rare books and manuscripts; the Woodmere Art Museum was mid renovation on a building to house its collection and expected to be reimbursed. In Wisconsin, small-town libraries said without the $3 million from the IMLS they’d received the year before they would have to reduce staff and therefore services. The American Library Association, or ALA, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, the labor union representing government workers, sued the Trump administration. ALA President Cindy Hohl said at the time that, “Libraries play an important role in our democracy, from preserving history to … offering access to a variety of perspectives.” AFSCME President Lee Saunders added: “Libraries and museums contain our collective history and knowledge.”
Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration could continue dismantling the Institute of Museum and Library Services as the case continues.
For now, Ohioans who want LGBTQ+ history represented among the 1,800 markers in the state will not get the federal funding that was granted and must search for alternative resources in their communities. A couple of the markers look poised to move forward with outside funding from community foundations and other organizations. Others, like the Ohio Lesbian Archives and the Crazy Ladies Bookstore, are still waiting. The remaining cost to install the marker would likely be $3,000-$5,000.
When The 19th reached out to Ohio History Connection to ask if any alternative funding sources were being explored to install the Archives’ marker, spokesperson Neil Thompson said that he was “not able to provide any additional information for an Ohio Historical Marker application that is not in the public domain” and that it is only considered in the public domain once “the markers are finalized, cast and ready to be installed and dedicated.”
Phebe Beiser (far left), who co-founded the Ohio Lesbian Archives with her longtime friend Victoria ‘Vic’ Ramstetter, with Janice Uhlman, Elizabeth Van Dyke, Cathy McEneny, Morgan Kronenberger, and Ruth Rowan (left to right) at the Ohio Lesbian Archives in 1989. (Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library)
‘A reflection of themselves’
The Ohio Lesbian Archives has always been a DIY endeavor, powered by a group of passionate volunteers. When the Crazy Ladies Bookstore’s founder, Carolyn Dellenbach, moved out of the area, she handed it over to its patrons to be run as a feminist collective. A lesbian newsletter called Dinah operated out of the upper floor — they referred to the National Organization for Women’s Task Force on Sexuality and Lesbianism, established in 1973, as FOSAL, or fossil, and Dinah was a play on dinosaur. Beiser laughed explaining the name: It was the 1970s; maybe there were drugs involved. For a time she wrote for Dinah and loved interviewing famous arrivals from the “women’s music circuit” when they came to town.
At some point, the women working shifts at the bookstore, writing for Dinah and organizing talks and other events related to feminist and lesbian issues, realized that the community they had built, and the ephemera they were collecting and creating, were an important part of history — theirs, lesbians,’ Ohioans,’ and women’s.
“We held on to them because we knew they could not be replaced,” Beiser said of the collection. “It’s proof of our existence … so we held on to these things to never be invisible again.”
We held on to them because we knew they could not be replaced. It’s proof of our existence.” Phebe Beiser
Books on lesbian history line the shelves of the Ohio Lesbian Archives. (Courtesy Ohio Lesbian Archives)
In a 1991 issue of Dinah, letters to the editor included one from “Ma” who updated the “wimmin” in the community — they often spelled variations of their gender in ways that did not include “man” — that she was homesteading outside the city with her partner and building a log cabin. Another was from a woman who said she was “shocked” to find out that her being fired for being a lesbian was not a violation of civil rights laws and she was disappointed that the LGBTQ+ community did not come out to support her recent picket, writing: “I hope that in my lifetime I will see the gay and lesbian community get off their asses and together start fighting for their rights.”
Across from the metal filing cabinet at the Archives that houses the Dinah issues, a modern-looking poster from before the Supreme Court decided Bostock v. Clayton County in 2020, which extended employment protections to LGBTQ+ Americans, reminded Ohioans that it was still legal for them to be fired for their sexual orientation or gender identity. Today, Trump’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is aiming to curtail those hard-won workplace protections established by Bostock.
Lüdi Rich, a 27-year-old librarian, was working a recent Sunday afternoon at the Archives’ twice-weekly open hours, organizing books and research materials while the space was open to members of the community to drop in.
When Rich moved to Cincinnati nearly two years ago, she didn’t know anyone in the area, so she looked online for queer spaces so she could start building her community. When she attended a panel on local queer history, one of the speakers was Beiser, a longtime librarian herself in the country’s second-largest public library system.
Beiser mentioned at the panel that the Ohio Lesbian Archives would be having an open house that night at its new location next to Over-the-Rhine’s Washington Square Park, where Beiser was among those who met to march in Cincinnati’s first Pride Parade in April 1973. Rich asked Beiser how she could volunteer.
A couple months later, Rich showed up for her first shift, “And I’ve been here working ever since,” she said.
Nancy Yerian, the 34-year-old president of the Archives’ board, said that when she graduated from college in Massachusetts, she didn’t know if she could return to Cincinnati, where she grew up — until she discovered the Archives. “I thought that to live the kind of life I wanted to lead, I had to get out of what I thought was a very conservative place,” said Yerian, who has been volunteering at the Archives in some capacity since shortly after she finished school.
“Finding the Archives and the people I’ve met through the organization and the community we’re creating, as well as the history we’re preserving — it gave me a lot of hope that I could create a life for myself here,” she added.
It really is just us, preserving our history.”Lüdi Rich
The Crazy Ladies Bookstore marched in a Cincinnati, Ohio Pride parade. (Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library)
The Archives’ volunteers have helped digitize old photos, some of which are now in a collection at the Cincinnati Public Library. They organize the books, arranged by first names instead of last, since so many women, especially in those early years, published works after taking on their husbands’ surnames. There are filing folders of Dinah newsletters. A cabinet holds multiple VHS and DVD copies of the early aughts television drama “The L Word.” A collection of buttons includes those from past Pride marches; supporting Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns; and one with “REMEMBER” and an inverted pink triangle, the Nazi symbol that Adolf Hitler used to identify gay and trans people. There is also one with the logo of the Crazy Ladies Bookstore, the silhouette of a woman reading while reclined in a chair, a cat by her side.
“Many people who are coming to the archives are looking for a reflection of themselves and in many ways that’s why Vic and Phebe started it. It shows models of ways to be in the world and a feeling of not being alone and not being the first queer person or lesbian,” Yerian said.
The Ohio Lesbian Archives, marker or not, is and will keep doing what it always has: making sure that lesbian Americans are visible in the country’s historical record.
“It really is just us, preserving our history,” Rich said.
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I hope everyone and their pets enjoy at least some peace these next few days! I hate fireworks, though I don’t mind them far away or on TV. I did used to like them, when I was a kid. 🎆
July 1, 1917 8000 anti-war marchers demonstrated in Boston. Their banners read: “IS THIS A POPULAR WAR, WHY CONSCRIPTION? WHO STOLE PANAMA? WHO CRUSHED HAITI? WE DEMAND PEACE.” The parade was attacked by soldiers and sailors, on orders from their officers.
July 1, 1944 A massive general strike and nonviolent protest in Guatemala led to the resignation of dictator Jorge Ubico who had harshly ruled Guatemala for over a decade. Juan José Arévalo Bermejo On March 15 of the following year, Dr. Juan José Arévalo Bermejo took office as the first popularly elected president of Guatemala, and promptly called for democratic reforms establishing the nation’s social security and health systems, land reform (redistribution of farmland not under cultivation to the landless with compensation to the owners), and a government bureau to look after native Mayan concerns. Jorge Ubico A decade of peaceful democratic rule followed, until a CIA-backed coup in 1954 ushered in a new, even more brutal era of dictatorial and genocidal regimes. [see June 27, 1954]
July 1, 1946 The United States exploded a 20-kiloton atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
July 1, 1968 Sixty-one nations, including the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union, signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) which set up systems to monitor use of nuclear technology and prevent more nations from acquiring nuclear weapons. 190 countries are now signatories; Israel, India and Pakistan remain outside the Treaty. North Korea joined the NPT in 1985, but in January 2003 announced its intention to withdraw from the Treaty. Text of the Treaty
July 1, 1972 The first issue Publication of the first monthly issue of Ms. Magazine, founded by Gloria Steinem “The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off,” Letty Cottin Pogrebin “Housework is the only activity at which men are allowed to be consistently inept because they are thought to be so competent at everything else,” and others. Ms. Magazine today (It’s still Ms. Magazine! -A.)
July 1, 2000 Vermont’s civil unions law went into effect, granting gay couples most of the rights, benefits, protections and responsibilities of marriage under state law. In the first five years, 1,142 Vermont couples, and 6,424 from elsewhere, had chosen a Vermont civil union.
Also, to commemorate the final day of PRIDE month 2025, here’s an historic dance music video to celebrate. No matter what, we should never not dance again! 🎶 🌈 🎶 🫶
June 30, 1966 The first GIs—known as the Fort Hood Three, U.S. Army Privates James Johnson, Dennis Mora and David Samas—refused to be sent to Vietnam. All were members of the 142nd Signal Battalion, 2nd Armored Division stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. The three were from working-class families, and had denounced the war as “immoral, illegal and unjust.” They were arrested, court-martialed and imprisoned. The Pentagon reported 503,926 “incidents of desertion” between 1966 and 1971. 1961-1973: GI resistance in the Vietnam War View their pamphlet Ballad of The Fort Hood Three Pete Seeger
June 30, 1971 The 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, lowering the minimum voting age to 18 in all elections, was ratified after ¾ of the 50 state legislatures had agreed to it, a mere 100 days after its passage by Congress.
June 30, 1974 The Selective Service law, authorizing the draft, expired, marking the official end of conscription in the U.S. and the beginning of the all-volunteer armed forces.
June 30, 2005 Spain legalized same-sex marriage by a vote of 187-147 in parliament. Such couples were also granted the right to adopt and receive inheritances. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero spoke in support of the bill, “We are expanding the opportunities for happiness of our neighbors, our colleagues, our friends and our relatives. At the same time, we are building a more decent society. Read more
Crackdown on Pride is part of effort to curb democratic freedoms ahead of a hotly-contested election next year
Tens of thousands march against Hungary’s government for LGBT rights – video
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Budapest in defiance of the Hungarian government’s ban on Pride, heeding a call by the city’s mayor to “come calmly and boldly to stand together for freedom, dignity and equal rights”.
Jubilant crowds packed into the city’s streets on Saturday, waving Pride flags and signs that mocked the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, as their peaceful procession inched forward at a snail’s pace.
Organisers estimated that a record number of people turned up, far outstripping the expected turnout of 35,000-40,000 people.
“We believe there are 180,000 to 200,000 people attending,” the president of Pride, Viktória Radványi told AFP. “It is hard to estimate because there have never been so many people at Budapest Pride.”
The mass demonstration against the government was a bittersweet marking of Budapest Pride’s 30th anniversary; while the turnout on Saturday was expected to reach record levels, it had come after the government had doubled down on its targeting of the country’s LGBTQ+ community.
Hungary Pride participants in the march cross the Elisabeth Bridge in Budapest, Hungary. Photograph: Rudolf Karancsi/AP
“We came because they tried to ban it,” said Timi, 49. The Hungarian national was marching with her daughter, Zsófi, 23, who had travelled from her home in Barcelona to join the rally.
After the ruling Fidesz party, led by the rightwing populist Orbán, fast-tracked a law that made it an offence to hold or attend events that involve the “depiction or promotion” of homosexuality to minors, many Hungarians vowed to show their disapproval by attending Pride for the first time.
Viki Márton was among those who had made good on the promise, turning up with her nine-year-old daughter.
The pair had come equipped with hats, water spray, and a swimsuit, more worried about heat than rightwing protesters. “I want her to see the reality,” said Márton. “And I’m so excited to be here!”
Tens of thousands of Hungarians took to the streets on Saturday, despite Orbán’s warning on Friday that those who attend or organise the march will face ‘legal consequences’. Photograph: János Kummer/Getty Images
Earlier this month, police announced they would follow the government’s orders and ban the march. The progressive mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karácsony, was swift to respond, saying that the march would instead go ahead as a separate municipal event, with Karácsony describing it as a way to circumvent the need for official authorisation.
On Saturday, the mayor reiterated why the city had decided to host the event, hinting at how the march had become a symbol of discontent against a government that has long faced criticism for weakening democratic institutions and gradually undermining the rule of law.
“The government is always fighting against an enemy against which they have to protect Hungarian people,” said Karácsony.
“This time, it is sexual minorities that are the target … we believe there should be no first and second class citizens, so we decided to stand by this event.”
Akos Horvath, 18, who had travelled two hours from his city in southern Hungary to take part in the march, described it as an event of “symbolic importance”.
Speaking to news agency AFP, he added: “It’s not just about representing gay people, but about standing up for the rights of the Hungarian people.”
The sentiment was echoed by fellow marcher Eszter Rein-Bódi. “This is about much more, not just about homosexuality,” Rein-Bódi told Reuters “This is the last moment to stand up for our rights.”
‘This is about much more, not just about homosexuality,’ one participant told Reuters. Photograph: Lisa Leutner/Reuters
Tens of thousands of Hungarians, including senior citizens and parents with their children, plus politicians and campaigners from 30 countries, took to the streets on Saturday, despite Orbán’s warning on Friday that those who attend or organise the march will face “legal consequences”.
The Hungarian prime minister sought to minimise concerns over violence, however, saying that Hungary was a “civilised country” and police would not “break it up … It cannot reach the level of physical abuse”.
Still, in a video posted to social media this week, the country’s justice minister, Bence Tuzson, warned the Budapest mayor that organising a banned event or encouraging people to attend is punishable by up to a year in prison.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, the mayor brushed off the threat and downplayed concerns that police would later impose heavy fines on attende s. “Police have only one task tomorrow: to guarantee the safety and security of those gathered at the event,” said Karácsony.
The potential for violence had been amplified after three groups with ties to the extreme right said they were planning counter-marches. As the Pride march got under way, local news site Telex reported that the route of the march had to be changed after one of these groups blocked off a bridge.
Analysts had described the government’s bid to crackdown on Pride as part of a wider effort to curb democratic freedoms ahead of a hotly contested national election next year.
Orbán is facing an unprecedented challenge from a former member of the Fidesz party’s elite, Péter Magyar, leading Pride organisers to suggest they are being scapegoated as Orbán scrambles to shore up support among conservative voters.
Orbán’s government had also prompted concerns across Hungary and beyond after it said it would use facial recognition software to identify people attending any banned events, potentially fining them up to €500 (£425).
Ahead of the march, as campaigners scrambled for clarity on whether or how this technology would be used, AFP reported that newly installed cameras had appeared on the lamp-posts that dotted the planned route.
The threat had been enough to rattle some. Elton, 30, a Brazilian living in Hungary wore a hat and sunglasses as he took part on Saturday, explaining that he had been worried about jeopardising his job and immigration status, but that his Hungarian boyfriend had persuaded him to attend.
“This is my second time at Pride, but the first time I feel insecure about it,” he said.
Orbán’s government had also prompted concerns across Hungary and beyond after it said it would use facial recognition software to identify people attending any banned events. Photograph: Lisa Leutner/Reuters
Mici, a 21-year-old Budapest resident, said she had attended Pride marches in the past but this time had weighed whether to join in after she was spooked by reports of the facial recognition system.
“At first, I was scared to come out because of the news, but I feel safe with so many people.”
She hoped that the massive turnout for the march would be enough to push the Orbán government to change its stance.
“I think the crowd that has come from across Europe, the record numbers, will make Hungarian people see that this cause is well-supported.”
In the shadowy underground of mid-20th century America, where being anything other than a straight, cisgender conformist could land you in prison, a mental institution, or a shallow grave, Virginia Prince emerged like a goddamn hurricane wrapped in a dress. Born Charles Virginia Prince in 1912, she didn’t just challenge the rigid gender binary of her era—she fucking obliterated it, creating the conceptual framework and language that would eventually give birth to the modern transgender movement. But here’s the complicated shit: Virginia was also a product of her time, carrying baggage that would make her legacy as messy and contentious as it was revolutionary.
Virginia Prince wasn’t just another cross-dresser hiding in the shadows of American respectability. She was a visionary who saw the possibility of living between genders at a time when society insisted only two existed, period. Her creation of the term “transgender” and her decades of activism laid the groundwork for every rights battle we fight today. But she was also a deeply flawed human being whose views on sexuality, surgery, and identity would later put her at odds with the very communities she helped create.
This is the story of a brilliant, frustrating, essential figure who gave us the language to describe ourselves while simultaneously trying to police how we used it. Virginia Prince: the complicated badass who launched a revolution she couldn’t fully control and gave birth to ideas that would outlive her prejudices.
The Making of a Revolutionary in Repressive Times
Growing up in the early 20th century as a child who felt a profound disconnect from assigned gender was like existing in a psychological prison where the guards spoke a language you couldn’t understand. Virginia’s early years were marked by the crushing realization that the gender role society demanded didn’t match the internal reality she experienced. But unlike many of her contemporaries who internalized this disconnect as shame or pathology, Virginia began to see it as evidence that society’s gender categories were bullshit.
The 1920s and 1930s were decades of supposed liberation and progress, but that freedom didn’t extend to people who challenged fundamental assumptions about gender and sexuality. Virginia came of age during an era when cross-dressing was criminalized, when psychological theories pathologized any deviation from gender norms, and when the mere suggestion that gender might be fluid could destroy careers, families, and lives.
Her early experiments with feminine expression required incredible courage and strategic thinking. This wasn’t just about putting on women’s clothes—it was about reimagining the entire concept of gender identity in a society that had no framework for understanding such complexity. Every time Virginia dressed as a woman, she was conducting a radical experiment in human possibility that challenged centuries of binary thinking.
The psychological toll of living this dual existence cannot be overstated. Virginia had to navigate professional life, family relationships, and social interactions while maintaining a secret that could have destroyed everything she had built. The constant vigilance required to maintain this double life would have broken weaker spirits, but it forged in Virginia a determination to create spaces where others wouldn’t have to endure such isolation.
The War Years: Finding Community in Darkness
World War II created unexpected opportunities for gender experimentation as social roles shifted and traditional structures loosened. Virginia’s service during the war exposed her to broader networks of people who challenged conventional gender expression, providing her first real sense of community around these issues.
The war also introduced Virginia to the underground networks of cross-dressers and gender-variant people who had been operating in secret for decades. These connections were crucial for her psychological survival and her future activism. For the first time, she realized she wasn’t alone in her experiences and that there were others who shared her vision of gender as something more complex than society acknowledged.
Her wartime experiences also revealed the arbitrary nature of gender roles when social necessity demanded flexibility. Women working in factories, men in traditionally feminine support roles, the blurring of boundaries that peacetime society rigidly enforced—all of this provided evidence that gender categories were social constructions rather than biological imperatives.
The psychological impact of finding community during this period was transformative for Virginia. The isolation and shame that had characterized her earlier years began to give way to a sense of purpose and possibility. She started to see her gender variance not as a personal pathology but as evidence of human diversity that deserved recognition and respect.
The Publishing Revolution: Creating Visibility
Virginia’s decision to publish “Transvestia” magazine in 1960 was an act of revolutionary courage that created the first sustained platform for transgender voices in American media. This wasn’t just a hobby publication—it was a lifeline for isolated individuals across the country who had never seen their experiences reflected in print.
The magazine provided more than just information; it created community among people who had been atomized by shame and secrecy. Readers could finally see that their experiences were shared, that their feelings were valid, and that there were others working to create understanding and acceptance. The psychological impact of this visibility cannot be overstated for people who had spent their lives believing they were alone and abnormal.
Virginia’s editorial approach was strategic and careful, emphasizing respectability and education rather than sensationalism or sexual content. She understood that changing public opinion required presenting transgender people as sympathetic figures rather than freaks or perverts. This respectability politics approach was both necessary for the times and limiting in ways that would later create tension within transgender communities.
The magazine also served as an educational tool for families, medical professionals, and allies who were struggling to understand transgender experiences. Virginia’s clear, rational explanations of gender variance helped combat the pathological narratives that dominated medical and psychological discourse of the era.
Coining “Transgender”: The Power of Language
Virginia’s creation of the term “transgender” in the 1960s represents one of the most significant contributions to LGBTQIA+ liberation in the 20th century. Before this linguistic innovation, people like her were forced to use medical terms like “transvestite” or “transsexual” that carried pathological connotations and didn’t capture the full range of gender-variant experiences.
The word “transgender” was revolutionary because it suggested that gender identity existed on a spectrum rather than in discrete categories. It implied that crossing gender boundaries was a legitimate form of human expression rather than a medical condition requiring treatment. This conceptual shift was crucial for moving transgender experiences from the realm of pathology to the realm of identity and civil rights.
Virginia’s linguistic innovation also provided a political tool that would prove essential for organizing and advocacy. Having a term that encompassed diverse gender experiences allowed for coalition building that wouldn’t have been possible using the more narrow medical terminology of the era. The word became a rallying cry that united people across different experiences of gender variance.
The psychological impact of this linguistic shift was profound for transgender people who finally had language to describe their experiences without resorting to pathological or derogatory terms. Language shapes thought, and Virginia’s creation of “transgender” literally gave people new ways to think about themselves and their possibilities.
The Philosophy of Gender: Virginia’s Complex Vision
Virginia’s understanding of gender was both revolutionary and limited by the constraints of her era. She rejected the binary categorization of male and female while simultaneously maintaining traditional ideas about gender roles and characteristics. This contradiction would later put her at odds with more radical transgender activists, but it was essential for gaining mainstream acceptance during conservative times.
Her concept of “femmephilia”—the love of femininity—suggested that attraction to feminine expression was natural and healthy rather than deviant or pathological. This idea challenged both psychiatric orthodoxy and social conventions that insisted masculinity and femininity were fixed, essential characteristics tied to biological sex.
Virginia’s insistence that transgender people could live full, authentic lives without medical intervention was radical for an era when medical gatekeeping dominated transgender experiences. She argued that social transition was sufficient for psychological well-being and that surgical intervention was unnecessary and potentially harmful.
However, her views on sexuality and transgender identity were more conservative and exclusionary. Virginia insisted that “true” transgender people were heterosexual and that homosexuality was a separate, unrelated phenomenon. This position would later be criticized as transphobic and homophobic, but it reflected strategic thinking about respectability politics in an era of extreme social conservatism.
Building Networks: The Organizational Genius
Virginia’s creation of transgender social networks and support groups represented a crucial step in community building that laid the foundation for later political organizing. Her “Tri-Ess” organization (Society for the Second Self) provided safe spaces for transgender people to gather, share experiences, and build relationships that sustained them through difficult times.
These gatherings were psychologically transformative for participants who had spent years or decades in isolation. Being able to present authentically in supportive environments provided relief from the constant stress of hiding their true selves. The social connections formed at these events often became lifelong friendships that provided ongoing support and validation.
Virginia’s organizational approach emphasized discretion and safety, recognizing that most transgender people of her era faced severe consequences if their identities were exposed. Her networks operated with careful attention to privacy and security that protected participants while still providing community and support.
The leadership skills Virginia developed through this organizing work would prove essential as the transgender rights movement gained momentum. Her ability to bring people together, facilitate discussions, and build consensus became a model for later activists who expanded on her foundation.
The Medical Establishment: Challenging Professional Authority
Virginia’s relationship with the medical establishment was complex and often contentious. While she worked with sympathetic doctors and researchers to advance understanding of transgender experiences, she also challenged medical authority in ways that were radical for her time.
Her rejection of the medical model that pathologized transgender identity put her at odds with professionals who insisted that gender variance was a mental illness requiring treatment. Virginia argued that transgender people were mentally healthy individuals whose distress came from social rejection rather than internal pathology.
This position was psychologically liberating for transgender people who had been told by medical professionals that they were sick, deviant, or delusional. Virginia’s insistence that transgender identity was a natural variation of human experience provided an alternative narrative that emphasized health and authenticity rather than illness and cure.
Her advocacy for informed consent and patient autonomy in transgender healthcare was decades ahead of its time. Virginia argued that transgender people should have the right to make their own decisions about their bodies and their treatment rather than being subjected to arbitrary medical gatekeeping.
International Impact: Spreading the Revolution
Virginia’s influence extended far beyond American borders as her publications and ideas spread to transgender communities around the world. Her magazines were smuggled into countries where transgender expression was even more severely criminalized, providing hope and information to isolated individuals globally.
Her correspondence with transgender people from different countries helped create an international network of support and advocacy that transcended national boundaries. These connections were crucial for sharing strategies, resources, and emotional support across diverse cultural contexts.
The conceptual framework Virginia developed for understanding transgender identity proved adaptable to different cultural contexts while maintaining its core emphasis on human dignity and self-determination. Her ideas influenced transgender organizing in Europe, Asia, and other regions where local activists adapted her strategies to their specific circumstances.
Her international visibility also helped establish transgender rights as a human rights issue rather than a local cultural phenomenon. By demonstrating that transgender people existed across all cultures and societies, Virginia’s work laid groundwork for later international human rights advocacy.
The Generational Divide: Evolution and Conflict
As younger transgender activists emerged in the 1970s and 1980s with more radical political agendas, Virginia’s conservative approach to respectability politics came under increasing criticism. Her emphasis on working within existing social structures clashed with activists who wanted to challenge those structures more directly.
The generational divide was particularly acute around issues of sexuality and medical transition. Younger activists rejected Virginia’s insistence that transgender people should be heterosexual and her opposition to surgical interventions. They argued that her gatekeeping was as harmful as medical gatekeeping in limiting transgender self-determination.
Virginia’s response to this criticism was often defensive and sometimes dismissive, reflecting her investment in approaches that had required enormous personal sacrifice to develop. She had spent decades building respectability and acceptance through careful strategic choices, and she feared that more radical approaches would undo that progress.
The psychological impact of this generational conflict was painful for Virginia, who saw her life’s work being criticized by the very communities she had helped create. However, this tension was also productive in pushing the transgender rights movement toward more inclusive and radical positions.
The Sexual Revolution: Changing Contexts
The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s created new opportunities and challenges for transgender advocacy. Increased openness about sexuality and gender made transgender issues more visible but also more controversial as conservative backlash intensified.
Virginia’s conservative approach to sexuality became increasingly problematic as the broader LGBTQIA+ rights movement embraced more radical positions on sexual liberation. Her insistence that transgender identity was separate from sexuality clashed with emerging understanding of the interconnected nature of gender and sexual oppression.
The rise of gay liberation and feminist movements provided both allies and competitors for transgender advocacy. While these movements sometimes supported transgender rights, they also sometimes marginalized transgender concerns in favor of their own political priorities.
Virginia’s response to these changing contexts was mixed, as she struggled to maintain her strategic approach while adapting to new political realities. Her ability to evolve was limited by her deep investment in the respectability politics that had defined her earlier activism.
Legacy Complications: The Price of Pioneering
As Virginia aged, the contradictions in her legacy became more apparent and more problematic for younger transgender activists. Her groundbreaking contributions to transgender visibility and organizing were undeniable, but her conservative positions on sexuality and identity were increasingly seen as harmful and exclusionary.
Her opposition to transgender people who didn’t conform to her narrow definitions of legitimate transgender identity created gatekeeping that mirrored the medical gatekeeping she had originally challenged. This irony was particularly painful for transgender people who found themselves excluded from the very communities Virginia had helped create.
The psychological impact of Virginia’s gatekeeping was significant for transgender people who experienced rejection from someone who should have been an ally and advocate. Her insistence that only certain types of transgender experiences were valid reproduced the marginalization that many had hoped transgender communities would escape.
However, Virginia’s contributions to transgender liberation remained essential even as her limitations became more apparent. Her creation of language, community, and visibility provided the foundation for all subsequent transgender organizing, even when that organizing moved in directions she didn’t support.
The Final Years: Reflection and Resistance
Virginia’s later years were marked by increasing isolation from transgender communities that had moved beyond her conservative framework. While she continued to advocate for transgender rights, her influence waned as younger activists took leadership roles in the movement.
Her resistance to change reflected both personal investment in her lifelong approach and genuine concern about the directions of transgender advocacy. She worried that more radical positions would provoke backlash that would undo decades of progress toward social acceptance.
The psychological toll of this marginalization was significant for someone who had devoted her life to transgender advocacy. Watching the movement she had helped create evolve beyond her influence was both gratifying and painful as she grappled with the limitations of her own vision.
Despite these challenges, Virginia maintained her commitment to transgender advocacy until her death in 2009. Her persistence in the face of criticism demonstrated the same determination that had driven her pioneering work decades earlier.
Psychological Analysis: The Costs of Pioneering
From a psychological perspective, Virginia’s life illustrates both the tremendous strength required for pioneering social change and the personal costs of such leadership. Her ability to maintain authenticity while navigating extreme social hostility demonstrates remarkable resilience and strategic intelligence.
The psychological mechanisms Virginia developed for survival—careful boundary maintenance, strategic respectability, community building—became tools for broader transgender liberation even when they also created limitations and exclusions. Her survival strategies were both adaptive and restrictive, helping her navigate danger while also constraining her vision of possibility.
Her later conflicts with younger activists can be understood partly as trauma responses to decades of marginalization and partly as realistic concerns about the risks of more radical approaches. The psychological investment required to build acceptance through respectability politics made it difficult for her to embrace strategies that seemed to threaten that hard-won progress.
Virginia’s legacy demonstrates how pioneering figures often become both inspirational models and cautionary tales as movements evolve beyond their founding visions. Her contributions remain essential while her limitations serve as reminders of the ongoing need for growth and inclusion.
Social Impact: Transforming American Gender
Virginia’s influence on American understanding of gender extends far beyond transgender communities to broader social recognition of gender complexity and fluidity. Her visibility and advocacy helped plant seeds of change that would eventually blossom into mainstream acceptance of gender diversity.
Her creation of transgender terminology and concepts provided intellectual frameworks that influenced academic research, medical practice, and legal advocacy for decades. Scholars, activists, and professionals continue to build on foundations she established even when they disagree with her specific positions.
The social networks Virginia created became models for community organizing that influenced not just transgender advocacy but broader LGBTQIA+ organizing. Her emphasis on mutual support, education, and strategic communication became standard practices for social justice movements.
Her international influence helped establish transgender rights as a global human rights issue that transcended local cultural differences. The universal applicability of her core insights about human dignity and self-determination provided tools for advocates working in diverse cultural contexts.
The Philosophical Revolution: Expanding Human Possibility
Virginia’s fundamental contribution to human understanding was her demonstration that gender categories were social constructions rather than biological imperatives. This insight was philosophically revolutionary in its implications for human freedom and self-determination.
Her concept of transgender identity challenged not just gender binaries but broader assumptions about fixed identity categories. By showing that people could successfully live between or beyond conventional categories, she opened intellectual space for reimagining human possibility more broadly.
The philosophical framework Virginia developed for understanding gender variance influenced later thinking about sexuality, race, class, and other identity categories. Her insights about the constructed nature of social categories became foundational for intersectional analysis and identity politics.
Her emphasis on self-determination and personal autonomy in gender expression provided philosophical grounding for broader movements for individual freedom and authentic self-expression. These ideas continue to influence contemporary debates about identity, liberty, and human rights.
The Ongoing Revolution: Virginia’s Living Legacy
Despite the controversies surrounding her conservative positions, Virginia’s fundamental contributions to transgender liberation continue to shape contemporary activism and advocacy. Her linguistic innovations, organizational strategies, and philosophical insights remain relevant even as the movement has evolved beyond her original vision.
Current transgender rights advocates continue to grapple with the tensions Virginia identified between respectability politics and radical change, between strategic pragmatism and principled authenticity. Her example provides both inspiration and cautionary lessons for contemporary activists navigating similar challenges.
The institutional changes Virginia advocated for—medical reform, legal recognition, social acceptance—remain central to transgender rights agendas even as the specific approaches have evolved. Her strategic focus on concrete improvements in transgender people’s lives continues to guide effective advocacy.
Her international influence persists as transgender advocates around the world build on frameworks she established while adapting them to local circumstances. The universality of her core insights about human dignity continues to provide tools for global transgender liberation.
The Fucking Truth About What Virginia Achieved
Let’s cut through the academic bullshit and acknowledge what Virginia Prince actually accomplished. She took a world that insisted only two genders existed and forced it to confront the reality of human gender diversity. She created language, community, and visibility for people who had been erased from public consciousness and gave them tools to fight for recognition and rights.
Virginia’s creation of the term “transgender” alone represents one of the most significant contributions to LGBTQIA+ liberation in the 20th century. Without her linguistic innovation, we wouldn’t have the conceptual framework that makes contemporary transgender rights advocacy possible. She literally gave us the words we needed to describe ourselves and demand recognition.
Her decades of publishing, organizing, and advocacy laid the foundation for every transgender rights victory we’ve achieved since. The marriage equality, employment protections, healthcare access, and legal recognition that contemporary transgender people enjoy were built on groundwork Virginia established when such victories seemed impossible.
But here’s the complicated shit: Virginia was also a product of her time whose conservative positions on sexuality and identity created gatekeeping that excluded many people from the communities she helped create. Her respectability politics approach was necessary for survival in her era but became limiting as the movement evolved toward more inclusive and radical positions.
The psychological impact of Virginia’s work extends far beyond transgender communities to broader social understanding of gender complexity and human diversity. Every person who questions gender norms, challenges binary categories, or demands recognition for non-conforming identities owes something to the path Virginia blazed through hostile social terrain.
She wasn’t perfect—no pioneer is—but she was authentic in ways that transformed American culture. In an era when gender variance was criminalized and pathologized, Virginia’s insistence on dignity and self-determination was revolutionary. Her vision of transgender people as healthy, capable individuals rather than sick deviants provided alternative narratives that saved lives and changed minds.
Virginia Prince died in 2009, but her revolution continues every time someone uses the term “transgender,” every time a support group meets, every time an activist demands recognition rather than tolerance. Her legacy isn’t just in the organizations she founded or the publications she created, but in the transformed understanding of human possibility that makes contemporary gender diversity visible and valuable.
The fucking truth is this: Virginia didn’t just create the transgender rights movement—she created the conceptual foundation that makes all contemporary gender liberation possible. She took the notion that gender categories were fixed and immutable and torched it so thoroughly that even conservative backlash can’t restore the old certainties.
That’s the kind of revolutionary the world needed, transgender people deserved, and human progress required. Not because she was perfect, but because she was persistent. Not because she had all the answers, but because she asked the right questions. Not because she made everyone comfortable, but because she made it impossible to ignore transgender existence and dignity.
Virginia Prince: the complicated badass who gave us our fucking name and showed us that the only limits on human identity are the ones we accept. May her linguistic innovations keep evolving, her organizational strategies keep adapting, and her fundamental insight about human dignity keep expanding until every person can live authentically without apology or fear.
June 29, 1925 The South African parliament passed a bill excluding black, coloured (mixed race) and Indian people from all skilled or semi-skilled jobs.
June 29, 1963 A mass “walk-on” (trespass) was organized at a chemical and biological warfare facility in Porton Down, England. These weaponized agents had been researched and produced there since 1916; it’s now known as the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. Protesters demand an end to germ warfare in 1963 at Porton Down (Getty) Unconscionable activities at Porton Down (From 2004)
At the urging of Reverend William Hamilton, a freedman and carpenter, and others, the end of slavery was celebrated in churches. The Fourth of July had in the past been marred by young white men attacking black Americans.
Scottie's Playtime 