Berkeley, California, becomes the first city in the United States to extend spousal benefits to the domestic partners of city employees.
December 10, 1924
Henry Gerber, a German-born immigrant and early gay rights activist, receives a charter from the state of Illinois for the Society for Human Rights (SHR), the nation's oldest documented homosexual organization. African American clergyman John T. Graves becomes the group's first president.
December 11, 1975David Kopay -- a former running back for the San Francisco 49ers, Detroit Lions, Washington Redskins, New Orleans Saints, and Green Bay Packers -- becomes the first major professional athlete to come out voluntarily.
December 15, 1973
After years of controversy and of frequently stormy debate, the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association declares that "by itself, homosexuality does not meet the criteria for being a psychiatric disorder."
December 22, 1970
The San Francisco Free Press publishes Carl Wittman's Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto, which, when reprinted and distributed all across the country in the next year, quickly becomes a guide to gay activism.
December 29, 1971Wakefield Poole's trend-setting film 'Boys in the Sand' premieres at the 55th Street Playhouse in New York City. A dramatic departure from the low-budget pornography previously available, the slickly produced film prompts Variety to remark, "There are no more closets."
December 31, 1964
San Francisco police harass some 600 guests attending a New Year's Ball sponsored by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual. The police photograph guests as they arrive, and then demand entry to the auditorium without search warrants. It is the first time many liberal heterosexuals have witnessed police harassment of lesbians and gay men.
- via The GLBT Historical Society
