Gay rights activist Tom Gallagher passes away at age 77

Tom Gallagher, the first US Foreign Service officer to come out as gay, passed away on July 8th due to complications from a bacterial infection. He is survived by his husband Amin Dulkumoni. Gallagher was a champion of the gay rights movement, coming to notoriety in 1975 when he publically came out at a Gay Activist Alliance conference in Washington, D.C.

“At the end of my speech [at the conference], a member of the audience asked what the State Department thought about my sex life,” he recalled in an interview with his alma mater, Monmouth University. “I replied that they didn’t know. ’I guess this is a coming out party,’ I said, to a rousing standing ovation.”

Gallagher left his job at the Foreign Service a year later, knowing his sexual orientation would be scrutinised if he stayed. He moved to San Francisco and became a social worker, working closely with sex workers and AIDS patients. He eventually returned to the state department in 1994 under Bill Clinton.

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