Madeline Davis

Madeline Davis (born 1940) is a noted gay rights activist. In 1970 she was a founding member of the Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier, the first gay rights organization in Western New York. In 1972, Davis taught the first course on lesbianism in the United States. She was also a founding member of HAG Theater, the first all-lesbian theater company in the US.

Davis was a founder of the Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier in the first quarter of 1970. She eventually became President of the organization. In the 1970s, Davis organized "Legislative Night", at which local candidates for public office, for the first time in Buffalo political history, answered questions and sought endorsements. She was a regular lecturer on the subject of human sexuality to preceptors and medical students at the University at Buffalo (U.B.), and also organized workshops and study groups. Davis marched and spoke at the first gay rights rally at the New York State Capitol in 1971, and participated in the original effort to lobby that state's legislature on behalf of the gay rights movement.

In 1972, she became the first openly lesbian delegate elected to a major political convention when she was elected to the Democratic National Convention in Miami, Florida. She addressed the convention in support of the inclusion of a gay rights plank in the Democratic Party platform. Davis became a member of the Democratic Committee, and worked within the party for the acceptance of gays and lesbians.

As part of the Political Action Committee of Mattachine, she confronted the Buffalo Vice Squad on the issue of entrapment and gay bar raids. She challenged the publication of the names of gays and lesbians arrested for misdemeanors by Buffalo Evening News, and of other denigrating news articles in a number of publications. She spoke up against hate speeches by local politicians, including the District Attorney for Niagara Falls.

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