In 1972, Roe v. Wade was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, Title IX was signed into law, and for the first time, a gay woman stepped up to the mic at a national political convention and announced: “I am a woman and a lesbian.”
Madeline Davis’ words at 5:10 a.m. on July 12 to the Democratic National Convention marked a milestone for gay rights.
“We are coming out of our closets and on to the convention floor,” Davis declared to attendees at the Miami Beach Convention Center and a televised audience across the nation. And then, in an emotional declaration: “I am someone’s neighbor, someone’s sister, someone’s daughter.”
Her speech is just one example of the largely overlooked force of women’s spoken words and their impact on the nation.
My new anthology, Speaking While Female: 75 Extraordinary Speeches by American Women, brings together speeches from nearly 400 years of American history, showing that at every crossroads, every major transition and turning point, women were speaking up. Their rhetorical firepower has shaped the ideas and institutions of the nation, and continue to reverberate through centuries of political and social change.
That impassioned speech by Madeline Davis put the spotlight on gay America as the country was grappling with matters of personal choice, lifestyle and private habits. Homosexuality was still classified as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but that classification would be removed the following year. Across the country, states were examining and repealing old sodomy laws.
We are here to put an end to our fears. Our fears that people will know us for who we are, that they will shun and revile us, fire us from our jobs, reject us from our families, evict us from our homes, beat us and jail us. For what? Because we have chosen to love each other.
Madeline Davis, 1972
Davis came out as lesbian in the early ’60s and was active in the LGBTQ community in western New York. Her advocacy for gay rights attracted the attention of the state Democratic Party, which named her a delegate to the convention.
“I knew there were gay people out there at 4 o’clock in the morning, sitting in front of their television sets, waiting to see one of their own people stand up,” Davis later said about her historic speech.
They would also see Jim Foster—a gay delegate from San Francisco who had been discharged from the U.S. Army for being “homosexual”—at the podium just before Davis.
With their words and dignified presence, Davis and Foster brought home the ordinariness, the everywhereness, and the pride of gay life in America.
“I Am Someone’s Neighbor”
by Madeline Davis
July 12, 1972
Democratic National Convention, Miami Beach, Florida
I am a woman and a lesbian, a minority of minorities.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. Twenty million Americans are grateful and proud of the Democratic Party.
We are the minority of minorities. We belong to every race and creed, both sexes, every economic and social level, every nationality and religion. We live in large cities and small towns. But we are the untouchables in American society.
We have suffered from oppression—from being totally ignored or ridiculed to having our heads smashed and our blood spilled in the streets.
Now we are coming out of our closets and on to the convention floor—to tell you, the delegates, and to tell all gay people throughout America that we are here to put an end to our fears. Our fears that people will know us for who we are, that they will shun and revile us, fire us from our jobs, reject us from our families, evict us from our homes, beat us and jail us. For what? Because we have chosen to love each other.
I am asking that you vote YES for the inclusion of this minority report into the Democratic platform for two major reasons:
First, we must speak to the basic civil rights of all human beings. It is inherent in the American tradition that the private life and life styles of citizens should be allowed and insured, so long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others. A government that interferes with the private lives of its people is a government that is alien to the American tradition and the American dream.
You have before you a chance to reaffirm that tradition, that dream. As a matter of practicality you also have the opportunity to gain the vote of 20,000,000 Americans that would help in November to put a Democrat in the White House.
Secondly, I say to you: I am someone’s neighbor, someone’s sister, someone’s daughter. A vote for this plank is a vote not only for me but it is a vote for all homosexual women and men across the country to peaceably live their own lives.
I wish to remind you that a vote for this plank may now or someday be a vote for your neighbor, your sister, your daughter or your son.
We ask for your vote and we ask because our people have suffered long and hard. That you reaffirm for every human being the right to love.
Reprinted by permission of Wendy B. Smiley, with acknowledgements to the Dr. Madeline Davis LGBTQ Archives of Western New York.
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