For many generations, especially in North America, homosexuality was not accepted in any way, shape, or form. Many believed that it was a medical illness that was curable, when in reality, people were, and still are, ignorant and could not come to terms that everyone in this world is different from one another. For many instances of being treated unjust, many individuals in the gay community did not want to “expose” themselves and remained in the “closet”. As means to make gays and lesbians proud and take a stand for who they are, a movement spread across internationally. This movement is known as “The Gay Liberation” movement which occurred between the late 1960s and the early to mid 1970s (“Gay Liberation”). The Gay Liberation movement urged individuals of the gay community to “come out,” revealing their sexuality to their loved ones as a form of activism, and to counter shame with gay pride (“Gay Liberation”). The Stonewall Riots are believed to have been the spark that ignited the rise of the Gay Liberation movement; it influenced the way the gay community is viewed socially and how their rights are politically present day. During the early 1950s and throughout the 1960s, in an attempt to “control” sexual behavior, law enforcements would raid gay bars as means to show them that their way of life was deemed as “inappropriate” in the eyes of society, and harass them because of their sexuality. On June 27, 1969, the New York Police Department went on their nightly routines of raiding bars, that night they raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich (Goldstein). Usually, when law enforcements would raid these locations, the patrons would oblige to authority. On this night however; in the first time in history, the occupants of the ba... ... middle of paper ... ...nment/la-ca-stonewall-20100620> Landstreet, Peter. “Sociology 1010: Introduction to Sociology.” York University, Toronto. March 12. Obama, Barack. “Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month”. The White House. March 10, 2012. “Gay Liberation” Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia, February 25, 2012. “LGBT Rights in Canada.” Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia. March 1, 2012. “LGBT Rights in the United States.” Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia. March 1, 2012. “Leviticus 20.” Bible Gateway. March 8, 2012.
In Vicki L. Eaklor’s Queer America, the experiences of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people in the years since the 1970s gay liberation movement are described as a time of transformation and growth. The antigay movement, threatened, now more than ever, created numerous challenges and obstacles that are still prevalent today. Many of the important changes made associated with the movement were introduced through queer and queer allied individuals and groups involved in politics. Small victories such as the revision of the anti discrimination statement to include “sexual orientation”, new propositions regarding the Equal Rights Amendment and legalized abortion, were met in turn with growing animosity and resistance from individuals and groups opposed to liberal and
LGBTQIA stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual. The LGBTQIA topic is still an issue in society. There are people who are still against it. Some people in society still see this topic as a negative thing. The Stonewall riots was an important event for the LGBTQIA community. Stonewall is where the gay rights movement started. The transgender community is an important part of the LGBTQIA community. Same sex marriage was an important event that happened and impacted people of the community. The LGBTQIA community has many influential people like Laverne cox and Caitlyn Jenner. The L and G stands for lesbian and gay which means you are attracted to the same sex. The B stands for bisexual which means you are
Historian David Carter, provides an intriguing in-depth look into the historical impact of the Stonewall Riots in Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution. This engaging book adds to the genre of sexual orientation discrimination. Carter extensively analyzes the various factors that played a role in igniting the Stonewall riots and the historical impact that the riots had on the Gay Revolution and movement for gay equality. Through the use of interviews, newspapers, and maps, Carter argues that the riots were a product of many geographical, social, political, and cultural factors. Carter further argues that the riots ultimately led to the forming of the Gay Revolution and caused sexual orientation to be a protected category in the growing movement for civil rights. Carter’s book provides a well-structured argument, supported mainly by primary evidence, into the different factors that contributed to the riots as well as a detailed account of the events that transpired during the riots and the political attitudes towards homosexuality in America during this time.
In his work about gay life in New York City, George Chauncey seeks to dispel the various myths about the gay lifestyle before the Civil Rights era of the 60’s. He distills the misconceptions into three major myths: “…isolation, invisibility, and internalization” (Chauncey 1994, 2). He believes a certain image has taken in the public mind where gays did not openly exist until the 60’s, and that professional historians have largely ignored this era of sexual history. He posits such ideas are simply counterfactual. Using the city of New York, a metropolitan landscape where many types of people confluence together, he details a thriving gay community. Certainly it is a community by Chauncey’s reckoning; he shows gay men had a large network of bar, clubs, and various other cultural venues where not only gay men intermingled the larger public did as well. This dispels the first two principle myths that gay men were isolated internally from other gay men or invisible to the populace. As to the internalization of gay men, they were not by any degree self-loathing. In fact, Chauncey shows examples of gay pride such a drag queen arrested and detained in police car in a photo with a big smile (Chauncey 1994, 330). Using a series of personal interviews, primary archival material from city repositories, articles, police reports, and private watchdog groups, Chauncey details with a preponderance of evidence the existence of a gay culture in New York City, while at the same time using secondary scholarship to give context to larger events like the Depression and thereby tie changes to the gay community to larger changes in the society.
The media considers the1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City the spark of the modern gay rights movement. This occurred after the police raided the Stonewall bar, a popular gay bar in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Allyn argues that the new energy and militancy generated by the riot played a crucial role in creating the gay liberation movement. Arguably, the Stonewall Riots have come to resemble the pivotal moment in gay rights history largely because it provided ways for the gay community to resist the social norms. In fact, the riots increased public awareness of gay rights activism (Allyn 157). Gay life after the Stonewall riots, however, was just as varied and complex as it was before. In the following era, ho...
Over the course of time, any person who came to live in the United States faced every system of oppression. It is widely assumed that African Americans were the only race undergoing oppression, when in reality, it was all races who were not white. It is completely overshadowed that Filipinos also suffered racism. After the Spanish-American War, the United States took the Philippines as their own territory. Filipinos in the United States were not considered American citizens, therefore, they did not have the same rights as the average American citizen (Depression Era: 1930s: Watsonville Riots). Many Filipinos such as Carlos Bulosan and active participants in the Labor Union took a stand to gain their rights through forms of literature and peaceful
Prior to the 1970’s, members of the LGBTQ community, and especially those who also identified as people of color, were forced to stay silent despite constant discrimination because of their minority statuses. They did not have a voice or means to speak out against the oppression. During the 1960’s, the few safe spaces established for QPOC in urban communities had disappeared, since this particular era was being overshadowed by the Civ...
Imagine being born in a place where people don't mix with one another and keep to their own kind. Imagine not being able to walk into a store because it is white owned. How would it feel if you were black, lived in a city that was run by a white government, where poverty, unemployment and lack of education were all problems of everyday life? If everyone were treated equally, then it would not be a problem. But for inner city African Americans that isn't the case. As humans, there is only so much we can take when it comes to segregation before we act out. There is only so much hate a person can take before letting it be known, once a person is pushed over that threshold there is no holding back. Overwhelming hate and anger with revenge takes hold and all thoughts of consequences rushes out of a person's body. The only thought remaining is violence, which is where rioting comes into play. All it takes are a few people to start protesting and yelling then the next thing you know you have a group of people then a mob. People are like sheep. When a person sees another person doing it, then they are more inclined to join in. Someone then throws a rock, then a bottle, and then all of a sudden here comes an array of Molctov Cocktails and guns. You then have a mob of people with built up tension and anger, ready to crush and destroy whatever stands in their way of their demonstration.
After the riots at Stonewall occurred, the LGBT movement moved further away from the homophile groups of the 50’s and 60’s towards a more radical activist mentality. While there were some groups that made progress through legal channels with the help of the ACLU, groups such as the Gay Liberation Front and the Radical Lesbian Feminists of the time were disenchanted by the government’s failure in Vietnam, and literally wanted to smash the current society to create a better and more accepting America. This led to protests, cultural bonding sites that attempted to create a more cohesive LGBT community, and some isolation of Lesbian, Gay, and Transgender groups that was often only overcome when these groups came together to fight the prejudices
Alan Brinkley, author of The Unfinished Nation, speculates that the raid of police officers on the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in New York started the effort to protect and create rights for gay Americans. The police would frequently taunt and harass patrons of the nightclub until one day when the crowd turned on the police and a riot insued. This caused a overall wakeup for both the police force and the nation for which it was televised (Brinkley 955).
The Stonewall Riots marked the start of the gay rights movement, and inspired members of the gay community to fight for their rights instead of being condemned for their sexuality. Even today, gay people in the US use the incident at Stonewall to educate younger members of the gay community. "The younger generation should know about Stonewall so that they will realize it is possible to make change. It is possible to overcome entrenched, institutionalized prejudice, discrimination, and bigotry. And that they can live full equal lives." (Frank Kameny, aarp.org) This is the message that many members of the gay community continue to spread after the incident at the Stonewall Inn.
The history of the gay rights movement goes as far back as the late 19th century. More accurately, the quest by gays to search out others like themselves and foster a feeling of identity has been around since then. It is an innovative movement that seeks to change existing norms and gain acceptance within our culture. By 1915, one gay person said that the gay world was a "community, distinctly organized" (Milestones 1991), but kept mostly out of view because of social hostility. According to the Milestones article, after World War II, around 1940, many cities saw their first gay bars open as many homosexuals began to start a networking system. However, their newfound visibility only backfired on them, as in the 1950's president Eisenhower banned gays from holding federal jobs and many state institutions did the same. The lead taken by the federal government encouraged local police forces to harass gay citizens. "Vice officers regularly raided gay bars, sometimes arresting dozens of men and women on a single night" (Milestones). In spite of the adversity, out of the 1950s also came the first organized groups of gays, including leaders. The movement was small at first, but grew exponentially in short periods of time. Spurred on by the civil rights movement in the 1960s, the "homophile" (Milestones) movement took on more visibility, picketing government agencies and discriminatory policies. By 1969, around 50 gay organizations existed in the United States. The most crucial moment in blowing the gay rights movement wide open was on the evening of July 27, 1969, when a group of police raided a gay bar in New York City. This act prompted three days of rioting in the area called the Stonewall Rio...
by becoming the first openly gay male politician (MilkFoundation, PBS). Through his work, he was able to battle John Briggs’ proposition to remove gay teachers from schools in California, introduced a gay rights ordinance to serve as protection for the queer community in San Francisco, as well as offer inspirational speeches for those around the country living in fear (MilkFoundation). Some notable quotes include, “Gay people, we will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets. … We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays” and more simply, “You must come out” (MilkFoundation). His activism inspired other leaders to take stands and encourage change within the society. Numerous marches within San Francisco and across the country followed his assassination in 1977 (PBS) once again bringing more attention to the problems facing the queer community. Today, politicians reflect the needs and desires of the masses, and as a result including gay rights into their platforms. Presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein have made it a point to ensure their voters that they will continue to support the queer community (On The
“[Queer culture is] a creative energy reflecting a consciousness that is different from the mainstream; a heightened sense of certain human complications of feeling that spring from...social oppression” (Padva 61). American culture prides itself on liberty, equality, and many other freedoms no other country has. Queers have the same freedoms, yet they are continually looking down upon and labeled as social outcasts. Less than 50 years ago, homosexuality was considered a mental illness and today children get sent to conversion therapy. Embracing and celebrating queer culture will further American’s acceptance of LGBT and make everywhere a safe place for them to
When one hears the words “LGBT” and “Homosexuality” it often conjures up a mental picture of people fighting for their rights, which were unjustly taken away or even the social emergence of gay culture in the world in the1980s and the discovery of AIDS. However, many people do not know that the history of LGBT people stretches as far back in humanity’s history, and continues in this day and age. Nevertheless, the LGBT community today faces much discrimination and adversity. Many think the problem lies within society itself, and often enough that may be the case. Society holds preconceptions and prejudice of the LGBT community, though not always due to actual hatred of the LGBT community, but rather through lack of knowledge and poor media portrayal.