The Gay Rights Movement

Throughout the years, the acceptance of homosexuality has been a widely debated topic between common citizens and with America's laws. Should society welcome or outcast them? This was the question on everyone's mind, to which most people before the late 1960’s would favor the latter. In fact, during the mid-1960’s, it was against the law to provide service to someone of gay orientation (Clendinen 22). People of homosexual orientation would not allow others to restrict their rights because of religious belief or hierarchy ideals. To disrupt the somewhat successful oppression that the law was assisting in, they would fight back when police came to raid a bar in search of illegal activity. This often caused the media to get involved and report their findings, assisting in spreading the word of gay persecution.

Over the next two decades, half the states decriminalized homosexual behavior, and police harassment grew less frequent and obvious to the public. Also in 1975, it became legal for gays to hold federal jobs. However all this headway also made room for more opposition. In 1977, Anita Bryant was so successful at obtaining a repeal of a recent gay ordinance in her home state of Florida that by 1980, a league of anti gay clubs had come together to make a force, led in part by Jesse Helms. The AIDS scare that began in the eighties did not help the gay image either, but more citizens joined their ranks in order to combat the oppression and fund a search for the cure, so in the end it actually made the movement stronger. According to the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (2000), by 1999, the anti-sodomy laws of 32 states had been repealed, and in 1996 Vermont granted its gay citizens the right to same sex marriages. Gay rights has come a long way as a social movement, and though it still has a long way to go, it makes a good topic to analyze the process of the social movement.

This investigation assesses the New York City Stonewall Riots of 1969, concerning their influence on the rise of the modern gay rights movement, specifically regarding political emergence, social unity, and demographic shifts. The investigation will attempt to answer the following question: To what extent were the Stonewall Riots of 1969 a catalyst for the LGBT social movement in America?

The struggle for gay rights was not always publicized due to fear for being “ill” for thinking that way. The fight for rights was known in the mental health community as an illness. In the courts where same-sex couples would be denied the right to marry, from the Stonewall riots to the U.S. Supreme Court decision on June 26 of this year, the evolvement and difficulty of those fighting.

In today's era, one of the most progressive civil rights movements is that of the LGBT+ community. For many decades, gays, transgenders, and other queers have been under fire for who they love and who they are. On June 28th, 1969, a group of queers subjected to police brutality took a chance to stand up for themselves. Thus starting one of the most widely revered LGBT+ movements: the Stone Wall Riots. This group of courageous men and women (and those in between) were pioneers in the United States gay rights activism, and can even be considered the spark to LGBT+ rights.

It was approximately three a.m. on the twenty-eighth of June, 1969 when outside the Stonewall Inn, a monumental riot began. On Christopher Street in New York City, a police raid had just taken place in the gay bar due to the selling of liquor without a license, and arrests were made to anyone without a minimum of three articles of gender appropriate clothing on in accordance to New York law. This was one of several police raids that occurred in a gay bar in such a small amount of time, and the LGBT community made their anger very clear that morning. The event that took place as a result of these raids known as the Stonewall Riots became the catalyst for the Gay Liberation Front, and the Gay Activist Alliance, as well as many new

“This was the Rosa Parks moment, the time that gay people stood up and said no. And once that happened, the whole house of cards that was the system of oppression of gay people started to crumble”. (The Stonewall Uprising) Homosexuals were tired of being made fun of and discriminated for their way of life. “Something snapped. It's like, this is not right”. (The Stonewall Uprising) People were sick of the treatment, the weird looks, the removal of work, the feeling of someone refusing to be next to them, and the constant advice to change or they will end up ruining their lives. So, on June 28th, 1969, around 11:00 at night, in Greenwich Village, New York City, gay people decided to do something. The decided to say no, we aren’t doing this;

In the past decades, the struggle for gay rights in the Unites States has taken many forms. Previously, homosexuality was viewed as immoral. Many people also viewed it as pathologic because the American Psychiatric Association classified it as a psychiatric disorder. As a result, many people remained in ‘the closet’ because they were afraid of losing their jobs or being discriminated against in the society. According to David Allyn, though most gays could pass in the heterosexual world, they tended to live in fear and lies because they could not look towards their families for support. At the same time, openly gay establishments were often shut down to keep openly gay people under close scrutiny (Allyn 146). But since the 1960s, people

Today, the fight for homosexual right is at the forefront of society, which yields a greater thrust towards full equality to heterosexuals with every passing day. This campaign for equality is known as the Modern Gay Rights Movement. The modern struggle for gay rights started as early as The Civil Rights Movement in 1954, and still continues today (Britannica). The Civil Rights Movement, from 1954-1968, sparked oppressed people to fight for their rights. In this period, shockwaves from blacks’ gaining equality rippled onto the movement for homosexual rights; gays saw new opportunities to gain a public foothold. Additionally, they sought recognition as a viable movement- especially after the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which

Brought together by various organizations, and united by shared persecution, the gay community came together and pushed for their rights, and were able to obtain them through science and litigation. The outset of the gay rights movement can be traced back to World War I. The World War brought America out of its isolationism and exposed Americans to life outside America. For the first time Americans saw firsthand the way countries like, England, France, Germany, and others treated their citizens. For many Americans World War I was a catalyst for change, and the fight for gay rights is no exception.

Trans liberation is not trans liberation if it is not intersectional. Trans people are not a monolith, as we come from different backgrounds that have led us to have different experiences. In order for there to be a cohesive trans movement, all of these different experiences need to be considered. However, this has not been the case in the past. From the mid- to the late-20th century, the issues that have inhibited a broad based transgender movement would be racism and the erasure of trans people from the gay rights movement.

The topic I choose to discuss is the gay rights movement. This topic is presented well in the textbook, it is a long through couple paragraphs of important knowledge. The book talks about how people have started to change opinion about people who have a different sexual orientation than them. It is also talks about how people used to be put into mental hospitals for being homosexual and all the prejudice that goes on with them it’s no wonder that many people don’t announce it. It talks about people being homophobic, nowadays people like that are frowned upon. People don’t understand others who can’t handle if someone had a different sexual orientation than them. I agree with how the book presents this knowledge, I think it is helpful and an

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Gay Rights has always been a controversial topic. People have fought and argued over this simple human right for years and now we are finally seeing progress. The Gay Rights Movement started on 1924 by Henry Gerber, founder of The Society for Human Rights, the first documented Gay Rights organization according to CNN news. From the start homosexuality was considered a “sociopathic personality disturbance” which was diagnosed by the American Psychiatric Association in April 1952. When homosexuality became a hot topic, President Dwight D. Eisenhower singed an executive order that banned all homosexuals from working for the Federal Government saying” they are a security risk.” Which I can see why it was signed, homosexuals are very sassy and can put you in check which the government wouldn’t like. Fast forward to 2005, the state of California was one of the first states to pass a bill allowing same-sex marriage and on June 26, 2015 the Supreme Court ruled that a state cannot ban same-sex marriage which handed the best victory for gay advocates everywhere in America. Although Gay Rights have come a long way in America there is always room for more improvement such as discrimination on getting a job or adopting just because of your sexual orientation.

From the birth of our country gay Americans, about three and a half percent of the United States population (Gates, 2011, para. 2), has dealt with discrimination on a huge level. On February 14, 1787, the state of New York passed a law enforcing the death penalty on any man who committed a homosexual act (Crompton, 1976, pg. 282). Jumping forward to the 1990’s, an era filled with anti-gay politics, the gay community would suffer multiple blows that would threaten not only their legal rights, but their fundamental right to be happy. Because of ongoing protest to the 1981 Department of Defense policy,