Birds of a Feather
LGBT Legal History Project
Videos will be released throughout October
Conversations with . . .
a historian, law students and lawyers of
the 1970s, and a current law student
Trained
in history and law, Professor David Reichard’s academic career has
concentrated on 19th and
20th century U.S. social, political and legal history. He is completing
a book, tentatively titled
Here Are My People: LGBT College Student Organizing in California,
1967-1978,
focusing on
the origins of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) student
politics in California.
David wrote the preface for the Birds of
a Feather memory book. The book is titled The Seventies: A Breakthrough
Decade for LGBT Rights. In this video, he discusses LGBT
student organizing in the 1970s in considerable detail, at the
undergraduate level as well as in law schools.Full Version (40 min.) Link Short Version (5 min.) Link
Mary
Stevens (Rutgers Law 1977) was an advocate for racial equality in the
1960s
and a LGBT rights advocate in the 1970s. In law school she was an editor
of the
Women’s Rights Law Reporter, a legal advisor to the National Gay Task
Force, and
on the board of Gay Rights National Lobby. Mary helped organize the
first lesbian
law conference in the United States in 1977. She embraced her
bisexuality in the
1970s and in the 1980s Mary and her husband were foster parents to 37
children.
In
this video, Mary discusses her life before, during, and after law
school, including stories about her coming out process.Full Version (30 min.) Link Short Version (5 min.) Link
Stephen
Lachs (UCLA Law 1963) was a mentor to law students who formed the first
gay law students association in the nation in 1972. He was then a public
defender.
Steve was on the board of directors of the Gay Community Services Center
in Los
Angeles during the 1970s. In the mid-1970s, he served as a court
commissioner. In
1979, California Governor Jerry Brown appointed Steve to the Los Angles
County
Superior Court, making him the first openly gay judge in the nation.
In this video, Steve discusses his coming out process in undergraduate
school, his life in law school, his early legal career, his initiation
into LGBT politics, and his appointment as a judge.Full Version (49 min.) Link Short Version (5 min.) Link
Barbara
Kritchevsky (Harvard Law 1980) became one of the early members of the
first gay law student group at Harvard. Founded by fellow student Jose
Gomez, it
was known as the Committee on Gay Legal Issues. In 1978, Barbara and
Jose
pressed the career placement office to insist that the school deny
services to
employers unless they signed a sexual orientation nondiscrimination
policy. In 1981, the Harvard Women’s Law Journal published an article by
Barbara titled “The Unmarried Woman’s Right to Artificial Insemination:
A Call for an Expanded Definition of Family.
In this video, she discusses her life as a law student, lawyer, and a
law professor.Full Version (34 min.) Link Short Version (5 min.) Link
George
Raya (Thomas Jefferson Law 1981) was a founding member of the gay law
student association at UC Berkeley in 1973. He successfully advocated
for the city
council in Berkeley to enact a sexual orientation nondiscrimination law
that same
year. With backing from financial and political power brokers in San
Francisco,
George moved to Sacramento and became the first paid gay rights lobbyist
in the
nation. His advocacy shifted to AIDS issues in the 1980s. In this
video, George discusses his first experiences as an LGBT rights activist
during his undergraduate days in the 1960s, his life as a law student,
and his adventures as a lobbyist in the 1970s.Full Version (33 min.) Link Short Version (5 min.) Link
Phyllis
Frye (U of Houston Law 1981) was born a biological male but identified
as a
female early in life. The transition from Phillip to Phyllis was a
difficult journey.
After experiencing years of discrimination, Phyllis went to law school
where she
formed a gay law student group. She successfully lobbied the city
council to repeal
a cross-dressing law. After practicing law for years, Phyllis was
appointed to the
bench in Houston. She is regarded as the first open
transgender person in the nation to be appointed as a judge. In
this video, Phyllis discusses her aptitude for engineering, military
career, marriages, law school days, law practice, and the politics
behind her judicial appointment.Full Version (42 min.) Link Short Version (5 min.) Link
A
3L student at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, María de los Ángeles
Reyes Olmedo (they/them) is a Mexican immigrant and first-generation
higher education student who attended Cal Poly Pomona, where they earned
a Bachelor’s of Arts in Gender, Ethnic, and Multicultural Studies (with
a focus on Latinx/Chicanx Studies) and a minor in Spanish. María wrote a
chapter for the Birds of a Feather memory book discussing the
post-1970s emergence of open nonbinary, transgender, and students of
color as LGBT activists. In this video, Maria discusses their
research on this issue and comments on the challenges facing the current
generation of LGBT law students.Full Version (21 min.) Link Short Version (5 min.) Link
