September 12: They Told Us “Not Yet.” We Kept Moving Anyway.
🏳️🌈 THIS DAY IN LGBTQ+ HISTORY
There is something powerful about looking back at LGBTQ+ history and realizing how recently some of our freedoms were considered controversial. September 12 is one of those dates. It connects music, Hollywood, HIV/AIDS, and the fight for marriage equality, but underneath each story is something deeper: the freedom to live authentically and have that life respected.
Sometimes history gives us a victory. Other times it gives us a setback that becomes part of a bigger victory later. September 12 reminds us that progress has never been a clean, straight line. Our community has been pushed forward, pulled backward, told to wait, told to be quiet, and told society wasn't ready. Yet somehow, generation after generation, we kept moving anyway.
🏳️🌈 PENNSYLVANIA WASN'T READY — BUT THE CONVERSATION HAD ALREADY CHANGED
On September 12, 2013, Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Court ordered Montgomery County Register of Wills D. Bruce Hanes to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Hanes had begun issuing the licenses that summer even though Pennsylvania law still defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
Think about that for a moment. This wasn't 1953 or even 1983. This was 2013.
The country was already changing. Earlier that year, the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down a key section of the federal Defense of Marriage Act in United States v. Windsor. Across America, LGBTQ+ couples were asking why their love, families, homes, and commitments should receive different treatment under the law.
Hanes came to his own conclusion. He believed denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples was unconstitutional, so he began issuing them. Pennsylvania officials challenged him, and on September 12, the Commonwealth Court ordered him to stop, ruling that he did not have the legal authority to disregard the state's existing marriage law.
Imagine what that moment represented for the couples involved. For once, they had walked into a government office and somebody behind the counter essentially said, “Yes, your relationship deserves recognition too.” Then the state stepped in and said, “Not yet.”
But here's the thing about progress: once people experience equality, telling them to return to inequality becomes much harder.
The ruling stopped Hanes from issuing additional licenses, but it could not stop the larger movement. The legal battle surrounding marriage equality in Pennsylvania continued, and less than a year later, in May 2014, a federal judge struck down Pennsylvania's prohibition on same-sex marriage.
What had been “not yet” was becoming “right now.”
That is why moments like September 12 matter. We often celebrate the final victory without remembering the people who created pressure before the victory arrived. Somebody has to challenge the policy. Somebody has to file the lawsuit. Somebody has to walk into the courthouse. Somebody has to risk being told no.
History remembers the law that finally changes, but progress is usually already happening long before somebody signs the paperwork.
🎬 ANTHONY PERKINS AND THE SILENCE SURROUNDING AIDS
September 12 also carries another chapter of LGBTQ+ history. On September 12, 1992, actor Anthony Perkins, internationally recognized for his unforgettable portrayal of Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, died at age 60 from AIDS-related pneumonia.
Perkins had relationships with men earlier in his life and later married actress and photographer Berry Berenson, with whom he had two sons. His life reflects a complicated period when sexuality, celebrity, privacy, masculinity, and public image often collided. For people working in Hollywood, being completely open about same-sex relationships could carry serious professional and personal consequences.
His HIV diagnosis remained private for much of his illness.
That silence tells us something about the era. HIV/AIDS wasn't simply a medical crisis. It existed inside a culture of fear, shame, misinformation, homophobia, and judgment. People weren't only afraid of becoming sick; many were afraid of what other people would think if they discovered why they were sick.
Behind the statistics were actual human beings. They were artists, entertainers, fathers, mothers, partners, friends, neighbors, activists, Black people, white people, Latino people, gay people, bisexual people, trans people, and people who never publicly defined their sexuality at all.
When we remember the AIDS epidemic, we should never reduce those lives to numbers. They were people before they were statistics.
🎵 LOLA AND A CONVERSATION ABOUT GENDER BEFORE AMERICA HAD THE LANGUAGE
September 12 also takes us into music history. On the U.S. chart dated September 12, 1970, The Kinks' Lola entered the Top 40.
The song tells the story of a romantic encounter with Lola, a person whose gender presentation challenges the narrator's expectations. Modern conversations about the character vary, and applying today's identity terminology to a fictional character written more than five decades ago requires some caution. What is undeniable is that Lola brought gender ambiguity and unconventional attraction directly into mainstream popular music.
That was significant in 1970.
Music has always had a way of sneaking conversations into people's living rooms before society is comfortable having them openly. Someone might reject a political speech, avoid an LGBTQ+ organization, or refuse to discuss gender and sexuality at the dinner table, yet still sing every word of a song coming through the radio.
Culture can open doors politics hasn't figured out how to unlock yet.
Lola became part of that cultural conversation, exposing millions of listeners to a story that challenged traditional expectations surrounding gender, attraction, masculinity, and femininity.
🏳️🌈 CULTURE. SURVIVAL. EQUALITY.
When you place these September 12 stories beside one another, they tell an interesting story about LGBTQ+ life across generations.
In 1970, popular music was playing with society's assumptions about gender. In 1992, America was still living through the devastation and stigma of HIV/AIDS. By 2013, same-sex couples were standing inside Pennsylvania government offices demanding the legal recognition heterosexual couples had long taken for granted.
Different decades. Different battles. Same underlying question: Are LGBTQ+ people allowed to live fully and openly as ourselves?
That question has followed our community through entertainment, healthcare, religion, politics, employment, marriage, education, and everyday life.
And every generation has answered it a little louder.
🏳️🌈 WHY SEPTEMBER 12 MATTERS
September 12 reminds us how quickly history can become something people take for granted. Today, seeing two men or two women walk into a courthouse to get married may not seem revolutionary. But in Pennsylvania, a government official was ordered to stop issuing those licenses just thirteen years ago.
That's why knowing LGBTQ+ history matters.
Rights feel permanent when you inherit them. They feel very different when you remember somebody had to fight for them.
Our history isn't only Pride parades and rainbow flags. It's courtrooms and hospital rooms. It's records playing on the radio. It's people quietly navigating Hollywood careers. It's couples standing at government counters asking to be treated like everybody else. It's activists refusing to accept “not yet” as the final answer.
Before marriage equality became law, we were demanding recognition. Before LGBTQ+ representation became mainstream, our stories were already shaping culture. Before America learned how to speak openly about HIV/AIDS, our community was living through the crisis.
And every time society told LGBTQ+ people to wait until the world was ready, somebody somewhere decided they had already waited long enough.
We weren't asking history for permission. We were already making it.
🏳️🌈 Know the history. Respect the struggle. Protect the progress. Keep building the future.
I AM ME INC.
This Day in LGBTQ+ History is presented by I Am Me Inc. as part of our commitment to informing, empowering, connecting, and celebrating LGBTQ+ people and our Allies.
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