Ten Percent Society

The Ten Percent Society is the name of the first gay rights organization in North Dakota created by students and faculty at the University of North Dakota in 1982. The organization gained its name from a widely held (but false){{}} belief that scientist Alfred Kinsey's research in the 1940s and 1950s had stated that ten percent of the population was gay. While the organization had little early success, it started to foster an increased tolerance for gay people and a more active LGBT rights movement in North Dakota.

LGBT rights in North Dakota

State law prohibited private, adult and consensual sodomy from 1862, as a territory, until it was formally repealed in 1975, with an age of consent set at eighteen. From 1913 - 1965, North Dakota State law permitted sterilization of "mentally ill" prisoners, which expanded into a general power to sterilize any non-convict who was deemed to be a "degenerate" and "sexual pervert".

In the 1970s, a bar in Fargo, North Dakota had a "gay section", although it burnt to the ground. After this, some gay men would socialize outside another Fargo establishment, "The Flame" or at some Fargo restaurants, including Roger's Sandwich Shop on Broadway and a Chinese restaurant that became a disco at night.

The Fargo gay bar, owned by Lenny Tweeden, was a successful Fargo business and attracted LGBT people from across the State of North Dakota and many residents from west-central Minnesota. The gay/lesbian bar closed its doors in 1989, and Lenny Tweeden started up a new Fargo business called OMNI Hobby. "My Place" survived for as long as it did, thanks in no small part to then-Fargo Mayor Jon Lindgren. At Tweeden's request, Lindgren issued official pride proclamations in the 1980s, often with the opposition of the city council, and publicly expressed his support for gay/lesbian rights.

Yet despite these signs of progress, LGBT rights were largely ignored or opposed in North Dakota. In the 1980s, the state legislators passed a statewide civil rights legislation, which did not include sexual orientation or gender identity. During this same decade, the State Supreme Court ruled that LGBT people should not have custody of children, albeit the court formally reversed itself in 2003. No major LGBT developments occurred until 1999.^{[citation needed]}

In 2004, voters overwhelmingly approved of a State Constitutional amendment banning legal recognition of same-sex marriage or civil unions.

See also

• LGBT rights in the United States
• List of LGBT rights organizations

External links

• UND Ten Percent Society
• North Dakota Human Rights Coalition