Kay Tobin Lahusen - Nominee

"Even as a kid I liked using a little box camera and pushing it and trying to get something artsy out of it"

- Kay Lahusen on her love of photography

The first out lesbian American photojournalist, Kay Tobin Lahusen used her writing and photography skills to advance LGBTQ+ equality at a time when it was illegal to be open about one’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Lahusen, who was born in 1930 in Cincinnati, Ohio and raised by her grandparents, became interested in photography as a child. She first recognized her attraction to women while in high school and embarked on her college life as an English major at Ohio State University alongside her then girlfriend. That girlfriend later left her for a man which devastated Lahusen for a long time. Lahusen’s first longtime job after she graduated from college was in the reference library at the Boston-based The Christian Science Monitor where she stayed for six years. When Lahusen was shown a copy of Daughters of the Bilitis published lesbian magazine The Ladder by a psychiatrist who specialized in gay clients she decided to contact the organization to learn more about what they did. Lahusen’s fortuitous phone call is what led to her meeting Barbara Gittings at a Daughters of the Bilitis picnic in 1961. Shortly after they became a couple, Lahusen moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to be with Gittings. In 1963, when Gittings became the editor-in-chief of The Ladder Lahusen became the art director with the goal of making the magazine covers more exciting. One of the ways Lahusen did this was to add photos of real lesbians for the first time since the magazine’s inception starting with the September 1964 issue. Over time, the photos showcased these lesbians full-faces. Lahusen also wrote articles for The Ladder under the name Kay Tobin (the last name of which she found in the phonebook and thought would be easy to pronounce). Lahusen also took photos for the Gay Newsweekly Manhattan newspaper and Come Out! and worked at the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore in New York City. Both Lahusen and Gittings were members of the American Library Association then gay caucus (now called the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Round Table). During the 1960s and 70s, Lahusen took photos of thousands of activists, marches and events. Lahusen’s activism included Annual Reminder pickets each July 4 from 1965 to 1969 in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. She was also a co-founder of the Gay Activists Alliance in 1970 and alongside Gittings, LGBTQ+ activist Frank Kameny and gay psychiatrist Dr. John E. Fryer, pushed the American Psychological Association (APA) to have homosexuality removed from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders which was officially achieved in 1974. Lahusen was the person who photographed Fryer in the disguise he wore while speaking on a panel at the 1972 APA meeting. In the 1980s, Lahusen became a real estate agent and encouraged other agents to march in New York City’s Pride Parade. Lahusen was also the co-author of two books— 1972’s The Gay Crusaders with Randy Wicker and 2019’s Love and Resistance: Out of the Closet into the Stonewall Era with Diane Davies. She also contributed photos for Tracy Baim’s 2015 book Barbara Gittings: Gay Pioneer. Lahusen and Gittings were a couple for 46 years when in 2007, Gittings died of breast cancer. Following a brief illness, Lahusen died at Chester County Hospital in Pennsylvania in 2021 at the age of 91. She is buried alongside Gittings at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Lahusen has been honored with a historical marker in Philadelphia in 2015 near the couple’s apartment when they lived in that city in the 1960s.