482 Homosexuality and gay rights The Eighties in America
1980
The Human Rights Campaign Fund is founded as a political action committee to raise funds for can-
didates for public office support of gay and lesbian civil rights.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers ratifies a contract with Canada Post and the Canadian Trea-
sury that includes a nondiscrimination clause protecting gay and lesbian employees—the first time fed-
eral employees in any country receive such protection.1981
Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays is founded in the United States.
Police in Toronto conduct a massive raid on gay bathhouses, arresting almost three hundred men—
the largest mass arrest of gay men in North American. The subsequent demonstrations and protests
come to be known as Canadian Stonewall.
The New York Timesand a medical newsletter report about cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma andpneumocystis
cariniiappearing in gay men—the first recognition in the mainstream media of acquired immunodefi-
ciency syndrome (AIDS).1982
The Institute for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth is founded in New York City. The group
helps establish the first high schools for gay and lesbian teens and confronts accusations that gay and les-
bian teachers are a threat to children.
Wisconsin becomes the first state to enact a gay, lesbian, and bisexual civil rights law, adding the term
“sexual orientation” to the state’s list of prevailing civil rights statutes.
Gay-related immunodeficiency, or GRID, is renamed AIDS by medical researchers to better reflect
that the disease is not exclusive to gay men.1983
Gerry Studds, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives representing southeastern
Massachusetts, comes out after he is accused of sexual misconduct with a male congressional page.
Studds is the first gay member of Congress to come out and the first gay or lesbian officeholder at the
national level to acknowledge his sexual orientation.1984
French and American officials announce that scientists in their respective countries have isolated
what is believed to be the virus, or pathogen, that causes AIDS: human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV.
The head of the San Francisco Health Department closes fourteen gay bathhouses, bookstores,
movie theaters, sex clubs, and other businesses after investigators who went to these businesses saw what
they believed were sex acts with a high risk for HIV transmission.
West Hollywood, California, incorporates as a city and elects a majority gay and lesbian city council,
becoming the first “gay city” in the United States.
Berkeley, California, becomes the first American city to extend health and other employee benefits
to the gay and lesbian domestic partners of city employees.1985
Actor Rock Hudson announces he has AIDS, an announcement that leads to increased public aware-
ness of the disease. He dies on October 2.Some Significant Events Affecting Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual,
and Transgender People in the 1980’s