Gay rights activists 1960s
Historical Essay
by Will Roscoe
Two Castro Couples -- Love, sweet love.
Photo: Crawford Barton, Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California
| An intersectional gay rights movement came to light in the s when the gay community connected with the momentum of the civil rights movement, anti-war protestors, and feminists. This communal homosexual rights movement was prefaced by two events. Firstly, a much-debated “Homosexual Bill of Rights” was drafted and acted as a prototype for the gay civil rights agenda of the s. Secondly, the incumbent mayor Christopher was re-elected in by a landslide even after the rival candidate ran a smear campaign criticizing the mayor of harboring “sexual deviates” in the municipality. There were many new political efforts by the early queer community, including the Tavern Guild, the Society for Individual Rights, and the Council on Religion and Homosexuality, that together helped curb rampant anti-gay police brutality. |
In the s, the gay movement absorbed the profound and successive influences of the civil rights, anti-war, feminist and
Written by: Jim Downs, Connecticut College
By the end of this section, you will:
- Explain how and why various groups responded to calls for the expansion of civil rights from to
After Earth War II, the civil rights movement had a profound impact on other groups demanding their rights. The feminist movement, the Ebony Power movement, the environmental movement, the Chicano movement, and the American Indian Movement sought equality, rights, and empowerment in American culture. Gay people organized to resist oppression and demand just treatment, and they were especially galvanized after a Recent York City police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, sparked riots in
Around the same moment, biologist Alfred Kinsey began a huge study of human sexuality in the United States. Favor Magnus Hirschfield and other scholars who studied sexuality, including Havelock Ellis, a prominent British scholar who published explore on transgender psychology, Kinsey believed sexuality could be studied as a science. He interviewed more than 8, men and argued that sexuality existed on a spectrum, sa
Barbara Gittings Helps Lead First 'Annual Reminder' Protests
Vice squads–police units devoted to “cleaning up” undesirable parts of urban life–routinely raided the bars frequented by Homosexual people. Laws against people of the same sex dancing together or wearing clothing made for the opposite sex were used as justification to arrest patrons. By the s in New York Metropolis, the mafia owned many of these establishments and its members would bribe officers in order to avoid fines. Sometimes the arrangement meant that patrons would be forewarned of a pending raid in time to change their clothing and stop dancing. That wasn’t true during the early morning hours of June 28 , when the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village.
When they arrived at Stonewall, the police locked the doors so that no one could escape as they conducted arrests. As certain patrons were released, they unified a large crowd that had been gathering outside the bar. Those chosen for arrest started resisting the police officers with the encouragement of the jeering crowd. Violence broke out and the
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down two decisions at the end of June favoring gay marriage. One ruling struck down federal restrictions in the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) of , the other cleared the way for gay marriages in California. With the rapid recent progress of the male lover rights movement, including changes in public attitudes, some see parallels with the earlier African-American civil rights movement. Is the comparison valid? What’s different this time? Illinois history professor Kevin Mumford specializes in the history of both movements, and is functional on a book about black gay history. He spoke with News Bureau social sciences editor Craig Chamberlain.
You say that some gay rights advocates wish to characterize recent events as the normal business of America doing civil rights – to glimpse continuity with the ebony civil rights movement. But what’s flawed in that comparison?
First, it is simple to forget the context and duration of the civil rights movement. After the Civil War, African-Americans had full citizenship, elected local and federal representatives, and then, th