“If you are going to be ‘hoping and waiting for someday’ when the rest of the wishing-they-were-human beings in this society no longer put down everybody who isn’t just like them, my [slur] friend, before you think you can ‘live an open and fulfilling life,’ then you are going to be waiting a hell of a long time.””

anonymous queer columnist

BOULDER COUNTY - June is Pride Month, a celebration of the progress toward LGBTQ+ rights and the marginalized communities that fight for them in order to live as their true selves.

As LGBTQ+ topics once again find themselves at the center of politics, Pride this year may feel like less of a time to celebrate. It’s important to remember that Pride is rooted in the hardships that queer people have historically faced and pushed through; a celebration not only of the obstacles already overcome but also of the strength the community has to keep going. 

On Wednesday, June 18, in the middle of Pride month, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, ruling that the law is not discrimination. On the same day, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration under President Trump announced that it would be discontinuing the LGBTQ+ youth service line on the national 988 suicide hotline on July 17.

This specialized hotline was created in partnership with the Trevor Project, a nationally-recognized organization focused on crisis intervention for LGBTQ+ youth. President Trump acknowledged that LGBTQ+ youth are disproportionately at risk of suicide and would benefit from special services during his first term when he signed the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act of 2020, which introduced 988 as the suicide hotline and established the LGBTQ+ youth service hotline to begin with.

SAMHSA also notably removed the “T” and “Q” from LGBTQ+ when addressing the discontinuation of the hotline, pointing towards the Trump administration’s increasingly overt dismissal of transgender identities —  the very identities of some of the most prominent figures of the Pride movement's origins. 

Pride originated to mark the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising of 1969, a six-day standoff between LGBTQ+ protestors — including transgender activists Marsha P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera —  and police in New York City following one of many police raids on known gay bars.

Pride found its way to Colorado not long after, with Denver as a hub for conversation following a self-proclaimed “Denver Stonewall” at a town hall meeting in 1973, when an organized group of hundreds of queer people spoke on why four discriminatory laws should be repealed. 

With all this well-known history of pride in metropolises, there’s no doubt that queer people were living silently, or perhaps even loudly, in smaller towns across the U.S., despite historical records indicating that LGBTQ+ topics didn’t gain traction in the Peak to Peak region until the 90s and early 2000s. Boulder County, on the other hand, occasionally found itself a center of attention on both the state and federal levels. 

In 1974, some Boulder residents pushed for sexual orientation to be included in the Boulder Human Rights Ordinance, a set of laws to prevent discrimination in housing, employment and public resources, however, it was overwhelmingly voted down. It also resulted in two prominent Boulder politicians losing their political careers. It wasn’t until 1987 that sexual orientation was just barely accepted into the ordinance. 

In 1975, Boulder County Clerk Clela Rorex issued the first same-sex marriage licenses in the country to six couples. Although she was met with aggressive opposition, she continued to hold that she did what she thought was equitable, according to Law Week Colorado. The impassioned debate on whether the licenses should be valid brought national attention to the topic of gay marriage.

Boulder County clerk Hillary Hall followed in Rorex’s footsteps, issuing over 200 same sex marriage licenses over the course of about three months in 2014. This came in between the U.S. Court of Appeals’ opinion finding Utah’s marriage ban unconstitutional and the legalization of same-sex marriage in Colorado. A ruling in her favor before the legalization effectively granted permission for other county clerks to do the same. 

And of course, in 1995, Boulder attorney Jean Dubofsky led the legal battle to appeal the enactment of Colorado's Amendment 2 before the Supreme Court. The Amendment was voted in in 1992 and established legal precedent preventing the creation of state or local LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination laws in Colorado.

Colorado found itself not only in national headlines but the subject of boycotts around the country in mass support of queer rights. Romer v. Evans, the 1995 appeal, was not only historic for its dismantling of the prevention of LGBTQ+ rights in Colorado but for being the first time ever that the Supreme Court had ruled against the oppression of LGBTQ+ people, bringing nationwide change thereafter. 

Newspapers and media can often serve as records of history. Not surprisingly, there was no mention of the words gay, lesbian, or queer in any Boulder or Gilpin County newspaper prior to Stonewall, other than use of the word “queer” as a synonym for unusual or off-putting.

Leading up to and just after Stonewall, newspapers often avoided the topic completely as it was often deemed “inappropriate” for widespread readership. From 1970 onwards, the CU Boulder newspaper, the Colorado Daily, began featuring queer topics in their columns. Universities tended to be centerpoints of conversation for topics that larger society deemed “radical.” 

On October 2, 1970, an opinion piece ran supporting “gay liberation” and the creation of a Boulder chapter of the Gay Liberation Front, an international organization started shortly after Stonewall by activists like Marsha P. Johnson. The chapter was founded just a month later, possibly strengthened by this or another article, according to University of Colorado archives.

The Boulder Gay Liberation Front wasted no time, starting their own magazine for queer content, entitled the Gayly Planet, and publishing their first issue on September 25, 1971. On June 26, 1973, almost three years later, the chapter was going strong, cited as a resource in an article from a lesbian mother pleading for a more accepting society so that her child would not have to be afraid about telling others about his home life with two moms. 

On November 5, 1974, one anonymous queer columnist described the use of a homophobic slur by a teaching assistant and another similarly offensive viewpoint from the same class’ professor. Soon after on November 11, 1974, a confusingly both uplifting and offensive response column was published both repeatedly calling the first student the slur while telling them that they should be bold enough to live as their true self despite a society that might make them stand alone. 

“If you are going to be ‘hoping and waiting for someday’ when the rest of the wishing-they-were-human beings in this society no longer put down everybody who isn’t just like them, my [slur] friend, before you think you can ‘live an open and fulfilling life,’ then you are going to be waiting a hell of a long time,” the columnist wrote. 

A similar opinion was found in the April 5, 1971 issue, wherein two writers reported on a panel on lesbianism at CU’s annual World Affairs Conference. Protests emerged upon community members learning that the conference didn’t plan to feature any women panelists to speak on the overtly women-centered topic of lesbianism.

The panel was adjusted, but still, when a woman panelist spoke about lesbians being afraid to live as they want in a world where the male ego is prioritized, a male panelist shrugged it off by saying that judgments like that make “everyone the enemy.” 

While the earliest records of reporting on queer topics in Boulder County came from CU, newspaper archives indicate that our very own Mountain-Ear was among the first in the Peak to Peak region.

Not surprisingly, but definitely admirably, the conversation was started by a Nederland High School freshman named Billy Henninger. On October 8, 1992, The Mountain-Ear published an edition of Henninger’s recurring column. This week, he tackled the notion that gay people are inherently different from others.

He addressed that most people he knew held homophobic opinions, and that he himself would probably be bullied or labeled gay at school the next day. Despite this, Henninger bravely advocated for gay rights. “It makes me sad to have to listen to such ignorance everyday when I attend school, but I hope that some time in the future, if we make it, people wouldn’t be so ignorant,” he wrote. 

Henninger’s column came just one month before voters’ approval of Amendment 2 into the Colorado constitution and received two response articles in agreement, showing that despite state ruling, allyship was to be found in Colorado and even more locally in Nederland. 

“I have received nothing but acceptance thus far from Neder-folk, one of the things that has endeared this town to me in the short time I’ve been here,” Nederland resident Tara Gray-Wolfstar wrote in one of the response columns. “I hope that Nederland remains the tolerant, supportive and diversified community it is now. I’m sure that if we continue to grow kids like Billy, it will.”

Today, Pride can be seen and felt throughout Boulder and Gilpin counties. Not only are residents more outspoken of their support of the LGBTQ+ community, but multiple Pride events took place this June.

While these records could never provide a comprehensive history of the struggles and successes of the queer community in the area, they do provide proof of their existence and perseverance, the progress in acceptance from other residents, and the allyship of brave individuals in times when even that was worth prejudice.

But the uplifting of the LGBTQ+ community isn’t just something to look back on and appreciate; queer people are still marginalized and their rights are still being threatened today. Pride month is as good a time as ever to support your queer neighbors.