Liberating Lawrence: Gay Activism in the 1970s at the University of Kansas

Liberating Lawrence tells the story of the Lawrence Gay Liberation Front (LGLF), a KU student organization that began in 1970. The book focuses on the early formative years between the founding and 1979, when the members of LGLF had to fight for their right to exist on campus as an official student group. Inspired by a class project that led him to interview local members of the LGBTQ community, David Stout initiated the formation of the LGLF in the summer of 1970 not only to provide a safe space for gay students to meet each other but also to establish a base of operations for student activism on campus. In addition to providing counseling and engaging in consciousness raising, the group was self-consciously political from the start and advocated for equal protections, employment rights, and the elimination of laws criminalizing same-sex sexual activity. The group focused on educating the campus about the experience of being gay. They formed a speakers' bureau in their opening months and gave frequent presentations at both KU and nearby campuses.