Frank Kameny (1925-2011)

On the 81st anniversary of D-Day, we honor gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny, who fought in Belgium during World War II.  After the war, he graduated from Queens College and earned a Ph.D. in Astronomy at Harvard and worked as a college professor, before being hired by the U.S. Army in 1957 to create astronomical maps to guide missiles.  When the Army discovered he was a homosexual, Kameny was fired.  When this happened, he filed one of the first “wrongful discrimination” suits against the Army based on sexual orientation. Despite losing the case at the Supreme Court level, he dedicated his life to activism.   In 1965, he led the first two gay rights protests at White House, became the first out candidate for the House of Representatives in 1972; and was instrumental with other activists in persuading the American Psychiatric Society to remove homosexuality as a mental illness from its diagnostic manual. It is important to note that the U.S. Army formally apologized to him in 2009, an acknowledgment of the injustices he endured and recognition of the strides he made for his community during his impactful life.