43 Facts About Frank Kameny

Franklin Edward Kameny was an American gay rights activist.

Frank Kameny has been referred to as "one of the most significant figures" in the American gay rights movement.

Frank Kameny formally appealed his firing by the US Civil Service Commission.

Frank Kameny was born to Ashkenazi Jewish parents in New York City on May 21,1925.

Frank Kameny's father, Emil Kameny, was a Polish electrical engineer, and his mother, Rae Beck Kameny, was of Austro-Hungarian descent and worked as a high-ranking secretary.

When Frank Kameny first entered college at 16, the draft age for World War II was 21.

In November 1942, when Frank Kameny was a sophomore in college, Congress lowered the draft age to 18 in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor the previous December.

Seventeen at this time, Frank Kameny would be subject to the draft in six months.

Consequently, Frank Kameny was sent to the frontlines where he served as an infantry private.

Frank Kameny served in the Army throughout World War II in Europe, and later served 20 years on the Selective Service board.

Frank Kameny then enrolled at Harvard University; while a teaching fellow at Harvard, he refused to sign a loyalty oath without attaching qualifiers, and exhibited a skepticism against accepted orthodoxies.

Frank Kameny graduated with a master's degree and doctorate in astronomy.

Frank Kameny was the most conventional of men, focused utterly on his work, at Harvard and at Georgetown.

Frank Kameny was thus all the more rudely shocked when the same fate befell him as we've seen befall Prescott Townsend, class of 1918, decades before.

Frank Kameny appealed against his firing through the courts, losing twice before seeking review from the US Supreme Court, which declined to consider the case, turning down his petition for certiorari.

Frank Kameny eschewed conventional racial designations; throughout his life, he consistently cited his race as "human".

In late 1961, Frank Kameny co-founded the Washington DC branch of the national gay rights organization, Mattachine Society.

Frank Kameny wrote to President Kennedy asking him to change the rules on homosexuals being purged from the government.

Frank Kameny worked to remove the classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder from the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

In 1964, Frank Kameny argued that homosexuals faced more severe discrimination than blacks because the federal government did not help them and actively discriminated against them.

In 1965, after his tenure as MSW president came to a close, Frank Kameny organized the first demonstration by a homophile organization.

Frank Kameny made court hearings public and put on a spectacle to draw attention to his cases.

Frank Kameny served as a plaintiff in his first case in 1967 alongside Barbara Gittings in defense of Donald Crawford's Department of Defense Hearing.

Unlike other homosexual activists at the time, Frank Kameny rejected the idea that homosexuality was inferior to heterosexuality:.

In 1971, Frank Kameny became the first openly gay candidate for the United States Congress when he ran in the District of Columbia's first election for a non-voting Congressional delegate.

Frank Kameny had approached numerous gay psychiatrists, but Fryer was the only one who agreed to testify, and even he would only do so in disguise for fear of losing his position at Temple University, where he did not have tenure.

Frank Kameny lined up gay ex-Marines to testify at the young man's hearing.

Frank Kameny was an honorary pallbearer at his funeral and spoke at graveside services in Washington, DC's Congressional Cemetery.

Frank Kameny was appointed as the first openly gay member of the District of Columbia's Human Rights Commission in the 1970s.

In 2007, Frank Kameny's death was mistakenly reported by The Advocate in its May 22 "Pride issue", alongside a mistaken report that he had HIV.

Frank Kameny committed no crime in Minneapolis and should not suffer as if he did.

Frank Kameny suffered from heart disease in his last years, but maintained a full schedule of public appearances, his last being a speech to an LGBT group in Washington, DC, on September 30,2011.

Frank Kameny was found dead in his Washington home on October 11,2011.

In 1981, Frank Kameny became an elected delegate to the District of Columbia Statehood Constitutional Convention, which was an initiative towards DC statehood.

Frank Kameny remained an advocate for DC statehood through the end of his life.

At a luncheon on December 10,2010, in the Caucus room of the Cannon House Office Building, Kameny was honored with the 2010 Cornelius R "Neil" Alexander Humanitarian Award.

Frank Kameny was invited to attend the December 22,2010, ceremony where President Barack Obama signed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010.

Frank Kameny was a member of Triangle Foundation's Board of Advisors.

On November 2,2011, Frank Kameny's house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 2013, Frank Kameny was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display in Chicago which celebrates LGBT history and people.

In 2015, Frank Kameny received a US Veterans Administration memorial headstone, at Washington, DC's Congressional Cemetery at his memorial site; the headstone was dedicated during a ceremony on the morning of November 11,2015, on Veterans Day.

In June 2019, Frank Kameny was one of the inaugural fifty American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument in New York City's Stonewall Inn.

On June 2,2021, Frank Kameny was featured on that day's Google Doodle in celebration of Pride Month.