PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Kay Lahusen, a pioneer in the LGBTQ+ rights movement, who spent much of her life in Philadelphia and the area, has died at the age of 91. She had been briefly ill and was at Chester County Hospital, according to Founds Funeral Home.
Lahusen was a photographer who documented some of the earliest gay rights demonstrations in the United States, including the Annual Reminders marches in front of Independence Hall from 1965 to 1969. She became known as the first openly gay photojournalist.
KYW Newsradio's Ian Bush spoke to Lahusen for a 2019 series on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, a turning point in the fight for equal rights for LGBTQ Americans.
She said at the time that she had loved photography since she was a little girl, so it was natural for her to take out her camera at protests.
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Her work was printed in various publications, including "Gay," a national weekly, and "The Ladder." Her research and photographs are archived at the New York Public Library, where they were used in "Love and Resistance: Out of the Closet into the Stonewall Era," published in 2019.
Lahusen, herself, wrote "Gay Crusaders," published in 1972 under her pseudonym Kay Tobin.
"It's great being in a social change movement, particularly if it succeeds," she said in 2019. "It was a great ride."
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Lahusen's lifelong partner was another LGBTQ rights pioneer, Barbara Gittings, known as "the mother of the LGBT civil rights movement." The pair lived at various times in New York City, Philadelphia and Wilmington, Del.
After Gittings died in 2007, Philadelphia named a section of Locust Street in the city's Gayborhood "Barbara Gittings Way." Lahusen continued to contribute to LGBTQ history, granting interviews about her work, her experiences and her chosen family.
Lahusen had lived in Kennett Square for the last 14 years, surrounded by her photographs.
Lahusen will be laid to rest in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., alongside Gittings, according to Founds Funeral Home. A public memorial will be postponed because of COVID-19.
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