#lgbtorg

[oakesqueerhistoryarchive-blog]

Organization: Fierce Pussy

Fierce Pussy is a collective of queer women artists. Formed in New York City in 1991 through immersion in AIDS activism during a decade of increasing political mobilization around gay rights, fierce pussy brought lesbian identity and visibility directly into the streets. 

Website: http://www.fiercepussy.org/www.fiercepussy.org/about_us.html

[oakesqueerhistoryarchive-blog]

ACT UP Digital Collection, New York Public Library, 2016. 

The New York Public Library houses many of the archives of the ACT UP organization that fights to end AIDS and brought the AIDS epidemic into the public conversation beginning in the 1980s. This collection includes over 150 items, posters, and articles.

ACT UP Collection. New York Public Library. 2016.  http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/act-up-new-york-records#/?tab=navigation

[oakesqueerhistoryarchive-blog]

ACT UP Logo, AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, 1987. 

ACT UP was formed in March 1987 at the Lesbian and Gay Community Center in New York.  It was formed in direct response to how the government was ignoring the developing AIDS crisis. The purpose of the organization is to impact the lives of people with AIDS (PWAs) and the AIDS pandemic to bring about legislation, medical research and treatment and policies to ultimately bring an end to the disease by mitigating loss of health and lives. 

In the beginning, the organization organized protests and demonstrations in key places and times to help illuminate the issue of AIDS as well as the treatment, and ultimately, the medical research needed for a cure. The group organized protests in Wall Street (March 24, 1987), of the FDA (October 11, 1988), and of the magazine Cosmopolitan for printing an article with false medical facts (January 1988).  

The organization still functions today and is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis.  

Citation: ACT Up Logo. New York. http://www.actupny.org/ . 1987. 

Additional Resources:

ACT UP Timeline: http://www.actupny.org/documents/capsule-home.html

Article in Rolling Stone Magazine (March 8, 1990):  http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/act-up-in-anger-19900308 

New York.  “Article, Rude, Rash, Effective, Act-Up Shifts AIDS Policy,” January 3, 1990.  http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/03/nyregion/rude-rash-effective-act-up-shifts-aids-policy.html?pagewanted=all 

[oakesqueerhistoryarchive-blog]

Single Gender Organizations / YMCA.

“There were single gender organizations such as the YMCA.. that provided moral instruction…instilled through physical exercise, which was almost always done in groups…and participation in all-male sports teams…reinforced single-gender culture that created emotional and physical male intimacy not found in heterosexual family environments…male-segregated spaces and the acceptance of bachelorhood…were catalysts for same-sex community formation” (Bronski 107, 111).