On May 15, 1971, Cornell’s Gay Liberation Front (GLF) introduced a one-day festival dedicated to gay people. In the morning, gay liberation groups from around New York came to talk about their work. Afternoon workshops on living as a gay person and the gay liberation movement around the world filled out the rest of the day. The last event of the festival was an open dance in High Rise 1, what is now Jameson Hall.

Just six months before Cornell hosted their 1971 event, the Rochester GLF invited them to the Festival of Alternate Life Styles, hosted at the University of Rochester. While there, three Cornell representatives spoke about their history and how they spread news of gay liberation at Cornell.

In the next few years, the “May Gay Festival”, as it became called, grew to one weekend long and featured keynote speakers, typically gay activists or authors, including Frank Kameny in 1974.

The 1970 Rochester festival no doubt inspired Cornell’s GLF to host theirs, or at least gave them ideas. Collaboration between the two groups was essential in starting the May Gay Festival that became an annual event for at least thirteen years.

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