The Gay Rights Movement

Written By: Diana Rodriguez

Edited By: Yozer Wang

Source: NBC

For as long as we can remember, talk circling around the queer community and the awareness of it has often been disparaging and belittling. However, through the efforts of the Gay Rights Movement, the stigma surrounding queerness and being LGBTQ has come a long way over the course of its existence. 

Source: NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project

The first gay rights organization, The Society for Human Rights, was started in Chicago in the year 1924 by writer and soldier, Henry Gerber. Having served in Germany, he came into contact with the German Emancipation Movement, inspiring him to begin an organization protecting the rights of queer people. He immigrated through Ellis Island and eventually moved to Chicago, joining with his friends to start the new movement. The organization’s run was cut short, as it was reported and raided by the police shortly after, arresting Gerber and his colleagues

The following decades were filled with people who deemed homosexuality as a mental illness, continuing to fuel the stigma around being gay. Congress was even faced with a publication claiming that queer people are a danger to the security and wellbeing of the country. In the coming years, thousands of people were sent home from the military and fired from their government jobs. With Executive Order 10450, President Eisenhower banned those who were openly queer from working for the government in 1953.

In 1955, the first lesbian rights organization in the U.S., Daughter of Bilitis, based in San Francisco, was founded. This provided a place for lesbians to congregate rather than places that were frequently raided by the police. The name was inspired by the French poet Pierre Louÿs’s fictional character Bilitis, who was portrayed in his writing to be associated with Greek poet Sappho.

Of course, we also have the well-known and accredited Stonewall Riots of 1969 at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York. Typically at the first mention of gay rights, Stonewall always comes to mind. This began with a police raid and led to riots that lasted six days. People protested against the police, standing up for their rights, long awaited after the series of raids that this gay bar had faced over the years. 

Source: Blurry Bylines

Later in the 1980s, with the AIDS epidemic on the rise, nearly 750,000 people walked on through the National March on Washington to press President Ronald Reagan to address the crisis. By the early 90’s, awareness for AIDS had increased and the societal issues of the treatment of those living with it began to subside. 

Then came 2004, where Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage. In the next few years, a couple other states followed. In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled gay marriage as legal in all 50 states of the U.S. with Obergefell vs. Hodges. A huge step for the LGBTQ+ community, this decision impacted gay people across the country. 

The community has come a long way since the creation of the first organizations for gay rights. Although this is true, we still have an extremely long way to go before we can reach true equality.

Source: NPR