It's certainly not a bad year to celebrate four decades of work in the LGBT movement given the momentous change this year alone has brought for the LGBT community.
This year the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force ( NGLTF ) turns 40 and is celebrating dozens of milestones that have changed the landscape for LGBT people across the country.
The NGLTF was founded in 1973, at a time when there were no protections for LGBT people. In fact, many of the organization's earliest members and supporters weren't out, due to the danger that posed.
"Think back to 1969 and the Stonewall riots and what was going on at that time," said Rea Carey, NGLTF executive director. "LGBT people were being regularly harassed by police in our very own businesses and bars. LGBT people were experiencing extreme violence and shunning from society, and homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder by the psychiatric community."
Carey pointed out that even the straight attorney who helped file the paperwork for the organization to get up and running was taking a big risk.
"He risked his career to work with the organization to file those papers," Carey said. "So you can imagine, 40 years later, with the number of LGBT organizations nationwide that have been established to do the work for our community, we really have come a long way."
Following the Stonewall riots groups began to form across the country to begin to tackle some of the most prevalent challenges LGBT people faced at the time.
The NGLTF formed with the goal of providing resources and support to initiatives across the country seeking positive change in LGBT rights and protections.
"We worked with what was becoming a groundswell of people around the country who no longer wanted to be treated as second class citizens," Carey said. "We were focused at that time in large part on federal policy.
"The very first notable success that the Task Force had in the 70s was that we got changed the American Psychiatric Association's classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder. That was a major marker in the history of our movement."
Additional early successes that the Task Force was involved with included:
1975—Introduction of the first gay rights bill in the U.S. Congress
1977—First White House meeting to discuss gay and lesbian rights
1983—Formation of AIDS Action and National Organizations Responding to AIDS coalitions
1984—First comprehensive report on anti-gay violence
1988—First Creating Change Conference takes place
"We established the first national crisis hotline," Carey added. "You can well imagine at that time, pre-cell phones, people feeling incredibly isolated, needing somewhere to turn, having to go to a pay phone because it may not have been safe to make a phone call from their own home if they were living with their family.
"Even though now it may seem to some like a minor thing, for people to have a place to turn to say 'I was just bashed on the street last night and I need to talk to someone,' was very significant at the time."
The organization also focused on assisting people with HIV and AIDS since the early 1980s. It hired the first lobbyist anywhere to focus on AIDS issues and obtained the first funding by the federal government for community-based AIDS-service organizations. In the 1990s the Task Force worked to have HIV/AIDS included in the Americans with Disabilities Act.
One of the organization's greatest accomplishments came in 1988 with the Creating Change Conference.
Carey noted that when the first conference was held the Task Force was just hoping people would show up. She said about 300 did, and today it has grown to be the largest annual convening of LGBT rights activists in the country.
"That conference is now the premier gathering for the LGBT movement," she said. "We now have more than 3,500 people who attend that conference every year."
More than 100 LGBT organizations and campaigns have resulted from the conference.
"It really is the town square of the LGBT movement," Carey said. "In fact, when you talk to many people who are involved in organizations around the country or activism, they will say the first spark they really had in their activism and passion and the first place they felt truly at home doing this work was at our Creating Change Conference."
The Creating Change Conference as well as the Task Force's focus providing support and resources to states mounting campaigns and other initiatives have helped keep the organization strong, while other LGBT organizations that formed around the same time have since folded.
"One of the hallmarks of the Task Force for 40 years is because of how we do our work around the country, which is in partnership with local activists and state and local organizations," said Carey. "We listen and we pay attention to what the issues are that people are facing around the country.
"We don't go into a state and say this is what you have to work on. We go into a state and say how can we help?"
This way of operating will be particularly important in the coming years given the patchwork of laws that have been stitched together across the country, particularly the large divide between gay marriage states and anti-marriage states.
In today's LGBT landscape someone can be legally married, yet fired from his or her job for being gay.
Carey also pointed out that trans people still are lacking in most protections and rights, adoption, housing and employment laws differ across the country, and immigration is still a big issue that needs to be tackled.
She said, "I think our biggest challenge right now is to really put forth the understanding that our work is not done.
"The ability to serve in the military or the ability to choose to get married does not address all of the problems facing LGBT people. We have challenges around immigration issues, around health, certainly HIV and AIDS, around poverty, and issues facing both young and old in our community. So really one of our tasks as an organization is to continue to push a vision of what's next."
