Date of Award

5-2025

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Degree Name

Undergraduate

Department

Communication and Media Studies

Keywords

CMS, Communication and Media Studies, LGBTQ+, Legislation

Abstract

Maine’s LGBTQ+ history may be very rich, but true acceptance was an uphill battle. For decades, queer residents of Maine fought for equal rights in the state. The Stonewall riots in 1969 in New York City were an early sign that LGBTQ+ citizens were not going to continue to let their identities be suppressed, but as the years progressed, so too did the confidence of queer people to be open about their identities, including in Maine. In 1973, at the University of Maine, the Wilde-Stein Club was established, to the deep chagrin of homophobic fundamentalist preachers whose protests against the club made national news (Roy et al, 2023). Additionally, only two years later, the gay bar the Stage Door in Wells, Maine was not only denied a liquor license over it being an LGBTQ+-friendly establishment, but only a few months later, it was actually burned down by an arsonist (Borden, 1975). These instances of hate – alongside homophobia finding its way to a national legislation proposal, with the California state senator John Briggs composing Proposition 6 to bar openly gay individuals and their allies from working in public schools (Cismoski, 2018) – made it clear that queer residents of Maine had to fight hard for equal rights, but it was misfortune in the 1980s that ultimately set Maine up on a two-decade path of legislation that would ultimately culminate in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer residents gaining the same rights statewide that so many cisgender, heterosexual residents had taken for granted. This digital exhibit takes a look at several of the most notable moments throughout that time period, from the moral panics of the 1980s to the legislation that finally put an end to so much institutionalized anti-queer discrimination in Maine.

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