Draft:LGBT history in New Hampshire

The American state of New Hampshire has been home to LGBT gathering places and communities since the mid-20th century.

1950s and 1960s
The 1950s saw the emergence of an LGBT community in Portsmouth. The city's first gay bar, the Seacoast Club, opened in 1957. A second LGBT-friendly venue, the Sagamore Social Club, opened that year; it remained open until 1978.

However, the LGBT community remained largely quiet, and many LGBT-friendly establishments were in out-of-the-way or secret locations.

1970s
The 1970s saw a rise in LGBT activism in the state, particularly in the Seacoast Region.

In the early 1970s, students at the University of New Hampshire founded the Gay Student Organization. The university recognized the group in 1973. However, the group faced opposition from authorities, including then-Governor Meldrim Thomson, who told the university the group was not allowed to host social events, and UNH resciended their support. In spring 1974, student activists attempted to meet with Thomson via an auction, as New Hampshire Public Television was auctioning off a pancake breakfast with the governor to raise funds. The students were outbid, and were not given a chance to raise their bid before the item closed. Beginning in 1992, the GSU would commemorate this occasion with an annual LGBTQ+ and Ally Pancake Breakfast. The GSU instead took their case of discrimination to the state's supreme court, who ruled in GSU's favor in 1975.

The Seaport Club opened in 1977, and continued to serve the community until its closure in 1995. In 1979, the social group Seacoast Gay Men was founded.

1980s
The LGBT community in New Hampshire, as with the rest of the country, was heavily impacted by the HIV/AIDS crisis. AIDS Response Seacoast was working in the state by the late 1980s.

In October 1981, the NH Gay Symposium was held. In April 1982, New Hampshire police seized the mail list of the Gay Community News.

In 1984, a gay man from Portsmouth, Charlie Howard, was killed in a hate crime in Bangor, Maine. Two memorial benches were later installed in Portsmouth in his memory.

Iris, a "women's bar" in Portsmouth, was open during the 1980s.

1990s
In the early 1990s, community organizers held a Gay Pride event at Pats Peak, a ski resort in Henniker.

In 1993, activists proposed an anti-discrimination ordinance in Portsmouth. The city's first Gay History Walk was held the following year.

Hate crime bill

1996 - Hampton protests

1999 - Struck down ban on gay and lesbian adults being able to foster or adopt

2000s
2007 - first civil unions bill in the country to be passed through legislation rather than courts

2010s
2010 - same sex marriages

The first Pride event in Portsmouth was held on June 27, 2015, the day after the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples had a right to marry. That same year, New Hampshire resident Tom Kaufhold founded the NH Seacoast LGBT History Project.

2018 - Chris Pappas, Gerri Cannon, Lisa Bunker

2020s
2022 - James Rosener, first openly trans male state legislator