<div class="container"><div class="row align-items-start"><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><div class="ratio" style="--bs-aspect-ratio: 115%;display:grid;"><object type="application/pdf" data="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/exhibit/documents/2793/LGMS0079_f19_SHresignation.pdf"></object></div><div class="m-2"><footer style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left"><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-wilde-stein/1">Sturgis Haskins resignation letter as chairperson of Wilde-Stein Club, (March 13, 1974)</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></footer></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-6"><p>The mainstream publicity of the Symposium did come at a cost. Sturgis Haskins, who had been the Clubs Chairperson, resigned from the position on March 13, due to the fact that he wasn’t out to his family. Steve Bull, who’d come out to his parents back in November, took over as Chairperson. Steve’s parents joined Jeanne and Jules Manford, parents of activist Gay Activists Alliance founder Morty Manford, in their organization Parents of Gays, which would eventually become PFlag. While Sturgis remained in the Club and worked behind the scenes, Steve became the face of the Club for the media and the Symposium. All the debate around the conference ensured that every LGBTQIA+ person in Maine and New England knew about the conference. Pre-sales of tickets exploded. Due to the anticipated popularity of the Symposium, the Club extended the Symposium to cover three days, April 19-21.</p><p>Originally Wilde-Stein members anticipated 70 people coming to their Maine Gay Symposium, but on the first day of the Symposium they ended up with around 300.</p><p>Despite threats of people coming to campus to protest the Gay Maine Symposium, most protests were in the form of signs in windows and on the UMaine Bear statue. A mimeographed poem was also circulated and someone took down some of the signs directing people to the Symposium. The campus police took steps to remove the anti LGBTQIA+ signs and poems.</p></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><div class="ratio" style="--bs-aspect-ratio: 115%;display:grid;"><object type="application/pdf" data="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/exhibit/documents/2791/LGMS0107_b1f14_BDN_GayGroupAnticipates_19740413.pdf"></object></div><div class="m-2"><footer style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left"><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/wilde-stein-exhibit-documents/18">“Gay Group Anticipates Sell-out.” Bangor Daily News, April 13, 1974</a>, LG-MS0107, Karen Bye Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></footer></div></div></div></div><div class="row align-items-start"><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><div class="ratio" style="--bs-aspect-ratio: 115%;display:grid;"><object type="application/pdf" data="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/exhibit/documents/2792/LGMS0079_bOSf29a_MGSposter.pdf"></object></div><div class="m-2"><footer style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left"><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-material/2">Original poster for the Maine Gay Symposium, April 19-21, 1974</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></footer></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-6"><blockquote style="display:grid;margin: 1em;padding: .5em;"><p style="padding: 1em;border-radius: .5em;background: #cce6ff">I keep breaking into foolish grins, just to think there are so many of us in one place.</p><footer style="font-size: 14px"><cite>Attendee (“As Maine Goes…” The Gay Symposium” Freewoman’s Herald, June-July 1974, LG-MS0107 Karen Bye Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</cite></footer></blockquote><p>The first Maine Gay Symposium was an amazing success. Vito Russo showed a preview of a documentary on the history of LGBTQIA+ characters in film that would later be released as The Celluloid Closet, in 1995. Important figures of the gay liberation movement, Nathalie Rockhill from the National Gay Taskforce, and Morty Manford of the Gay Activist Alliance, both of New York City, came to do workshops and provide opening remarks. It set the tone for the next 25 years of the Maine Lesbian-Gay-Bi-Trans Symposiums.</p><p>Set on a weekend, a day of sessions on aspects of the queer experience was flanked by film showings and social events. This first symposium had five workshops, Political Strategies and Community Action, Gay-Straight Relations, Coming Out, The Gay Movement and the Women’s Movement, and Religion and the Homosexual. All the workshops were led by notables from New York and Boston’s gay liberation movements.</p></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><div class="ratio" style="--bs-aspect-ratio: 115%;display:grid;"><object type="application/pdf" data="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/exhibit/documents/2800/LGMS0007_b8f151_ticket.pdf"></object></div><div class="m-2"><footer style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left"><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_haskins-series2-mgs/10/">Ticket to the Maine Gay Symposium, April 19-21, 1974</a>, LG-MS0007, Sturgis Haskins Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></footer></div></div></div></div><div class="row align-items-start"><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><div class="ratio" style="--bs-aspect-ratio: 115%;display:grid;"><object type="application/pdf" data="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/exhibit/documents/2794/LGMS0007_b8f151_notice2.pdf"></object></div><div class="m-2"><footer style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left"><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_haskins-series2-mgs/4">Mimeographed anti-gay poem that was distributed on campus, (April 20, 1974)</a>, LG-MS0007, Sturgis Haskins Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></footer></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-6"><p>Most importantly the Symposium allowed LGBTQIA+ Mainers to connect with each other and other LGBTQIA+ groups from around New England.</p><p>Connections forged at the Symposium incited statewide networks of LGBTQIA+ people. Several people, including Dan Estes, Steven Leo, Stan Fortuna, Susan Henderson, and Peter Prizer, who met in the Political Strategies and Community Action workshop at the Symposium, formed the Maine Gay Task Force in Brunswick, ME in May. By August they published the first Maine GayTask Force Newsletter, a statewide LGBTQIA+ publication.</p><p>In September of 1974 Gay Support and Action in Bangor opened the first Gay Community Center in Maine at 23 Franklin St, Bangor Maine.</p><p>In April of 1976, Maine removed homosexuality from the state criminal code, making all sexual acts between consenting adults legal.</p><p>The Maine Gay Symposium, which eventually became the Maine Lesbian-Gay-Bi-Trans Symposium, ran for 25 years, ending in 1999.</p><p>The statewide discussion of homosexuality made average Mainers realize not all Mainers were cisgendered heterosexuals. Today, thanks to the community building at the first Symposium and the others that followed, Maine is one of 23 states with laws that explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and passed same-sex marriage, one of three states to do so, by popular vote in 2012, prior to the 2015 Supreme Court Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.</p></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><div class="ratio" style="--bs-aspect-ratio: 115%;display:grid;"><object type="application/pdf" data="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/exhibit/documents/2795/LGMS0107_b1f15_BDN_GayConfab_19740422.pdf"></object></div><div class="m-2"><footer style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left"><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/wilde-stein-exhibit-documents/19">“Gay confab passes without incident,” Bangor Daily News, April 22, 1974</a>, LG-MS0107, Karen Bye Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></footer></div></div></div></div><div class="row align-items-start"><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><div class="ratio" style="--bs-aspect-ratio: 115%;display:grid;"><object type="application/pdf" data="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/exhibit/documents/2796/LGMS0007_b8f151_schedule.pdf"></object></div><div class="m-2"><footer style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left"><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_haskins-series2-mgs/8/">Maine Gay Symposium program, April 19-21, 1974</a>, LG-MS0007, Sturgis Haskins Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></footer></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LGMS0079_3_3_film_03_19.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Black and white photo of Steve Bull"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-images/62">Steve Bull, Chairperson of the Wilde-Stein Club, giving the Wilde-Stein Club welcome</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><div class="ratio" style="--bs-aspect-ratio: 115%;display:grid;"><object type="application/pdf" data="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/exhibit/documents/2797/LGMS0079_f29_openingremarks.pdf"></object></div><div class="m-2"><footer style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left"><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-material/4">Opening remarks from Steve Bull at the first Maine Gay Symposium, April 20, 1974</a>, LG-MS0107, Karen Bye Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></footer></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LGMS0079_3_3_film_05_30.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Black and white photo of Sturgis Haskins"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-images/139">Photo of Sturgis Haskins (in the sweater and white collared shirt) at one of the Symposium workshops</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div></div><div class="row align-items-start"><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LGMS0079_3_3_film_03_07.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Black and white photo of Kenneth Allen"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-images/50">Dean Kenneth Allen, College of Arts and Sciences at UMaine, giving the invocation</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-6"><p>Besides creating the Symposium the Wilde-Stein Club also took steps to create a better environment for LGBTQIA+ people on campus. In the first few years of their existence they accomplished the following:</p><ul><li>Established a peer LGBTQIA+ hotline and with trained student staff.</li><li>Started a conscious raising group on LGBTQIA+ issues at the Counseling Center on campus.</li><li>Held training sessions on LGBTQIA+ people with dorm Resident Assistants.</li><li>Created a speakers bureau which addressed other student groups and classes around the state.</li><li>Secured a written commitment from the head of the Maine teacher’s association that they would defend any teacher prosecuted solely for their sexuality.</li><li>Removal of the question “Do you have homosexual tendies” from the University of Maine’s health form for all job applicants.</li><li>Ran a weekly hour long radio show on the campus radio station.</li><li>Got Karen Bye, John Frank, and Steve Bull elected to the student senate.</li><li>Supported unionized state-wide Campus workers at a rally at the state capital during a contract dispute.</li><li>Secured an office and created a library of LGBTQIA+ books in the Student Union.</li><li>Maintained correspondence with other LGBTQIA+ organizations and individuals around the country.</li></ul><p>Fifty years later, the Wilde-Stein Club is still an active club on the UMaine campus.</p></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LGMS0079_3_3_film_03_05.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Black and white photo of Burton Throckmorton"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-images/48/">Dr. Burton Throckmorton, Bangor Theological Seminary also speaking at the invocation to open the conference</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div></div><div class="row align-items-start justify-content-center"><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LGMS0079_3_3_film_02_21.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Black and white photo of Morty Manford"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-images/30/">Keynote speaker Morty Manford of the Gay Activists Alliance in New York City.</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LGMS0079_3_3_film_11_03.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Black and white photo of Nathalie Rockhill"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-images/280">Keynote speaker Nathalie Rockhill of the National Gay Task Force in New York City</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div></div><div class="row align-items-start"><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LGMS0079_3_3_film_06_06.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Black and white photo of workshop leaders for the Symposium"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-images/147">Workshop leaders for the Symposium</a>. From Left to Right; Dr. Burton Throckmorton, Vito Russo, Morty Mandord, Nathalie Rockhill, Greg Ford, John Lawrence, and Loretta Lotman, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LGMS0079_3_3_film_06_17.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Black and white photo of Vito Russo and Morty Manford"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-images/158">Photo of Vito Russo and Morty Manford</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LGMS0079_3_3_film_03_32.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Black and white photo of George Whitmore"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-images/75">George Whitmore, playwright, poet, novelist, opening for Vito Russo’s presentation, "How Hollywood Has Portrayed the Homosexual?"</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LGMS0079_3_3_film_05_11.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Black and white photo of people in a classroom"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-images/120">Religion and the Homosexual Workshop</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LGMS0079_3_3_film_05_26.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Black and white photo of Morty Manford and Loretta Lotman"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-images/135/">Photo of Morty Manford (Left) and Loretta Lotman (Right) leading the Political Strategies and Community Action workshop</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LGMS0079_3_3_film_05_06.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Black and white photo of Sheri Barden and John Lawrence in front of a chalkboard"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-images/115">Gay-Straight relations workshop with Sheri Barden (Left) and John Lawrence (right)</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LGMS0079_3_3_film_05_02.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Black and white photo of Lois Johnson and Greg Ford"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-images/111">Lois Johnson (Left) and Greg Ford (Right) leading the Coming Out Workshop</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LG_MS.0002.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Color photo of a blue t-shirt with a yellow Lambda on the chest"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/lgbt_tshirts/238/">Gay Activists Alliance Lambda t-shirt from Morty Manford given to Sturgis Haskins at the Symposium, 1974</a>, LG-MS0007, Sturgis Haskins Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><div class="ratio" style="--bs-aspect-ratio: 115%;display:grid;"><object type="application/pdf" data="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/exhibit/documents/2798/MaineGayTaskForceNewsletter_v1n1_1974-08.pdf"></object></div><div class="m-2"><footer style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left"><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/megtf/1/">Maine Gay Task Force Newsletter, August 1, 1974, vol. 1, no. 1</a>, LG-MS0111 Fortuna, Henderson, Prizer Collection, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></footer></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LGMS0079_3_3_film_11_24.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Black and white photo of Susan Henderson"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-images/301">Susan Henderson (standing in the flower print shirt)</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><img class="card-img-top" src="https://exhibit-production-digitalcommons.s3.amazonaws.com/images/LGMS0079_3_3_film_05_19.max-800x600.jpg" alt="Black and white photo of Steve Leo and Stan Fortuna"><div class="card-body"><p class="card-text" style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left;"><cite><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/spclgms_bull-series3-mgs-images/128">Steve Leo (on the left with dark hair) and Stan Fortuna (on the right looking at the camera)</a>, LG-MS0079, Steven G. Bull Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></cite></p></div></div></div><div class="col-lg-3"><div class="card text-center"><div class="ratio" style="--bs-aspect-ratio: 115%;display:grid;"><object type="application/pdf" data="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/exhibit/documents/2799/LGMS0107_b1f15_MWN_RealPeopleComic_1974-04.pdf"></object></div><div class="m-2"><footer style="font-size: 14px;text-align: left"><em><a href="https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/wilde-stein-exhibit-documents/20">“My god they’re real people” cartoon from Maine Women’s Newsletter, April/ May 1974</a>, LG-MS0107, Karen Bye Papers, LGBTQ+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity Maine, USM Special Collections.</em></footer></div></div></div></div>