5 Decades of Posters Celebrating LGBTQ+ Rights, Struggles & Pride

politicalgraphics
Jun 27
3 min read

CSPG is honored to have posters from our collection of LGBTG+ historical human rights posters in Progressive magazine. Learn more about each poster and See 5 Decades of Posters Celebrating LGBTQ+ Rights, Struggles & Pride on the back cover of The Progressive Magazine's June/July 2025 issue. See below.

Dig deeper with our 2020 digital exhibition QUEER RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS: POSTERS OF LGBTQ+ STRUGGLES & CELEBRATIONS, online here

1970s

Gay Liberation

Su Negrin, Suzanne Bevier

1970

For this poster, The Gay Liberation Front used Peter Hujar's photo to publicize New York City's first gay pride parade in 1970. Hujar witnessed the Stonewall riots in 1969, and documented queer line in New York City in the 1970s and 80sas AIDS took it's apocalyptic toll. He was diagnosed with AIDS January 1987 and died 10 months later, at the age of 53.

Gay-In

Bruce Reifel

1970

Los Angeles' Griffith Park had been a popular cruising area for gay men, but in 1968 gays and lesbians gathered at the parks merry-go-round to hear Mike Hannon, a candidate for LA District Attorney, speak on the topic of police harassment. In 1970, the Gay Liberation Front organized multiple Gay-Ins at Griffith Park. During the April 5, 1970 event promoted on this poster, police arrived in riot gear and formed a charging line.

The center figure with the moustache is a self-portrait of this poster's artist, Bruce Reifel.

1980s

Lesbians Are Coming Out

See Red Women's Workshop

Circa 1980

See Red Women's Workshop was a feminist, collective screen printing studio run out of London, England between 1974 and 1990. The Workshop produced material that aimed to combat sexist images of women and contribute towards the visual culture of the Women's Liberation Movement. Founded by Pru Stevenson, Julia Franco and Suzy Mackie, more than 40 women joined the workshop over their 16 years,

Kissing Doesn't Kill

Gran Fury, ACT UP/ NY

1989

This poster came out of a two-part political art action that appropriated mainstream advertising and media strategies to educate a broad audience about AIDS.

Part one was a large mailing of a postcard image of three kissing couples of mixed race and sex with the words, "Kissing Doesn't Kill: Greed and Indifference Do." The back of the card read "Corporate Greed, Government Inaction, and Public Indifference Make AIDS a Political Crisis."

For part two, the image and text were produced as 12 x 3 foot fill color posters mounted on dozens of buses Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco.

The image was designed the evoke the well-known "United Colors of Benetton" clothing campaign. Genderqueer photographer Lala Flash is pictured on the far right.

1990s

AIDSphobia

Josh Wells, Jordan Peimer

1991

ACT UP/ LA is the acronym for AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power / Los Angeles. It was a grass-roots, direct-action organization dedicated to fighting homophobic bias in government, religious, media, cultural and public-health institutions during the AIDS crisis. This poster was created by Jordan Peimer and Josh Wells, members of Critical Mass, the Arts and Graphics committee of ACT UP/LA, for use in the group's street protest of AIDSphobia in Hollywood at the 1991 Academy Awards.

The protest was organized to bring attention to the motion picture industry's poor record of presenting stories of people with AIDS, an enormous, agonizing, and heartbreaking public health crisis which at the time had caused over 100,00 U.S. deaths and greatly impacted the queer community. With the exception of only two films, "An Early Frost," and "Longtime Companion," the AIDS crisis was otherwise completely ignored by the movie industry. The Oscar shown on the poster was a real award, borrowed from a supporter. Today, while many drugs have been developed to extend the lives of people living with AIDS, over 700,000 AIDS deaths have occurred in the U.S., over 3 million deaths globally - and there is still no cure.

2000s