OLYMPIA, Wash. – June is Pride Month. While the introduction of the state’s first Pride Parades and Festivals can be traced to the mid-1970s, Washington’s queer community is much older.
LGBTQ+ people have existed in Washington since far before it was a state. Two spirit peoples, who do not conform to binarized gender roles, have been a part of indigenous cultures for hundreds of years.
The criminalization of both same-gender sex and gender nonconformity took place in Washington just four years after the state’s founding in 1889.
A February 1893 Washington Supreme Court case accusing a man of “an assault with intent to commit sodomy” found that there was no specific statute in Washington law preventing two men from having sex. The legislature sought to change that just a month later by passing a law banning “the infamous and detestable crime against nature” of sodomy with a sentencing minimum of ten years. That law can be found in the state’s March 1893 session laws book.
It didn’t take long for that law to be applied in court. In November 1895 two men, John Collins and Benjamin Layton, were caught allegedly having sex by a woman who was employed at the establishment where Collins was staying in Seattle. The city was in the midst of a moralist upheaval targeting both gay men and Catholics, leading to a fascinating quirk of history that landed both the city’s Catholic and gay populations in Capitol Hill at the turn of the 20th century.
Some brothel and bar operators who had flourished by catering to the queer community in Seattle before the Emerald City instituted tighter regulations on businesses ended up fleeing to Spokane, which had comparatively lighter rules in the mid-1890s according to Gary Atkins, the author of “Gay Seattle: Stories of Exile and Belonging.”
While Spokane may have been an easier city in which to operate venues, homophobia and transphobia became a prominent force in the Lilac City’s civic life in the early 1900s. A speech lambasting an unnamed member of city council delivered by Pastor J.W. Kramer at First Baptist Church in November 1909 asked the leading question “has Spokane a sodomite alderman?”
According to a comprehensive Master’s Thesis by Michael Diambri, the particularly virulent targeting of Black and Indigenous transgender people seized Spokane near the end of the decade.
Gay and transgender people continued to serve as the targets of both police departments and public officials across the Evergreen State throughout the Interwar Period. Despite these struggles, queer neighborhoods began to thrive in Washington, particularly in the dense urban center of Seattle. Capitol Hill, nestled right next to Seattle University, became a flourishing hub of gay, lesbian and trans identity throughout the late 1950s.
These gains for LGBTQ+ people came in the midst of a national hysteria encouraged by conservative leader Senator Joseph McCarthy which claimed that gay men and communists were taking over the government. Raids on gay bars became a regular fixture of police activity throughout the 1960s. By this point, Seattle and Spokane both had queer nightlife scenes.
National pressure on the queer community came to a boiling point on June 28, 1969 when a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn was raided by New York police, prompting an uprising from queer New Yorkers led by lesbian and transgender organizers. While some historians have pointed out that Stonewall shouldn’t be considered the beginning of modern LGBTQ+ history, it is generally regarded as a turning point for queer visibility amongst the wider American public.
The LGBTQ+ community became more visible following Stonewall, with Washington’s first Pride Week taking place in 1974 alongside the founding of Seattle Gay News. Washington’s anti-sodomy law, which was used zealously by Spokane and Seattle prosecutors throughout the mid-1900s, was repealed in 1976.
‘76 proved to be a particularly consequential year for queer rights in Washington. That same year, Seattle’s Catholic Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen condemned discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.
“We sincerely believe that to discriminate against this group of men and women is not only contrary to sound religious principles but in conflict with protection of basic rights in our American civic life,” Hunthausen said.
Months later in June 1977, Seattle Mayor Wes Ulhman endorsed Gay Pride Week.
These political strides were muted by the horrific impact of the AIDS crisis. The deadly ailment was initially identified amongst the Los Angeles gay community in late 1981, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defining AIDS in 1982.
President Ronald Reagan’s policy was to divert as little funding to researching AIDS at the CDC as possible and ignore the crisis. In a 1982 press conference led by White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes, he responded to a question about the AIDS epidemic by joking about the deaths.
“It’s known as ‘gay plague.’ I don’t have it. Do you?” Speakes said.
According to a Population Today study over 46,000 Americans died of AIDS between 1981 and 1988. LGBTQ+ people formed organizations to support AIDS patients as members of the community died and the federal government did little to change the trajectory of the epidemic.
The Spokane AIDS Network was founded in 1985 by members of the Spokane County Health District. The organization focused on safe sex education and mental health services throughout the late ‘80s. Similar efforts existed in Seattle, including the founding of the Seattle Gay Clinic.
A quilt bearing the names of people who died of AIDS traveled the United States after being displayed in Washington, D.C. in protest of the Reagan Administration’s inaction in 1987. It was displayed at the Seattle Center Arena in 1988.
The ‘80s were a devastating decade for the queer community and mobilized a generation of LGBTQ+ activists. Moving into the 1990s, AIDS and the implementation of the US military’s forced closeting policy ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ in 1994 kept organizers under pressure.
The Northwest AIDS Foundation raised money for AIDS patients and their families and opened an office in Seattle’s Capitol Hill at the beginning of the decade. ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ would not be reversed until well after the ‘90s. Those who were dishonorably discharged from the military due to their sexual orientation or gender identity can seek help from the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs.
By the early 2000s, LGBTQ+ people had made significant cultural and political gains in Washington’s major cities. Sex columnist and LGBTQ+ advocate Dan Savage had published his first book, Pride parades were a regular occurrence in cities across the state every June, and Seattle’s City Council had added gender identity to its nondiscrimination ordinances.
In 2006, the Washington Legislature added sexual orientation to the list of nondiscrimination protections in state law, and organizers built on that momentum.
The Evergreen State legalized gay marriage by referendum in 2012. The Spokesman Review documented the first day marriages were legalized at the Spokane County Courthouse, where couples Couples waited until midnight to receive their marriage licenses.
After gay marriage was legalized federally via a US Supreme Court ruling in 2015, LGBTQ+ advocates pivoted focus to advocating for legal protections for trans people in the face of increasing political opposition to their existence.
In 2019, the Washington State Department of Licensing began allowing nonbinary people to register their correct gender identity on official state documents. Governor Jay Inslee signed a law creating the Washington LGBTQ Commission that same year.
Opposition to LGBTQ+ people is still prominent in Washington, with in Spokane sparking the during the 2024 legislative session. Hate crimes and discrimination remain persistent threats for Washington’s queer community. Anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes jumped in Washington in 2021 and have remained high according to US Department of Justice data.
Political issues regarding the queer community are increasingly focused on youth and employment. Washington’s ACLU joined several local LGBTQ+ organizations in late May to contest a newly implemented which advocates Meanwhile, remains a concern for queer Washingtonians, especially in rural areas.
Today, queer Washingtonians can look back upon a legacy of social and political resilience. The LGBTQ+ community is represented by at least one sitting member on all of the state’s major city councils and at the Washington Supreme Court and Legislature.
Despite continued struggles, the Evergreen State can celebrate this Pride Month with the awareness that queer people have worked to foster inclusion in public life for decades with impressive results.
