Tecumseh District Library program looks at LGBTQ history in Michigan

Brad Heineman, The Daily Telegram
·2 min read

TECUMSEH — The struggles, advancements and significant milestones in the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning (LGBTQ) community will be explored through a Michigan perspective during a virtual presentation with the Tecumseh District Library Thursday, June 9.

“Shock Waves from Stonewall: LGBT Liberation in Michigan” will be presented from 7 to 8 p.m. While there is no cost to view the presentation, registration is required so the library can email viewers the program link. To register, call 517-423-2238. The Tecumseh District Library’s Facebook page will also be streaming the presentation. There is no cost to view the program on Facebook, and registering with the library is not required when watching the presentation on Facebook.

Tim Retzloff of Michigan State University’s Center for Gender in Global Context will host a virtual presentation with the Tecumseh District Library from 7 to 8 p.m. Thursday, June 9. The presentation will discuss the struggles, advancements and significant milestones of the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning (LGBTQ) community.

In 1969, the release said, the Stonewall Uprising in New York City — a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to police raids that began in the morning hours of June 28, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood in New York City — catapulted the issues of gay rights to America’s center stage.

In Michigan meanwhile, the LGBTQ community responded with its own movement, the release said, which led to even more significant milestones and changes.

Tim Retzloff of Michigan State University’s Center for Gender in Global Context will lead the presentation.

An advocate for the LGBT+ community, Retzloff, the release said, recently wrote a full-color, nonfiction comic book titled “Come Out! In Detroit,” which tells the history of the 1972 Christopher Street Detroit March, which had an estimated attendance of 200 to 400 participants and was the first LGBTQ Pride march in Michigan. Isabel Clare Paul, an Ypsilanti artist and graduate of the Center for Creative studies in Detroit, created the illustrations for the comic, which hit store shelves June 2.

Retzloff is also the former editor of “Between the Lines,” Michigan’s LGBTQ newspaper.

The program, a news release from the library said, is sponsored by Edward Jones financial adviser Frank J. Zanger, Old National Bank and The Tecumseh Herald.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Tecumseh District Library program looks at LGBTQ history in Michigan