People around the world face vlence and equaly—and sometim torture, even executn—bee of who they love, how they look, or who they are. Sexual orientatn and genr inty are tegral aspects of our selv and should never lead to discrimatn or abe. Human Rights Watch works for lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr peopl' rights, and wh activists reprentg a multiplicy of inti and issu. We document and expose ab based on sexual orientatn and genr inty worldwi, cludg torture, killg and executns, arrts unr unjt laws, unequal treatment, censorship, medil ab, discrimatn health and jobs and hog, domtic vlence, ab agast children, and nial of fay rights and regnn. We advote for laws and polici that will protect everyone’s digny. We work for a world where all people n enjoy their rights fully.
Contents:
AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
A slew of bills are rollg back recently won eedoms for gay people. Is Ameri ready to fight for LGBTQ+ rights all over aga? * act up gay rights *
On diversy wh the movement that's been historilly overlooked: The women and people of lor ACT UP tend to e om prev movements, and of the whe gay men, only the olr men me om gay liberatn. When ACT UP began, s founrs uld not have gused how high the group would soar; they would have been even more surprised by the particular nflicts that brought down to the time ACT UP was born, 1987, tens of thoands of Amerins—mostly gay men—had died of AIDS, and more were dyg every day, even as the ernment remaed largely different.
Early that March, Larry Kramer, the wrer and activist who had helped found the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, livered a speech at New York’s Lbian and Gay Communy Servic Center, on Wt Thirteenth Street.
GAY RIGHTS
The gay rights movement the Uned Stat began the 1920s and saw huge progrs the 2000s, wh laws prohibg homosexual activy stck down and a Supreme Court lg legalizg same-sex marriage. * act up gay rights *
It also took on surance practic like the excln of sgle men who lived predomantly gay neighborhoods.
The ACLU works to ensure that lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer people n live openly whout discrimatn and enjoy equal rights, personal tonomy, and eedom of exprsn and associatn. * act up gay rights *
6 tra when he had a “revelatn” that he was not bisexual but gay. “Beg a practil person, ” Schulman tells , he searched the phone book and found somethg lled the Gay Swchboard. There was, and he attend one meetg, then another, and for the next five years he led a gay youth Rso, another ACT UP stalwart, is bt known for “The Celluloid Closet, ” his 1981 book about homosexualy and homophobia film.
) As Rso told a crowd, he had AIDS, but that wasn’t what was killg him:If I’m dyg om anythg, I am dyg om homophobia. And, pecially, if I’m dyg om anythg, I’m dyg om the sensatnalism of newspapers and magaz and televisn shows, which are terted me as a human-tert story—only as long as I’m willg to be a helpls victim, but not if I’m fightg for my polics of AIDS—“gay-related immune ficiency, ” or GRID, was an early signatn, as if a medil ndn might have a sexual orientatn—was evably a nontatn wh homophobia.
Buckley, Jr., wrote, a syndited lumn, “Everyone tected wh AIDS should be tattooed the upper forearm, to protect mon-needle ers, and on the buttocks, to prevent the victimizatn of other homosexuals.