Mayor's Office

This week the Madison Common Council declared June as Pride month in the City of Madison. See the resolution below.

WHEREAS, LGBTQ+ Pride was started by the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969, led by Black and Brown LGBTQ+ people; and,

WHEREAS, in 1969, just months after the Stonewall uprising, the Madison Alliance for Homosexual Equality was founded as Wisconsin’s first gay rights organization; and,

WHEREAS, in 1973, Judy Greenspan was the first out lesbian in the nation to run for public office when she sought election to the Madison School Board after she and others had been denied the right to speak in Madison high schools; and,

WHEREAS, the City of Madison in 1975 became the first place in Wisconsin, and one of the earliest in the country, to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation by amending its Equal Opportunities Ordinance; and,

WHEREAS, Alder Jim Yeadon was appointed to the City Council in the fall of 1976 and elected in the spring of 1977, and was the first openly gay man elected to a city council in the United States; and,

WHEREAS, when the Madison equal rights ordinance came under attack from an anti-gay movement motivated by activist Anita Bryant in 1978, Madison successfully defended its ordinance even though similar anti-discrimination ordinances were repealed in cities like St. Paul, Minnesota and Eugene, Oregon; and,

WHEREAS, in 1982, Madison State Representative David Clarenbach skillfully led the fight to pass a first-in the-nation state gay rights law, which was signed by Republican Governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus; and,

WHEREAS, the fifth annual conference of gay and lesbian officials was hosted in Madison in 1989 at the State Capitol with a local host committee chaired by Dane County Supervisors Dick Wagner and Tammy Baldwin; and,

WHEREAS, Black and Brown LGBTQ+ people have been leaders in advancing social change, creating and shifting culture; and,

WHEREAS, Ricardo Gonzalez was the first openly gay Latino official elected to public office in the United States when he was elected to Madison City Council in 1989; and,

WHEREAS, the City created the State’s first domestic partnership registry in 1990 by ordinance, affording limited rights to same sex couples; and,

WHEREAS, in 2000 the City became the first place in Wisconsin to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity by amending the Equal Opportunities Ordinance; and,

WHEREAS, Dane County Supervisor Tammy Baldwin became the first openly LGBTQ+ member of the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1993, and then the first openly LGBTQ+ non-incumbent elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1998 and became the first out LGBTQ+ U.S. Senator in our nation's history in 2013; and,

WHEREAS, Dane County Supervisor Mark Pocan became the first openly gay man to be elected to the State Assembly in 1998 and became the first openly-gay non-incumbent, married man to be elected to United States Congress in 2012; and,

 WHEREAS, GSAFE has worked since 1991 to create just schools for LGBTQ+ youth in Wisconsin by developing the leadership of LGBTQ+ youth, supporting Gay-Straight Alliances, training educators, advancing educational justice, and deepening racial, gender, trans, and social justice; and,

 WHEREAS, Fair Wisconsin was founded in 1994 to protect and advance the civil rights of LGBTQ+ people through electoral involvement and direct legislative advocacy, and has since worked to build a fair, safe, and inclusive Wisconsin for all LGBTQ+ people by advancing, achieving, and protecting LGBTQ+ civil rights through legislative advocacy, grassroots organizing, coalition building and electoral involvement; and,

 WHEREAS, OutReach LGBTQ+ Community Center was founded in 1998 with the merger of The United and Madison Gay Lesbian Resource Center and continues its mission of commitment to equity and quality of life for all LGBTQ+ people through community building; health and human services; and economic, social and racial justice advocacy; and,

 WHEREAS, Freedom Inc, created in 2003, is Madison’s first nonprofit with a focus and mission on ending violence against Black and Southeast Asian LGBTQ+ and fighting for their rights, dignity and wellness; and,

 WHEREAS, Alianza Latina, now known as Orgullo Latinx, has been working since 2007 to build a just place for the Latinx LGBTQ+ community in Dane County; and,

 WHEREAS, in 2015, Wisconsin-born retired U.S. Army colonel and transgender advocate Sheri Swokowski, the highest-ranking transgender veteran, was the first woman to legitimately wear a U.S. Army infantry uniform. Swokowski is also the first person to have been granted an official change-of-gender marker on their military record; and,

 WHEREAS, Satya Rhodes-Conway was elected the City of Madison’s first openly lesbian Mayor on April 2, 2019; and the City of Madison has a proud history of protecting LGBTQ+ rights and advancing LGBTQ+ equality; and,

WHEREAS, Madison activist, historian and County Board Supervisor Dick Wagner published many important articles and analysis about the unique history of the LGBTQ+ community in Wisconsin, culminating with a two-volume book on Wisconsin LGBTQ+ history; the City mourned his passing on December 13, 2021; and,

WHEREAS, Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway raised the Rainbow Pride Flag over Madison for the first time on June 3, 2019 and lit the Madison Municipal Building in Rainbow colors, and Governor Tony Evers raised the Rainbow Pride Flag for the first time over every state office building in Wisconsin on June 7, 2019, and in June 2023 both officials conducted Progress Pride and Trans Pride flag raisings; and,

WHEREAS, the group of Madison Common Council members elected in 2023 is the most diverse yet, with more than a quarter of Alder districts represented by LGBTQ+ Alders, including Dina Nina Martinez-Rutherford as the first openly transgender elected official in Madison; and,

 WHEREAS, our LGBTQ+ youth, especially transgender youth, have bravely faced discrimination in Wisconsin communities and schools and organized to fight back against discriminatory, unconstitutional partisan attacks in the Wisconsin legislature in an effort to divide and distract our communities from real problems we face, and Wisconsin LGBTQ Policy Advocacy Coalition has been organizing, challenging, lobbying and testifying against the anti-transgender bills that have been introduced in recent legislative sessions; and,

 WHEREAS, for the first time, the Human Rights Campaign in June 2023 declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the United States for the first time following an unprecedented and dangerous spike in anti-LGBTQ+ legislative assaults, with 75 such bills signed into law so far in 2023, more than doubling the number last year, which was previously the worst year on record; and,

 WHEREAS, the City of Madison recognizes the LGBTQ+ community as an important part of the diversity of the greater Madison community, and appreciates their contributions to our economy, culture, neighborhoods and city,

 NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the City of Madison declares June 2023 as Pride Month in the City of Madison.