The Network sprang from the Boston-based Gaylaxian Science Fiction Society, an organization founded by Franklin Hummel (see Necronomicon: Providence) and assisted by John R Dumas began in 1986; Hummel was the group's first president. In 1987 Hummel then founded the Gaylactic Network (later called Gaylaxians International) as an umbrella organization for the many gay fandom clubs like the Gaylaxian Science Fiction Society that were forming locally in the United States
