Meet Dr. Lilli Vincenz

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Born in Hamburg, Nazi Germany in 1937,  Lilli came to America in 1949.  She served in the Women’s Army Corps until 1963 when she was dishonorably discharged after being outed by her roommate. This led to Lilli becoming a lesbian civil rights pioneer and life-long LGBT activist in Arlington and through the DMV. 

In 1965, she was the only lesbian on first organized picket for gay rights outside the White House, and then the first out lesbian to be featured on a magazine cover  displayed around the country called The Ladder. 

She was the first lesbian member of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. which is a gay political activist organization still in existence today. She was an accomplished writer, editor and filmmaker. Her film, "Gay and Proud", highlighted the early days of the gay rights movement in the United States. 

In 1970, Lilli co-founded the gay newspaper, Gay Blade, that became the Washington Blade we still have today. 

Throughout the entirety of the 1970s, Lilli hosted a secret, illegal lesbian bar from her house in the Columbia Heights West neighborhood of Arlington, VA. She described it in an interview:

"I decided to have women come into our home every week for seven years, and it just become an establishment. And it was wonderful to have them come, and we had musicians come ... lots of women who didn't know where to go, they didn't want to go to the bars, they just wanted to be in a place that was safe, so we provided that."

 In later years, Lilli became a licensed psychotherapist and counselor, including specializing in serving queer patients with AIDS during the epidemic and beyond. 

Vincenz died on June 27, 2023, at the age of 85 in Oakton, VA.