<strong>The long read</strong>: A police raid on a gay bar New York led to the birth of the Pri movement half a century ago – but the fight for LGBTQ+ rights go back much further than that
Contents:
- GAY RIGHTS
- GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
- PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI
- A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
- 18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA
GAY RIGHTS
The gay rights movement is the stggle for equaly and marriage rights for gay, lbian and transgenr people. Learn about the Stonewall Rts, Harvey Milk, the Pri flag and more. * example of gay movement *
In the Uned Stat this greater visibily brought some backlash, particularly om the ernment and the police: the ernment often fired gay civil servants, the ary attempted to purge s ranks of gay soldiers (a policy enacted durg World War II), and police vice squads equently raid gay bars and arrted their patrons.
GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Gay rights movement, civil rights movement that advot equal rights for LGBTQ persons—that is, for lbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenr persons, and queer persons—and lls for an end to discrimatn agast LGBTQ persons employment, cred, hog, public acmodatns, and other areas of life. * example of gay movement *
In the Uned Stat the first major male anizatn, found 1950–51 by Harry Hay Los Angel, was the Mattache Society (s name reputedly rived om a medieval French society of masked players, the Société Mattache, to reprent the public “maskg” of homosexualy), while the Dghters of Bilis (named after the Sapphic love poems of Pierre Louÿs, Chansons Bilis), found 1955 by Phyllis Lyon and Del Mart San Francis, was a leadg group for women. In Bra 1957 a missn chaired by Sir John Wolfenn issued a groundbreakg report (see Wolfenn Report) remendg that private homosexual liaisons between nsentg adults be removed om the doma of crimal law; a later the remendatn was implemented by Parliament the Sexual Offenc Act. Now headquartered Geneva and renamed the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn (ILGA World), plays a signifint role ordatg ternatnal efforts to promote human rights and fight discrimatn agast LGBTQ and tersex persons.
This support, along wh mpaigns by gay activists urgg gay men and women to “e out of the closet” (ed, the late 1980s, Natnal Comg Out Day was tablished, and is now celebrated on October 11 most untri), enuraged gay men and women to enter the polil arena as ndidat. Other issu of primary importance for the gay rights movement sce the 1970s clud batg the HIV/AIDS epimic and promotg disease preventn and fundg for rearch; lobbyg ernment for nondiscrimatory polici employment, hog, and other aspects of civil society; endg the ban on ary service for gay and lbian dividuals; expandg hate crim legislatn to clu protectns for gays, cludg transgenr dividuals; and securg marriage rights for same-sex upl (see same-sex marriage). Ary’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (1993–2011), which had permted gay and lbian dividuals to serve the ary if they did not disclose their sexual orientatn or engage homosexual activy; the repeal effectively end the ban on homosexuals the ary.
PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI
* example of gay movement *
Johnson was a key figure of the 1960s gay rights movement the US and, as legend has , threw the brick that igned the famo Stonewall rts, which were the talyst for the movement and have spired many Pri march ever 1992, Johnson’s body was found the Hudson River. “Sylvia’s role gay history was that she was one of the first people to highlight that our movement need to be more clive of people who did not f the mastream, ” Carrie Davis, Chief Programs and Policy Officer at New York Cy’s LGBT Communy Center, told NBC News. In a untry where police officer entrap members of the LGBTQ muny through text msag and beat those they perceive to be gay, Nkom bravely fights for rights on behalf of the LGBTQ Nkom intifi as heterosexual, she has dited her work to fightg for Cameroon’s LGBTQ muny and found the Associatn for the Defence of Homosexualy 2003.
But 2005, the queer activist was forced to flee his untry, where homosexual activy remas, Parsi liv exile Canada, where he has found the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refuge, which supports and provis guidance to LGBTQ asylum seekers om the Middle East. Jonathan Van Ns, Antoni Porowski, Tan France, Bobby Berk, and Karamo Brown om Queer Courty of NetflixThe all-star st of Netflix’s new Queer Eye seri — a reboot of Bravo’s early 2000s seri Queer Eye for the Straight Guy — may be all fun when to makeovers, but they’re ser about makg a difference the “Fab Five” — Tan France, Jonathan Van Ns, Bobby Berk, Karamo Brown, and Antoni Porowski — speak openly on Queer Eye about their personal stggl and experienc wh homophobia and discrimatn.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
The rts followg the June 28, 1969, police raid on New York Cy's Stonewall Inn did not start the discsn on gay rights, but they certaly beme the talyst for a natnal movement. When the... * example of gay movement *
Soon they were advotg nothg ls than “gay liberatn” nscns-raisg groups to fundraisg danc, protts outsi hostile newspapers to refug for homels trans and queer people, this surge LGBTQ+ anisg took many forms, and as the first anniversary of the rts me to view, some the muny began discsg how bt to mark what was beg regard as the “Bastille day” of gay rights. The roots of that bate go back to s earlit days, and suggt that Pri and the Stonewall rts have always been part of a ntent battle for inty and ownership – a battle that has helped produce the very ia of what beg a lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr or queer person might Stonewall rts were not the birth of the gay rights movement. Seven years before that, when police had raid Coopers, a donut shop the cy ntled between two gay bars, LGBTQ+ patrons had attacked officers after the arrt of a number of drag queens, sex workers and gay had been a gay rights movement the US among people scribg themselv as “homophil” sce the late 40s.
Hirschfeld’s scientific approach, bed wh his sympathetic treatment of LGBTQ+ people – he was himself homosexual – had been key velopg the ia that their shared experienc uld be unrstood not jt as discrete sexual (and crimal) acts, nor as psychiatric illns, but as a legible sexual and genr inty, which uld be afford civil rights.
18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA
From s gay liberatn roots to today’s natnwi work of activists and supporters, the LGBTQ rights movement has always strived toward progrs. We celebrate the movement and every one of s members whose urageo ntributns and sacrific have steadily phed society the right directn. * example of gay movement *
) The Mattache Society had radil roots activism, takg on the anisatnal stcture of cells and central anisatn favoured by the Communist well as publishg magaz for gay men, and supportg victims of police entrapment, the society had wir polil aims, cludg to “unify homosexuals isolated om their own kd” and to “te homosexuals and heterosexuals toward an ethil homosexual culture parallelg the cultur of the Negro, Mexin and Jewish peopl”.
Such aims would bee key to the ncept of “gay pri” some two s two s, however, would be among the harst for LGBTQ+ people US history, as the greater visibily of the homosexual inty led to a nservative backlash, and a moral panic the media that was palised upon by policians.
Ironilly, sackg 5, 000 feral employe and thstg them out of the closet, the red-baers provid a new hort of activists for the homophile movement, such as the army map service astronomer Frank Kameny, who voted the rt of his life to the LGBTQ+ e. After he was forced to appear before the Hoe Un-Amerin Activi Commtee, Hay was expelled om the Mattache Society, now a growg anisatn of a few thoand men, and he wasn’t the last radil to be thrown homophile movement began to tackle “subversive elements” and orient self around rpectabily. In 1966, the Mattache Society challenged this policy wh a “sip-” at Juli’, a Greenwich Village bar that was popular wh gay men, but was attemptg to shake off s homosexual bars equently flouted this law, explog legal loophol and payg off the NYPD while chargg their LGBTQ+ ctomers high pric for watered-down drks.
After beg oted om the U.S. ary for beg gay, she beme an early fighter for gay rights and a proment figure the nascent L.G.B.T.Q. rights movement. * example of gay movement *
Dpe his own rervatns about the place, Mattache activist Dick Lesch, wrg jt a month after the rts, acknowledged how Stonewall was more than jt a dance bar, terg for those “who are not wele, or nnot afford, other plac of homosexual social gatherg”. When, ncerned by the ongog unrt, members of the society pated on the board-up wdows of the Stonewall “WE HOMOSEXUALS PLEAD WITH OUR PEOPLE TO PLEASE HELP MAINTAIN PEACEFUL AND QUIET CONDUCT ON THE STREETS OF THE VILLAGE – MATTACHINE”, their ll went unheed. As the Eastern Regnal Conference of Homophile Organizatns me together for a meetg November 1969 to discs the followg year’s Annual Remr, Rodwell wonred whether a memoratn of the rts – one whout a drs or other rtrictns, and that uld be mirrored across the natn – might not be more suable.
At the same time, there were tensns around the excln of trans people, many of whom scribed themselv as queens and transvt, the language of the LGBTQ+ scene at the time, even while still intifyg themselv as “gay” umbrella, which brought people together for the e of liberatn, failed to acknowledge the different experienc of those who sheltered unr , or addrs the power imbalanc wh . It wasn’t until the 00s, though, that rporate sponsorship began to overwhelm Pri, as more fundg led to larger and larger events, which LGBTQ+ people are now often charged to the late 90s, some US activists created Gay Shame rponse to Pri’s mercialisatn, an event that foced on anisg around wir issu that affected the whole LGBTQ+ muny. Dpe the radil LGBTQ+ anisg that took place rponse to the Aids crisis – where Pri paras beme a loc for awarens-raisg protts – many more-radil activists felt that, wh creasg rporate volvement, the event was beg taken over by liberal activists wantg to assiate queer liv to beg a “mol mory”, wh marriage and ary service beg a symbol that gay people particular had “ma ”.
Gay assiatnists want to make sure they’re on the wng si the cizenship wars, and see no need to nont the legaci of systemic and systematic US opprsn that prevent most people livg this untry (and everywhere else) om exercisg their supposed ‘rights. In recent years accatns have been ma that Pri has bee part of a “homonatnalist” project, where the victori won by LGBTQ+ activists sce the 50s, the face of wispread opposn and hostily, are now portrayed as evable products of a natnal culture.