Arranged in four accessions:
Apart from the pioneering Dorian Society (founded in Seattle in 1967), the first Seattleites to organize politically as gays and lesbians were connected to the University of Washington. In 1969, Dorian House began to provide counseling services to gay and lesbian students and non-students on Capitol Hill, and was operated by a University of Washington counselor and staffed by UW students. The 1970s saw an explosion of organizations, such as the Gay Women's Resource Center (now the Lesbian Resource Center), Seattle Gay Alliance, and Parents, Families, Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).
In 1973, the Fair Employment Practice Ordinance passed by the Seattle City Council, protected gays and lesbians from discrimination at work. In 1976, Washington's sodomy law was repealed, and the City of Seattle added sexual orientation to housing discrimination regulations. Though some pride parades had been organized in earlier years to commemorate the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969, Mayor Charles Royer declared an official "Gay Pride Week" in 1977.
During the late 1970s, anti-gay forces organized against the growing visibility and acceptance. In 1978, Initiative 13 proposed to repeal City of Seattle ordinances that protected gays from certain forms of discrimination. The same year, Gay Pride was renamed Lesbian Gay Pride, and more than 3,000 participants marched downtown in protest of the Initiative. Pride Week was organized regularly on Capitol Hill in the early 1980s. In the early 2000s the parade moved from the Hill to Downtown and Seattle Center.
Source: "Queer History in Seattle, Part 2: After Stonewall" (https://www.historylink.org/file/4266)
LGBT-related serials produced in the Pacific Northwest, primarily Washington State. Also includes posters for LGBT-related events, especially marches, as well as related ephemera.
Open to all users.
Creators' literary rights not transferred to the University of Washington Libraries.
This collection was initially compiled by Alvin Fritz, former selector/coordinator for UW Libraries' Gay and Lesbian Studies. Fritz solicited and collected a large amount of Northwest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender materials from organizations, groups, and other collectors. A selection of serials with longer runs from that collection was cataloged for Special Collections in 2002-2003 and can be found in the
The Seattle Lesbian website has been regularly captured by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine since 2013. The snapshots can be viewed here:
First two issues entitled
Includes Lesbian and Gay Film Festival tickets and materials
Includes Out Loud safety fact cards
Includes depictions of nudity
A milestone reflected in the collection is the 1992 Pride event, the first year that "bisexual" and "transgender" were included in the event's official title and messaging.
Posters were included in the Museum of History and Industry exhibit 50 Years of Seattle Pride: Posters of Pride (
Source: Chris Smith. "A Written History of Seattle's Freedom Day Committee to Accompany the Fay Pride Poster Collection Donated to UW Archives." Unpublished document. University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.
Digital files are available for preview in Special Collections' Reading Room; advanced notice is required.
Typed transcript with timestamps of Mikala Woodward's interview of Chris Smith and Su Docekal, recorded April 29, 2024. Docekal is a member of the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women, as well as being active with the Stonewall Committee and Freedom Day Committee. The interview focuses on Pride, Freedom Day, and similar marches and demonstrations.