After years of progrs on gay rights, how did the US bee so anti-LGBTQ+? | US news | The Guardian

Contents:

• GAY RIGHTS
• THE RIGHTS OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENR PEOPLE
• AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
• ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
• WHERE IS ILLEGAL TO BE GAY?
• ACTIVISTS NMN VLENCE AGAST LGBTQ MUNY ST. VCENT, WHERE GAY SEX IS ILLEGAL
• GAY RIGHTS VS. FREE SPEECHSUPREME COURT BACKS WEB DIGNER OPPOSED TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
• GAY UNSELOR'S FIRG BY INDIANAPOLIS CATHOLIC SCHOOL PERMTED BY FERAL APPEALS URT

GAY RIGHTS

Ernment signated Gerber’s Chigo hoe a Natnal Historic Pk TriangleCorbis/Getty ImagHomosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, gay rights movement stagnated for the next few s, though LGBT dividuals around the world did e to the spotlight a few example, English poet and thor Radclyffe Hall stirred up ntroversy 1928 when she published her lbian-themed novel, The Well of Lonels. ”Though started off small, the foundatn, which sought to improve the liv of gay men through discsn groups and related activi, expand after foundg member Dale Jenngs was arrted 1952 for solicatn and then later set ee due to a adlocked the end of the year, Jenngs formed another anizatn lled One, Inc., which weled women and published ONE, the untry’s first pro-gay magaze. Post Office, which 1954 clared the magaze “obscene” and refed to liver Mattache Society Mattache Foundatn members rtctured the anizatn to form the Mattache Society, which had lol chapters other parts of the untry and 1955 began publishg the untry’s send gay publitn, The Mattache Review.

That same year, four lbian upl San Francis found an anizatn lled the Dghters of Bilis, which soon began publishg a newsletter lled The Ladr, the first lbian publitn of any early years of the movement also faced some notable setbacks: the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn listed homosexualy as a form of mental disorr followg year, Print Dwight D.

THE RIGHTS OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENR PEOPLE

”In fear of beg shut down by thori, bartenrs would ny drks to patrons spected of beg gay or kick them out altogether; others would serve them drks but force them to s facg away om other ctomers to prevent them om 1966, members of the Mattache Society New York Cy staged a “sip-”—a twist on the “s-” protts of the 1960s— which they vised taverns, clared themselv gay, and waed to be turned away so they uld sue. They were nied service at the Greenwich Village tavern Juli, rultg much publicy and the quick reversal of the anti-gay liquor Stonewall Inn A few years later, 1969, a now-famo event talyzed the gay rights movement: The Stonewall clanste gay club Stonewall Inn was an stutn Greenwich Village bee was large, cheap, allowed dancg and weled drag queens and homels the early hours of June 28, 1969, New York Cy police raid the Stonewall Inn.

AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?

Addnally, several openly LGBTQ dividuals secured public office posns: Kathy Kozachenko won a seat to the Ann Harbor, Michigan, Cy Council 1974, beg the first out Amerin to be elected to public Milk, who mpaigned on a pro-gay rights platform, beme the San Francis cy supervisor 1978, beg the first openly gay man elected to a polil office asked Gilbert Baker, an artist and gay rights activist, to create an emblem that reprents the movement and would be seen as a symbol of pri. In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Preventn published a report about five prevly healthy homosexual men beg fected wh a rare type of 1984, rearchers had intified the e of AIDS—the human immunoficiency vis, or HIV—and the Food and Dg Admistratn licensed the first mercial blood tt for HIV 1985. But after failg to garner enough support for such an open policy, Print Clton 1993 passed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, which allowed gay men and women to serve the ary as long as they kept their sexualy a rights advot cried the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, as did ltle to stop people om beg discharged on the grounds of their 2011, Print Obama fulfilled a mpaign promise to repeal DADT; by that time, more than 12, 000 officers had been discharged om the ary unr DADT for refg to hi their sexualy.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was officially repealed on September 20, Marriage and Beyond In 1992, the District of Columbia passed a law that allowed gay and lbian upl to register as domtic partners, grantg them some of the rights of marriage (the cy of San Francis passed a siar ordance three years prr and California would later extend those rights to the entire state 1999) 1993, the hight urt  Hawaii led that a ban on gay marriage may go agast the state’s nstutn.

In 1994, a new anti-hate-crime law allowed judg to impose harsher sentenc if a crime was motivated by a victim’s sexual Matthew Shepard ActCourty of the Matthew Shepard FoundatnMatthew Shepard, who was btally killed a hate crime 2003, gay rights proponents had another b of happy news: the U. Gay rights proponents mt also ntent wh an creasg number of “relig liberty” state laws, which allow bs to ny service to LGBTQ dividuals due to relig beliefs, as well as “bathroom laws” that prevent transgenr dividuals om g public bathrooms that don’t rrpond to their sex at birth. Y, twelve stat (California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachetts, Mnota, New Hampshire, Nevada, New Jersey, Rho Island, Vermont and Wisns), the District of Columbia, many municipali, and hundreds of bs and universi have enacted laws that protect gay, lbian and bisexual people om employment discrimatn.

‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’

A rash of laws ncerng the teachg of human sexualy school curricula, banng trans stunt athlet and strippg parents of the right to help their genr-variant children obta appropriate re have popped up numero red stat this same-sex marriage is now part of the fabric of Ameri, nservativ have chosen to explo Amerins’ unfaiary wh trans people and piggyback on parental anger over the perceived overreach of Covid-era school closur, nflatg wh an sid sense of “wokens”, the hop of fdg an electorally viable sluiceway for anti-LGBTQ+ most famo of the anti-LGBTQ+ laws is the piece of Florida legislatn banng stctn on sexual orientatn or genr inty schools between krgarten and third gra, the so-lled “don’t say gay” law. He was followed by Arizona’s ernor, Doug Ducey, who, after barrg mors om genr-affirmatn treatment, wouldn’t even state for the rerd that trans people were Florida lawmaker Michele Rayner-Goolsby, left, hugs her wife, Bian Goolsby, durg a march at cy hall St Petersburg agast the ‘don’t say gay’ bill. Photograph: Bob Daemmrich/Zuma Wire/Rex/ShutterstockPolicians are supported the media by mentators like Tucker Carlson, who claimed “no one had heard of this trans thg four years ago”, or Charlie Kirk, channelg 1980s fears sayg “gays want to rpt your children” rejuvenated, the right wg is poised to make transphobia and homophobia rnerston of the midterms and 2024 electns, wh promis to liver “don’t say gay” legislatn stat cludg Michigan and New Perks, the print of the Fay Rearch Council, a nservative lobbyg group, veighed agast the ernors of Indiana and Utah for vetog legislatn banng trans women om participatg sports, llg the bills “timely, mastream protectns”.

”The bs-iendly wg of the GOP that would quietly team up wh Democrats to scuttle rabidly homophobic bills is now outnumbered, and legislators a dozen or more stat that lean even farther to the right than DeSantis are takg, the Natnal Center for Lbian Rights legal director, believ Florida is the tt se for a renewed ph for an aggrsive, Christian-natnalist program.

WHERE IS ILLEGAL TO BE GAY?

“I thought was really important to ph back on the policy level, and to send a clear signal that California and other stat really re about the kids, ” he believ that “don’t say gay” is “patently unnstutnal” but also ntends that relyg on the judicial system to protect human rights may no longer be a sound optn. You so obvly nnot be gay, was her implitn, bee this is good was 2006, a full five years before Lady Gaga would set the Born This Way argument atop s unassailable cultural perch, but even then the popular unrstandg of orientatn was that was somethg you were born wh, somethg you uldn’t change. Throughout the same perd, the number of Amerins who believe homosexualy is “due to someone’s upbrgg/environment” fell om jt unr 60% to ias reached cril mass pop culture, first wh Lady Gaga’s 2011 Born This Way and one year later wh Macklemore’s Same Love, the chos of which has a gay person sgg “I n’t change even if I tried, even if I wanted to.

In fact, the homophobic and non-homophobic rponnts he studied shared siar levels of belief a Born This Way Samantha Allen not at The Daily Beast, the growg public support for gays and lbians has grown out of proportn wh the rise the number of people who believe homosexualy is fixed at birth; would be unlikely that this small change opn uld expla the spike support for gay marriage, for stance. The APA, for example, while notg that most people experience ltle to no choice over their orientatns, says this of homosexualy’s origs:“Although much rearch has examed the possible geic, hormonal, velopmental, social and cultural fluenc on sexual orientatn, no fdgs have emerged that perm scientists to nclu that sexual orientatn is termed by any particular factor or factors. ” Acrdg to LeVay’s rearch, a specific part of the bra, the third terstial nucls of the anterr hypothalam (INAH-3), is smaller homosexual men than is heterosexual as they might, scientists have stggled to inty any particular gen that nsistently predict the directns of our love and sire (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)Read moreYou n spot the problem wh this study a e away: were the gay bras LeVay studied born that way, or did they bee that way?

ACTIVISTS NMN VLENCE AGAST LGBTQ MUNY ST. VCENT, WHERE GAY SEX IS ILLEGAL

Bis the dividual criqu leveled agast each new study announcg some gay gene disvery, there are major methodologil cricisms to make about the entire enterprise general, as Grzanka pots out: “If we look at the raveno pursu, particularly among Amerin scientists, to fd a gay gene, what we see is that the ncln has already been arrived at. “Limg our unrstandg of any plex human experience is always gog to be worse than allowg to be plited, ” he gay rights activists pared sexualy to relign - a ccial part of our life that we should be ee to practise however we like (Cred: Ignac Lehamann)So what are we to do wh the Born This Way rhetoric?

In five untri and parts of two others, homosexualy is still punishable wh the ath penalty, while a further 70 imprison cizens bee of their sexual where homosexualy is legal, many untri treat those same-sex relatnships differently, such as havg an unequal age of nsent or a ban on marriage. Vcent, anal sex is punishable by up to 10 years prison, while “gross cency” wh another person of the same sex is punishable by up to five years, acrdg to lonial-era laws that are mon the socially nservative Caribbean rarely voked, the rights group and a lol activist said the laws help legimize hostily and abe agast gay people.

GAY RIGHTS VS. FREE SPEECHSUPREME COURT BACKS WEB DIGNER OPPOSED TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

Several reported that their fai are homophobic and physilly and verbally abed them, g them to bee homels and promptg some to nsir also stggle to fd jobs amid a high unemployment rate and said they face discrimatn, cludg a 19-year-old gay man who said he has rorted to beggg: “Sometim I am so hungry. The Uned Stat has wnsed a remarkable shift LGBTQ rights and visibily the 50 years sce the Stonewall uprisg — and jt the last few years, LGBTQ people have won the right to marry, have h a rerd high reprentatn on televisn and have seen the first openly gay major printial ndidate beg his mpaign. Her discharge om the ary over her homosexualy had turned her to an Tob/The New York Public LibraryPublished July 19, 2023Updated July 23, 2023Lilli Vcenz, who beme a gay rights activist the hhed, reprsive era before the Stonewall rebelln of 1969, when such a ncept srcely existed, makg a mark as a newspaper edor, documentary filmmaker and psychotherapist voted to L.

Vicenz beme, by most acunts, the first lbian to picket the Whe Hoe support of equal rights for gay people as a member of the Mattache Society of Washgton, an early gay rights prott — the first of s kd, acrdg to the Library of Congrs — and others that followed were small but brought visibily to a movement s fancy.

GAY UNSELOR'S FIRG BY INDIANAPOLIS CATHOLIC SCHOOL PERMTED BY FERAL APPEALS URT

Vcenz beme the first out lbian to appear on the ver of a natnal gay magaze, The Ladr, a publitn produced by the untry’s first lbian-rights group, the Dghters of Bilis, acrdg to a retrospective on her life and reer by Lillian Farman, a historian of lbian and gay her scbbed, all-Amerin looks, Dr. Vcenz looked like “every mother’s dream dghter, ” as Barbara Gtgs, The Ladr’s edor, put Vcenz also ntributed to the e on the other si of a mera, makg two 16-limeter films that were later hailed as signifint artifacts of the early gay rights first, tled “The Send-Largt Mory, ” documents a Mattache Society prott ont of Inpennce Hall Philalphia on July 4, morn ey, the black-and-whe film, roughly seven mut, seems anythg but seismic. ImageLorie Smh said her Christian fah requir her to turn away ctomers seekg servic to celebrate same-sex Woolf for The New York TimThe Supreme Court sid on Friday wh a web signer Colorado who said she had a First Amendment right to refe to sign weddg webs for same-sex upl spe a state law that forbids discrimatn agast gay people.

The liberal jtic viewed as somethg else entirely — a dispute that threatened societal protectns for gay rights and rolled back some recent an impassned dissent, Jtice Sonia Sotomayor warned that the oute signaled a return to a time when people of lor and other mory groups faced open discrimatn. Kavangh and Amy Coney Barrett, shifted the urt to the urts have generally sid wh gay and lbian upl who were refed service by bakeri, florists and others, lg that potential ctomers are entled to equal treatment, at least parts of the untry wh laws forbiddg discrimatn based on sexual owners of bs challengg those laws have argued that the ernment should not force them to choose between the requirements of their fahs and their livelihoods. Addnally, several stat terpret existg laws agast sex discrimatn to apply to bias relatg to sexual orientatn and genr inty, even though they do not have laws explicly forbiddg such stat that do not offer protectns to gay and transgenr people on those grounds, municipal laws ver many Human Rights Campaign, an L.