NASHVILLE/MIDDLE TENNESSEE LGBTQIA+ HISTORY

—> 1971 - Jerry Peek opened the Watch Your Hat & Coat Saloon at 139 2nd Ave. N. and featured female impersonators as the main entertainment show, making it the first drag show bar in Nashville.

—> 1972 - The Nashville chapter of the Metropolitan Community Church opened and held its first service at 1502 Edgehill Ave, a site shared with the United Methodist Church. Troy Perry founded the first chapter of MCC in Los Angeles, CA in 1968 as a Christian congregation for LGBTQ+ people.

—> 1972 - Jerry Peek founded the Miss Gay America pageant and held its first competition at the Watch Your Hat & Coat Saloon. Representing Arkansas, Norma Kristie won the inaugural pageant.

—> 1973 - In  Locke v. State, the Court of Criminal Appeals upheld a conviction (in a 2-1 split) that decided cunnilingus was also in violation of the crime against nature law.

—> 1973 - A fire destroyed the Watch Your Hat & Coat Saloon and the Metropolitan Community Church’s office which existed in a rented space above the bar. No one was injured in the incident, but Jerry Peek did lose nearly $40,000 of costumes and production equipment while the church lost all of its possessions. Some people in the gay community suspected the fire was set on purpose after arson was committed against MCC in Los Angeles earlier that year. MCC Nashville’s fire would become the second in a series of fires that plagued MCC establishments across the United States in the 1970s, including the deadly act of arson at the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans.

—> 1973 - Metropolitan Community Church celebrated Pride with small contingent of LGBTQ community.

—> 1972 - Jerry Peek founded the Miss Gay America pageant and held its first competition at the Watch Your Hat & Coat Saloon. Representing Arkansas, Norma Kristie won the inaugural pageant.

—> 1977 - Carole de Bra Powell opened Womankind Books, a lesbian-feminist store, on Belmont Boulevard. The bookstore blossomed into a community resource with the Womankind Support Project, which provided women’s health services, child care, feminist and women’s rights discussions, coffeehouse meetings and musical concerts.

—> 1977 - The Tennessee Gay Coalition for Human Rights became an official state chartered organization on October 31, 1977. The organization represents some of Nashville’s earliest gay activism.

—> 1978 - Steve Smith and his partner Michael Smith opened Warehouse 28 at 2529 Franklin Rd., and it became one of Nashville’s most popular gay clubs.

—> 1978 - Gay Pride Week celebrated over five days in Nashville from June 28-July 2. The Tennessee Gay Coalition for Human Rights sponsored the week of events, which included a screening of the film Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives, dances, workshops, and house meetings.

—> 1978 - Nashville Women’s Alliance established and began a regular newsletter simply titled, A Newsletter. The organization formed after founding members attended the Southeastern Lesbian and Gay Conference in Atlanta earlier that spring.

—> 1979 - Students at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville established an LGBTQ+ student organization called Student Coalition for Gay Rights. The university denied the group formal recognition four times before the students sued APSU and the Tennessee Board of Regents for violating their First Amendment rights. A judge granted SCGR with a preliminary injunction, giving them all the same rights and privileges as other student organizations.

—> 1979 - A group of men and women from Tennessee left Nashville on a bus and traveled to the March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights held in October. The group came back to their respective Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville cities energized to strengthen gay organizing across the state.