Jeanne Manford, activist and founder of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, died today at the age of 92.
Hailed as one of the LGBT-rights movement’s first straight allies, Manford founded PFLAG after her son, Morty Manford, who died of AIDS-related complications in 1992, was among those patrons at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village when a police raid sparked the 1969 Stonewall riots. When Morty Manford was beaten during a Gay Activists Alliance demonstration in April 1972 and police failed to intervene, Jeanne Manford wrote a letter to the New York Post standing by her son.
“I have a homosexual son, and I love him,” her letter read.
That same year Jeanne Manford marched with her son in New York City’s Christopher Street Liberation Day March. The outpouring of support from those marching in the parade who asked her to talk to their parents led her to found a support group that later became PFLAG. Today, the organization has 350 chapters in the U.S. with more than 200,000 members.
PFLAG’s executive director, Jody Huckaby, issued a statement remembering Manford as a “pioneer” and “Mother of the Straight Ally movement.”
Jeanne was one of the fiercest fighters in the battle for acceptance and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. It is truly humbling to imagine in 1972 – just 40 years ago – a simple schoolteacher started this movement of family and ally support, without benefit of any of the technology that today makes a grassroots movement so easy to organize. No Internet. No cellphones. Just a deep love for her son and a sign reading “Parents of Gays: Unite in Support for Our Children.”
All of us – people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and straight allies alike – owe Jeanne our gratitude. We are all beneficiaries of her courage. Jeanne Manford proved the power of a single person to transform the world. She paved the way for us to speak out for what is right, uniting the unique parent, family, and ally voice with the voice of LGBT people everywhere.
In 2009, President Barack Obama told the story of PFLAG’s founding at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual dinner.
“And that’s the story of America, of ordinary citizens organizing, agitating and advocating for change,” Obama said of Manford’s founding of PLFAG. “Of hope stronger than hate, of love more powerful than any insult or injury. Of Americans fighting to build for themselves and their families a nation in which no one is a second-class citizen, in which no one is denied their basic rights, in which all of us are free to live and love as we see fit.”
[Photo: Jeanne Manford marches with her son Morty Manford in 1972. (Courtesy PFLAG)]
Police in Paris, France, have arrested a homeless Tunisian migrant accused of killing four men whose bodies were later found in the Seine River. The case began on August 13, when a commuter spotted a corpse floating in the river. Investigators subsequently recovered three more bodies from the same stretch of water.
Autopsies confirmed all four victims were men. At least two had been strangled, though forensic experts could not determine the exact cause of death for the others, according to The Times. Police are investigating the four deaths as homicides.
Austin police are investigating whether an assault on a transgender woman and a male bystander at Barton Springs, a popular Austin swimming spot, was a hate crime. The incident occurred on July 26, when three men began flirting with the womanās friends and then allegedly harassed her after she approached them.
"They said something along the lines of 'I don't support that lifestyle,' while pointing at me, which upset all three of us," said the transgender woman, whose name is being withheld for safety and privacy reasons, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle.
Police in York, Pennsylvania, have arrested 22-year-old Devin Harbaugh on charges of aggravated assault and strangulation. He is accused of choking a drag performer outside Gift Horse Brewing Company on August 22 in an attack that allegedly targeted three people for their perceived sexual orientation and gender expression.
According to police affidavits, Harbaugh and the victim -- identified as drag performer Sible Sible Stackhouse, known to friends as Vayne Disharoon -- were both at Gift Horse that night when an altercation broke out between their friend groups.
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Hailed as one of the LGBT-rights movement’s first straight allies, Manford founded PFLAG after her son, Morty Manford, who died of AIDS-related complications in 1992, was among those patrons at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village when a police raid sparked the 1969 Stonewall riots. When Morty Manford was beaten during a Gay Activists Alliance demonstration in April 1972 and police failed to intervene, Jeanne Manford wrote a letter to the New York Post standing by her son.
