Pride - LGBTQ History

From arrests and ostracization to public festivals and drag shows, the LGBTQ+ people of Evansville have walked a twisting path to their current existence. In the early days of the city, local newspapers harassed and bullied members of this group, even going so far as to encourage them to commit suicide. A series of murders in the 1950s and 1960s left Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender population of Evansville without justice and validation. The AIDS epidemic of the 1980s did the same. Happily, things have changed. Today, the city's LGBTQ community is out and proud, and thousands attend the annual Pride parade down Main Street. Looking back on more than a century of uneven progress, Kelley Coures unfolds this often tragic yet at times hopeful story.

Cincinnati's LGBTQ history is a study in riveting contradictions. Seen as one of the more conservative cities in Ohio, Cincinnati is also the home of the first Pride march in the entire state. A strong move to censor the LGBTQ-related art of Robert Mapplethorpe at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center resulted in a nationally publicized trial where freedom of expression emerged victorious in the face of those who zealously sought to suppress the LGBTQ community's voice. The passage of Issue 3 in 1993 epitomized the tenet that minority rights should never be up for majority vote, while the repeal of Article XII eleven years later displayed the sheer power of mobilization. Through protests, celebrations, and demonstrations of unadulterated pride, Cincinnati has proven itself over and over again as a community of individuals trying to make the Queen City live up to its royal--and decidedly LGBTQ--name.