Arnie Kantrowitz (1940–2022), early LGBTQ rights activist
legacy.comArnie Kantrowitz was a pioneer of LGBTQ civil rights activism and one of the founders of GLAAD.Kantrowitz got involved with the gay rights movement shortly after the 1969 Stonewall riots that marked the movement’s birth.
In 1970, he joined the Gay Activists Alliance, becoming the organization’s vice president. As an English professor at the College of Staten Island, Kantrowitz created one of the first gay studies courses in higher education in 1973.
He later became the chairman of the college’s English department. In 1986, Kantrowitz was among the founders of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).
He wrote the 1977 memoir “Under the Rainbow: Growing Up Gay,” one of the first LGBTQ activists’ memoirs. He also wrote the 2005 biography “Walt Whitman: Gay and Lesbian Writers,” as well as publishing a number of essays in newspapers, magazines, and books.
