sofia
Posts by Sofia:
On this day in queerstory: American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from DSM
On December 17, 1973, the American Psychiatric Association publicly announced that it would remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM). In plain terms: being gay was officially declared not a mental illness. About time. To understand how radical this was, you have to remember what came before. For decades, […]
On this day in queerstory: House of Representatives votes to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
December 16, 1999 — a date that flickers quietly in the archives but echoes loudly if you know where to listen. On this day, South Africa’s Constitutional Court issued one of the landmark decisions that would ultimately lead the country toward becoming the first nation on the African continent to legalize same-sex marriage. The specific […]
On this day in queerstory: US moves to prohibit sexuality-based discrimination in schools
December 15 sits quietly on the calendar, but its historical footprint tells a louder story. Across decades and continents, it has been a day when queer communities pushed institutions to change, challenged cultural boundaries, and made their presence impossible to ignore. From courtrooms to cinemas, from activism to the arts, December 15 weaves together a […]
On this day in queerstory: US Department of Health acknowledges the impact of HIV/AIDS
One of the most significant took place on December 14, 1984, in Washington, D.C., when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a much-debated internal memorandum acknowledging, for the first time, the disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS on gay and bisexual men and calling for targeted federal education campaigns. The memo, dry in tone […]
On this day in queerstory: fighting for queer rights in the workplace
December 13 quietly marks progress, sometimes small and sometimes transformative, in the ongoing fight for LGBTQ+ rights. In the United States, December 13, 1976, saw one of the earliest and most consequential legal challenges to workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. The City of New York Civil Service Commission faced a complaint from several municipal […]
On this day in queerstory: ACT UP Toronto protest demands AIDS medication access
December 12 is a day that shows how visibility often emerges not from a single victory, but from a sequence of interruptions, scandals, breakthroughs, and brave refusals to comply. We begin in 1989, in the chilly aftermath of that year’s World AIDS Day. On December 12, activists with ACT UP Toronto staged one of Canada’s […]