Mayhew, Tim

In the years following World War II, Seattle developed a reputation for being tolerant of homosexuality (by standards of the day). Nevertheless, most gay men and women in Seattle remained closeted and lived with the fear of harassment and discrimination. The Dorian Society, organized in 1967, was Seattle's first documented gay organization. It was part of a national "homophile" movement that emerged in the 1950s and continued to develop through the 1960s. The group sought to promote acceptance of gays in the larger society and to serve as a social organization for gays.

In the period following the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion in New York City, gay liberation organizations sprang up in cities across the country, including Seattle. Students at the University of Washington organized the Gay Student Association and the more radical Gay Liberation Front. The first Gay Community Center in Seattle was founded in 1971. Other organizations born in the 1970s include the Gay Women’s Alliance; the Gay Women’s Resource Center (now the Lesbian Resource Center); Seattle Gay Alliance; Union of Sexual Minorities; Stonewall Recovery Center; Lesbian Mother’s National Defense Fund; the Metropolitan Community Church; Parents, Families, Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG); and the Seattle Municipal Elections Committee.

In 1978, Initiative 13 attempted to repeal the Seattle ordinances protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination in housing and employment. It came on the heels of a national spate of successful anti-gay measures. The campaign galvanized the political voices of Seattle's gay community, and the measure was soundly defeated.

Tim Mayhew has been involved in gay activism in Seattle since the early 1970s. He was a member of the Seattle Gay Alliance in the early 1970s and served as the chair of its Education Committee, ca. 1972-1975. He was the SGA's lobbyist in Olympia, ca. 1973, and helped found Seattle's first Gay Community Center in 1971. Mayhew was also involved with the Gay Liberation Front. In the late 1970s he served as Seattle editor of the Northwest Gay Review, a gay newspaper based in Portland, and he was a member of the ACLU of Washington and served on its Sexual Minorities Committee, ca. 1977-1980. Mayhew lobbied in Olympia again, ca. 1981, on behalf of the Dorian Group, and in 1993 he helped found the Harvey Muggy Lesbian/Gay Democratic Organization.

Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, Mayhew saw himself as a “gay community archivist.” He collected materials related to gay activism in Seattle from groups he was involved in and from many other organizations.

From the guide to the Tim Mayhew Collection on Gay Rights, 1964-1999, (University of Washington Libraries Special Collections)