The Gittings Trust: A Political Action CommitteeAchieving Equality Through Political Action
Barbara Gittings (July 31, 1932 – February 18, 2007) was a prominent American gay rights activist. She organized the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis from 1958 to 1963, edited its magazine The Ladder until 1966, and worked closely with Frank Kameny in the first picket lines that brought attention to the unequal treatment of gay Americans by the US State Department. Her early experiences with trying to learn more about lesbianism fueled her lifetime work with libraries. In the 1970s, Gittings was most involved in the American Library Association, forming the first gay caucus in a professional organization, in order to promote positive literature about homosexuality in libraries. She was a part of the movement to get the American Psychiatric Association to drop homosexuality as a mental illness in 1972. Her self-described life mission was to tear away the "shroud of invisibility" related to homosexuality that associated it with crime and mental illness.
Mission Statement: The Gittings Trust will use the political process to advance equality for all gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender citizens.
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