AADC Recognizes Pride Month 2021
Douglass Alumna Lilli Vincenz '59 was Pioneer in Early Days of Gay Rights Movement 
The AADC shares the following story about Lilli Vincenz '59, Ph.D. During the pandemic, her classmate, Flora Buchbinder Cowen ’59 happened to catch a program on the PBS network, ”America Reframed,” and heard the announcer say, “Tonight we are going to share with you the exemplary accomplishments of a trailblazer from the early days of the gay rights movement, Lilli Vincenz.” Knowing that Lilli was a classmate, she immediately contacted friend and Class President Lois Rabinowitz Steinberg '59 and together they decided to research Lilli’s story. Now confined to a nursing home and not well enough to receive calls or correspondence, Lilli herself was not available to be interviewed, but the inspired classmates researched her story, on which Lois served as primary author. 
Lilli Vincenz was born in Germany in 1937 and came to the US with her family in 1949. She attended Douglass College and spent her junior year at the University of Munich, where she first realized her attraction to women. She is quoted as saying that her first kiss with a woman, “just blew me out of the water.” According to her write-up in the '59 Quair, Lilli was “spontaneous, cheerful, intensely blue-eyed, and blond.” She had an “infectious enthusiasm for life and people.”

After graduation, she earned a Master’s Degree in English at Columbia University and entered their Ph.D. program in comparative literature. Apparently, she felt isolated and alone, and she was not part of the New York gay world. She dropped out of school and spent a year in New York as a book editor.

Hoping to be among other gay women and to explore a possible career as a psychotherapist, Lilli joined the Women’s Army Corps (WAC). She was soon outed and discharged, but instead of being devastated, she now felt open about her sexuality and is quoted as saying, “What I had always dreaded – exposure – was more a relief than a disaster.”
Living in the DC area, Lilli joined the Mattachine Society, which had been founded in 1961 as one of the first gay civil rights organizations in the country. Lilli became its first lesbian member, and over time edited its newsletter and its monthly magazine. The Society has now created a website in her honor, lesbianpioneer.org, which tells the whole story of this remarkable woman. 

In a 1999 interview for Gay Today, Lilli stated, “After leaving the WAC, I actually felt free to be me. It was 1963. What did I want to accomplish? Be with gay people, help the movement, help unmask the lies being told about us, correct the notion of homosexuality as a sickness and present it as it is, a BEAUTIFUL WAY TO LOVE. I saw myself as being able to make a difference, as a pioneer working with other pioneers. Philosophically, I was totally prepared for this role. It was an exhilarating time!”

As early as April 1965, Lilli and nine others silently picketed in front of the White House, carrying signs to protest federal treatment of homosexuals, demanding federal employment, honorable discharges and security clearances. She also met with members of the Civil Service Commission to discuss the dismissal of homosexuals. Vocal and open about her activism, Lilli appeared twice on the cover of The Ladder, a publication of the Daughters of Bilitis (the first lesbian civil and political rights organization in the United States, founded in 1955).

In the late 60’s-early 70’s, she borrowed a movie camera, took a course, and went out to document early pro-Gay events. Also, at that time, she was the editor of a pamphlet published by the Mattachine Society, The Homosexual Citizen, using a pseudonym, Lilli Hansen, to maintain her privacy. According to Charles Frances, current president of the Mattachine Society, it was a powerful publication of ideas. Just think, she was still in her 20s at that time, and being so involved in the Gay Rights Movement took courage and a real commitment.

Lilli’s film works have gained her considerable acclaim in the history of the LGBTQ+ movement. In 1968, the first of her two notable films, “The Second-Largest Minority,” documents a July 4, 1968, “Reminder Day Picket” at Independence Hall, Philadelphia. It depicts silent marchers, dressed in business attire, walking single file in a circle, and quietly carrying picket signs that read, for example, “Homosexuals are citizens, too.”

Her 1971 second film, “Gay and Proud,” documented the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in NYC. It was the first Gay Rights parade and signified a change in spirit from the relatively serious demeanor of the jacket-and-tie picketers at the Philadelphia event two years prior to the joyful, casually dressed marchers in New York, chanting, dancing, and happy. (Of note, looking at the film one sees a group of marchers proudly carrying a banner reading, “Rutgers University, SHL – Student Homophile League.”) Lilli captured this youthful, energetic spirit in her 7-minute film and created an indelible record of this historic event. Ultimately, Lilli edited and distributed the films herself, had copies made, and shared it with organizations nationwide. Her films are available on the Library of Congress website: https://blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2014/06/lilli-vincenz/.

Mike Machon writes in his blog post there about the films: “It’s one thing to read about how the gay rights movement was catalyzed by the Stonewall Inn riots of June 1969, but quite another to see that tonal shift illustrated so vividly in these bookend films. Powerful movements can begin and be sustained in unlikely places, and how fortunate we are that Lilli Vincenz was there to record this one.”
 
Through the years Lilli was involved in numerous LGBTQ+ organizations and publications, writing to promote gay rights, particularly in the workplace, and becoming a noteworthy voice in protesting what the gay community saw as discriminatory firings of suspected gay Federal employees. She also was involved in the campaign of a gay candidate for the first District of Columbia Congressional seat. According to Wikipedia, Lilli appeared on PBS' “David Susskind Show” in 1971, along with six other lesbians. The Wikipedia entry notes, “They were among the first open lesbians to appear on television in the US and debated long-held stereotypes about gays with Susskind.”

In 1984 Lilli met Nancy Ruth Davis, who became her lifelong partner. Lilli and Nancy had a commitment ceremony in 1986 and bought a home in Arlington, VA. The two shared many interests and sensitivities, as well as their activism. Although they promised themselves to each other three times over the years, they never legally married. They appear to have enjoyed a rich, full partnership, both working and having fun together. Over the years, they traveled on Olivia Cruises all over the world as often as they could, as well as enjoying time together in their beach house in Chinquapin, Va.

When the AIDS epidemic struck, it seemed to be very male-focused. Lilli and Nancy created “People Living with AIDS (PLA),” an effort modeled after the Washington Mattachine Society. It was a “gay-affirmative empowerment group” at the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C. They also created a newsletter that aimed to educate the public.

The two women also recognized the need for a safe, social atmosphere for gay women to meet and discuss common concerns. They hosted a weekly “Gay Women’s Open House,” which a flyer described as a place for participants to be themselves in a stimulating environment. In addition, D.C.’s Rainbow History Project notes that they founded an organization in 1992 called the “Community for Creative Self-Development.” By this time, Lilli had earned her Ph.D. and became a psychotherapist. Building on this background, Lilli and Nancy operated the organization as a “holistic learning community for empowering gay women and men and all gay-friendly people, creatively, spiritually, and psychologically.”

In 2013 Lilli donated an extensive collection of papers, films, and other memorabilia, dating from 1879 to 1913, to the Library of Congress. The material consists of correspondence, journals, speeches, writings, interviews, surveys and questionnaires, biographical material, and Vincenz family papers, documents and memorabilia totaling some 10,500 items. According to the library’s website, she is recognized as a gay rights activist, psychotherapist, and documentary filmmaker. Monica Hesse, writing in The Washington Post at the time of the donation, commented that, “There is something poignant about one woman collecting the ephemera of a movement whose members were often avoiding documentation. In the 1960s, being gay was thought by some to be a moral offense, as well grounds for being fired. People who had the same artifacts as she did might have thrown them out for fear of being exposed…. Vincenz’s boxes function as an external hard drive for the memories of a generation, a cardboard representation of neurons and emotions and flesh and blood.”

Lilli and Nancy had a chance to revel in their roles bringing about progress in the LGBTQ+ rights movement when they attended a June 2014 White House reception hosted by President Barack Obama to celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride Month. On display at the reception were picket signs that Lilli helped to make for the "first-ever protests outside the White House in 1965 for homosexual rights.” According to the friend who took them to the White House, “Their joy was palpable. They never dreamed that they would live to see such visible progress.”

Nancy Davis died on March 13, 2019. Not long after, in August 2019, Lilli was inducted into the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association Hall of Fame. The statement announcing her nomination reads, “Vincenz is a path-breaking journalist and pioneer of the gay rights movement beginning in the early 1960s.” The citation notes her many accomplishments, including her early film documentaries, her editorship of the monthly Mattachine Society magazine, “The Homosexual Citizen,” and acknowledges her being "the first woman, with her face recognizable to appear on the cover of a lesbian magazine.” Sadly, according to an article celebrating her nomination, Lilli was already living in the assisted living facility in Arlington, VA, and it is not clear if she even understood that she had been so honored, or that her beloved partner had died.

It is clear that at a formative time in her life, after having left the army, Lilli knew who she was. She embraced her self and had no need to adjust to others’ expectations of and for her. Reading from myriad articles and talking with reporters who knew or were familiar with Lilli and her work demonstrate that she loved living, enjoyed people, and was a profound influence on innumerable others throughout her life. She exemplifies what she herself calls “Lebenskuenstler,” a German word meaning “someone who knows how to live, who has mastered the art of living.” We are proud to call her our classmate. And we would be really pleased to hear from anyone who has had any first-hand knowledge of Lilli, either at Douglass or since we graduated. 

– By Flora Buchbinder Cowen '59 and Lois Rabinowitz Steinberg
From the authors: This article uses information gleaned from some of the many articles and news reports about Lilli, including the obituary of Nancy Davis, Wikipedia; a Washington Post article by Monica Hesse celebrating Lilli’s Library of Congress donation; and a 1999 interview with Lilli by Jack Nichols, who interviewed her for Gay Today, so that we had considerable first-person information to add to her story. We particularly wish to acknowledge help or citations from the following: Lou Chibbaro Jr., Richard Rosendall, and Michael Key of The Washington Blade, Charles Francis of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., and Eric Cervini’s book, “The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual vs. The United States of America.”
The count down to the AADC 100th anniversary in June 2022 has begun! We will celebrate our “Proud History to Bright Future” with special programs and events. Get involved and learn more at www.douglassalumnae.org/aadc-100th-anniversary