The Rights Of The Gay Rights Movement

The history of the gay rights movement goes as far back as the late 19th century. More accurately, the quest by gays to search out others like themselves and foster a feeling of identity has been around since then. It is an innovative movement that seeks to change existing norms and gain acceptance within our culture. By 1915, one gay person said that the gay world was a "community, distinctly organized" (Milestones 1991), but kept mostly out of view because of social hostility. According to the Milestones article, after World War II, around 1940, many cities saw their first gay bars open as many homosexuals began to start a networking system. However, their newfound visibility only backfired on them, as

Gerber founded the Society of Human Rights, inspired by the work of a German Doctor Magnus Hirschfeld and his work with the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, on December 10 of 1924 in Chicago. The goal of the society was “to promote and protect the interests of people who by reasons of mental and physical abnormalities are

The first homosexual to speak out publicly in defense of homosexuality was a writer named Karl Heinrich Ulrichs on August 29, 1867. So while most people say the gay rights movement is something that's fairly recent, that is untrue. People have been judged for being homosexual for a very long time. Prejudice is something that can cause people to be violent, hateful, and act differently towards certain people to fit in, as shown in To Kill A Mockingbird and in society today towards supporters of gay and trans rights.

Fifty years ago, in the early sixties, being gay was illegal in every providence in Canada, and in every single state in the United States. In the 1950’s, many gay individuals saw the men who had devoted their lives to being out and they knew what a horrible life that made for those men. This caused many gay men to “pass,” or live their entire lives in the closet. They would marry women for the soul purpose of protecting their secret. Before the stonewall riots, many Americans did not even believe gay people existed. Due to the lack of education and bigotry amongst Americans, being gay was very dangerous. Sexual acts in the gay community were commonly done in unsafe places and in public because they simply had nowhere else to go. Homosexuality was not just criminalized it was medicalized (Bawer). If you were gay, you could be subject to go into hospitals and were viewed by society as having a disability and a disease. In April of 1965, the very first gay protest took place in Washington DC. This protest was revolutionary and it began to pave the way for the future of gay men and women and reshape gay culture. In 1969, not long after the first gay protests of 1965, Canada decriminalized homosexual sexual acts in the privacy of one’s own home (Guerre). This was groundbreaking and gave the gay community hope that change was coming. Also, taking place in 1969 were the historic stonewall

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 this time society was going through much social change. Protests and movements were very present. In the 1960s women’s rights movements, black power movements, and civil rights protest were going on. This influenced the gay community and sparked energy for them to stand up for their own rights. In 1969 Stonewall riots were occurring in result to the police raiding a gay bar by the name of Stonewall Inn. The legal system in the 1950’s and 1960’s was anti-gay. These groups were being formed to show and prove that society could function. Very few businesses welcomed publicly gay people in the 1950s and 1960s.After the series of riots and the push for social reform gays still faced many obstacles to being openly accepted and integrated into society.

In 1965 during the Civil Rights Movement, was the first gay rights demonstration which led to the gay liberation movement in the 70’s. Being such an impactful commemoration it inspired more liberating groups in the growing gay and lesbian world such as: feminist movements, record labels, music festivals and the National Organization for Women. This quickly evolved into acceptance in a place of worship when the first gay minister was ordained in ’72. Soon after, several large political groups formed in support of the growing “outing” of a gay society in a stand for gay rights. (Morris, 2017)

In the Introduction to LGBT+ Studies class we discussed many themes of the history of the LGBT+ community, these themes include; oppression, fighting for our visibility and having it delayed, and a sort of power within the community. The LGBT+ community has gone through an immense amount of oppression, having to fight its way into the light and having it be pushed aside multiple times. In a historical context when the LGBT+ community started to show itself so to speak was around the 1920’s there were the first gay rights movements starting, and surprisingly it was the start of some acceptance. However, when World War II began in 1939 it oppressed the movement, as well as setting it back by gay men being denied from the military because

It is often a misconception that the Stonewall Riots marked the beginning of the gay rights movement. In actuality, the riots served as a vital catalyst for the birth of widespread activism in the LGBT community, but did not mark the movement’s birth. Before Stonewall, there were leftist lobbyists in the Mattachine Society pushing for law reform and there was the lesbian organization, Daughters of Bilitis, who published The Ladder in order to garner acceptance in society.9 This homophile movement was conservative in its actions, working within the system’s rules in effort to gain societal acceptance.9

One of the minority groups that came into prominence during this tumultuous time were homophile activists who advocated for an assimilation of gays into society, and relied mostly on pacifist tactics. It wasn’t until the summer of 1969, in a Greenwich Village tavern, where a series of protests served as a catalyst to inspire gays to join together in the fight against inequality through more radical means; thus setting into motion the beginnings of modern American LGBT rights activism and Gay Pride.

back in the 1950’s, and this would make them start the LGBT community organization to protect their individual civil rights. Today the LGBT community known has the gay community

The Society for Human Rights in Chicago becomes the country's earliest known gay rights organization.

In the first document from the Gosse book, Harry Hay and many former communists in Los Angeles created what they called a “homophile” (a world implying acceptance of homosexuality) organization in 1950, which became known as the Mattachine Society. It’s “Statement of Purpose” was to focus on personal dignity, empowerment, and the gay movement’s eventual turn towards politics, which was highly anticipated in the New Left. In the thirty-ninth document from the Story & Laurie book, The Southern Baptist Church (SBC), which is still the largest Protestant denomination today, put out a resolution opposing homosexual marriage. This 1996 resolution was one of the longest and most passionately written document in the denomination’s history. Although

Gay-rights activism started in the 1970s, focusing more on personal liberation and visibility than on gaining the right to have equal marriage rights. There was little movement to equalize the right to marry, though there were some gay activists that fought for the right to marry in those days. Most others rejected marriage as something heterosexual couples did and not something they needed to be happy. The movement did achieved a big victory in 1973, when the American Psychiatric Association announced homosexuality was not a mental illness and the American Psychological Association also did in 1975.

The Society of Human Rights was the first and the oldest documented gay rights organization. It was established in 1924 in Chicago, Illinois. Also the first state to decriminalize homosexuality. Friendships and Freedoms were the first American publications on the topic of homosexuality. It was founded by Henry Gerber, the society shortly ended after a majority of members were arrested. The foundation still gets it recognition despite how small and the short existence it had, it was a milestone for the LGBT(the “Q” for queer or questioning was not included in the acronym until