ABSTRACT
Gay and lesbian legal organizations turned primarily to the gay and lesbian community itself for their early support. Later, broader financial support occurred as the work of these organizations became more visible and as the AIDS epidemic caught broader public attention. This chapter presents the story of these early lesbian and gay public interest lawyers and the legal groups they helped to form. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) lawyers were not just lawyers for the movement, however, they were lawyers for the individuals in the movement. The closest comparison to the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) in the modern feminist movement was the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), formed in 1971 and headed by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Many view the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969 as the beginning of the modern lesbian and gay civil rights movement.
