Orange Juice, Milk, and the Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Choral Movement in the United States

LGBTQIA+ choruses in the United States play an important role in the development of queer movement culture by providing safe spaces other than bars and clubs, by emotionally supporting queer people through extended political struggles and the AIDS crisis, and by presenting public counternarratives to anti-gay propaganda. Jon Sims, a music teacher from Kansas, inspired to action by queer activists like Harvey Milk and the anti-gay countermovement of Anita Bryant, founded the world's first publicly identifying gay music ensembles in San Francisco in the late 1970s. By the 1990s, hundreds of queer music ensembles had organized across five continents. At the start of the 21st century, LGBTQIA+ choruses in the United States are beginning to dismantle the structural and social inequities inherited from mid-20th century queer organizing, in an attempt to better reflect the diverse intersectional identities that comprise the queer community and to collaborate more effectively with activists from other historically marginalized groups. The historical development of the LGBTQIA+ choral movement in the United States demonstrates how processes of cultural institutionalization reproduce social inequalities enacted by systemic prejudices like racism, sexism, ablism, and transphobia, even in marginalized communities. A critical musicological analysis of this community's history may help music educators recognize and interrogate discrepancies between the benevolent intent and the complicated, sometimes inverted, impacts that music institutions have on participants, communities, and culture.