{"id":277716,"date":"2025-11-05T10:16:01","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T15:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/?p=277716"},"modified":"2025-11-05T10:16:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T15:16:05","slug":"queer-kiss-in-protest-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/video\/queer-kiss-in-protest-history-277716","title":{"rendered":"The history of queer kiss-in protests"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"is-style-article-kik\">Kiss-ins have been used as a nonviolent form of activism since the 1970s<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-9-16 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The history of queer kiss-in protests | Xtra Magazine\" width=\"540\" height=\"960\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qe76Hrq0Tw8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">Did you know that kissing can be a form of activism?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first documented kiss-ins took place <a href=\"https:\/\/www.autostraddle.com\/making-out-making-change-the-history-of-queer-kiss-ins\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">in 1970 in New York City<\/a> during a gay liberation march commemorating the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1972, members of Gay Liberation Front put on the U.K.\u2019s first gay Pride parade, which ended <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2021\/apr\/08\/ted-brown-the-man-who-held-a-mass-kiss-in-and-made-history\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">in a mass kiss-in<\/a>. In 1973, the first national lesbian kiss-in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mazerlesbianarchives.org\/mazer-video-collections\/first-lesbian-kiss-in-at-lacma\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">protested the lack of female artists<\/a> at the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts. And in 1976, LGBTQ2S+ organizations in Toronto staged a kiss-in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/insight\/before-pride-there-was-a-kiss-toronto-gay-activists-look-back-on-1976-protest\/article_7cc12272-f019-5573-a3a2-943ce2f8be9b.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">protesting the arrest of two gay men<\/a> who kissed each other at an intersection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"is-style-default\">While the use of kiss-ins petered out after the late 1970s, they became an organizing strategy <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/actupny\/status\/990739538459942912\/photo\/1\" target=\"_blank\">among ACT UP chapters<\/a> in the U.S. and Canada in the late 1980s and early 1990s\u2014including at the historic HIV\/AIDS protest at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyclgbtsites.org\/site\/st-vincents-hospital-manhattan\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">St. Vincent\u2019s Hospital in New York.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"is-style-end\">While more recent kiss-ins have taken place <a href=\"https:\/\/www.them.us\/story\/lesbian-kiss-in-protest-2002-wnba-new-york-liberty-activism-history\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">from 2002<\/a> up <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/politics\/article\/38996\/1\/intimate-photos-of-a-queer-new-york-kiss-in\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">until 2018,<\/a> they have once again become a less common form of activism. But its history and impact should not be forgotten.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kiss-ins have been used as a nonviolent form of activism since the 1970s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1224,"featured_media":277719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"editorial_slug":"103","_editorial_slug":"103","exclude_from_latest_block":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,3,2863,4,5],"contributors":[3053],"topic":[103,104,95],"clients":[],"series":[],"timeliness":[60],"editorial_format":[2088],"type-of-work":[2536],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277716"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277716"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277757,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277716\/revisions\/277757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277716"},{"taxonomy":"contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributors?post=277716"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=277716"},{"taxonomy":"clients","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/clients?post=277716"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=277716"},{"taxonomy":"timeliness","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/timeliness?post=277716"},{"taxonomy":"editorial_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/editorial_format?post=277716"},{"taxonomy":"type-of-work","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type-of-work?post=277716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}