While there have, undoubtedly, been signifint ton LGBT history earlier s, I believe the Eighti was a particularly important perd. That saw a major shift towards the emergence of a global gay culture. The gay genie me right out of s ltle pk bottle and to the streets (and the
Contents:
A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
* queer culture 80s *
Beg open helped gays and lbians fd each other and, soon, ci across the untry experienced surg the number of gay neighborhoods, which spng up New York, Los Angel, San Francis, Chigo, and workg-class bar dyk to lbian femists (many of whom were bisexual but embracg the radil, polil choice to be wh women a patriarchy fed by what Adrienne Rich termed "pulsory heterosexualy"), plenty of queer women the 1970s and early '80s found themselv the pany of other women. Gay and bi men embraced the new openns too, darg to venture to public spac and explorg nontradnal relatnships, newfound sexual eedoms, and an pe om the tyranny of rtrictive mascule rol. Sure, people of lor as well as transgenr and bisexual folks were often fightg for attentn om the margs, pared to the relatively more fancially secure and tablished whe gay men.
Others felt forced to choose between the endurg qut for their sexual eedoms (as gay rights were thought of then) or women's rights and the eedom of genr exprsn, or an pe om racial or sexual vlence, and raw the new dawned, herg the 1980s' generatn of greed and power, men who had sex wh each other, at least some of the time, began gettg sick. But harst h, pecially those early days, were gay and bi men and the transgenr women who had sex wh disease that later beme known as AIDS was first intified medil journals 1981 (Print Ronald Reagan's first year office). Facg annihilatn, gay men took upon themselv to found anizatns like Gay Men's Health Crisis (1982) and AmFAR (1985) to save their own liv and bat the the background, religo lears like Rev.