gay rights movement
gay rights movement,civil rightsmovement that advocatesequal
rightsfor LGBTQ persons (i.e., forlesbians, gays[homosexual
males],bisexuals,transgenderpersons, andqueerpersons); seeks
to eliminatesodomy laws; and calls for an end todiscrimination
against LGBTQ persons in employment, credit, housing, public
accommodations, and other areas of life. (Although the termgayis
commonly used in reference to homosexual males, it is also used
more generally to refer to homosexual males together with some or
all other orientations within theLGBTQ community.This article
will use the term in the latter sense.)
Gay rights prior to the 20th century
ow to preserve LGBTQ+ history in the face of hateIn a world where LGBTQ+ history is
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often overlooked, preserving it becomes a spectacular act.
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Religiousadmonitionsagainst sexual relations betweenindividuals
of the same sex (particularly men) long stigmatized such behavior,
but most legal codes inEuropewere silent on thesubject of
homosexualityandbisexuality. The judicial systemsof many
predominantlyMuslimcountriesinvokedIslamic law(S
harīʿah) in
a wide range ofcontexts, and many sexual or quasi-sexual acts,
including same-sex intimacy, were criminalized in those countries
and made subject to severe penalties, including execution.
Beginning in the 16th century, lawmakers in England began to
categorize sexual relations between males as criminal rather than
simply immoral. In the 1530s, during the reign ofHenry VIII,
Englandpassed the Buggery Act, which made sexualrelations
between men a criminal offense punishable by death. In England
and Great Britain, sodomy remained a capital offense punishable
by hanging until 1861. Two decades later, in 1885,Parliament
passed anamendment, sponsored byHenry Du Pré Labouchere,
that created the offense of “gross indecency” for same-sex male
sexual relations, enabling any form of sexual behavior between
men to be prosecuted (lesbian sexual relations—because they were
unimaginable to male legislators—were not subject to the law).
Likewise, inGermanyin the early 1870s, when thecountry was
integratingthe civil codes of variousdisparatekingdoms,the final
German penal code included Paragraph 175, which criminalized
same-sex male relations and made them subject to penalties
including imprisonment and loss of civil rights.
The beginning of the gay rights movement
hy is Pride Month in June?Pride Month commemorates the Stonewall riots, which
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began on June 28, 1969, after police raided the Stonewall Inn bar in New York
City.
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Before the end of the 19th century there were scarcely any
“movements” for gay rights. Indeed, in his poem “Two Loves”
(1894),Lord Alfred (“Bosie”) Douglas,Oscar Wilde’slover,
declared “I [homosexuality] am the love that dare not speak its
name.” Homosexual and bisexual men and women were given
voice in 1897 with the founding of theScientific-Humanitarian
Committee(Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee; WhK)in
Berlin. Their first activity was a petition to callfor therepealof
Paragraph 175 of the Imperial Penal Code (submitted 1898, 1922,
and 1925). The committee published emancipation literature,
sponsored rallies, and campaigned for legal reform throughout
Germany as well as in the Netherlands and Austria, and by 1922 it
had developed some 25 local chapters.
One of the founders of WhK wasMagnus Hirschfeld,who in 1919
opened theInstitute for Sexual Science(Institutfür
Sexualwissenschaft), which anticipated by decades other scientific
centers (such as theKinsey Institute for Researchin Sex, Gender,
and Reproduction, in theUnited States) that specializedin sex
research. He also helped sponsor theWorld Leagueof Sexual
Reform, which was established in 1928 at a conferencein
Copenhagen.
Despite Paragraph 175 and the failure of the WhK to win its repeal,
homosexualand bisexual men and women experienceda certain
amount of freedom in Germany, particularly during theWeimar
period, between the end ofWorld War Iand theNaziseizure of
power. In many larger German cities, gay nightlife became
tolerated, and the number of gay publications increased. Indeed,
according to some historians, the number of gay bars and
periodicals in Berlin in the 1920s exceeded that inNew York City
six decades later.Adolf Hitler’s seizure of power ended this
relatively liberal period. He ordered the reinvigorated enforcement
of Paragraph 175, and on May 6, 1933, German student athletes
raided and ransacked Hirschfeld’s archives and burned the
institute’s materials in a public square.
Outside Germany other organizations were also created. For
example, in 1914 the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology
was founded byEdward CarpenterandHavelock Ellisfor both
promotional and educational purposes, and in the United States in
1924 Henry Gerber, an immigrant from Germany, founded the
Society for Human Rights, which was chartered by the state of
Illinois.
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Despite the formation of such groups, political activity by
homosexuals and bisexuals was generally not very visible. Indeed,
gays were often harassed by the police wherever they congregated.
World War IIand its aftermath began to change that.The war
brought many young people to cities and brought visibility to the
gaycommunity. In the United States this greater visibility brought
some backlash, particularly from the government and thepolice:
the government often fired gay civil servants, the military
attempted to purge its ranks of gay soldiers (a policy enacted
during World War II), and police vice squads frequently raided gay
bars and arrested their patrons. However, there was also greater
political activity among gays, aimed in large measure at
decriminalizing sodomy.
he gay rights movement since the mid-20th
T
century
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Guide to LGBTQ+ Pride FlagsThis infographic givesinformation about the various
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LGBTQ+ pride flags.
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GBTQ+ Pride Flag TimelineThis timeline shows wheneach of the LGBTQ+ pride flags
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was created and by whom.
Beginning in the mid-20th century, an increasing number of gay
organizations were formed. The Cultuur en Ontspannings Centrum
(“Culture and Recreation Center”), or COC, was founded in 1946 in
Amsterdam. In the United States the first major male organization,
founded in 1950–51 byHarry Hayin Los Angeles, wasthe
Mattachine Society(its name reputedly derived fromamedieval
French society of masked players, the Société Mattachine, to
represent the public “masking” of homosexuality), while the
Daughters of Bilitis(named after theSapphiclovepoems ofPierre
Louÿs,Chansons de Bilitis), founded in 1955 by PhyllisLyon and
Del Martin inSan Francisco, was a leading group forwomen. In
addition, the United States saw the publication of a national gay
periodical,One, which in 1958 won aU.S. Supreme Courtruling
that enabled it to be mailed through the U.S. Postal Service. In
Britain in 1957 a commission chaired by Sir John Wolfenden issued
a groundbreaking report (seeWolfenden Report) recommending
that private homosexualliaisonsbetween consentingadults be
removed from the domain ofcriminal law; a decadelater the
recommendation wasimplementedbyParliamentin the Sexual
Offences Act.
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hat were the Stonewall riots?Learn about the Stonewalluprising, the riots outside
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New York's Stonewall Inn that sparked a new era of LGBTQ activism.
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Stonewall InnThe Stonewall Inn, Greenwich Village, New York City.
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ride Month: Amsterdam, 2008A large crowd gatheringalong the Amsterdam canals
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to celebrate Pride Month in the Netherlands, August 2, 2008.
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ride Month: Romania, 2009Participants celebratingat GayFest in Bucharest,
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Romania, May 23, 2009.
The gay rights movement was beginning to win victories for legal
reform, particularly in western Europe, but perhaps the single
defining event of gay activism occurred in the United States. In the
early morning hours of June 28, 1969, theStonewallInn, a gay bar
in New York City’sGreenwich Village, was raided by the police.
Nearly 400 people joined ariotthat lasted 45 minutes and resumed
on succeeding nights. “Stonewall” came to becommemorated
annually in June withGay Pridecelebrations, notonly in U.S. cities
but also in several other countries (Gay Pride is also held at other
times of the year in some countries).
ay rights movement: demonstrationA gay rights demonstrationat the Democratic
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National Convention, New York City, July 1976.
In the 1970s and ’80s, gay political organizations proliferated,
particularly in the United States and Europe, and spread to other
parts of the globe, though their relative size, strength, and
success—and toleration by authorities—varied significantly.
Groups such as theHuman Rights Campaign, theNationalGay and
Lesbian Task Force, andACT UP(A
IDSCoalition toUnleash
Power) in the United States and Stonewall and Outrage! in the
United Kingdom—and several dozen similar organizations in
continental Europe and elsewhere—began agitating for legal and
social reforms. In addition, the transnationalInternational
Lesbian and Gay Associationwas founded in Coventry, England, in
1978. Now headquartered in Geneva and renamed the
International Lesbian, Gay,Bisexual, Trans and Intersex
Association (ILGA World), it plays a significant role in
coordinating international efforts to promotehuman rightsand
fightdiscriminationagainst LGBTQ andintersexpersons.
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arvey MilkGay rights activist Harvey Milk in front of his camera shop in San
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Francisco, 1977.
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ori LightfootLori Lightfoot, the first openly gay person to be elected mayor of
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Chicago, speaking after being sworn in, May 20, 2019.
In the United States, gay activists won support from the
Democratic Partyin 1980, when the party added toits platform
nondiscrimination clause a plank includingsexualorientation.
This support, along with campaigns by gay activists urging gay men
and women to “come out of the closet” (indeed, in the late 1980s,
National Coming Out Day was established, and it is now celebrated
on October 11 in most countries), encouraged gay men and women
to enter the political arena as candidates. The first openly gay
government officials in the United States were Jerry DeGrieck and
Nancy Wechsler inAnn Arbor, Michigan. Both DeGrieckand
Wechsler were elected in 1972 and came out while serving on the
city council. In 1974 Wechsler was replaced on the council by Kathy
Kozachenko, who, having run openly as a lesbian, thus became the
first openly gay person to win office after coming out. In 1977 gay
rights activistHarvey Milkwas elected to the San Francisco Board
of Supervisors; he was assassinated the following year. In 1983
Gerry Studds, a sitting U.S. representative from Massachusetts,
became the first member ofCongressto announce his
homosexuality.Barney Frank, another member of theU.S. House
of Representativesfrom Massachusetts, also came outwhile
serving inCongressin the 1980s. He was a powerfulmember of
that body and within the Democratic Party into the 21st century.
Tammy Baldwin, from Wisconsin, became the first openlygay
politician to be elected to both the U.S. House (1998) and theU.S.
Senate(2012). In 2009Annise Parkerwas elected mayorof
Houston, which made the fourth largest city in theU.S. the largest
up to that time to elect an openly gay politician as mayor. In
addition, in 2019Lori Lightfootbecame the firstopenly gay person
to be elected mayor ofChicago, and two years laterPete Buttigieg
became the first openly gay cabinet member in American history.
óhanna SigurðardóttirIceland Prime Minister JóhannaSigurðardóttir, the world's
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first openly gay head of government, 2009.
Outside the United States, openly gay politicians also scored
successes. In Canada in 1998 Glen Murray became the mayor of
Winnipeg, Manitoba, which made him the first openly gay
politician to lead a large city in that country. Large cities in Europe
also were fertile grounds for success for openly gay politicians; for
example,Bertrand Delanoëin Paris and Klaus Wowereit in Berlin
were both elected mayor in 2001. At the local and national levels,
the number of openly gay politicians increased dramatically during
the 1990s and 2000s, and in 2009Jóhanna Sigurðardóttirbecame
prime ministerofIceland, which made her the world’sfirst openly
gayhead of government. She was followed by Elio Di Rupo, who
became prime minister of Belgium in 2011. In Africa, Asia, and
Latin America, openly gay politicians have had only limited success
in winning office; notable elections to national legislatures
included Patria Jiménez Flores in Mexico (1997), Mike Waters in
South Africa(1999), and Clodovil Hernandes in Brazil(2006).
The issues emphasized by gay rights groups have varied since the
1970s by time and place; different national organizations have
promoted policies specifically tailored to their country’smilieu.
For example, whereas in some countries, particularly in
Scandinavia, sodomy statutes never existed or were struck down
relatively early, in other countries the situation was more complex.
In the United States, with its strong federal tradition, the battle for
the repeal of sodomy laws initially was fought at the state level. In
1986 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Georgia’s sodomy law in
Bowersv.Hardwick; 17 years later, however, inLawrencev.
Texas, the Court reversed itself, effectively overturning sodomy
laws in Texas and 12 other states.
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ay rights movement: Proposition 8Demonstrators protesting the passage of
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Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, November 22,
2008.
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hat is the history of same-sex marriage?The definitionof marriage as a legal and
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social concept has a long and complex history.
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Other issues of primary importance for the gay rights movement
since the 1970s included combating the HIV/AIDSepidemicand
promoting disease prevention and funding for research;lobbying
government for nondiscriminatory policies in employment,
housing, and other aspects ofcivil society; endingthe ban on
military servicefor gay and lesbian individuals; expandinghate
crimeslegislation to include protections for gays,including
transgender individuals; and securing marriage rights for
same-sex couples (seesame-sex marriage).
In 2010 Democratic Pres.Barack Obamasigned legislation that
repealed the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”policy
(1993–2011), which had permitted gay and lesbian individuals to
serve in the military if they did not disclose their sexual orientation
or engage in homosexual activity; the repeal effectively ended the
ban on homosexuals in the military. In 2013 the Supreme Court
recognized the right of same-sex couples tomarry(O
bergefellv.
Hodges), and in 2020 the Court determined that firingan
employee for being homosexual or transgender was a violation of
Title VII of theCivil Rights Act(1964), which prohibits
discriminationon the basis of sex (Bostockv.ClaytonCounty,
Georgia).