On this day in queerstory – progress and setbacks

Some dates in queer history sparkle with uncomplicated joy. November 3 isn’t one of them. It’s a day of contradictions — of wins and wounds, celebration and backlash. On this day in 1998, America’s LGBTQ+ movement saw both its most visible victory at the ballot box and one of its harshest legal setbacks. The world was watching, and queer rights were learning, painfully, what progress actually costs.

It was election night in Madison, Wisconsin, and Tammy Baldwin stood before a crowd of cheering supporters. The numbers were in: she had just been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, making history as the first openly gay non-incumbent ever elected to Congress — and the first out lesbian in either chamber.

Her campaign had been audacious. Baldwin didn’t downplay her sexuality or tuck it away behind policy jargon. She talked about healthcare, education, and equality — but she also talked about being gay, openly, as if that were no more unusual than talking about being left-handed. Her victory speech that night captured the moment’s quiet radicalism: “We’ve shown that democracy can include all of us.”

For queer Americans who’d grown up hiding, her win was more than political; it was emotional. It meant seeing someone like themselves at the heart of government, unapologetic, respected, and — crucially — elected. Baldwin’s triumph suggested that visibility could coexist with power, that a queer person didn’t have to trade authenticity for influence.

And yet, as champagne glasses clinked in Madison, a very different mood was unfolding in Honolulu.

Across the Pacific, voters in Hawaii were casting ballots in a referendum that would define marriage for a generation. The question was simple, and devastating: should the state legislature have the power to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples?

By the end of the night, 70% of Hawaiian voters said yes. The result added a new constitutional amendment — one that effectively shut the door on same-sex marriage, just as courts had begun to pry it open.

For queer couples who’d hoped Hawaii might lead the way to national recognition, it felt like whiplash. Only a few years earlier, a landmark case (Baehr v. Lewin, 1993) had made Hawaii the first U.S. state to consider same-sex marriage as a civil rights issue. Now, that progress was abruptly reversed.

So while Tammy Baldwin was making history on the mainland, queer rights were being written out of the constitution in paradise. It was the clearest possible reminder that representation alone wasn’t enough — that power had to reach further than one congressional seat if it was to change the laws that shaped queer lives.

November 3, 1998, has since become a case study in the messy reality of social change. It showed that victories and defeats often arrive together — sometimes within the same news cycle. Baldwin’s election was proof that hearts and minds were shifting, at least in some corners of the country. Hawaii’s amendment proved that fear still had a strong electoral pull elsewhere.

Yet both events shared something fundamental: visibility. Baldwin’s campaign made queer identity impossible to ignore. Hawaii’s amendment made it the subject of fierce public debate. In both cases, being queer had moved from whispered margins into the center of national politics — and that, in itself, was revolutionary.

The queer movement was learning that visibility comes with consequences. Once seen, you can’t be unseen. Once part of the conversation, you can’t be politely excluded again. Every backlash, after all, is also proof of visibility achieved.

In the years that followed, the narratives continued to evolve. Tammy Baldwin went on to serve in the U.S. Senate, becoming one of its most progressive voices on equality, healthcare, and reproductive rights. Hawaii, meanwhile, would reverse its own stance in 2013, legalising same-sex marriage and becoming the fifteenth U.S. state to do so. The political pendulum had swung again — not by miracle, but by years of steady activism.

Looking back, November 3 stands as a snapshot of that eternal back-and-forth between progress and pushback. It’s not the kind of anniversary you mark with glitter and confetti, but with reflection — on how queer liberation actually happens: through persistence, contradiction, and the willingness to keep showing up even when the votes go the wrong way.

So today, November 3, might not be the most glamorous day in queer history. But it’s one of the truest. It reminds us that representation matters — and that laws matter even more. It reminds us that progress is rarely a parade; sometimes it’s a patchwork of hard-won steps and bitter reversals. And above all, it reminds us that every ballot, every voice, and every out politician carries the weight of those who couldn’t be heard before.

The lesson is clear: history doesn’t move in straight lines. But on November 3, 1998, it moved — and that’s what matters.