Lesbian and gay choirs go back as far as 1975, with the formation of the Anna Crusis Women’s Choir. Two years later the Gotham Male Chorus formed, then became the Stonewall Chorale in 1979 when women joined.

By the end of the 70s there were a handful of LGBT choirs in the USA; the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus began in 1978, and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles and the Montrose Singers (who eventually became the Gay Men’s Chorus of Houston) in 1979.

Then the 80s arrived and the process really gathered pace. By the end of 1980 New York had seen the establishment and merger of two choirs – the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus and the Big Apple Gay Men’s Chorus. And in Dallas a gay men’s chorus was established there under the name of the Turtle Creek Chorale.

The following year the Gay Liberation Quire was formed in Sydney, Australia. That same year, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus set off on their first national tour – an event that seemed to trigger a blossoming of choirs around the world.

A group of Canadian men who had driven down to Seattle to see SFGMC were so inspired they went home and immediately set up the Vancouver Men’s Choir. Interest grew so quickly that a meeting of 12 LGBT choirs was organised in Chicago and the idea of a coordinating network began to come together, initially called GALA Performing Arts.

Choirs continued to spring up, with the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus, the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus and Gaykor in Sweden forming in 1982.

In that same year, 14 choirs met up at the First West Coast Choral Festival in San Francisco, organised to tie in with the Gay Games. This also led to the establishment of GALA Choruses Network.

In 1983 1,200 people came together for the first National Gay and Lesbian Choral Festival – COAST (Come Out and Sing Together). The Festival also saw the first GALA Leadership conference where a formal infrastructure was put in place and the first President was elected. By the end of the year, 39 choruses were members of GALA and the numbers have continued to grow ever since. Now there are more than 180 choruses from across the world.