Lilli Vincenz the German-born American trailblazing lesbian activist, filmmaker, and psychotherapist devoted to L.G.B.T.Q. issues has died aged 86. Vincenz was the first lesbian member of the Mattachine Society and served as the editor of the organization’s newsletter and then in 1969 along with Nancy Tucker created the independent newspaper, the Gay Blade, which later became the Washington Blade.[
Her activism started in 1963 when she was in the Women’s Army Corps and a roommate outed her as gay, leading to her discharge after only nine months in uniform. She took that rejection as an opportunity to begin a fight against injustice that would guide her for decades. “After leaving the WAC,” she said in an interview with the site Gay Today, “I actually felt free to be me.”
Vincenz was the only self-identified lesbian to participate in the second White House picket with Frank Kameny in 1965.[2] A January 1966 photograph of Vincenz, taken by Kay Lahusen, appeared on the cover of the lesbian magazine The Ladder, making her the first woman with her face showing to do so.
Vincenz also contributed to the cause on the other side of a camera, making two 16-millimeter films that were later hailed as significant artifacts Her second film, “Gay and Proud,” documented the Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade in 1970, a commemoration of the first anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in Manhattan. The uprising, after a police raid at Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, was a turning point in the gay rights movement.
The film (shown below) is now in the Library of Congress
Labels: 2023, filmmaker, lesbian activist, Lilli Vincenz, Mattachine Society, obit, trailblazer
