September 7: When Women Challenged Beauty Standards, Sexism and the System
🏳️🌈 THIS DAY IN LGBTQ+ HISTORY
September 7:
LGBTQ+ history and women’s history have always been deeply connected. Lesbian, bisexual, queer, transgender and gender-nonconforming people have participated in movements for women’s liberation while also working to ensure that their own experiences and voices were not pushed aside. September 7, 1968, represents an important moment in that broader history.
On that day, hundreds of women gathered in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to protest the Miss America pageant. Organized primarily by New York Radical Women, the demonstration challenged the ways women were judged by their appearance, pressured to meet narrow standards of femininity and often valued for beauty before intelligence, talent or individuality. The protest became one of the defining public moments of the emerging women’s liberation movement.
👑 1968: “NO MORE MISS AMERICA!”
While millions of Americans prepared to watch contestants compete for the Miss America crown, protesters outside Atlantic City’s Convention Hall delivered a very different message: women were tired of being judged. They carried signs, marched along the Boardwalk, challenged beauty standards and questioned why women were expected to conform to a carefully constructed image of what society considered beautiful, respectable and feminine.
Inside the pageant, protesters dramatically unfurled a banner reading “Women’s Liberation.” Outside, demonstrators placed bras, girdles, high heels, cosmetics, curlers and other items associated with restrictive expectations of femininity into what they called a Freedom Trash Can. Despite the famous story that followed, the protesters did not burn their bras. The demonstration nevertheless helped create the lasting “bra-burning feminist” stereotype. What actually happened was far more significant: women publicly rejected the idea that someone else should determine their value.
🏳️🌈 What Does This Have to Do with LGBTQ+ History?
The women’s liberation movement and the LGBTQ+ liberation movement developed alongside one another. At times, they worked together, and at other times, they experienced serious conflict. Lesbians were active in feminist organizing, while queer women questioned not only beauty standards but also traditional expectations surrounding marriage, sexuality, gender roles and what a woman’s life was supposed to look like.
Many lesbians experienced discrimination from multiple directions. They faced sexism because they were women, homophobia because they were lesbians and, in some cases, rejection within movements that were supposed to be fighting for liberation. These tensions helped fuel the growth of lesbian feminism and independent lesbian organizations during the 1970s. The message became increasingly clear: women’s liberation could not truly be liberation if lesbian women were expected to leave part of themselves outside the movement.
✊🏾 Beauty Standards Are Also About Power
The 1968 protesters were not simply arguing that makeup, dresses or beauty pageants were inherently wrong. They were questioning who had the authority to establish the standard. Who decides what makes a woman beautiful? Who decides how feminine she should look, how she should dress or what kind of body is acceptable? Who decides whether masculine-presenting women are “woman enough,” or whether transgender women belong in conversations about womanhood?
Those questions remain relevant today. Women should have the freedom to be glamorous, wear no makeup, present masculinely, embrace femininity or define themselves in whatever way feels authentic. The problem is not femininity. The problem is forcing one definition of femininity onto everyone.
🖤 Race Mattered Too
The protesters also criticized the racial standards surrounding the Miss America pageant. At the time of the demonstration, no Black woman had ever been crowned Miss America. That same weekend, the Miss Black America pageant took place in Atlantic City in response to the exclusion Black women experienced from mainstream beauty institutions.
This adds another important layer to the conversation. Whenever we discuss liberation, we must ask which women are being included. Are Black women, lesbians, transgender women, masculine-presenting women, poor women, women whose bodies do not fit traditional beauty standards and women who reject conventional gender expectations being included? Liberation cannot simply create a larger table for some women while telling everyone else that there is still no seat available.
🏳️🌈 The Personal Became Political
The women’s liberation movement helped popularize an idea that would become central to many social justice movements: the personal is political. What happens inside our homes matters. Who we are allowed to love matters. How we are expected to dress matters. Who controls our bodies matters. Whether we can safely be ourselves at work matters. Whether our relationships receive legal recognition matters. Whether society allows us to define ourselves matters.
These questions became deeply connected to LGBTQ+ liberation because queer people were not only demanding changes to laws. They were demanding the freedom to define their own lives.
🏳️🌈 Why September 7 Matters
September 7 reminds us that liberation is not simply about gaining access to existing systems. Sometimes liberation requires asking whether the system itself needs to change. The women protesting Miss America were not asking for prettier crowns. They were questioning why women needed society’s crown of approval in the first place.
That same lesson carries into LGBTQ+ history. Before society celebrated Pride, LGBTQ+ people had to challenge society’s definition of what was considered “normal.” Before queer women could openly love women, generations challenged expectations about relationships. Before masculine-presenting women could openly embrace their identities, women challenged rigid definitions of femininity. Before transgender people could demand recognition, generations challenged the belief that gender had only one acceptable expression.
These were different movements involving different identities and generations, but they were connected by one powerful question: Who gets to decide who you are supposed to be?
Sometimes making history begins with answering, “Me.” Before society celebrated our differences, we questioned its standards. Before inclusion became fashionable, we demanded to be included. Before the world decided our stories deserved to be remembered, we were already making history.
🏳️🌈 Know the history. Respect the struggle. Question the standards. 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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