Social movements, organizing around the acceptance and rights of persons who identify as LGBTQA+ began as responses to centuries of persecution by church, state, and medical authorities. Where homosexual activity or deviance from established gender roles/dress was banned by law or traditional custom, such condemnation took the form of public trials, exile, medical warnings, and language from the pulpit. These paths of persecution entrenched homophobia for centuries—but also alerted entire populations to the existence of difference.
By the 20th century, a movement in recognition of gays and lesbians was underway, abetted by the social climate of feminism and new anthropologies of difference. In the United States, there were few attempts to create advocacy groups supporting gay and lesbian relationships until after World War II. However, prewar gay life flourished in urban centers such as New York’s Greenwich Village and Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.
The disruptions of World War II allowed formerly isolated gay men and women to meet as soldiers and war workers. Many minds were opened by wartime, during which LGBTQA+ people were tacitly tolerated in allied military service while also being sentenced to Nazi death camps in the Holocaust. This increasing awareness of an existing and vulnerable population, coupled with Senator Joseph McCarthy’s investigation of homosexuals holding government jobs during the early 1950s outraged writers and federal employees whose own lives were shown to be second-class under the law.
Studies such as the 1947 Kinsey Report suggested a far greater range of sexual identities and behaviors than previously understood, with Kinsey creating a 'spectrum" ranging from complete heterosexual to complete homosexual. But it would not be until 1973 that the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as an “illness” in its diagnostic manual. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, gay men and lesbians continued to be at risk for psychiatric lockup as well as jail, losing jobs and child custody when courts and clinics defined gay love as sick, criminal, or immoral.
Expanding religious acceptance for gay men and women of faith, the first openly gay minister of a mainstream Christian denomination was ordained by the United Church of Christ in 1972. Other gay and lesbian church and synagogue congregations soon followed. Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), formed in 1972, offered family members greater support roles in the gay rights movement. Recent supportive remarks from Pope Francis (“Who am I to judge?”) have given hope to LGBTQA+ Catholics worldwide.
The first part of the 21st century saw new emphasis on transgender activism and the increasing usage of terminology that questioned binary gender identification. Images of trans women became more prevalent in film and television, as did programming with same-sex couples raising children. Transphobia, cissexism, and other language became standardized, and film and television programming featured more openly trans youth and adult characters.
Internet activism burgeoned, while attention shifted to global activism as US gains were not matched by similar equal rights internationally, namely in the 75 countries where homosexuality remained illegal. As of 2016, LGBTQA+ identification and activism was still punishable by death in 10 countries: Iran, Iraq, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, and Yemen.
In the United States LGBTQA+ siblings know intimately the nature of being deemed an outcast. However, the clarion call for LGBTQA+ advocacy is reverberating from state capitol rotundas, family dinner tables, city streets, and church pews. With more than 547 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills in this year’s (2024) legislative session, our proactive response, now more than ever, needs to be love OUT LOUD. The UCC initiative, Love is Louder: Love Your Neighbor OUT LOUD, faithfully supports the spiritual, physical, and mental well-being of LGBTQA+ siblings by equipping faith communities with resources and tools for just action and care. Click here to learn more.