Jim Toy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jim Toy is a long-time LGBT activist, considered a pioneer among LGBT activists in Michigan. He became the first gay person in Michigan to come out of the closet in public during a speech at an anti-Vietnam War rally in Detroit's Kennedy Square in April, 1970.
Toy was a founding member of the Detroit Gay Liberation Movement and the Ann Arbor Gay Liberation Front. He successfully lobbied the University of Michigan to establish the Lesbian-Gay Male Programs Office in 1971. At its founding, it was the first LGBT office at any university in America. He was its co-coordinator and then director from its founding until 1994.
In 1972, Toy co-authored the first official “Lesbian-Gay Pride Week Proclamation” by a U.S. governing body, the Ann Arbor City Council. The same year, he co-authored the city's non-discrimination policy on sexual orientation. He also successfully lobbied the University of Michigan to include sexual orientation in the nondiscrimination clause of its bylaws, a fight that would last until 1993.
Toy continues to work for the University of Michigan as a diversity coordinator in the Office of Institutional Equity.
[edit] External links
LGBT Religious Archives Network biography
University of Michigan's Jim Toy Papers
 |
This biographical article about an LGBT rights activist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
