102-632: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer ( LGBTQ ) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBTQ people in society. Although there is not a primary or an overarching central organization that represents all LGBTQ people and their interests, numerous LGBTQ rights organizations are active worldwide. The first organization to promote LGBTQ rights was the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee , founded in 1897 in Berlin. A commonly stated goal among these movements
204-639: A bar in New York City resisted a police raid. Immediately after Stonewall, such groups as the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the Gay Activists' Alliance (GAA) were formed. Their use of the word gay represented a new unapologetic defiance—as an antonym for straight ("respectable sexual behavior"), it encompassed a range of non-normative sexuality and sought ultimately to free the bisexual potential in everyone, rendering obsolete
306-858: A contingent dressed as workmen obtained access to the basement and shut off the lights. In 1971, the gay liberation movement in Germany and Switzerland started with Rosa von Praunheims movie It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives . Easter 1972 saw the Gay Lib annual conference held in the Guild of Undergraduates Union (students union) building at the University of Birmingham . In May 1974
408-600: A crime. In 1833, an anonymous English-language writer wrote a poetic defense of Captain Nicholas Nicholls, who had been sentenced to death in London for sodomy: Whence spring these inclinations, rank and strong? And harming no one, wherefore call them wrong? Three years later in Switzerland, Heinrich Hoessli published the first volume of Eros: Die Männerliebe der Griechen (English: "Eros: The Male Love of
510-411: A criminal offence". All but James Adair were in favor of this and, contrary to some medical and psychiatric witnesses' evidence at that time, found that "homosexuality cannot legitimately be regarded as a disease, because in many cases it is the only symptom and is compatible with full mental health in other respects." The report added, "The law's function is to preserve public order and decency, to protect
612-582: A cultural and social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of punk expressed in a do-it-yourself style through zines, music, writing, art and film. The term queer migration is used to describe the movement of LGBTQ people around the world often to escape discrimination or ill treatment due to their orientation or gender expression. Organizations such as the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees and Rainbow Railroad attempt to assist individuals in such relocations. A pride flag for
714-745: A first commemoration of the Stonewall Riots. Liberation groups, including the Gay Liberation Front, Queens, the Gay Activists Alliance, Radicalesbians , and Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (STAR) all took part in the first Gay Pride Week. Los Angeles held a big parade on the first Gay Pride Day. Smaller demonstrations were held in San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston. In the United Kingdom
816-473: A four-year period, from 1889 to 1893, form one of the earliest known works of self-conscious homosexual autobiography in English. The recently decoded autobiographies of Anne Lister are an earlier example in English. Another friend of Ives was the English socialist poet Edward Carpenter . Carpenter thought that homosexuality was an innate and natural human characteristic and that it should not be regarded as
918-474: A gay movement centered more on obtaining straight privilege than challenging power." Commentators such as Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore have argued that it was exactly these "revolting queers" (who were now being pushed aside) who had made it safe for the assimilationists to now have the option of assimilation. The term may be capitalized when referring to an identity or community, in a construction similar to
1020-467: A heteronormativity in medical rationales for the surgical normalization of infants and children born with atypical sex development, and Holmes and Carpenter have described intersex bodies as queer bodies . In "What Can Queer Theory Do for Intersex?" Iain Morland contrasts queer "hedonic activism" with an experience of insensate post-surgical intersex bodies to claim that "queerness is characterized by
1122-461: A need to work together. Leaders of the lesbian and gay movement of the 1970s, '80s and '90s often attempted to hide masculine lesbians, feminine gay men , transgender people, and bisexuals from the public eye, creating internal divisions within LGBTQ communities. Roffee and Waling (2016) documented that LGBTQ people experience microaggressions, bullying and anti-social behaviors from other people within
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#17327799911121224-554: A novel titled The Well of Loneliness . Its plot centers on Stephen Gordon, a woman who identifies herself as an invert after reading Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis , and lives within the homosexual subculture of Paris. The novel included a foreword by Havelock Ellis and was intended to be a call for tolerance for inverts by publicizing their disadvantages and accidents of being born inverted. Hall subscribed to Ellis and Krafft-Ebing's theories and rejected (conservatively understood version of) Freud's theory that same-sex attraction
1326-696: A number of homosexual rights groups came into being or were revived across the Western world, in Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries and the United States. These groups usually preferred the term homophile to homosexual , emphasizing love over sex. The homophile movement began in the late 1940s with groups in the Netherlands and Denmark, and continued throughout
1428-517: A perceived lack of intersectionality , some of them only tangentially connected to the LGBT movement. Queer arts, queer cultural groups, and queer political groups are examples of modern expressions of queer identities. Critics of the term include members of the LGBT community who associate it more with its colloquial, derogatory usage; those who wish to dissociate themselves from queer radicalism ; and those who see it as too amorphous or trendy. Queer
1530-420: A popular all-night restaurant, Gene Compton's Cafeteria. The Wolfenden Report was published in Britain on September 4, 1957, after publicized convictions for homosexuality of well-known men, including Edward Montagu-Scott, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu . Disregarding the conventional ideas of the day, the committee recommended that "homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be
1632-547: A prominent influence in political systems of social acceptability. Radicals of the 1970s would later disparage the homophile groups for being assimilationist . Any demonstrations were orderly and polite. By 1969, there were dozens of homophile organizations and publications in the U.S., and a national organization had been formed, but they were largely ignored by the media. A 1965 gay march held in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, according to some historians, marked
1734-460: A queer theorist of color, specifically coined the term homonationalism to refer to the perceived rise of American exceptionalism , nationalism , white supremacy , and patriarchy within the gay community, catalyzed in response to the September 11 attacks . In their research on the queer movements of Indonesia and Malaysia , scholars Jón Ingvar Kjaran and Mohammad Naeimi have said that
1836-557: A rather cohesive group with a well-expressed philosophy. A secret British society called the Order of Chaeronea campaigned for the legalization of homosexuality. The society was founded in 1897 by George Cecil Ives , one of the earliest gay rights campaigners, who had been working for the end of oppression of homosexuals, what he called the "Cause". Members included Oscar Wilde , Charles Kains Jackson , Samuel Elsworth Cottam , Montague Summers , and John Gambril Nicholson . Ives met Wilde at
1938-527: A sin or a criminal offense. In the 1890s, Carpenter began a concerted effort to campaign against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation , possibly in response to the recent death of Symonds, whom he viewed as his campaigning inspiration. His 1908 book on the subject, The Intermediate Sex , would become a foundational text of the LGBT movements of the 20th century. Scottish anarchist John Henry Mackay also wrote in defense of same-sex love and androgyny . English sexologist Havelock Ellis wrote
2040-594: A site of "collective contestation", referring to its commitment to challenging easy categories and definitions. Critics of queer theory argue that this refusal of straightforward categories can make the discipline overly abstract or detached from reality. Queer theorists such as Rod Ferguson , Jasbir Puar , Lisa Duggan , and Chong-suk Han have critiqued the mainstream gay political movement as allied with neoliberal and imperialistic agendas, including gay tourism, gay and trans military inclusion, and state- and church-sanctioned marriages for monogamous gay couples. Puar,
2142-573: A time when the legal penalty for buggery was death by hanging. His advocacy stemmed from his utilitarian philosophy , in which the morality of an action is determined by the net consequence of that action on human well-being. He argued that homosexuality was a victimless crime , and therefore not deserving of social approbation or criminal charges. He regarded popular negative attitudes against homosexuality as an irrational prejudice, fanned and perpetuated by religious teachings. However, he did not publicize his views as he feared reprisal; his powerful essay
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#17327799911122244-625: A work of what would later be called " gay history ." Although the Oxford English Dictionary credits the medical writer C.G. Chaddock for introducing "homosexual" into the English language in 1892, Symonds had already used the word in A Problem in Greek Ethics . Symonds also translated classical poetry on homoerotic themes, and wrote poems drawing on ancient Greek imagery and language such as Eudiades , which has been called "the most famous of his homoerotic poems". While
2346-544: Is equal rights for LGBTQ people, often focusing on specific goals such as ending the criminalization of homosexuality or enacting same-sex marriage . Others have focused on building LGBTQ communities or worked towards liberation for the broader society from biphobia , homophobia , and transphobia . LGBTQ movements organized today are made up of a wide range of political activism and cultural activity, including lobbying , street marches , social groups , media, art, and research . Sociologist Mary Bernstein writes: "For
2448-458: Is also widespread in Australia, including national counselling and support service Qlife and QNews . Other social movements exist as offshoots of queer culture or combinations of queer identity with other views. Adherents of queer nationalism support the notion that the LGBT community forms a distinct people due to their unique culture and customs. Queercore (originally homocore ) is
2550-581: Is great. It has its place. But when a lot of lesbians and gay men wake up in the morning we feel angry and disgusted, not gay. So we've chosen to call ourselves queer. Using "queer" is a way of reminding us how we are perceived by the rest of the world. Queer people, particularly queer Black and Brown people, also began to reclaim queer in response to a perceived shift in the gay community toward liberal conservatism , catalyzed by Andrew Sullivan 's 1989 piece in The New Republic , titled Here Comes
2652-538: Is her only known contribution to the cause. Women only began to join the previously male-dominated sexual reform movement around 1910 when the German government tried to expand Paragraph 175 to outlaw sex between women. Heterosexual feminist leader Helene Stöcker became a prominent figure in the movement. Friedrich Radszuweit published LGBT literature and magazines in Berlin (e.g., Die Freundin ). Hirschfeld, whose life
2754-768: Is nothing as strange as people", employs this meaning. Related meanings of queer include a feeling of unwellness or something that is questionable or suspicious. In the 1922 comic monologue " My Word, You Do Look Queer ", the word is taken to mean "unwell". The expression "in Queer Street " is used in the United Kingdom for someone in financial trouble. Over time, queer acquired a number of meanings related to sexuality and gender, from narrowly meaning "gay or lesbian" to referring to those who are "not heterosexual" to referring to those who are either not heterosexual or not cisgender (those who are LGBT+ ). The term
2856-539: Is sometimes expanded to include any non-normative sexuality, including cisgender queer heterosexuality , although some LGBT people view this use of the term as appropriation . Entering the English language in the 16th century , queer originally meant "strange", "odd", "peculiar", or "eccentric". It might refer to something suspicious or "not quite right", or to a person with mild derangement or who exhibits socially inappropriate behaviour. The Northern English expression " there's nowt so queer as folk ", meaning "there
2958-525: Is still widely used in Hiberno-English with its original meaning as well as to provide adverbial emphasis (very, extremely). By the late 19th century, queer was beginning to gain a connotation of sexual deviance, used to refer to feminine men or men who were thought to have engaged in same-sex relationships. An early recorded usage of the word in this sense was in an 1894 letter by John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry , as read aloud at
3060-425: Is the study of issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity, usually focusing on LGBT people and cultures. Originally centered on LGBT history and literary theory , the field has expanded to include the academic study of issues raised in biology , sociology , anthropology , history of science , philosophy , psychology , sexology , political science , ethics , and other fields by an examination of
3162-691: The American Psychiatric Association , after years of pressure from activists , changed the wording concerning homosexuality in the Sixth printing of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders from a "mental disorder" to that of a "sexual orientation disturbance". While still not a flattering description, it took gay people out of the category of being automatically considered mentally ill simply for their sexual orientation. By 1974, internal disagreements had led to
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3264-550: The Authors' Club in London in 1892. Wilde was taken by his boyish looks and persuaded him to shave off his mustache, and once kissed him passionately in the Travellers' Club . In 1893, Lord Alfred Douglas , with whom he had a brief affair, introduced Ives to several Oxford poets whom Ives also tried to recruit. John Addington Symonds was a poet and an early advocate of male love. In 1873, he wrote A Problem in Greek Ethics ,
3366-554: The New York Gay Pride Parade in June 1990 titled " Queers Read This ". The flier included a passage explaining their adoption of the label queer: Ah, do we really have to use that word? It's trouble. Every gay person has his or her own take on it. For some it means strange and eccentric and kind of mysterious [...] And for others "queer" conjures up those awful memories of adolescent suffering [...] Well, yes, "gay"
3468-598: The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee campaign publicly against the notorious law " Paragraph 175 ", which made sex between men illegal. Adolf Brand later broke away from the group, disagreeing with Hirschfeld's medical view of the " intermediate sex ", seeing male-male sex as merely an aspect of manly virility and male social bonding. Brand was the first to use " outing " as a political strategy, claiming that German Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow engaged in homosexual activity. The 1901 book Sind es Frauen? Roman über das Dritte Geschlecht (English: Are These Women? Novel about
3570-537: The drag queen caucus of the GLF, including Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera , formed the group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), which focused on providing support for gay prisoners, housing for homeless gay youth and street people, especially other young "street queens". In 1969, Lee Brewster and Bunny Eisenhower formed the Queens Liberation Front (QLF), partially in protest to
3672-735: The queer movement have argued that the categories of gay and lesbian are restrictive, and attempted to deconstruct those categories, which are seen to "reinforce rather than challenge a cultural system that will always mark the non heterosexual as inferior." After the French Revolution the anticlerical feeling in Catholic countries coupled with the liberalizing effect of the Napoleonic Code made it possible to sweep away sodomy laws. However, in Protestant countries, where
3774-683: The "Eurocentric discourse", homonationalism and homonormativity of "LGBT politics" in the global north . Several LGBT social movements around the world use the identifier queer , such as the Queer Cyprus Association in Cyprus and the Queer Youth Network in the United Kingdom. In India, pride parades include Queer Azaadi Mumbai and the Delhi Queer Pride Parade . The use of queer and Q
3876-415: The "localization of modern queer identity", rooted in local interpretations of queer theory and "Muslim modernism", has helped queer Indonesians and Malaysians to "promote their self-construction and organize a collective mobilization for their rights". They contrast this with the rhetoric of those conservative Muslim homophobes who portray "gay" or "LGBT" identities as a form of Western imperialism, as well as
3978-546: The 17th-century cross-dressing was common in plays, as evident in the content of many of William Shakespeare 's plays and by the actors in actual performance (since female roles in Elizabethan theater were always performed by males, usually prepubescent boys). Thomas Cannon wrote what may be the earliest published defense of homosexuality in English, Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify'd (1749). Although only fragments of his work have survived, it
4080-478: The 1930s and 1940s. As this binary became embedded into the social fabric, queer began to decline as an acceptable identity in the subculture. Similar to the earlier use of queer , gay was adopted by many U.S. assimilationist men in the mid-20th century as a means of asserting their normative status and rejecting any associations with effeminacy . The idea that queer was a pejorative term became more prevalent among younger gay men following World War II . As
4182-594: The 1950s and 1960s with groups in Sweden, Norway, the United States, France , Britain and elsewhere. ONE, Inc. , the first public homosexual organization in the U.S., was bankrolled by the wealthy transsexual man Reed Erickson . A U.S. transgender rights journal, Transvestia: The Journal of the American Society for Equality in Dress , also published two issues in 1952. The homophile movement lobbied to establish
LGBTQ movements - Misplaced Pages Continue
4284-427: The 1960s and 1970s, the homophile identity was gradually displaced by a more radicalized gay identity. At that time gay was generally an umbrella term including lesbians , as well as gay-identified bisexuals and transsexuals ; gender-nonconformity , which had always been an indicator of gayness, also became more open during this time. During the endonymic shifts from invert to homophile to gay , queer
4386-763: The 2009 Beijing Queer Film Festival after previous attempts to hold a queer film festival were shut down by the government. Multidisciplinary queer arts festivals include the Outburst Queer Arts Festival Belfast in Northern Ireland, the Queer Arts Festival in Canada, and the National Queer Arts Festival in the United States. Television shows that use queer in their titles include
4488-637: The Act. The first person known to describe himself as a drag queen was William Dorsey Swann , born enslaved in Hancock, Maryland . Swann was the first American on record who pursued legal and political action to defend the LGBTQ community 's right to assemble . During the 1880s and 1890s, Swann organized a series of drag balls in Washington, D.C. Swann was arrested in police raids numerous times, including in
4590-540: The GLF had its first meeting in the basement of the London School of Economics on October 13, 1970. Bob Mellors and Aubrey Walter had seen the effect of the GLF in the United States and created a parallel movement based on revolutionary politics and alternative lifestyle. By 1971, the UK GLF was recognized as a political movement in the national press, holding weekly meetings of 200 to 300 people. The GLF Manifesto
4692-488: The GLF were established across the U.S. and in other parts of the Western world. The Front homosexuel d'action révolutionnaire was formed in 1971 by lesbians who split from the Mouvement Homophile de France . The Gay liberation movement overall, like the gay community generally and historically, has had varying degrees of gender nonconformity and assimilationist platforms among its members. Early marches by
4794-641: The Greeks"), another defense of same-sex love. In many ways, social attitudes to homosexuality became more hostile during the late Victorian era . In 1885, the Labouchere Amendment was included in the Criminal Law Amendment Act , which criminalized 'any act of gross indecency with another male person'; a charge that was successfully invoked to convict playwright Oscar Wilde in 1895 with the most severe sentence possible under
4896-520: The Groom: The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage . By identifying themselves as queer rather than gay, LGBT activists sought to reject causes they viewed as assimilationist , such as marriage , military inclusion and adoption. This radical stance, including the rejection of U.S. imperialism, continued the tradition of earlier lesbian and gay anti-war activism, and solidarity with a variety of leftist movements, as seen in
4998-520: The LGBTQ community. This is due to misconceptions and conflicting views as to what entails "LGBT". For example, transgender people found that other members of the community were not understanding toward their own, individual, specific needs and would instead make ignorant assumptions, and this could cause health risks. Additionally, bisexual people found that lesbian or gay people were not understanding or appreciative of bisexual sexuality. Evidently, even though most of these people would say that they stand for
5100-656: The Labour Home Secretary . When passed, the Sexual Offenses Act decriminalized homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age in private in England and Wales . The seemingly innocuous phrase 'in private' led to the prosecution of participants in sex acts involving three or more men, e.g. the Bolton 7 who were so convicted as recently as 1998. Bisexual activism became more visible toward
5202-643: The Mattachine society and Daughters of Bilitis stressed looking "respectable" and mainstream, and after the Stonewall Uprising the Mattachine Society posted a sign in the window of the club calling for peace. Gender nonconformity has always been a primary way of signaling homosexuality and bisexuality, and by the late 1960s and mainstream fashion was increasingly incorporating what by the 1970s would be considered "unisex" fashions. In 1970,
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#17327799911125304-504: The Third Sex ) by Aimée Duc was as much a political treatise as a novel, criticizing pathological theories of homosexuality and gender inversion in women. Anna Rüling , delivering a public speech in 1904 at the request of Hirschfeld, became the first female Uranian activist. Rüling, who also saw "men, women, and homosexuals" as three distinct genders, called for an alliance between the women's and sexual reform movements, but this speech
5406-560: The Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.132 via cp1112 cp1112, Varnish XID 936498261 Upstream caches: cp1112 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:46:31 GMT Queer Queer is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender . Originally meaning ' strange ' or ' peculiar ' , queer came to be used pejoratively against LGBT people in
5508-603: The age of consent for same-sex partners to be at age 15, making it equal to heterosexual couples. In Japan, LGBT groups were established in the 1970s. In 1971, Ken Togo ran for the Upper House election. Bisexuals became more visible in the LGBT rights movement in the 1970s. In 1972 a Quaker group, the Committee of Friends on Bisexuality, issued the "Ithaca Statement on Bisexuality" supporting bisexuals. The Statement, which may have been "the first public declaration of
5610-470: The beginning of the modern gay rights movement. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the LGBT youth organization Vanguard was formed by Adrian Ravarour to demonstrate for equality, and Vanguard members protested for equal rights during the months of April–July 1966, followed by the August 1966 Compton's riot, where transgender street prostitutes in the poor neighborhood of Tenderloin rioted against police harassment at
5712-705: The bisexual movement" and "was certainly the first statement on bisexuality issued by an American religious assembly," appeared in the Quaker Friends Journal and The Advocate in 1972. In that same year the National Bisexual Liberation Group formed in New York. In 1976 the San Francisco Bisexual Center opened. Social movements Too Many Requests If you report this error to
5814-530: The capitalized use of Deaf . The 'Q' in extended versions of the LGBT acronym, such as LGBTQIA+ , is most often considered an abbreviation of queer. It can also stand for questioning . Reclamation and use of the term queer is controversial; several people and organizations, both LGBT and non-LGBT, object to some or all uses of the word for various reasons. Some LGBT people dislike the use of queer as an umbrella term because they associate it with political and social radicalism; they say that deliberate use of
5916-419: The categories of homosexual and heterosexual. According to Gay Lib writer Toby Marotta , "their Gay political outlooks were not homophile but liberationist". "Out, loud and proud," they engaged in colorful street theater . The GLF's "A Gay Manifesto" set out the aims for the fledgling gay liberation movement, and influential intellectual Paul Goodman published " The Politics of Being Queer " (1969). Chapters of
6018-712: The church was less severe, there was no general reaction against statutes that were religious in origin. As a result, many of those countries retained their statutes on sodomy until late in the 20th century. However, some countries have still retained their statutes on sodomy. For example, in 2008 a case in India's High Court was judged using a 150-year-old reading that was punishing sodomy. In eighteenth - and nineteenth-century Europe , same-sex sexual behavior and cross-dressing were widely considered to be socially unacceptable, and were serious crimes under sodomy and sumptuary laws . There were, however, some exceptions. For example, in
6120-487: The citizen from what is offensive or injurious, and to provide sufficient safeguards against exploitation and corruption of others ... It is not, in our view, the function of the law to intervene in the private life of citizens, or to seek to enforce any particular pattern of behavior." The report eventually led to the introduction of the Sexual Offences Bill 1967 supported by Labour MP Roy Jenkins , then
6222-428: The civil and political spheres. As with other social movements, there is also conflict within and between LGBTQ movements, especially about strategies for change and debates over exactly who represents the constituency of these movements, and this also applies to changing education. There is debate over the extent that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people, as well as others, share common interests and
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#17327799911126324-496: The dominant, "normal" society. … It signaled the general perception of same-sex desire as something eccentric, strange, abnormal, and perverse. Beginning in the 1980s, the label queer began to be reclaimed from its pejorative use as a neutral or positive self-identifier by LGBT people. An early example of this usage was by an LGBT organisation called Queer Nation , which was formed in March 1990 and circulated an anonymous flier at
6426-497: The earliest organizations for bisexuals, the Sexual Freedom League in San Francisco, was facilitated by Margo Rila and Frank Esposito beginning in 1967. Two years later, during a staff meeting at a San Francisco mental health facility serving LGBT people, nurse Maggi Rubenstein came out as bisexual. Due to this, bisexuals began to be included in the facility's programs for the first time. The new social movements of
6528-400: The early 1990s. Modern queer film festivals include the Melbourne Queer Film Festival and Mardi Gras Film Festival (run by Queer Screen) in Australia, the Mumbai Queer Film Festival in India, the Asian Queer Film Festival in Japan, and Queersicht in Switzerland. Chinese film director Cui Zi'en titled his 2008 documentary about homosexuality in China Queer China , which premiered at
6630-468: The end of the 1960s in the United States. In 1966 bisexual activist Robert A. Martin (also known as Donny the Punk) founded the Student Homophile League at Columbia University and New York University. In 1967 Columbia University officially recognized this group, thus making them the first college in the United States to officially recognize a gay student group. Activism on behalf of bisexuals in particular also began to grow, especially in San Francisco. One of
6732-518: The epithet queer by political radicals has, in their view, played a role in dividing the LGBT community by political opinion, class, gender, age, and other factors. Sociologist Joshua Gamson argues that the controversy about the word also marks a social and political divide in the LGBT community between those (including civil-rights activists) who perceive themselves as "normal" and who wish to be seen as ordinary members of society and those who see themselves as separate, confrontational and/or not part of
6834-406: The first documented case of arrests for female impersonation in the United States, on April 12, 1888. From the 1870s, social reformers began to defend homosexuality, but due to the controversial nature of their advocacy, kept their identities secret. The Uranian poets and prose writers, who sought to rehabilitate the love between men and boys and in doing so often appealed to Ancient Greece, formed
6936-430: The first nation to decriminalize homosexuality, probably thanks in part to Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès , who was one of the authors of the Napoleonic Code . With the introduction of the Napoleonic Code in 1808, the Duchy of Warsaw also decriminalized homosexuality. In 1830, the new Penal Code of the Brazilian Empire did not repeat the title XIII of the fifth book of the "Ordenações Philipinas", which made sodomy
7038-573: The first objective scientific study of homosexuality in 1897, in which he treated it as a neutral sexual condition. Called Sexual Inversion it was first printed in German and then translated into English a year later. In the book, Ellis argued that same-sex relationships could not be characterized as a pathology or a crime and that its importance rose above the arbitrary restrictions imposed by society. He also studied what he called 'inter-generational relationships' and that these also broke societal taboos on age difference in sexual relationships. The book
7140-487: The gains made in Germany would soon be drastically reversed with the rise of Nazism , and the institute and its library were destroyed in 1933. The Swiss journal Der Kreis was the only part of the movement to continue through the Nazi era. USSR's Criminal Code of 1922 decriminalized homosexuality. This was a remarkable step in the USSR at the time – which was very backward economically and socially, and where many conservative attitudes towards sexuality prevailed. This step
7242-427: The gay identity became more widely adopted in the community, some men who preferred to identify as gay began chastising older men who still referred to themselves as queer by the late 1940s: In calling themselves gay, a new generation of men insisted on the right to name themselves, to claim their status as men, and to reject the "effeminate" styles of the older generation. [...] Younger men found it easier to forget
7344-473: The good bits, the cultural and political cachet, the clothes and the sound of gay culture, without ... the internalized homophobia of lived gay experience." Many queer people believe that "you don't have to identify as queer if you're on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, but you do have to be on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum to identify as queer." In academia, the term queer (and the related verb queering ) broadly indicate
7446-539: The identity, lives, history, and perception of queer people. Organizations such as the Irish Queer Archive attempt to collect and preserve history related to queer studies. Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of queer studies and women's studies . Applications of queer theory include queer theology and queer pedagogy . Philosopher Judith Butler has described queer theory as
7548-417: The intersex movement did not rely solely on queer identity model for its strategies. Queer is sometimes expanded to include any non-normative sexuality, including (cisgender) " queer heterosexuality ". This has been criticized by some LGBTQ people, who argue that queer can only be reclaimed by those it has been used to oppress: "A straight person identifying as queer can feel like choosing to appropriate
7650-541: The large and visible presence of LGBT people in most urban centers. For another, activists soon realized that most intersex individuals were not interested in building intersex communities or culture; what they sought were professional psychological support to live ordinary lives as ordinary men and women and not the adoption of new, misleading identity. ... To make it worse, the word "intersex" began to attract individuals who are not necessarily intersex, but feel that they might be, because they are queer or trans. ... Fortunately,
7752-412: The late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to reclaim the word as a neutral or positive self-description. In the 21st century, queer became increasingly used to describe a broad spectrum of non- heteronormative sexual or gender identities and politics. Academic disciplines such as queer theory and queer studies share a general opposition to binarism , normativity , and
7854-430: The lesbian and gay movement, then, cultural goals include (but are not limited to) challenging dominant constructions of masculinity and femininity , homophobia , and the primacy of the gendered heterosexual nuclear family ( heteronormativity ). Political goals include changing laws and policies to gain new rights, benefits, and protections from harm". Bernstein emphasizes that activists seek both types of goals in both
7956-510: The movement's splintering. Organizations that spun off from the movement included the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard , Gay News , and Icebreakers . The GLF Information Service continued for a few further years providing gay related resources. GLF branches had been set up in some provincial British towns (e.g., Bradford, Bristol, Leeds, and Leicester) and some survived for a few years longer. The Leicester group founded by Jeff Martin
8058-514: The ordinary social order. Other LGBT people disapprove of reclaiming or using queer because they consider it offensive, in part due to its continued use as a pejorative. Some LGBT people avoid queer because they perceive it as faddish slang, or alternatively as academic jargon. Scholars and activists have proposed different ways in which queer identities apply or do not apply to intersex people. Sociologist Morgan Holmes and bioethicists Morgan Carpenter and Katrina Karkazis have documenting
8160-419: The origins of gay in the campy banter of the very queens whom they wished to reject. In other parts of the world, particularly England, queer continued to be the dominant term used by the community well into the mid-twentieth century, as noted by historical sociologist Jeffrey Weeks: By the 1950s and 1960s to say "I am queer" was to tell of who and what you were, and how you positioned yourself in relation to
8262-846: The political mainstream on the same level as other groups in society. In arguing that sexual orientation and gender identity are innate and cannot be consciously changed, attempts to change gay, lesbian, and bisexual people into heterosexuals (" conversion therapy ") are generally opposed by the LGBTQ community. Such attempts are often based on religious beliefs that perceive gay, lesbian, and bisexual activity as immoral. Religion has, however, never been univocal opposed to either homosexuality, bisexuality or being transgender, usually treating sex between men and sex between women differently. As of today, numerous religious communities and many believers in various religions are generally accepting of LGBTQ rights. However, others within LGBTQ movements have criticized identity politics as limited and flawed, elements of
8364-466: The positions taken at the first two National Marches on Washington in 1979 and 1987 , the radical direct action of groups like ACT UP , and the historical importance of events like the Stonewall riots . The radical queer groups following in this tradition of LGBT activism contrasted firmly with "the holy trinity of marriage, military service and adoption [which had] become the central preoccupation of
8466-406: The queer community was created in 2015, though it is not widely known. Its colors include blue and pink for attraction to the same gender , orange and green for non-binary people, and black and white for agender , asexual , and aromantic people. The label queer is often applied to art movements, particularly cinema. New Queer Cinema was a movement in queer-themed independent filmmaking in
8568-458: The same values as the majority of the community, there are still remaining inconsistencies even within the LGBTQ community. LGBTQ movements have often adopted a kind of identity politics that sees gay, bisexual, and transgender people as a fixed class of people; a minority group or groups, and this is very common among LGBTQ communities. Those using this approach aspire to liberal political goals of freedom and equal opportunity , and aim to join
8670-511: The sensory interrelation of pleasure and shame". Emi Koyama describes a move away from a queer identity model within the intersex movement: Such tactic [of reclaiming labels] was obviously influenced by queer identity politics of the 1980s and 90s that were embodied by such groups as Queer Nation and Lesbian Avengers. But unfortunately, intersex activists quickly discovered that the intersex movement could not succeed under this model. For one thing, there were far fewer intersex people compared to
8772-718: The sixties, such as the Black Power and anti-Vietnam war movements in the US, the May 1968 insurrection in France, and Women's Liberation throughout the Western world, inspired many LGBT activists to become more radical, and the Gay Liberation movement emerged towards the end of the decade. This new radicalism is often attributed to the Stonewall riots of 1969, when a group of gay men, lesbians, drag queens and transgender women at
8874-513: The study of literature, discourse, academic fields, and other social and cultural areas from a non- heterosexual and/or non- cisgender viewpoint. Though the fields of queer studies and queer theory are broad, such studies often focus on LGBT+ lives, and may involve challenging the assumption that being heterosexual and cisgender are the default or "normal". Queer theory, in particular, may embrace ambiguities and fluidity in traditionally "stable" categories such as gay or straight. Queer studies
8976-472: The taboos of Victorian England prevented Symonds from speaking openly about homosexuality, his works published for a general audience contained strong implications and some of the first direct references to male-male sexual love in English literature. By the end of his life, Symonds' homosexuality had become an open secret in Victorian literary and cultural circles. In particular, Symonds' memoirs, written over
9078-424: The terms used within the subculture, medical practitioners and police officers tended to use medicalized or pathological terms like "invert", "pervert", "degenerate", and "homosexual". None of the terms, whether inside or outside of the subculture, equated to the general concept of a homosexual identity, which only emerged with the ascension of a binary (heterosexual/homosexual) understanding of sexual orientation in
9180-428: The traditional institutions of family and marriage that were seen to enslave women. Some advocates of free love in the early 20th century, including Russian anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman , also spoke in defense of same-sex love and challenged repressive legislation. An early LGBT movement also began in Germany at the turn of the 20th century, centering on the doctor and writer Magnus Hirschfeld . In 1897 he formed
9282-647: The treatment of the drag queens at the first Christopher Street Liberation Day March . One of the values of the movement was gay pride . Within weeks of the Stonewall Riots, Craig Rodwell , proprietor of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in lower Manhattan, persuaded the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) to replace the Fourth of July Annual Reminder at Independence Hall in Philadelphia with
9384-407: The trial of Oscar Wilde. Queer was used in mainstream society by the early 20th century, along with fairy and faggot , as a pejorative term to refer to men who were perceived as flamboyant. This was, as historian George Chauncey notes, "the predominant image of all queers within the straight mind". Starting in the underground gay bar scene in the 1950s, then moving more into the open in
9486-492: Was a humorous anthology of homosexual advocacy, written with an obvious enthusiasm for its subject. It contains the argument: "Unnatural Desire is a Contradiction in Terms; downright Nonsense. Desire is an amatory Impulse of the inmost human Parts: Are not they, however, constructed, and consequently impelling Nature?" Social reformer Jeremy Bentham wrote the first known argument for homosexual law reform in England around 1785, at
9588-467: Was caused by childhood trauma and was curable. In the United States, several secret or semi-secret groups were formed explicitly to advance the rights of homosexuals as early as the turn of the 20th century, but little is known about them. A better documented group is Henry Gerber 's Society for Human Rights formed in Chicago in 1924, which was quickly suppressed. Immediately following World War II ,
9690-469: Was dedicated to social progress for people who were transsexual, transvestite and homosexual, formed the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexology) in 1919. The institute conducted an enormous amount of research, saw thousands of transgender and homosexual clients at consultations, and championed a broad range of sexual reforms including sex education, contraception and women's rights. However,
9792-565: Was not published until 1978. The emerging currents of secular humanist thought that had inspired Bentham also informed the French Revolution , and when the newly formed National Constituent Assembly began drafting the policies and laws of the new republic in 1792, groups of militant "sodomite-citizens" in Paris petitioned the Assemblée nationale , the governing body of the French Revolution , for freedom and recognition. In 1791, France became
9894-651: Was noted for its involvement in the setting up of the local "Gayline", which is still active today and has received funding from the National Lottery . They also carried out a high-profile campaign against the local paper, the Leicester Mercury , which refused to advertise Gayline's services at the time. In 1972, Sweden became the first country in the world to allow people who were transsexual by legislation to surgically change their sex and provide free hormone replacement therapy . Sweden also permitted
9996-418: Was part of a larger project of freeing sexual relationships and expanding women's rights – including legalizing abortion, granting divorce on demand, equal rights for women, and attempts to socialize housework. During Stalin's era, however, USSR reverted all these progressive measures – re-criminalizing homosexuality and imprisoning gay men and banning abortion. In 1928, English writer Radclyffe Hall published
10098-429: Was published, and a series of high-profile direct actions, were carried out. The disruption of the opening of the 1971 Festival of Light was the best organized of GLF action . The Festival of Light, whose leading figures included Mary Whitehouse , met at Methodist Central Hall . Groups of GLF members in drag invaded and spontaneously kissed each other; others released mice , sounded horns, and unveiled banners, and
10200-428: Was so controversial at the time that one bookseller was charged in court for holding copies of the work. It is claimed that Ellis coined the term 'homosexual', but in fact he disliked the word due to its conflation of Greek and Latin . These early proponents of LGBT rights, such as Carpenter, were often aligned with a broader socio-political movement known as ' free love '; a critique of Victorian sexual morality and
10302-542: Was used as a within-community identity term by men who were stereotypically masculine. Many queer-identified men at the time were, according to Chauncey, "repelled by the style of the fairy and his loss of manly status, and almost all were careful to distinguish themselves from such men", especially because the dominant straight culture did not acknowledge such distinctions. Trade referred to straight men who would engage in same-sex activity; Chauncey describes trade as "the 'normal men' [queers] claimed to be." In contrast to
10404-404: Was usually pejoratively applied to men who were believed to engage in receptive or passive anal or oral sex with other men as well as those who exhibited non-normative gender expressions. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, queer , fairy , trade , and gay signified distinct social categories within the gay male subculture. In his book Gay New York , Chauncey noted that queer
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