Gay Rights

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LGBT social movements share related goals of social acceptance of homosexuality, bisexuality, or transgenderism. LGBT refers to lesbian, gay, bisexuality and transgender people, and their movements include the Gay and Lesbian Rights Movement, Gay Liberation, lesbian feminism, the queer movement and list of transgender-rights organizations. A commonly stated goal is social equality for LGBT people; some have also focused on building LGBT communities, or worked towards liberation for the broader society from Sexual norm. LGBT movements organized today are made up of a wide range of political activism and cultural activity, such as lobbying and Demonstration (people); social groups, support groups and community events; magazines, films and literature; academic research and writing; and even business activity.

Traditionally in Western culture, homosexual acts have been condemned and penalized, sometimes with the death penalty stipulated for "sodomy." For over a hundred years, reformers and activists have worked to reduce persecution of homosexuals, and sodomy laws are now uncommon or rarely enforced in Western countries. The successes of this movement have come along successes in parallel liberal causes, such as the new social movements. Goals and strategies Sociologist Mary Bernstein writes: "For the lesbian and gay movement, then, cultural goals include (but are not limited to) challenging dominant constructions of masculinity and femininity, homophobia, and the primacy of the gendered heterosexual nuclear family (heteronormativity). Political goals include changing laws and policies in order to gain new rights, benefits, and protections from harm."Bernstein, Mary (2002). Identities and Politics: Toward a Historical Understanding of the Lesbian and Gay Movement. Social Science History 26:3 (fall 2002). Bernstein emphasizes that activists seek both types of goals in both the civil and political spheres.

As with other social movements, there is also conflict within and between LGBT movements, especially about strategies for change and debates over exactly who comprises the constituency that these movements represent. There is debate over to what extent lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgendered people, intersexed people and others share common interests and a need to work together. Leaders of the lesbian and gay movement of the 1970s, 80s and 90s often attempted to hide butch lesbians, feminine gay men, transgendered people, and bisexuals from the public eye, creating internal divisions within LGBT communities.Bull, C., and J. Gallagher (1996) Perfect Enemies: The Religious Right, the Gay Movement, and the Politics of the 1990s. New York: Crown.

LGBT movements have often adopted a kind of identity politics that sees lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and/or transgender people as a fixed class of people; a minority group or groups. Those using this approach aspire to liberalism political goals of freedom and equal opportunity, and aim to join the political mainstream on the same level as other groups in society.One example of this approach is: Andrew Sullivan. (1997) Same-Sex Marriage: Pro and Con. New York: Vintage. In arguing that sexual orientation and gender identity are innate and cannot be consciously changed, attempts to change gay, lesbian and bisexual people into heterosexuals ("reparative therapy") are generally opposed.

However, others within LGBT movements have criticised identity politics as limited and flawed,e.g. Dennis Altman. (1982) ‘‘The gay movement ten years later.’’ Nation, 13 November: 494–96.
Urvashi Vaid. (1995) Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation. New York: Anchor. and have instead aimed to transform fundamental institutions of society (such as lesbian feminism) or have argued that all members of society have the potential for same-sex sexuality (such as Adolf Brand or Gay Liberation) or a broader range of gender expression (such as the transgender writing of Kate Bornstein). Some elements of the queer movement have argued that the categories of gay and lesbian are restrictive, and attempted to Deconstruction those categories, which are seen to "reinforce rather than challenge a cultural system that will always mark the nonheterosexual as inferior."Bernstein (2002)

Opposition LGBT movements are opposed by a variety of individuals and organizations. They may have a personal, moral or religious objection to homosexuality. Studies have consistently shown that people with negative Societal attitudes towards homosexuality are more likely to be male, older, religious, Conservatism, and have little close personal contact with coming out gay men and lesbians.Studies finding that heterosexual men usually exhibit more hostile attitudes toward gay men and lesbians than do heterosexual women: *Herek, G. M. (1994). Assessing heterosexuals’ attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. In "B. Greene and G.M. Herek (Eds.) Psychological perspectives on lesbian and gay issues: Vol. 1 Lesbian and gay psychology: Theory, research, and clinical applications." Thousands Oaks, Ca: Sage. *Kite, M.E. (1984). Sex differences in attitudes toward homosexuals: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Homosexuality, 10 (1-2), 69-81. *Morin, S., & Garfinkle, E. (1978). Male homophobia. Journal of Social Issues, 34 (1), 29-47. *Thompson, E., Grisanti, C., & Pleck, J. (1985). Attitudes toward the male role and their correlates. Sex Roles, 13 (7/8), 413-427.

For other correlates, see:

*Larson et al. (1980) Heterosexuals' Attitudes Toward Homosexuality, The Journal of Sex Research, 16, 245-257 *Herek, G. (1988), Heterosexuals' Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men, The Journal of Sex Research, 25, 451-477 *Kite, M.E., & Deaux, K., 1986. Attitudes toward homosexuality: Assessment and behavioral consequences. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 7, 137-162 *Haddock, G., Zanna, M. P., & Esses, V. M. (1993). Assessing the structure of prejudicial attitudes: The case of attitudes toward homosexuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 1105-1118. *Lewis, Gregory B., Black-White Differences in Attitudes toward Homosexuality and Gay Rights, Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 67, Number 1, Pp. 59-78 They are also more likely to have negative attitudes towards other minority groupsHerek, G.M. (1991). Stigma, prejudice, and violence against lesbians and gay men. In: J. Gonsiorek & J. Weinrich (Eds.), "Homosexuality: Research implications for public policy" (pp. 60-80). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. and support traditional gender roles. Kyes, K.B. & Tumbelaka, L. (1994). Comparison of Indonesian and American college students' attitudes toward homosexuality. Psychological Reports, This includes possible anger at the dismissal of others believes to justify there own 74, 227-237.

History Before 1860 In Early Modern Europe and European history#The 19th century, same-sex sexual behaviour and cross-dressing were widely considered to be socially unacceptable, and were serious crimes under sodomy and sumptuary laws. Any organized community or social life was underground and secret. Thomas Cannon wrote what may be the earliest published defence of homosexuality in English, Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify'd (1749). Social reformer Jeremy Bentham wrote the first known argument for homosexual law reform in England around 1785, at a time when the legal penalty for "buggery" was death by hanging.Jeremy Bentham, Offences Against One's Self, c1785 ( full text online). However, he feared reprisal, and his powerful essay was not published until 1978. The emerging currents of secular humanism thought which had inspired Bentham also informed the French Revolution, and when the newly-formed National Constituent Assembly began drafting the policies and laws of the new republic in 1790, groups of militant 'sodomite-citizens' in Paris petitioned the Assemblée nationale, the governing body of the French Revolution, for freedom and recognition.Blasius, Mark and Phelan, Shane (eds.), 1997. "We Are Everywhere: A Historical Sourcebook of Gay and Lesbian Politics", New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-90859-0 In 1791 France became the first nation to decriminalise homosexuality, probably thanks in part to the homosexual Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès who was one of the authors of the Napoleonic code.

In 1833, an anonymous English-language writer wrote a poetic defence of Captain Nicholas Nicholls, who had been sentenced to death in London for sodomy: Whence spring these inclinations, rank and strong? And harming no one, wherefore call them wrong?

Three years later in Switzerland, Heinrich Hoessli published the first volume of Eros: Die Mannerliebe der Griechen ("Eros: The Male-love of the Greeks"), another defence of same-sex love.

1860 - 1944 Modern historians usually look to German activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs as the pioneer of the LGBT rights movement. Ulrichs coming out publicly and began publishing books about same-sex love and gender variance in the 1860s, a few years before the term "homosexual" was first published in 1869. Ulrichs' Uranians were people with a range of gender expressions and same-sex desires; he considered himself "a female psyche in a male body".

From the 1870s. social reformers in other countries had begun to take up the Uranian cause, but their identities were kept secret for fear of reprisal. A secret British society called the "Order of Chaeronea" campaigned for the legalisation of homosexuality, and counted playwright Oscar Wilde among its members in the last decades of the 19th century.McKenna, Neil (2003), "The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde: An Intimate Biography". (London: Century) ISBN 0-7126-6986-8 In the 1890s, English socialism poet Edward Carpenter and Scottish anarchism John Henry Mackay wrote in defense of same-sex love and androgyny; Carpenter and British homosexual rights advocate John Addington Symonds contributed to the development of Havelock Ellis's groundbreaking book Sexual Inversion, which called for tolerance towards "inverts" and was suppressed when first published in England.

was a prominent German physician, sexologist, and gay rights advocate.In Europe and America, a broader movement of "free love" was also emerging from the 1860s among first-wave feminism and radicals of the libertarian left. They critiqued Victorian morality and the traditional institutions of family and marriage that were seen to enslave women. Some advocates of free love in the early 20th century also spoke in defence of same-sex love and challenged repressive legislation, such as the Russian anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman.

In 1898, German doctor and writer Magnus Hirschfeld formed the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee to campaign publicly against the notorious law "Paragraph 175", which made sex between men illegal. Adolf Brand later broke away from the group, disagreeing with Hirschfeld's medical view of the "third sex", seeing male-male sex as merely an aspect of manly virility and male social bonding. Brand was the first to use "outing" as a political strategy, claiming that German Chancellor of Germany Bernhard von Bülow engaged in homosexual activity.

The 1901 book Sind es Frauen? Roman über das dritte Geschlecht (Are These Women? Novel about the Third Sex) by Aimée Duc was as much a political treatise as a novel, criticising pathological theories of homosexuality and gender inversion in women.Breger, Claudia. 2005. Feminine Masculinities: Scientific and Literary Representations of "Female Inversion" at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Journal of the History of Sexuality 14.1/2 (2005) 76-106 Anna Rüling, delivering a public speech in 1904 at the request of Hirschfeld, became the first female Uranian activist. Rüling, who also saw "men, women, and homosexuals" as three distinct genders, called for an alliance between the women's and sexual reform movements, but this speech is her only known contribution to the cause. Women only began to join the previously male-dominated sexual reform movement around 1910 when the German government tried to expand Paragraph 175 to outlaw sex between women. Heterosexual feminist leader Helene Stöcker became a prominent figure in the movement. Friedrich Radszuweit published LGBT literature and magazines in Berlin (for example "Die Freundin").

Hirschfeld, whose life was dedicated to social progress for homosexual and transgender people, formed the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexology) in 1919. The institute conducted an enormous amount of research, saw thousands of transgender and homosexual clients at consultations, and championed a broad range of sexual reforms including sex education, contraception and women's rights. However, the gains made in Germany would soon be History of Gays during the Holocaust with the rise of Nazism, and the institute and its library were destroyed in 1933. The Swiss journal Der Kreis was the only part of the movement to continue through the Nazi era.

In the United States, several secret or semi-secret groups were formed explicitly to advance the rights of homosexuals as early as the turn of the twentieth century, but little is known about them.Norton, Rictor, (2005), " The Suppression of Lesbian and Gay History" A better documented group is Henry Gerber's The Society for Human Rights formed in Chicago in 1924, which was quickly suppressed.Bullough, Vern, " When Did the Gay Rights Movement Begin?", 18 April, 2005

' from October 1957. The motif of masks and unmasking was prevalent in the homophile era, prefiguring the political strategy of coming out and giving the Mattachine Society its name.

1945 - 1968 Immediately following World War II, a number of homosexual rights groups came into being or were revived across the Western world, in Britain, France, Germany, Holland, the Scandinavian countries and the United States. These groups usually preferred the term homophile to "homosexual", emphasising love over sex. The homophile movement began in the late 1940s with groups in the Netherlands and Denmark, and continued throughout the 1950s and 1960s with groups in Sweden, Norway, the United States, France, Britain and elsewhere. ONE, Inc., the first public homosexual organization in the U.S,Percy, William A. & William Edward Glover, 2005, Before Stonewall, November 5, 2005 was bankrolled by the wealthy transsexual man Reed Erickson. A U.S. transgender-rights journal, Transvestia: The Journal of the American Society for Equality in Dress, also published two issues in 1952.

The homophile movement lobbied within established political systems for social acceptability; radicals of the 1970s would later disparage the homophile groups for being Cultural assimilation. Any demonstrations were orderly and polite.Matzner, 2004, " Stonewall Riots " By 1969, there were dozens of homophile organizations and publications in the U.S,Percy, 2005, " Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights" and a national organization had been formed, but they were largely ignored by the media. A 1965 gay march held in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, according to some historians, marked the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. Meanwhile in San Francisco in 1966, transgender street prostitutes in the poor neighbourhood of Tenderloin, San Francisco, California rioted against police harassment at a popular all-night restaurant, Compton's cafeteria riot

1969 - 1974 's links with the counterculture are also evident.The new social movements of the sixties, such as the Black Power and Opposition to the Vietnam War movements in the U.S, the May 1968 insurrection in France, and Feminist movement throughout the Western world, inspired some LGBT activists to become more radical, and the Gay Liberation emerged towards the end of the decade. This new radicalism is often attributed to the Stonewall riots of 1969, when a group of transgender, lesbian and gay male patrons at a bar in New York resisted a police raid. Although Gay Liberation was already underway, Stonewall certainly provided a rallying point for the fledgling movement.

Immediately after Stonewall, such groups as the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), in part founded by Morris Kight, and the Gay Activists' Alliance (GAA) were formed. Their use of the word "gay" represented a new unapologetic defiance — as an antonym for "straight" ('respectable sexual behaviour'), it encompassed a range of non-normative sexualities and gender expressions, such as transgender street prostitutes, and sought ultimately to free the bisexual potential in everyone, rendering obsolete the categories of homosexual and heterosexual.Dennis Altman (1971). Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation. New York: Outerbridge & Dienstfrey.Adam, B. D. (1987). The rise of a gay and lesbian movement. Boston: Twayne Publishers. According to Gay Lib writer Toby Marotta, "their Gay political outlooks were not homophile but liberationist".Marotta, Toby, The Politics of Homosexuality, Boston, p. 68 "Out, loud and proud", they engaged in colourful street theatre.Gallagher,John & Bull, Chris, 1996, Perfect Enemies The GLF’s "A Gay Manifesto" set out the aims for the fledgling gay liberation movement, and influential intellectual Paul Goodman (writer) published “The Politics of Being Queer” (1969). Chapters of the GLF were established across the U.S. and in other parts of the Western world. The Front Homosexuel d'Action Révolutionnaire was formed in 1971 by lesbians who split from the Mouvement Homophile de France in 1971. One of the values of the movement was gay pride. Organized by an early Gay Liberation Front leader Brenda Howard, the Stonewall riots were commemorated by annual marches that became known as Gay pride parades. From 1970 activists protested the classification of homosexuality as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association in their DSM, and in 1974 it was replaced with a category of "sexual orientation disurbance" then "ego-dystonic homosexuality", which was also deleted, although "gender identity disorder" remains.

1975 - 1986 , 1976.From the anarchistic Gay Liberation Movement of the early 1970s arose a more reformism and single-issue "Gay Rights Movement", which portrayed gays and lesbians as a minority group and used the language of civil rights — in many respects continuing the work of the homophile period.Epstein, S. (1999). Gay and lesbian movements in the United States: Dilemmas of identity, diversity, and political strategy. in B. D. Adam, J. Duyvendak, & A. Krouwel (Eds.), "The global emergence of gay and lesbian politics" (pp. 30-90). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. In Berlin, for example, the radical Homosexuelle Aktion Westberlin was eclipsed by the Allgemeine Homosexuelle Arbeitsgemeinschaft.Hekman, Gert; Oosterhuis, Harry; Steakley, James (1995). Leftist Sexual Politics and Homosexuality: A Historical Overview, Journal of Homosexuality. New York: Sep 30, 1995. Vol.29, Iss. 2/3 This period also saw a shift away from transgender issues, and butch "bar dykes" and flamboyant "street queens" came to be seen as negative stereotypes of lesbians and gays. Veteran activists such as Sylvia Rivera and Beth Elliot were sidelined or expelled because they were transsexual. During this period, the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) was formed (1978), and it continues to campaign for lesbian and gay human rights with the United Nations and individual national governments., represents Lesbians and Gay men. It is the most recognised symbol of the LGBT rights movement.Lesbian feminism, which was most influential from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s, encouraged women to direct their energies toward other women rather than men, and advocated lesbianism as the logical result of feminism.Adrienne Rich. (1980). Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence. Signs, 5, 631-660. As with Gay Liberation, this understanding of the lesbian potential in all women was at odds with the minority-rights framework of the Gay Rights movement. Many women of the Gay Liberation movement felt frustrated at the domination of the movement by men and formed separate organisations; some who felt gender differences between men and women could not be resolved developed "lesbian separatism", influenced by writings such as Jill Johnston's 1973 book Lesbian Nation. Disagreements between different political philosophies were, at times, extremely heated, and became known as the lesbian sex wars, Lesbian Sex Wars, article by Elise Chenier from GLBTQ encyclopedia. clashing in particular over views on sadomasochism, prostitution and Transsexualism. The term "gay" came to be more strongly associated with homosexual males.

In Canada, the coming into effect of s.15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1985 saw a shift in the gay rights movement in Canada, as Canadian gays and lesbians moved from liberation to litigious strategies. Premised on Charter protections and on the notion of the immutability of homosexuality, judicial rulings rapidly advanced rights, including those that compelled the Canadian government to legalize same-sex marriage. It has been argued that while this strategy was extremely effective in advancing the safety, dignity and equality of Canadian homosexuals, its emphasis of sameness came at the expense of difference and may have undermined opportunities for more meaningful change.Lehman, M. (2005). .

The LGBT social movement was also carried out by some religious groups. An example of this is Troy Perry, the founder of the Metropolitcan Comunity Church.

1987 - present Some consider that a new era of the gay rights movement began in the 1980s with the emergence of AIDS, which decimated the leadership and shifted the focus for many. This era saw a resurgence of militancy with direct action groups like AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (formed in 1987), and its offshoots Queer Nation (1990) and the Lesbian Avengers (1992). Some younger activists, seeing "gay and lesbian" as increasingly normative and politically conservative, began using the word queer as a defiant statement of all sexual minority and gender variant people — just as the earlier liberationists had done with the word "gay". Less confrontational terms that attempt to reunite the interests of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transpeople also became prominent, including various Acronym and initialism like LGBT, LGBTQ, and LGBTI. As of 2006, these acronyms have become commonplace descriptors used by organisations that once described themselves as "gay rights" groups.

The goals of the movement also changed. The issue of sexual freedom became less important because

it had been achieved in the most important cities; and
It had contributed to the spread of the AIDS epidemic.

During the 1980s, gay activists focused on survival issues and on acquiring the right to get married. It was obvious that a closeted life of furtive sexual encounters with strangers was risky and unsatisfying, at least to many activists: notably Larry Kramer. Some activists began working on efforts to get cities and states to recognize domestic partnerships, civil unions, and even same-sex marriages. These efforts inspired a prompt backlash from the Religious Right and other conservative groups, culminating in the proposed Defense of Marriage Amendment, which stated explicitly what most people had always assumed: namely, that a marriage was a relationship between one man and one woman.

In the 1990s, organizations began to spring up in non-western countries, such as Progay Philippines, which was founded in 1993 and organized the first Gay Pride march in Asia on June 26, 1994. In many countries, LGBT organizations remain illegal (as of 2006) and transgender and homosexual activists face extreme opposition from the state. Also, many activists attempted to turn the attention of the West to the situation of queers in non-western countries.

The 1990s also saw a rapid expansion of transgender rights movements across the globe. Hijra (South Asia) activists campaigned for recognition as a third gender in India and Travesti groups began to organize against police brutality across Latin America, while activists in the United States formed militant groups such as Transexual Menace. An important text was Leslie Feinberg's, "Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come", published in 1992. 1993 is considered to mark the beginning of a new movement of Intersexuality, with the founding of the Intersex Society of North America by Cheryl Chase (activist).

In many cases, LGBTI rights movements came to focus on questions of intersectionality, the interplay of oppressions arising from being both queer and social class, colored, disabled, etc.

See also

Articles

Age of consent
Declaration of Montreal
LGBT rights opposition
Heterosexism
Homophobia
Homosexual agenda
Homosexuality in India
Homosexuality laws of the world
LGBT movements in the United States
List of gay-rights organizations
List of LGBT rights activists
Pro-gay slogans and symbols
Queer nationalism
Special rights
Timeline of LGBT history
Transgenderism