Gaying the Pines
1953 - 2025
Today, Fire Island Pines is known as a Gay Mecca. LGBTQ+ people from around the world flock to enjoy its beaches, homes and entertainment in the full knowledge they can safely be their authentic selves here. But it wasn’t always that way. In a previous article Keeping The Gays Out: The Pines in the Late 1950s FIPPOA Board member and long time Pines resident Gary Clinton described the extensive efforts taken by some community members to keep gay people out of the Pines. As he noted, those efforts died down in 1959 after the largely gay population in Cherry Grove flocked to help the Pines fight the Memorial Day fire that destroyed the Botel. In this article, Gary describes when the shift occurred in the Pines and gays came to be in the majority.
Gaying the Pines:
The FIPPOA Board of Directors
1953- 2025
By Gary Clinton, FIPPOA Board Member. Photo courtesy The University of Pennsylvania
People often wonder, “When did Fire Island Pines become so gay?”
Here’s the answer: In the late 1950’s there was an active movement by the Board of Directors of the Fire Island Pines Property Owners Association (FIPPOA) to keep gays and lesbians from buying homes or renting in the Pines, as outlined in my article Keeping the Gays Out: The Pines in the Late 1950s. https://www.pineshistory.org/the-archives/keeping-out-the-gays-the-pines-in-the-late-1950s
The card version of the notorious “Family Community Sign” in 1958.
Today, Pines home ownership and rentals are overwhelmingly LGBT. When did that shift occur?
Governmental property records, of course, do not indicate property owners’ sexual orientation. However, using FIPPOA Board minutes and documents (the FIPPOA Papers), I was able to compile annual lists of the FIPPOA’s Board of Director from 1953 to 2025. Through my personal knowledge as a long-time Board member, and interviews with friends and colleagues whose knowledge goes back to the early-1960s, I have identified which Board members were LGBT, and tracked the increasing numbers over time. This is the one reliably observable and quantifiable indicator of the LGBT presence in Fire Island Pines.
Membership on the FIPPOA Board requires three things: ownership of Pines property, a willingness to run for election, and getting other property owners to vote for you. Though we cannot know exactly how many Pines property owners were or are in the LGBT community, we have reliable data on the FIPPOA Board, and can show the increase of the LGBT presence there. This is as accurate an indication as possible to show the steady development of the Pines LGBT population.
From its founding by Pines homeowners in 1953, there were no openly gay or lesbian people on the FIPPOA Board until 1960. (These data exclude Frank Carrington, the founder of FIPPOA, whose sexuality was open to question and therefore excluded from the LGBTQ count).
Starting in 1960, when two LGBT members were elected, there has been an upward trend in LGBT presence on the FIPPOA Board of Directors, with the general rise interrupted on occasion by slight drops as some members did not seek reelection, resigned due to ill health, moved from the Pines, or died. I indicate below notable increases in the percentage of the LGBT presence on the Board. (Over the years, the size of the Board has fluctuated between 15 and 26, as the By-Laws have changed).
In 1960, 2 of 26 (8%)
In 1965, 2 of 18 (11%)
In 1968, 7 of 20 (35%).
In 1969, 9 of 20 (45%)
In 1974, 10 of 20 (50%)
In 1977, 11 of 20 (55%)
In 1988, 12 of 19 (63%)
In 1994, 16 of 20 (80%)
In 2002, 18 of 20 (90%)
In 2021, 15 of 15 (100%)
In 2024, 15 of 16 (94%).
Each of these years shows a significant development in the LGBT presence on Fire Island Pines Property Owners Association Board of Directors, with particularly significant jumps in 1960 (the first two LGBT individuals), 1968 (one-third of the Board), 1974 (one-half of the Board), 1988 (almost two-thirds of the Board), 1994 (four- fifths of the Board), and 2021 (the full Board).