Thomas F. Coleman reminiscence - October 20, 2022

So you tell me what I'm supposed to start. Are you ready? Oh, I'm ready. I start now.

Is that what that was about? Okay. My name is Tom Coleman, and I'm a graduate of Loyola Law School.

I started law school in Detroit in the early 1970s and then transferred to Loyola. And I'm really glad that I did. My experience at Loyola at first was being in 1972

especially, I was in the closet, as were all the other students there. I didn't know anyone who was openly gay and or lesbian.

And one day someone put a notice up on a bulletin board. Gay law student show meet at such and such an address at such and such a date.

And little did I know that that same notice was put up in several other law schools. So about seven or eight of us showed up at this gay bar and identified with each other.

Started meeting on a regular basis, socially, at bars and at some people's houses. And it felt very liberating to be with other openly gay people.

There were no open lesbians who were a part of this at that time. And so we then started meeting at the what was then called the Gay Community Services Center on Wilshire Boulevard,

just a few blocks from the law school. And I remember the first time walking up the stairs to this old Victorian. It was quite, I don't know, intimidating in a way,

but liberating experience because it was the first time I had ever walked into a building that had a huge sign in front of it that had the word gay in it.

It's a gay community services center. So I was glad that I came out and I remember talking to the dean at the time. What's going to happen to US law students?

Because, you know, when we graduate, it's not just getting a degree or passing the bar exam. You have to be certified as having good moral character. And at that time, in 1973, when I graduated, private

sex between consenting adults of the same sex was a felony. So being openly gay or lesbian meant that you were basically admitting that you were a practicing felon.

So we were afraid. But we did it anyway. And we got admitted to the bar. We engaged in activism and a lot of projects in

law school. I went on in my career to do LGBT rights, criminal law reform, hate crimes, employment, fair employment, fair housing, family diversity, domestic partnership, you name it.

And, you know, that's evolved now more recently into disability rights and conservatorship reform. I kind of lost touch with Loyola over the years, but the last few years I've reconnected.

I reached out seeking law students to work as interns for my nonprofit, which is Spectrum Institute. And I have had a couple of law students working on projects.

Rendition was, I think, a third year student. I worked on a conservatorship reform project. Excellent work. It was great collaborating with him.

And a couple of years ago and also this year, Maria Reyes Olmedo nonbinary Latin X third year law student, Loyola doing great work. Recently, I published a book called The Seventies.

It's a memory book about LGBT legal activism in the 1970s. And I invite you to go to LGBT legal history dot com, where you can find out more about that

book and what law students and lawyers in the seventies did. We did biographies in the book of 125 trailblazers touching all of the bases lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.

And Maria wrote a chapter in the book about the emergence of non-binary, transgender and students of color as LGBT legal advocates, which didn't occur much in the seventies. There was only a there were no lawyers of color

in the gay rights movement in the seventies, only a handful of law students of color. I was fortunate enough to work with a couple of them, but more recently, you know, with diversity and inclusion

in the law schools and the legal profession and more people being willing to come come out in the open, the outlaw group and. The legal profession.

Generally in law schools, there's so many more students and lawyers of color that are involved in the movement and the LGBT bar associations. And it's a new era, and I'm glad that I'm

still here. I'm 74 years old now, and but I'm still active. And I encourage anyone who views this to remember that no one should be left behind in the LGBT rights

movement. But there are a couple of groups that have been left behind. And I'm going to start two projects next year.

I invite you to reach out to me if you'd like to be a part of it. Tom Coleman at Spectrum Institute, dot org. That's Tom Coleman at Spectrum Institute.

Dot org. The projects are. The first one is called Capacity to Love. Everyone has the capacity to love in one way or

another. Whether it's loving a parent, a sibling, a friend, a lover of intimate partner, a spouse. But people with mental and developmental disabilities have been having

their rights, social and sexual rights infringed or removed completely for decades. And the time has come, especially for the LGBT community, the legal rights organizations and the community centers to join

forces. And I invite you to join with us Spectrum Institute, to work together to protect the rights of adults, LGBT adults with mental and developmental disabilities, to enjoy and experience

their rights to the fullest extent possible. The second group, our Upper East teenagers in 1975, when California decriminalized private sex between consenting adults, the age of consent was set at 18.

Today, 34 states. In 34 states, people 16 years of age and above can engage in intimate sexual relations with other consenting people above that age without any criminal repercussions.

In California, two seniors in high school or a senior and a junior who engage in intimate sex are engaging in criminal conduct that is not acceptable. They were left behind when we compromise and accepted the

age of consent at 18. It's time for us in California to step up and to rectify that wrong. So anyway, the job is never done.

There's always more to do. And I look forward to working with any of you that want to and go to LGBT history, legal, LGBT, legal History.com.

To read more about the history of the Outlaw group here at Loyola and other groups in all the amazing things that these trailblazers from the Seventies did. Aloha.