BAGLY History
BAGLY: The Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth, is a youth-led, adult-supported social support organization, committed to social justice and creating, sustaining, and advocating for programs, policies, and services for the LGBTQ+ youth community.
In July of 1980, long before the days of community, political, or financial support, BAGLY was founded by LGBTQ+ youth who believed that an organization led by and for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth would be central to meeting the core physical, social, and developmental needs of Greater Boston’s LGBTQ+ youth community. Turns out they were right! Three generations of queer youth movement leaders later, BAGLY is recognized nationally for its pioneering role in creating, sustaining, and advocating for social support, leadership development, and health promotion programs for LGBTQ+ youth. BAGLY’s approach and historic practice, which has served over 30,000 youth, is replicated by programs and organizations across the country and our earliest programs (Including our Youth Speakers Bureau, youth-led HIV/AIDS education, and the nation’s first prom for LGBTQ+ youth) have provided a foundation upon which many youth-led programs and organizations are built.
Throughout its history BAGLY has advocated and provided leadership for an LGBTQ+ community-driven statewide and national systems-based approach to working with LGBTQ+ youth. As a founding organization of the National Youth Advocacy Coalition and the Massachusetts Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, and by establishing the GLBT Youth Group Network of Massachusetts, our vision and innovation has led the way in building a stable local and national infrastructure vital to today’s LGBTQ+ youth work.
Today, BAGLY provides community-based leadership development, health promotion, and social support programs for Massachusetts LGBTQ youth communities, and is a leader in local and national LGBTQ+ youth advocacy and workforce development.
Queer Youth Movement Timeline
| Year | Description |
|---|---|
| 1969 | Before the Stonewall riots, Gay Youth New York is founded to combat the oppression of gay youth. Their slogan is “Youth Organized, Youth Run.” A few years later chapters were founded in Worcester and in Boston, Hosted by the adult run Homophile Union of Boston (HUB). Over the next decade, the organization evolves into Gay and Lesbian Youth of New York (GLYNY). |
| 1974 | The Youth Advocacy Commission of Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime awards the Charles St. Meetinghouse in Boston a $52,371 grant for a Gay Youth Advocacy program the first government funding in the nation directed at youth who are LGBTQ or questioning their sexual/gender identity. The program is later named Project Lambda. |
| 1975 | LGBTQ youth build community and social support opportunities for themselves all over Boston; at the Charles St. Meetinghouse, the Sword and Stone Coffee House on Charles Street and Ken’s Restaurant on Boylston Street in Copley Square. |
| 1975 | The Advocate publishes an article about Boston’s Project Lambda. |
| 1975 | Project Lambda begins programming focused on diverting street crime by providing underage LGBTQ runaways and sex workers access to youth advocates, referrals to basic services, and a safe space to socialize with other LGBTQ youth. The group meets at the Charles Street Unitarian Universalist Church. Young adult staff includes Larry Anderson, Stephanie Byrd, Brian Goodrich, Linda Graham, Ian Johnson, Lynn Rosen, and Ted Sanger. The group ends in 1976 after losing funding from the City. |
| 1977 | Bridge Over Troubled Waters is the only city agency to provide services to LGBTQ youth. They work with issues of housing, medical and dental, suicide prevention, sex work, and addiction for youth who were often homeless because of their sexual and/or gender identity. |
| 1977 | Four gay youth file a formal complaint against police officers for brutality. The youth claim the beating occurred after they attempted to stop the beating of another gay man by the undercover police officers. |
| 1977 | The Committee for Gay Youth (CGY) is founded to revive Project Lambda as a “watchdog for the needs of the often neglected Boston gay youth,” and to provide a place for LGBTQ youth and young adults to meet as an alternative to bars. The group meets at the Arlington St. Church. Stephanie Byrd, Lynn Rosen and Eric Rofes are among the founding adult board members. George Smith is appointed as the youth liaison to the adult-run group. |
| 1977 | A group for lesbian teenagers meets at Janus Counseling to discuss “personal growth and support.” |
| 1977 | Local lesbian bar Somewhere, owned by Ann Maguire, sponsors a series of spaghetti dinners raising $1,500 to benefit CGY. |
| 1978 | Growing Up Gay is published by Youth Liberation Press in Ann Arbor Michigan. The publication includes an article entitled, “Lack of Support from Adult Gays Makes Life Difficult in Boston.” Interviews with CGY members are featured. The youth interviewed criticize Boston’s adult gay community’s focus on issues such as Anita Bryant and Susan Saxe, and their lack of support for local LGBTQ youth. |
| 1978 | Growing Up Gay is published by Youth Liberation Press in Ann Arbor Michigan. The publication includes an article entitled, “Lack of Support from Adult Gays Makes Life Difficult in Boston.” Interviews with CGY members are featured. The youth interviewed criticize Boston’s adult gay community’s focus on issues such as Anita Bryant and Susan Saxe, and their lack of support for local LGBTQ youth. |
| 1979 | CGY leaves Arlington Street Church and begins to meet at the office of GAMIT, the MIT gay student group. |
| 1979 | The Committee for Gay Youth (CGY) marches in Boston’s Gay and Lesbian Pride celebration and attends the National March on Washington. |
| 1980 | Youth members voice their frustration with the adult leadership and board of the Committee for Gay Youth. Encouraged by Robin McCormack, manager of Buddies bar and first City of Boston Mayor’s Liaison to the LGBTQ Community, CGY members hold an auction sponsored by gay business and friends that raises $1,300. With this and other youth sponsored fundraisers the youth rent office space at 128a Tremont Street and form their own 22 and under youth-led group called the Boston Alliance of Gay and Lesbian Youth (BAGLY). It is the first LGBTQ youth run organization in Massachusetts. BAGLY (renamed the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth) continues today as the oldest continuously running, independent LGBTQ youth organization in the country. |
| 1980 | BAGLY launches the first LGBTQ youth speakers bureau in the country. BAGLY’s members were among the first pioneering LGBTQ individuals to speak in public schools. The BAGLY Speakers Bureau is the organizations oldest and longest running program. |
| 1981 | The City of Boston refuses to grant a permit for the annual Pride day march. BAGLY suspends Wednesday night programming to host a special meeting of local LGBTQ activists to organize a community response. The community was successful in overturning the decision and the pride march went ahead as planned. |
| 1981 | BAGLY establishes the nation’s first annual LGBTQ youth prom. The prom, organized by youth member Michael Pumphret (who was crowned BAGLY’s first prom queen), was held in the basement of the Arlington Street Church. |
| 1980 | BAGLY launches the first LGBTQ youth speakers bureau in the country. BAGLY’s members were among the first pioneering LGBTQ individuals to speak in public schools. The BAGLY Speakers Bureau is the organizations oldest and longest running program. |
| 1981 | BAGLY responds to news of “Gay Cancer” by convening education and advocacy forums led by youth with support from Kevin Cranston, then adult adviser at BAGLY – currently Deputy Commissioner and Director of the Bureau of Infections Disease at Massachusetts Department of Public Health. |
| 1982 | WGBH-TV airs groundbreaking public television documentary Growing Up Gay, focusing on BAGLY and LGBTQ youth. Art Cohen is director, producer, and writer of this program. |
| 1982 | No longer able to afford the rent, BAGLY moves from their Tremont St. office and for months holds it’s weekly Wednesday night meetings in restaurants, members apartments and the Boston University LGBTQ Student Group space before finally finding space at St. John the Evangelist Church on Bowdoin Street where they stayed for 25 years. |
| 1984 | No longer able to afford the rent, BAGLY moves from their Tremont St. office and for months holds it’s weekly Wednesday night meetings in restaurants, members apartments and the Boston University LGBTQ Student Group space before finally finding space at St. John the Evangelist Church on Bowdoin Street where they stayed for 25 years. |
| 1987 | Virginia Uribe, founder of Project 10 in Los Angeles, speaks at Harvard University in an event sponsored by BAGLY – A year later a BAGLY member who attended this event, co-founds Project 10 East at his high school, Cambridge Rindge and Latin |
| 1988 | Massachusetts leads the way in providing high school-based support for LGBTQ youth with the establishment of Project 10 East at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School and Concord-Carlisle High School’s Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA) |
| 1988 | BAGLY co-presents a workshop on transgender community issues at the National Gay and Lesbian Health Conference in Boston, MA. |
| 1991 | BAGLY is chosen as Massachusetts’s first LGBTQ youth program to participate in Protect Teen Health, the pioneering peer leadership HIV/AIDS and safer sex education program |
| 1987 | Virginia Uribe, founder of Project 10 in Los Angeles, speaks at Harvard University in an event sponsored by BAGLY – A year later a BAGLY member who attended this event, co-founds Project 10 East at his high school, Cambridge Rindge and Latin |
| 1992 | BAGLY convenes the first meeting of Massachusetts LGBTQ youth groups in order to develop a community based support and resource infrastructure for LGBTQ youth across the state – later called the GLBT Youth Group Network of Massachusetts |
| 1992 | The first Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth in the country is founded in Massachusetts to address issues such as LGBTQ youth suicide, high school dropouts, homelessness and drug use. BAGLY youth testify at the first ever public hearings on LGBTQ youth |
| 1993 | Youth President of BAGLY, Troix Bettencourt, speaks at the 3rd national March on Washington |
| 1993 | BAGLY youth and adult leaders are among the founders of the National Advocacy Coalition on Youth and Sexual Orientation – NACYSO (later renamed the National Youth Advocacy Coalition – NYAC) |
| 1993 | The first transgender youth support group in Massachusetts was convened at BAGLY |
| 1994 | BAGLY leaders present workshop on LGBTQ youth health at the National Gay and Lesbian Health Conference |
| 1994 | BAGLY Executive Director, Grace Sterling Stowell, briefs top CDC officials on the needs of transgender youth – believed to be the first time transgender issues of any kind were brought before the Centers for Disease Control |
| 1995 | State funding is awarded to BAGLY to support its statewide programming, the GLBT Youth Group Network of Massachusetts |
| 1996 | A Slice of Rice, a support organization for Asian and Pacific Island American LGBTQ youth, is founded by BAGLY member Leah Eckelberger |
| 1997 | The Theater Offensive founds True Colors Out Youth Theater Troupe in collaboration with BAGLY, Boston GLASS and Project 10 East |
| 1999 | BAGLY is the first community based LGBTQ youth program in the country to offer on site HIV counseling and testing to its members |
| 2001 | BAGLY is a founding member of the Youth of Color Coalition in Boston. |
| 2004 | The Queer Youth Fund awards BAGLY a three year grant to expand its Leadership Development programming, specifically the Queer Activist College (QuAC), a program which builds the leadership capital of LGBTQ youth in Greater Boston |
| 2006 | BAGLY is a founding member of the LGBTQ Youth Provider Coalition |
| 2007 | Three of BAGLY’s staff become founding members of the Massachusetts Commission on GLBT Youth |
| 2007 | After 25 years BAGLY’s membership outgrows Saint John the Evangelist Church and moves to a larger meeting space at the Community Church of Boston in Copley Square |
| 2008 | BAGLY is the first community based LGBTQ youth program in the country to offer peer based HIV counseling and testing to its membership |
| 2008 | BAGLY debuts Out Spoken Boston’s first LGBTQ youth only monthly open mic event |
| 2009 | Go Get ‘Em Wednesdays: A BAGLY Ball Community Mini Function is debuted |
| 2009 | BAGLY and NYAC (National Youth Advocacy Coalition) collaborate on the ground-breaking Best Practice Institute for LGBTQ Youth Workers at the national Creating Change Conference |
| 2009 | The National Coalition for LGBTQ Health partners with BAGLY and Tapestry Health to convene a national meeting on the health needs of out of home LGBTQ youth |
| 2009 | The largest event in BAGLY’s history (and one of the largest events specifically for LGBTQ youth in the world)—the 29th Annual BAGLY Prom held at Boston City Hall is attended by over 1,700 LGBTQ youth and their allies. |
| 2010 | BAGLY staff, volunteers and youth look on as BAGLY Executive Director Grace Sterling Stowell receives the 2010 Susan J. Hyde Activism Award for Longevity in the Movement at the 2010 Creating Change Conference in Dallas, TX. |
| 2010 | BAGLY and Executive Director Grace Sterling Stowell, are named Boston Pride 2010 Grand Marshals |
| 2010 | BAGLY: The Boston Alliance of GLBT Youth celebrates its 30th Anniversary on July 31st |