This post is part of the series 13 Ways of Looking at the Northwest. You can find the initial post here.
By Heather Lowcock, Project Archivist, NHPRC Grant – News Tribune Collection
New York City’s Christopher Street Liberation Day celebration in 1970 marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, a multi-day protest and riot that began in response to a police raid on The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village in 1969. Anniversary celebrations also took place in Los Angeles and Chicago. These remembrances were the first Pride parades, which continue today across the country. Reflecting on that first liberation day in New York City, Foster Gunnison Jr. described it as an event “to commemorate, to demonstrate, but also…to develop courage and feelings of dignity and self-worth.” It was a space for pride.
Thomas Handforth
In his writings, Tacoma-born artist Thomas Handforth recalls his early interest in drawing and memories of Tacoma. Born in 1897, Handforth loved Japanese fairytale books and the lily pond in Point Defiance Park as a child. He began to draw before kindergarten, and his art would take him on travels to Europe, North Africa, China, and Japan. His letters reveal a man interested in people and culture but also an artist trying to find his place. In a letter to his mother in 1921 he writes, “as for my painting, it hasn’t been good and I don’t know that it ever will be…I may find out that I am only a finicky illustrator.” Handforth would go on to sell and show his work in exhibitions and win awards, including the Caldecott Medal for Illustration in 1939 for the children’s book Mei Li.
Handforth found community with other gay artists including Hood Canal artist Orre Nobles, printmaker Lilian May Miller, and Seattle artist Richard Bennett as well as his partner German scholar Edmund Eisen Tolk. Returning to the U.S. in 1940, He and Tolk lived together in Avila, California until 1942 when they both enlisted in World War II. In 1943, they began teaching together at the Seaman School in El Monte, California. Today the Thomas Handforth Gallery at the Tacoma Public Library Main Branch proudly celebrates regional and national artists and arts organizations with exhibitions and events.
The Northwest Room has more books and collections about LGBTQ+ artists including drafts of a biography by Erna Spannagel Tilley of artist and friend Orre Nobles, issues of Seattle Gay News, and the book The Lavender Palette: Gay Culture and the Art of Washington State.
Perry Watkins
Long before the policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was instituted in 1993, which allowed gay and lesbian citizens to serve in the military if they didn’t make their sexual orientation public, Tacoman Perry Watkins was an openly gay man in the military. In 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War, Watkins was drafted. He acknowledged on his pre-induction form that he was gay and assumed he would be disqualified per military policy. As he moved units, Watkins continued to admit he was gay to his commanding officers. He finished his first tour, reenlisted, and then reenlisted again. Each time acknowledging his sexual orientation to military leaders.
In 1975, discharge procedures were initiated against Watkins; however, the military board decided against it after testimony from an officer stating that Watkins was “the best clerk I have known.” However, in 1979 Watkins’ security clearance was revoked, and in 1981 after the Defense Department implemented a more stringent policy stating, “Homosexuality is incompatible with military service,” the army attempted again to discharge Watkins. He was formally discharged in 1984 and Watkins sued the army. While avoiding the issue of Watkins constitutional rights, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered his reinstatement in 1989, stating that the army could not discharge Watkins after allowing him to reenlist while fully aware of his sexual orientation. Watkins retired in 1991, receiving an honorable discharge with full benefits, retroactive pay and promotion to Sergeant First Class.
Perry Watkins died from complications related to AIDS in 1996. Chris Smith of the Stonewall Committee for Lesbian and Gay Rights recalled at the time something Watkins often said during speeches: “He said his mother always told him to tell the truth. In a way, he played a trick on the Army. He was saying ‘If you want me, you get all of me.’” Smith continued, “He didn’t get the respect he deserved [from the mainstream gay community]. He wore a nose ring. He was absolutely ‘out’...they put him on the shelf and wouldn’t use him to help the fight.” Yet Watkins continued to speak. He challenged both the military and the gay community with his pride.
Shelia
A 1988 article in the News Tribune shares the story of Sheila, a transgender woman, advocating with Beckie Summers, chairwoman of the Tacoma Human Rights Commission, for amendments to Tacoma’s housing and employment discrimination laws. Both describe incidents of discrimination and resistance by community members, employers, and landlords. Summers, a single mother, struggled to find an apartment unless she brought along a male friend, stating, “they would ask me how I could manage [my daughter] ...and worried I would go on public assistance.” Sheila, frequently spit on and harassed, was often denied services in the city. In defense of the amendment proposal, Sheila explained, “You don’t measure the strength of a democracy by how well it protects the majority…you measure democracy by the amount of protection it provides its most voiceless members.”
The proposed amendments, presented by Summers, were to go before a study session of the City Council in October of 1988. Some council members acknowledged in the article some doubt about the reality of serious discrimination in the city and the challenge of proving it. Conversations about the legality of the amendments, additional formal council meetings, possible petitions by opposition, and citywide referendums were also considered potential delays. Such delays proved to be true. While updates to federal law in 1989 made housing discrimination based on parental status illegal, many communities remained unprotected. Initial amendments to Tacoma’s municipal code were made in 1993; however, Sheila, and many others like her, would have to wait until April 2002 when sexual orientation and gender identity were finally given protected status with city ordinance no. 26948 in an 8-1 vote. Fourteen years before her voice was finally heard, Sheila used her pride to speak for the “voiceless.”
The digitization and processing of the News Tribune Photograph Collection was supported by a grant from the National Historic Publications and Records Commission at the National Archives.
Sources:
Foster, David. (1993, January 30). Homosexual ex-soldier on military life: ‘I know it can work.’ The News Tribune.
Gonzalez, Victor M. (1996, March 21). Perry Watkins loses final battle, to AIDS. The News Tribune.
Handforth, Thomas. (1897-1948) Outgoing Correspondence, 1921 France, Italy, Austria, Hungary. Thomas Handforth Collection (3.5.3) Tacoma Public Library, Northwest Room, Tacoma, Washington.
Martin, David F. (2020). The Lavender palette: gay culture and the art of Washington state. Cascadia Art Museum.
Metcalf, Meg. (2025). The History of Pride. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/ghe/cascade/index.html?appid=90dcc35abb714a24914c68c9654adb67
Szymanski, Jim. (1988, October 16). Discrimination: The battle goes on. The News Tribune.
Tacoma City Council. (2002, April 23). City Council Minutes–April 23, 2002. City Council Meeting Minutes (OCC0001), Tacoma Public Library, Northwest Room, Tacoma, Washington.
