In recent years, notably in the area of marriage equality, the global struggle to win protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other (LGBTQ+) people have made major strides. Yet, LGBTQ+ people continue to experience discrimination, incarceration, and even the danger of death in many nations. Given the severity and prevalence of such abuses, campaigners and an increasing number of governments have prioritised passing legislation and measures to protect this population from legal discrimination and political, social, and economic marginalisation.
The LGBTQ Movements are social movements that support the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in society. Several LGBT rights organizations are operating globally, despite the fact that there isn't one dominant or all-encompassing central organisation that represents all LGBT individuals and their concerns. The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, which was established in 1897 in Berlin, was the first group to advocate for LGBT rights. The movements most common goal is to fight for the equality of the LGBTQ persons as well as abolishing the prohibition of homosexuality or legalising same-sex unions.
Coming out of the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969, the emerging gay liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s adopted a radical intersectional strategy, joining forces with modern feminist and anti-racist movements to pursue societal change. Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, two transgender women of colour who have long been ardent supporters of individuals who have experienced widespread prejudice within the LGBTQ community, were the driving forces behind it.
Tracing back the history of the LGBTQ movements, cross-dressing and same-sex sexual activity were viewed as socially undesirable practices and significant crimes under sodomy and sumptuary laws in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe. There were a few outliers though, like cross-dressing was prevalent in plays during the 17th century, as evidenced by the themes of several of William Shakespeare's plays and the performers who acted in them (since female roles in Elizabethan theatre were always performed by males, usually prepubescent boys). During the Victorian Era, social attitudes towards homosexuality grew increasingly negative. The Labouchere Amendment, which was incorporated into the Criminal Law Amendment Act in 1885 during the Victorian Era, made “any act of gross indecency with another male person” illegal. In 1895, playwright Oscar Wilde was found guilty on this charge and received the harshest term allowed by the Act. William Dorsey Swann, who was born an enslaved person in Hancock, Maryland, is the first person to be known to have identified as a drag queen. Swann was the first American to pursue legal and political action to safeguard the freedom to assemble of the LGBTQ community. Swann planned a number of drag balls in Washington, DC, in the 1880s and 1890s. Swann was detained multiple times during police raids, including the first known arrest for impersonating a woman in the US on April 12, 1888.
Many homosexual rights organisations were founded or reactivated immediately after World War II in countries throughout the Western world, including Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian nations, and the United States. In order to emphasise love over sex, these groups typically preferred the word homophile to homosexual. The homophile movement started in the Netherlands and Denmark in the late 1940s, and it persisted in Sweden, Norway, the United States, France, Britain, and other countries throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The homophile movement fought for a strong voice in socially acceptable political systems. The homophile groups were criticised by the radicals as assimilationists in 1970s. But although their protests were civil and well-ordered, they were disregarded by the media.
Like the homosexual community historically and generally, the gay liberation movement has had varied degrees of gender nonconformity and assimilationist platforms among its members. Early marches by the Daughters of Bilitis and Mattachine Society placed emphasis on dressing “respectably” and conventionally, and following the Stonewall Rebellion, the Mattachine Society put a peace sign in the club's window. The fundamental indicator of homosexuality and bisexuality has always been gender nonconformity, and by the late 1960s and into the 1970s, mainstream fashion had begun to incorporate more and more of what would later be referred to as “unisex” styles.
In the 1970s, bisexuals became more prominent in the LGBT rights movement. The “Ithaca Declaration on Bisexuality,” which supported bisexuals, was published in 1972 by a Quaker organisation called the Committee of Friends on Bisexuality. According to some historians, the 1980s saw the beginning of a new phase in the homosexual rights movement as AIDS became more prevalent. The leadership of many groups was destroyed as gay men fell ill and died in ever-increasing numbers, and many lesbian activists took over the role of their careers. Several organisations changed their priorities to concentrate on fighting AIDS. Direct action organisations like AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), founded in 1987, and its offshoots Queer Nation (1990) and the Lesbian Avengers contributed to the rebirth of militancy during this time (1992). Some younger activists began using the term queer as a rebellious assertion of all sexual minorities and gender variant persons, just as the older liberationists had done with gay, as they saw gay and lesbian as becoming more and more normal and politically conservative. Less combative terminology like LGBT, LGBTQ, and LGBTI—where the Q and I stand for queer or questioning and intersex, respectively—that aim to combine the concerns of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals also became common. Numerous people and groups are hostile to LGBT movements. They could be prejudiced against gay rights, homosexual relationships, or LGBT persons on a personal, political, or religious level. The legalisation of same-sex marriage is opposed by those who claim that same-sex partnerships are not marriages, that it will lead to the legalisation of polygamy, that it is unnatural, and that it promotes harmful behaviour. Some social conservatives think that raising children in homes with both a mother and a father upholds the traditional family and that any sexual connections with people other than an opposite-sex spouse are harmful to it.
In 2001, the Netherlands became the first nation to permit same-sex unions. Belgium was next in 2003, Spain was next in 2005, and Canada was last. In 2006, South Africa became the first country in Africa to legalise same-sex unions, and it continues to be the only country in Africa where this practise is accepted. Despite this increase in acceptance of the LGBT community in South Africa, so-called “corrective rapes” have increased as a result. These attacks primarily target the less fortunate women who reside in townships and who have no other way of reporting the crimes due to the conspicuously low police presence and potential discrimination they may experience for doing so. As of 2021, same-sex unions are permitted in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina, Mexico, Denmark, Brazil, France, and Uruguay. Same-sex marriage are also permitted in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Ireland, the United States, Colombia, Finland, Germany, Malta, Australia, Austria, Taiwan, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Switzerland, and Chile.
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