LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) -- On January 26, 1999, the Louisville board of aldermen passed the Fairness Ordinance, which extended civil rights protections to members of the LGBTQ community, making it illegal to discriminate against anyone based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
While Saturday evening's event at the Louisville Free Public Library's downtown branch was a time to celebrate the success of the legislation, the people who fought for the protections all those years before also remembered the hardships of getting the law passed after it was first introduced in in 1991.
"We were up against the power of hate and the power of denial, the power of rejection, the power of just wait - it's not your time," Carla Wallace, a member of the Fairness Campaign, said.
"Things that you and I take for granted, it actually wasn't easy back in those days," Dawn Wilson, a Louisville Metro Human Relations Commissioner, said. "Twenty years ago, you would be afraid to come out and say, 'Hey, I'm going to a restaurant.'"
Wilson, who has served on the Human Relations Commission for 10 years, was one of the members of the Fairness Campaign during the 1990s when the group was pushing for the Fairness Ordinance. As a transperson, Wilson was personally very familiar with the challenges faced as a member of the LGBTQ community, often finding herself blackballed from jobs, even after the ordinance was passed.
"It was scary because I was putting myself out in front of people who didn't know me," she said. "And they would make a judgment call. Do I want this person? Is this person a 'freak?'"
In the 20 years since, Wilson said things have vastly improved, but there is still a lot of work to be done, especially when it comes to bullying towards people in the LGBTQ community. But she hopes the work she and the others who fought for the Fairness Ordinance can help pave the way for others, making the next generation's road a little easier to travel.
►Contact reporter Dennis Ting at dting@whas11.com. Follow him on Twitter (@DennisJTing) and Facebook.