April 28 in LGBTQ History

1978: Following the recent gay rights defeat in Dade County, Florida,voters in St. Paul, Minnesota, vote to repeal their four year-old gay rights ordinance by a margin of 2 to 1.

1981: Former Beverly Hills hairdresser Marilyn Barnett files a multimillion-dollar “palimony” suit against tennis pro Billie Jean King, claiming the two had a lesbian relationship for seven years and that she is therefore entitled to the tennis star’s Malibu beach house as well as half of King’s earnings from the period when they were together. Although King at first dismisses Barnett’s claims as “untrue and unfounded,” she later holds a press conference to acknowledge the relationship. But, she adds, she is not a lesbian.

1990: In its first major public action, about five hundred members of the newly formed group Queer Nation march in Greenwich Village to protest a pipe-bomb attack, which left three people injured, on a local gay bar the night before.

2000: The Millennium March on Washington takes place in Washington, DC. The event lasts for three days.

2002: Homosexuality is decriminalized in the People’s Republic of China, as the newly amended Marriage Law avoids this topic.

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