06/03/2026
Happy Pride Month! This June, we honor the lives, courage, and contributions of LGBTQIA+ members of our communities. Two organizations that have long championed q***r rights in Boston are the Fenway Community Health Center and the Bromfield Street Educational Foundation. In 1971, David Scondras, Linda Beane, and nursing students from Northeastern formed the Fenway Community Health Center to provide accessible healthcare to Fenway’s q***r residents. Now called Fenway Health, the organization remains dedicated to “providing high quality, comprehensive healthcare” for Boston’s LGBTQ+ communities.
Fenway Health focuses on compassionate and equitable healthcare rooted in q***r rights and racial justice. In 1981, Fenway diagnosed the first official case of AIDs in New England. They expanded into community outreach efforts in the 1990s, hosting fundraising events for Fenway Women’s Health, establishing the Le***an Health Research Subcommittee, and participating in the Boston to New York AIDSride, the largest AIDs fundraiser in the country. In 2004, Fenway launched the Transgender Health Program, and in 2007 published the first American textbook about LGBT-specific healthcare needs, The Fenway Guide to LGBT Health. Northeastern has been a long-time supporter of the center, donating $25,000 dollars a year in the 1990s to support their work.
Another renowned local q***r organization is the Bromfield Street Educational Foundation, which began as Gay Community News (GCN) in 1973. Founded by eight q***r Bostonians as a two-page mimeograph, GCN grew just two years later into a regional publication for the Northeast. By 1991, GCN was the oldest national gay newspaper still in publication. Although the organization disbanded in 1999, GCN’s impact remains felt to this day, with many GCN alums becoming leaders in the LGBTQ+ movement. GCN is remembered as one of the most progressive newspapers of its time, critically addressing issues of sexuality, class, race, gender, and incarceration.
To make GCN accessible to all, Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections has digitized the majority of the paper’s issues. Browse these digitized materials at https://repository.library.northeastern.edu/collections/neu:gm80jm85b. To learn more about Fenway Health, see the Archives’ finding aid at https://archivesspace.library.northeastern.edu/repositories/2/resources/937.