Our History

Soon after its founding in 1978, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) submitted its first amicus brief, in a sex discrimination case at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. According to GLAD founder John Ward, it was the first time in its history that the high court considered a brief that included the word gay, not set apart by quotation marks.

Decades later, GLAD brought another first to the Court, when the SJC in 2003 ended marriage discrimination against same-sex couples, making Massachusetts the first state in the country where gay and lesbian couples can legally marry.

For 30 years GLAD has been ahead of the curve, building and litigating cases and doing legislative work that transforms the law and changes the day-to-day lives of people throughout New England.

In 1980, we won the right of Rhode Island high school senior Aaron Fricke to attend the prom with his boyfriend. In 1985, we sued for the rights of gay and lesbian foster parents in Massachusetts. And in 1995, GLAD founder John Ward appeared as the first openly gay lawyer arguing at the United States Supreme Court.

GLAD emerged as one of the first organizations litigating for the rights of people living with HIV. We launched the AIDS Law Project in 1984, and in 1998 at the U.S. Supreme Court argued and won a decision protecting people with HIV from discrimination.

GLAD has worked on transgender issues almost since its inception, litigating on behalf of a transgender middle-school student not allowed to wear her choice of clothes to school; a woman fired from her job after her transition; and another denied a tax deduction for medical surgery. We developed an official policy supporting transgender work in 1998, and added gender identity and expression to our mission statement in 2001.

And of course, GLAD has been on the frontlines of the fight for marriage equality, filing a marriage case in Vermont in 1997, another in Massachusetts in 2001, and a third in Connecticut in 2004. As we await the Connecticut Supreme Courts decision in the marriage case GLAD argued last May, we continue to litigate, advocate, and educate in all areas of LGBT civil rights, and the rights of people living with HIV.

Additional Resources

1978 GLAD Board of Directors (pdf) »

GLAD’s First Newsletter from the Fall of 1979 (pdf) »

An Early GLAD Brochure (pdf) »

Gay Community News, 1978 - Boston Legal Resources Group Seeks to Change the Law (pdf) »

Special thanks to The History Project for use of archival material »

Early Members of GLAD's Board:
Kevin Cathcart, Kathy Travers, Cindy Rizzo,
Gary Buseck, and Roberta Stone.
Photo by John Mitzel.