Gay Rights - Movement, Marriage & Flag | HISTORY

Contents:

• GAY RIGHTS
• THE HISTORY OF GAY ADULT ADOPTN
• LGBT ADOPTN FACTS | GAY ADOPTN FACTS
• THE LOST HISTORY OF GAY ADULT ADOPTN

GAY RIGHTS

In fact, most of the important moments the history of gay adoptn have only happened the last 40 the 1970s and 1980s (when the gay rights movement really began to take hold), homosexualy was somethg that was rarely discsed and even illegal some plac. Startg the 1970s, however, a few state urts upheld ctody rights for transgenr, gay, and lbian parents, though some still required that they not live wh a partner or engage “homosexual activi. Bill Jon, a gay man, 1968 beme the first sgle father to adopt a child California and one of the first natnally—although, as he told NPR  2015, he was obliquely advised by a social worker not to mentn that he was gay.

It wasn’t until 1997, however, that New Jersey beme the first state to allow same-sex upl to adopt jotly statewi, and not until 2010 did the last state, Florida, overturn a ban on adoptn by gay men and lbians.

) This go doubly for transgenr parents, about whom much ls has been wrten, and bisexual parents, many of whom were likely misintified as gay or lbian earlier if they were same-sex relatnships, or overlooked if they were not.

THE HISTORY OF GAY ADULT ADOPTN

Where homosexual activy or viance om tablished genr rol/drs was banned by law or tradnal ctom, such nmnatn might be munited through sensatnal public trials, exile, medil warngs, and language om the pulp. However, throughout 150 years of homosexual social movements (roughly om the 1870s to today), lears and anizers stggled to addrs the very different ncerns and inty issu of gay men, women intifyg as lbians, and others intifyg as genr variant or nonbary.

Such eyewns acunts the era before other media were of urse riddled wh the bias of the (often) Wtern or Whe observer, and add to beliefs that homosexual practic were other, foreign, savage, a medil issue, or evince of a lower racial hierarchy. The European powers enforced their own crimal s agast what was lled sodomy the New World: the first known se of homosexual activy receivg a ath sentence North Ameri occurred 1566, when the Spanish executed a Frenchman Florida.

Biblil terpretatn ma illegal for a woman to wear pants or a man to adopt female drs, and sensatnalized public trials warned agast “viants” but also ma such martyrs and hero popular: Joan of Arc is one example, and the chillg origs of the word “faggot” clu a stick of wood ed public burngs of gay men. The era of sexology studi is where we first see a small, privileged clter of medil thori beg promotg a limed tolerance of those born “vert.” In Wtern history, we fd ltle formal study of what was later lled homosexualy before the 19th century, beyond medil texts intifyg women wh large cloris as “tribas” and severe punishment s for male homosexual acts.

LGBT ADOPTN FACTS | GAY ADOPTN FACTS

Their wrgs were sympathetic to the ncept of a homosexual or bisexual orientatn occurrg naturally an intifiable segment of humankd, but the wrgs of Krafft-Ebg and Ellis also labeled a “third sex” generate and abnormal. The wrgs gradually trickled down to a cur public through magaz and prentatns, reachg men and women sperate to learn more about those like themselv, cludg some like English wrer Radclyffe Hall who willgly accepted the ia of beg a “ngenal vert.” German rearcher Magn Hirschfeld went on to gather a broar range of rmatn by foundg Berl’s Instute for Sexual Science, Europe’s bt library archive of materials on gay cultural history.

His efforts, and Germany’s more liberal laws and thrivg gay bar scene between the two World Wars, ntrasted wh the backlash, England, agast gay and lbian wrers such as Osr Wil and Radclyffe Hall. The blu mic of Ain-Amerin women showsed varieti of lbian sire, stggle, and humor; the performanc, along wh male and female drag stars, troduced a gay unrworld to straight patrons durg Prohibn’s fiance of race and sex s speakeasy clubs.

This creasg awarens of an existg and vulnerable populatn, upled wh Senator Joseph McCarthy’s vtigatn of homosexuals holdg ernment jobs durg the early 1950s outraged wrers and feral employe whose own liv were shown to be send-class unr the law, cludg Frank Kameny, Barbara Gtgs, Allen Gsberg, and Harry Hay.

THE LOST HISTORY OF GAY ADULT ADOPTN

Awarens of a burgeong civil rights movement (Mart Luther Kg’s key anizer Bayard Rt was a gay man) led to the first Amerin-based polil mands for fair treatment of gays and lbians mental health, public policy, and employment. Studi such as Aled Ksey’s 1947 Ksey Report suggted a far greater range of homosexual inti and behavrs than prevly unrstood, wh Ksey creatg a “sle” or spectm rangg om plete heterosexual to plete homosexual. In 1951, Donald Webster Cory published “The Homosexual Ameri,” assertg that gay men and lbians were a legimate mory group, and 1953 Evelyn Hooker, PhD, won a grant om the Natnal Instute of Mental Health to study gay men.

Throughout the 1950s and 60s, gay men and lbians ntued to be at risk for psychiatric lockup as well as jail, losg jobs, and/or child ctody when urts and clics fed gay love as sick, crimal, or immoral. In 1965, as the civil rights movement won new legislatn outlawg racial discrimatn, the first gay rights monstratns took place Philalphia and Washgton, D.C., led by longtime activists Frank Kameny and Barbara Gtgs. Fstrated wh the male learship of most gay liberatn groups, lbians fluenced by the femist movement of the 1970s formed their own llectiv, rerd labels, mic ftivals, newspapers, bookstor, and publishg ho, and lled for lbian rights mastream femist groups like the Natnal Organizatn for Women.