We are halfway through June, Pride Month, and you may have seen many articles about the meaning of Pride. Among many other things, Pride is a chance to learn, grow, and do better. Let's understand what Pride means today by exploring its history and that of the LGBTQI+ community, Learning more about the history of Pride, of LGBTQI+ Liberation, is an opportunity to understand things we all share in common, accept things that make us unique, and understand how not only are those two concepts not contradictory, they are bound together in the humanity that defines us all.
You could spend the entire month and not learn everything there is to know about the history of the LGBTQI+ community and liberation movement. This article simply hopes to provide some markers, some starting points to jump into deeper research on your own. Whether you are a member of the LGBTQI+ community or consider yourself an ally, there is always more to learn.
The history most of us are familiar with starts with the Stonewall Riots in New York in 1969. If you want a more complete understanding of LGBTQI+ history, you can go backward or forward from Stonewall. Let's go backward first. However, we choose to label ourselves, or are labeled by others, homosexuality has always existed, and will always exist. The main lesson from the long history of homosexuality as part of the human condition is that it exists, regardless of whether a society accepts, ignores, or rejects it, it exists.
It may surprise many people to know that one of the early advances in Gay Liberation (Gay, LGBTQI+, Queer, and Homosexual are used interchangeably here, not for accuracy, but simply for variety and inclusion,) was in Berlin, Germany in the 1920's. Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld founded the Institute for Sexual Science there in 1919, and it became a safe haven for the Queer community, offering gender-affirming care, therapy, some of the earliest sex reassignment surgeries, and creating an extensive library and archives of groundbreaking research. All that was destroyed by the Nazis in 1933 when they looted and vandalized the building, burning the library and archives. Much of the knowledge lost then took decades to learn over again, a process continuing to this day.
Fascists, bigots and other bullies need readily available targets, but we know from history they never stop at the low hanging fruit.
It wasn't just communists that America's own bullies and bigots targeted during the 1940's, 1950's, and 1960's. There was a "pink scare," as well. Hearings were held in Congress, people were coerced into naming names, and those accused were not just publicly shamed, they lost their jobs, and they were imprisoned. The same Hollywood that many now bemoan as being "too woke" actively participated in these purges, and forced many stars to hide their true nature, while others in the industry, writers and producers, fled the country entirely.
In that same atmosphere though, resistance began. Groups advocating for fair treatment of Homosexuals began writing articles, often publishing them on their own, and holding peaceful protests and demonstrations. The Mattachine Society formed in Los Angeles in 1950, and the Society for Human Rights in Chicago shortly before that. They mostly took an assimilationist approach, that contrasted with the later movements.
Even before Stonewall, there was also recognition of what we would now call the intersectionality between Gay Liberation, the Civil Rights movement, the Labor movement and later, Women's Liberation. One of Dr Martin Luther King's closest advisors was Bayard Rustin, who was openly gay. Because one of the tools of the establishment is divisiveness and moral gatekeeping, Rustin could not take a more public-facing role in the movement. But he was crucial to the successes of that movement, nonetheless. In contrast, the Black Panther movement recognized the need for unity and welcomed their gay brothers and sisters publicly. Later Coretta Scott King affirmed that she believed her husband would include the Gay rights movement in the journey towards greater progress, and Jesse Jackson cemented that belief in his Rainbow Coalition.
After Stonewall, progress continued, but never in a straight line. June 1970 saw a March and then a "Gay-in" in New York City to mark the first anniversary of Stonewall. This is what Pride evolved from, a riot, then a protest march, and then another protest in the form of the Gay-in. It is important to remember that at this time, and for some time afterward, homosexuality, even cross-dressing, was illegal. There was no marriage equality, no protection in the workplace, no protection in housing, education, or healthcare. A victim of gay bashing was likely to get arrested for who they were, and very unlikely to see justice for their attackers. In 1973, one of the worst mass murders to that point in US history occurred in New Orleans at the UpStairs Lounge. 32 people died when the entrance to the club was doused with an accelerant and lit on fire. It was the third arson attack associated with a church that was welcoming to the gay community, the other two destroying churches without any injuries or deaths.
It seemed progress took a great leap forward when Harvey Milk was elected as a San Francisco City Supervisor in 1977, the first openly gay city official in American history. His speech about hope is a touchstone for activists in many movements for progress, not just the LGBTQI+ movement. But a year later he was assassinated by a former Supervisor who also killed the city's Mayor. Milk was much later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously, and had a naval vessel named after him. As if to demonstrate the nature of the struggle, his name was removed from that vessel as part of a subsequent administration's petty efforts to erase history. During that same period we had public figures like Anita Bryant, Phyllis Schlafly, and numerous evangelical "Christian" leaders sow fear and hatred of the gay community.
It is unlikely that any other marginalized group, none comes to mind, finds itself and its history sharply defined by the outbreak of a deadly disease, but Queer history is forever linked with AIDS, despite not being directly or exclusively connected with this community. AIDS was first identified in clusters of gay men in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and few other cities in 1981. To have gone through that period, especially as a gay man, was to have seen friends die, to live in fear of your own life, to witness horrific prejudice and discrimination, to be shocked by government indifference, and to be inspired incredible acts of bravery, compassion, and humanity. Shunned by their families, neglected by hospitals, and refused service by funeral homes, victims of this disease suffered both from its symptoms and the inhumanity of their fellow man. Seeing this, Lesbian members of the community were an example to all in their caring and compassion. They did all the things these mostly young men needed and deserved, both simple and hard, from delivering food and walking dogs, to personal and medical care and deathbed vigils.
The ACTUP! movement grew from the horrors of the worst days of the epidemic. Their unapologetic approach broke the rules of civil resistance, held government officials to account, and challenged the bigotry that held back care, research funding, and simple humanity. So much progress was made in the treatment of AIDS as a disease, and of its victims as human beings, it was devastating to see all that work put in danger by defunding of programs like USAID and the embrace of non-scientific approaches to health policy.
We now have Gay icons. Celebrity allies like Cher, the late Elizabeth Taylor, Lady Gaga and even Dolly Parton. We have out public figures from the late Barney Frank to Rosie O'Donnell and Ellen Degeneres. We see gay characters in movies and television, and they are more three dimensional and realistic every day, but to be fair, not always. But Rosie and Ellen would be good lessons on what that struggle was like, too. They risked much when they came out. They both had, and continue to have, severe critics and backlash. The same is true for ordinary people when they come out to family, friends and at work.
So here we are, 57 years after Stonewall, having survived bigotry, violence, and disease. Marriage equality is the law of the land, but our position is still precarious. Opponents of marriage equality have a Supreme Court willing to overturn it once the right case is found, using the same methodology they did for reversing Roe v Wade. Many states still don't have, or are working to repeal, protections for housing, the workplace, healthcare and education for LGBTQI+ people. A list of banned books always includes LGBTQI+ authors and subjects. We see every day the dangerous rhetoric, and bathroom bills, aimed at trans people, especially young people. To names from the past like Alan Turing, Ryan White, Matthew Shepard, Brandon Teena and too many more for our hearts to bear, we add the names of more recent victims of violence and discrimination, including Juniper Blessing, who was stabbed in her own apartment building laundry room 40 times, dozens of trans women in the past months and years, and those of the 49 killed and 58 wounded in the Pulse Nightclub Massacre, the ten year anniversary of which just passed on June 12th.
As lengthy as this article is, it is not nearly enough to even begin to do justice to LGBTQI+ history, nor to adequately express the effect of the last few years of setbacks and attacks have on our view of own country and communities. All we can ask is for our allies and members of our community to be willing to learn more, to listen to our concerns openly and with genuine interest, and to stand with us now, more than ever, as we face this renewed tide of bigotry. Let us all dedicate this Pride Month, and every month going forward, to those tasks.
Keith Thompson
Nashua
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