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Remembering Barbara ‘Boo’ Price, a pioneering force in women’s music

Key organizer behind Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival

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Barbara ‘Boo’ Easter Price died at age 82.

Barbara (“Boo”) Easter Price, a pioneering figure in the women’s music movement, died Tuesday, Aug. 4 in Oakland, Calif. Price produced some of the earliest women’s music concerts as a new lesbian-feminist culture was taking shape, and was a driving force behind the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival which ran from 1976 to 2015 – a flagship event in the movement, and the largest women’s music festival in North America. Price was 82. 

“Her vision from the very beginning was how complex and how wide the whole phenomenon of women’s music could be, and how far we could carry it beyond the multi-purpose rooms and church basements into Town Hall and the Palace of Fine Arts and major media,” says singer-songwriter Margie Adam, for whom Price served as manager, agent, producer and attorney from 1975 to 1984, and, for part of that time, her romantic partner.

“I think when she heard Cris Williamson, Vicki Randle and me sing at the Embassy Theater in 1974, she grasped that this thing we were just beginning to call women’s music could actually be a soundtrack for the women’s liberation movement – that it could be an activator and a healing, empowering tool.” 

Arguably, nowhere was that emerging culture of music, feminism and community more fully realized than at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. 

At its peak, 8,000 women, predominantly lesbians, came from around the world to gather for a week in August. Camping, music, dance performances, workshops and the requisite tofu and beans were just a few of the innumerable offerings in this rite of passage for a generation of lesbians in a time when there were few safe and free environments available.

Alicia Davis of Michigan remembers the festival foremost for its sense of community. “The feeling of not having to make myself smaller to fit into the world, but rather the feeling that I could be happy, loud and  share my opinions and feel valued, even when there were disagreements among people,” she says. “There was a shared respect that I didn’t feel outside of the festival walls. The festival shaped what I thought women could do in the world, the entire camp was made by women: electricians, plumbers, cooks, carpenters, singers, artists of every stripe… “

The sense of shared experience followed women long after they left “the land.”

In the 1980s, drivers across the U.S. would exchange knowing glances when passing a car with the familiar “See you in August!” bumper sticker. It was the original IYKYK. 

The Festival was also an important showcase for emerging and established musicians, including Holly Near, Meg Christian, Tracy Chapman, Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco. The list of alumni is vast and stretches across genres from classical to Afro-centric percussion. To name just a few: Casselberry-DuPree, Phranc, Heather Bishop, Ubaka Hill, big band Deuce, flutist Kay Gardner, Edwina Lee Tyler, Lynn Breedlove-fronted punk band Tribe 8, pianist Mary Watkins, and Cultural Heritage Choir founder Linda Tillery who remembers Boo as the big sister she never had.

“I could go to her with anything, and she would listen and give counsel. She was always supportive of me and usually right,” the singer and arranger says.

And while Michigan wasn’t the only festival in the country, it inspired people like marriage equality activist and comedian Robin Tyler who attended Michigan because of Price, and went on to produce her own West Coast music and comedy festivals, as well as the main stage for three Marches on Washington.

“My last memory of Boo was not about Boo Price, the producer or the magician that could create everything,” says Tyler who was also Price’s lover for a time. “It was how lucky I was to have had her in my life at all, and that we were able to love each other and share. She was one of the most influential people of my life.”

Price’s talents were evident across the festival’s sprawling operation which relocated several times over its 40-year existence. In 1982, together with one of the original founders, Lisa Vogel, Price purchased the land that would become the festival’s permanent 650-acre home near Hart, Michigan; in 1983, she became a co-owner and co-producer, a role she held until the two parted ways in 1994.

From 1976–1994, Price was involved in many aspects of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. But her prowess as producer was perhaps most visible at the Night Stage. Her contemporaries have vivid memories of an opening ceremony with an aerialist swinging on a trapeze from an oak tree, while jazz artist Rhiannon performed on vocals.

“Sometimes it started with a parade or a procession and percussion, and sometimes there were stilt walkers – and so there was always this production about you as you were coming to Night Stage,” remembers Sändra Washington, who performed with her twin sister Sharon as the Washington Sisters. As a performer, Washington recalled the wall of energy rushing at her from the audience.

“It was her desire to create a thing, a space, an event that was really magnificent – and that showed in everything she did, whether or not she was organizing a tour, or she was organizing a party, or events at the [Montclair] club,” says Washington. “Boo really specialized in creating a whole vibe around the event, the space, the production, so that you felt something special when you came into a space that Boo had created.”

“There was never a space that felt as positive, overwhelming, and energetic as the crowd at Michigan.”

Kathryn A. Willmore, co-founder of feminist journal Sojourner, remembers how Michigan grew into something bigger than anticipated – and how instrumental Price was in elevating the rudimentary systems needed to support it. One year, Willmore brought copies of Sojourner to the festival, hoping to connect with other people publishing women’s papers. “But there was no system for communicating any of that really. So I just tacked a note on a tree of that location, and there were about 30 of us that came together.” 

Price, Willmore says, helped put systems in place, articulate a vision, and bring in people who could then carry it forward.

“Boo really empowered so many women in so many dimensions. I think that is one of the overarching themes of her life, and certainly in music production… and her confidence was infectious. So people who had never done something grew into becoming experts. I think that she inspired and empowered.”

Willmore first met Price in 1961 at Mt. Holyoke just after the women arrived for the start of college. “There were all these girls in this half-empty dorm in the middle of a hurricane, and Boo started going around to everyone’s room to introduce herself. Then she got to my room… and that was the beginning of this lifelong friendship.”

The importance of what Price created cannot be overstated, nor the reach and durability of the connections formed in the space she helped build.

Just last month, a French woman found this writer on Instagram 40 years after the Festival and claimed I invited her into my tent. We have been corresponding since this improbable reconnection (though the question of who did the inviting is under dispute):

Emmanuelle Gachet, now a writer and professor at Université de Nantes, reflects on her experience:

“In 1986, I step onto an island populated by six thousand women. I come from France, from a rural area, and I am twenty years old. Never before have I felt such a powerful energy. Here, lesbianism is the norm. I don’t have to justify my place. For the first time, I am not a minority. At the time, I am broke. The community welcomes me with sisterhood. I take part in artistic and political workshops, without always realizing their significance. I discover music without male voices. Women playing, singing, improvising, taking the stage. A stage of their own. Music becomes a common language, a way of recognizing one another, of celebrating who we are and what we can create together… I leave with the feeling that I am leaving a world that may never exist again… “

Price’s influence extended beyond the festival arena. The MSU Libraries document the breadth of her production work, including the Women on Wheels Tour in 1976; a celebration for the opening of Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party in 1979; concert closing the ERA Campaign at Constitution Hall with Margie Adam and Sweet Honey in the Rock; and, decades later, the 2008 San Francisco City Hall memorial for lesbian rights pioneer Del Martin. She also established Women in Production in 1976, which hired and trained primarily lesbian technicians and production staff.

Price co-founded Pleiades Records with Margie Adam in 1975, producing and promoting Adam’s first four albums. She had an eye for the entire presentation – from press kits and photography to album covers – and for how the emerging women’s music movement projected itself to the world. Price produced a 50-city tour promoting Adam’s first album, culminating at the historic National Women’s Conference in Houston in 1977, where Adam performed “We Shall Go Forth!” as 10,000 women joined in three-part harmony.

“When Boo and I began to work together, both of us were convinced that we should have that phrase, ‘Women’s music by women about women for everyone.’ And that was not a point of view that was agreed upon by everybody in women’s music,” Adam says. “We had wiggle room in there, and we had controversy, and we had continuums.” Ultimately, Price wanted the music “to get out as far as it can go.”

Barbara Easter Price was born on Oct. 8, 1943 in Lafayette, Ind. She received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Mount Holyoke College in 1965, and Juris Doctor from UC Davis in 1976.

She brought her legal background, organizational skills and business acumen to everything she touched – including the justice system, most notably through her work on child custody cases, a focus that grew out of her own experience. 

In 1978 she co-authored a law review article on lesbian custody proceedings and how attorneys could best prepare, at a time when lesbians were viewed unfavorably by the courts and “Sexual Orientation Disturbances” remained a psychiatric diagnosis.

“People forget what it was like,” says attorney Diane Gelon, who first met Price in 1977 at the women’s conference in Houston. “The lesbian mother would not have even had what we would look at now as normal access to that child because the fear was that the kids would be gay or lesbian, or there would be some amount of gender confusion, or they would suffer some kind of psychological harm… These are the myths that Boo wrote about and tried to address.”

Earlier in her career, she also worked at the White House for the Food for Peace Program, where she helped organize a Latin American tour for First Lady Lady Bird Johnson. She also worked with the President’s Commission on Civil Disorders. Price later became active in Bay Area Lesbians in Law, the Lesbian Rights Project, Lyon-Martin Clinic, the National Lesbian Feminist Organization, National Organization for Women, the National Women’s Political Caucus, and Women and the Law.

Whether through politics, advocacy or music, much of Price’s work was centered around creating spaces for women.

Following her tenure with the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival and a brief hiatus, Price couldn’t help but create another gathering place. She had been regularly driving past an old building, originally established as a social and literary club in 1928. It still had its projection room, stage and lightboard. She knew she had to have it.

 “She just was always producing, even when she had stopped,” says Sharon J. Washington.

 Price purchased the building in 1996 and, after a thorough renovation, opened the Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club, which became home to the Montclair Women’s Big Band, which she co-founded with trumpeter Ellen Seeling in 1998. Over the next two decades, the predominantly lesbian space became a vital gathering hub, hosting more than 2,000 events – high-toned parties, workshops, theater, dance, concerts, and more.

“Her Valentine’s Day dances were extraordinary,” says Sändra Washington, who remembers four-course plated meals and, like many of Price’s friends, volunteered at the club.

When the club closed in 2015, luminaries of women’s music came together for farewell performances, and the San Francisco Bay Times chronicled the extraordinary range of what had taken place there: more than 500 birthday celebrations, 150 concerts (“which we can attest were fabulous,” the paper wrote), countless workshops, arts and cultural events.

“Whatever Boo had built, whether it was the club or her home – that was our second home,” says Sändra Washington.

“Buying that club was in some ways a transgressive action, but at the same time, it was saying we belong here,” says Margie Adam. “We belong everywhere. Women’s music belongs everywhere, and that was her vision from the moment that I met her.”

“I think of Boo as someone who inspired and empowered women everywhere,” says Kathryn Willmore. “She herself was a fearless explorer, and she instilled that spirit into so many other women who would never imagine themselves doing the things that they did. And it wasn’t just in music.”

Willmore remembers Price’s first foray into scuba diving. “She was a good swimmer, but there she was, completely underwater with this mask on, not being able to see much in front of her. So she just kept her eyes on the fins of the guide in front of her.”

She woke up the next morning and said, “Let’s do that again.”

“And she just fell in love with it, became an expert diver, and then inspired so many other women – including me,” says Willmore, who would never have imagined venturing into the sea’s depths had it not been for Price.

Price soon convinced others to join her, and organized trips over the years to explore earth’s bounteous ocean offerings – women traveling the world from the Caribbean to the Solomon Islands and sharing in the joy that Price found amid the coral reefs of Indonesia.

Price is survived by her son, Andrés Garcia Price; daughter-in-law, Katie Garcia; granddaughter, Tallulah Katherine Garcia; nieces Melissa Price and her husband, Donal, and Cynthia Price Czabala and her husband, Tom; and an expansive community of chosen family, friends, and beneficiaries of her generous and unstoppable spirit.

“Many of you know that Boo’s health had been in decline for some time,” Kathryn Willmore, Sharon J. Washington, and Margie Adam wrote in announcing their friend’s passing. “Over this past weekend, she had a serious heart attack and was being cared for in the hospital, with her son Andrés and family with her much of the time. Yesterday afternoon, she noticed a partially open door in her room and asked the nurse if that was the exit, because she was ready to leave. A few hours later, she did just that – moving on to another realm, but never out of our hearts.”

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New York

Grace Meng sharply criticizes DOJ over hospital settlements

N.Y. congresswoman spoke with the Blade this week

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1 day ago

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September 25, 2026

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U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) (Photo public domain)

Few things have riled up Republicans in power like the ongoing fight to restrict gender-affirming care for minors.

The Trump-Vance administration has been clear in making the fight against transgender rights, healthcare, and visibility a priority as they enter their “lame duck” phase of the presidency.

With the midterms looming, they are hoping scapegoating trans children — as they did in 2020, only for it to grow into a core national party strategy in the following elections — will save them from a less-than-secure control of the federal government like they’ve had since Trump took office.

In the past year, numerous deals have been struck between hospitals that have provided gender-affirming care to minors and the Justice Department to halt any further care.
While Republican pundits and conservative voices continue to accuse these hospitals — like NYU Langone and Mount Sinai Health System — of committing what they contend are atrocities against these children, large portions of gender-affirming care for minors involve social transitions and puberty blockers, which are reversible.

The Washington Blade spoke with Congresswoman Grace Meng, who represents New York’s Sixth Congressional District and is the ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, to discuss whether these ongoing settlements between hospitals and the Trump-run Justice Department are legal.

In her role as the ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, Meng oversees funding for Justice Department and a slew of other federal agencies. The position gives her the power to look behind the coercion, examine how things are being done, and question the policies and actions of these federal powers in a way many other members of Congress cannot.

Meng said the Justice Department’s actions against hospitals providing gender-affirming care are part of what she sees as a broader pattern of institutions — under the control of this president — targeting LGBTQ people.

“Unfortunately this is not the first time that the DOJ is weaponizing the agency to target our communities, and our LGBTQ+ community, especially our young people, are unfortunately yet another victim of that,” Meng told the Blade. “The real victims are the actual patients and families who are losing a trusted provider.”

She argued that one prong of this ongoing situation is the way the DOJ is going about these “wins” — through pressure rather than through going to court to find actual wrongdoings.

“This DOJ knows that they can’t win in the courts based on the merit of these types of actions, so they are just working by bullying and using coercion to cheat their way through getting what they want,” she said.

She pointed to the use of litigation, subpoenas, and reputational damage against the hospitals as part of that pressure campaign.

“They know that they can’t prove any wrongdoing in court, so they’re just using the threat of prolonged litigation, subpoenas for patients’ records and trying to damage reputations of these institutions as they’ve been cutting funding for them.”

The hospitals involved so far include NYU Langone Hospitals in New York, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pennsylvania, the Mount Sinai Health System in New York, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio, Connecticut Children’s Hospital in Connecticut, and Texas Children’s Hospital in Texas.

Meng said the settlements are part of a broader strategy by the Justice Department.

“This is a part of their larger deliberate strategy across the country. They’ve obviously gone after NYU Langone. They’ve gone after Mount Sinai in my state, and they’re doing this in other states as well.”

When asked about the agreements being reached between the Justice Department and hospitals, Meng was direct.

“I think these are forced settlements. Absolutely,” Meng said.

Meng described the federal government’s involvement in individual trans healthcare decisions as an intrusion into private medical decisions.

“This is cruel. It’s a cruel form of coercion. It’s a form of cheating,” she went on, comparing this to the ongoing fight for reproductive freedom in the country. “Just like when we’re talking about reproductive rights, right? It’s an invasion of privacy. These are confidential patient records.”

Meng said the federal government should not be involved in decisions between families and their doctors.

“President Trump and the federal government do not belong in a hospital, helping to make decisions that are very personal and sensitive to every single family. They should not be involved in these decisions.”

She said the settlements could leave families without access to healthcare they need.

“Their way of forcing these settlements and leaving so many without the healthcare that they really need is really just devastating.”

Meng said the impact is already being felt by families in her district and across New York.

“The human impact, the impact on our families, on our constituents here in Queens and throughout New York, is really hurtful.”

Meng framed the issue as part of what she described as a larger pattern within the Trump-Vance administration of attacking the most vulnerable.

“If you ask me to sum up this administration in one word, it would be cruelty,” she said. “They feel like they have a right to decide who is American enough in this country, and who is good enough, and who is deserving enough.”

She went further, saying Trump is “literally acting as a dictator.”

She contrasted his leadership with that of a traditional public servant.

“Most public servants wake up every day thinking of ways that they can make people’s lives better, how they can help people. This administration and this action is no different. It wakes up and thinks of a new way to target a different community every day.”

As the ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, Meng said Congress has tools available to examine how the Justice Department operates and spends federal money.

“The purpose of our 12 subcommittees is to have direct oversight and leverage as Congress members, as the third branch of government, over how the Department of Justice spends our taxpayers’ money.”

One crucial thing Meng pointed out about being on this committee is the fact that much of the work of appropriations is bipartisan and is entirely within the power of Congress via the Constitution.

“We need the White House to respect the constitutional process that the Appropriations Committee goes through,” she said. “We write the Appropriations Law. It’s between Republican and Democratic Congress members.”

When asked about the funding from the settlements — and the continued funding for an increasingly looked-down-upon DOJ — she said she is seeking greater transparency into how federal money is being spent.

“I think that both sides will end up wanting more transparency into the money, how the money is spent.”

Meng said Congress has the legal authority to place requirements on the Justice Department through appropriations legislation.

“We have the legal authority to include language that helps write the DOJ and other agencies, but the DOJ’s budget, and so we will certainly exercise that authority whether or not we’re in the majority.”

She also pointed to the possibility of Democrats taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives after the midterms.

“Hopefully, as we’re in the majority after November, we will be able to have more teeth and more ability to apply that pressure and to write the bill in a way that is transparent and doesn’t harm our families.”

Despite the growing public agitation and disappointment over these settlements, Meng said there is not yet a specific schedule for congressional hearings on the issue, but that it may come after the midterms.

“We don’t have a timeline of hearings and specific topics, but CJS is everything under Commerce, Justice, and Science-related agencies,” she said. “Hopefully, when House Democrats control the House and maybe even the Senate, that we’ll be able to claw back some of their overreach.”

Meng also criticized what she described as a Justice Department operating outside the traditional boundaries of the agency.

“They can’t operate as a rogue agency or as a personal law firm of this president, in the way that they’re doing now. Using subpoenas, threatening prosecutions, these settlements — they are tools that are being used, I believe, unethically and illegally.”

Meng said trans children and their families could continue to face the consequences of the administration’s actions as the Justice Department expands its efforts.

“These are maybe low-hanging fruit or easy targets for the administration, but I can see them going after institutions in other states as they started to do as well.”

She said members of Congress have a responsibility to reassure affected families that they are not alone.

“Our job, whether it’s a representative for my Queens families, but for families across America too, is to let them know that I and my colleagues, many of my colleagues, are standing with them.”

“We are still with them, especially with the patients and the families affected by the NYU Langone deal, but any of these institutions and how they’re hurting them.”

Meng said she wants to achieve that through partnerships outside of government.

“We’re gonna do our best to expand partnership with organizations on the ground to make sure that they’re getting the support and the care that they need.”

While talking to the Blade, Meng also raised broader concerns about the relationship between Congress and the executive branch.

“This administration has definitely not followed the Constitution, and I know that there are pending lawsuits,” she said.

Just this week, the Trump-Vance administration was taken to court over what CNN, POLITICO and MS NOW alleged were violations of their First Amendment rights.

Meng said the administration has not treated Congress as an independent branch of government.

“They [the president] do not act as if Congress is a third branch of government. They think and act like Congress works for them, like they’re a part of their agencies that they’re weaponizing.”

Meng said she believes the public has become more aware of the administration’s actions, but that there is still work to do in explaining how those actions unfold.

“I think that the American people’s eyes have been opened a little more under this administration than in past ones … There’s definitely more room to continue to educate the public as to what this administration is doing.”

For Meng, the debate over trans healthcare ultimately comes down to the families affected by the decisions being made in Washington.

“What’s most important is not just the legalese that everyone’s debating these days when news like this comes out. We have to remember that there are real human beings, real families that are being impacted,” she said. “There are people crying behind closed doors in their homes, and they don’t know literally what they can do or where they will call next to get the care that they need and that they want.”

Meng said lawmakers have a responsibility to address the issue legislatively while also supporting families in their communities.

“It’s our job in Washington, in the capital, to fight these fights legislatively. But in our home districts and in our communities, it’s our job to reassure these families that we’re there for them, and that we’re going to be creative, and we’re going to find new partnerships and expand existing ones to make sure that our families have a path forward.”

She said local and state governments are also being forced to find ways to respond — and, in many cases, end up being some of the only places where protections can happen.

“Our local legislators and many of our communities, on the city level, municipal level, and the state level, they’re looking for more funding options, and a lot of them, including in New York, have had to step up in major ways.”

“Everyone has to step up in newer and more creative ways.”

Ultimately, Meng said the focus should remain on the families affected by the decisions.
“But at the end of the day, it’s the families that are impacted that we’re doing this for,” she said.

The Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the U.S., issued a statement this week following the announcement of more settlements.

“This is nothing less than a crisis for families and transgender youth. Since day one, Trump and his callous administration have used the full force of the federal government to come after transgender young people, their families and their doctors — and far too many hospitals are complying and abandoning their patients. Now, even in states with policies that protect transgender people, the options for parents to get their children best-practice, and potentially life-saving healthcare, are dwindling day by day,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said.

“This is the exact outcome Trump wants to see — and this cruelty shouldn’t be lost on anyone who has ever had to make difficult decisions about how to safeguard their child’s health and well-being. Our thoughts are with the countless families across the country who feel scared and under siege. We will not stop fighting until everyone can have access to the healthcare they need.”

While the Blade had her, they also asked about House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), and his decision to send members of Congress home rather than hold a vote on impeaching Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in part over his trans military ban, which has left thousands of highly skilled, ready and able workers sitting on the sidelines awaiting the courts to tell them if they are guaranteed the right to fight on behalf of the country.

“I can’t take credit for this, but someone called it the Hegseth holiday,” Meng said. “This speaker, every time there’s a tough vote, instead of acting as a leader and a speaker, he just calls it quits and he sends us home.”

“I believe — and I’m sure he does — that we had enough votes to impeach Hegseth, and he didn’t want to do it. So off we go.”

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National

Philadelphia event to launch 2026 LGBT History Month

Dr. Fauci to be honored as 31 LGBT ‘Icons’ are announced

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2 days ago

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September 24, 2026

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U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas is among this year’s Icon award recipients from the Equality Forum. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Equality Forum, the Philadelphia-based group that organizes the nation’s annual LGBT History Month in October, is scheduled to launch the 2026 LGBT History Month at a VIP Reception on Sept. 27.

The event, to be held at Philadelphia’s Independence Visitor Center, will honor Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases who is credited with playing a leading role in the fight against HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. Equality Forum was to present Fauci with its International Role Model Award.

The Equality Forum, which operates programs focusing on LGBT history and the people who play a leading role in historic undertakings, will also present its Frank Kameny Award to Erica Deuso, who in 2025 won election as the first openly transgender mayor in the state of Pennsylvania as mayor of the town of Downington, Pa. 

A statement released by the Equality Forum points out that LGBT History Month, held each year, celebrates the achievements of 31 lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender icons throughout the month of October. “Each day in October, a new LGBT icon is featured with a video, bio, bibliography, downloadable images, and other resources,” the statement says.

Although the statement releases the name and a short background description of each of this year’s 31 LGBT icons, the icons were scheduled to be officially announced and honored at the Sept. 27 event.

“The LGBT community is the only community worldwide that is not taught its history at home, in public schools or in religious institutions,” the statement says. “LGBT History Month provides role models, builds community and makes the civil rights statement about our extraordinary national and international contributions,” it says.

This year’s Icons include designer Calvin Klein, media mogul Barry Diller, U.S. Senate hopeful Chris Pappas, and perhaps most notably President Abe Lincoln.

Additional information about the event and a list of the 2026 LGBT Icons can be accessed at lgbthistorymonth.com.    

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Netherlands

Dutch prime minister visits Stonewall Inn

Rob Jetten is the Netherlands’ first openly gay prime minister

Published

3 days ago

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September 23, 2026

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Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, on right, visits the Stonewall Inn in New York on Sept. 21, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Jetten's X account)

Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten on Monday visited the Stonewall Inn in New York.

“The Stonewall Inn is not just a gay bar in New York, but the place where in 1969 riots took place as a reaction to years of discrimination and police violence,” wrote Jetten on X. “This is seen as the starting point of the global LGBTIQ+ emancipation and activism. Nowadays, the bar is a national monument, dedicated to the LGBTIQ+ rights movement.”

“For me, it is impressive and moving to be here tonight. And also fitting, because the defense of human rights is an important part of our foreign policy,” he added. “The Netherlands stands alongside the Stonewall Inn community when it comes to everyone’s right to live openly, safely, and with pride, no matter who you are or who you love.”

Jetten in February became the Netherlands’s first openly gay prime minister.

He opened last month’s World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam. Jetten also participated in a panel with former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, former San Marino Captain Regent Paolo Rondelli, and other current and former heads of government who are gay or lesbian.

Jetten is scheduled to speak to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.

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