HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE LGBT COMMUNITY

Despite the progress that advocates of the LGBT community have achieved, a careful look at textbooks and American social welfare history reveals how the experiences of LGBT people are largely neglected.  Not until the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969 did literature about the LGBT community expand. Based on past texts in isolation, one would think LBGT people are not present in society.

Below we have presented historical accounts related to the LGBT community and personal anecdotes of the members in the U.S.

Colonialism 1600-1700s:

• Cross-dressing took place across several Native American tribes, where men would dress up as women and engage in sexual activities with other men.
  -Intersex people existed during early American colonialism, and some of them were granted rights to exhibit their gender identity without rebuke.  In 1629, a Virginian magistrate granted Thomas/Thomasine Hall the privilege of dressing in both gender clothing, and bestowed intersex status upon Hall.

Civil War Period (1750-1865)

• The "Cult of True Womanhood" prevailed, and those who did not fit the emotional and moral traits assigned to womanhood/manhood were criticized harshly.  Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, and Matineau were accused of being “only semi-women, mental hermaphrodites.”
• During the Civil War, women passed off as men and fought in the war.  Sarah Edmonds Seelye, who fought as Frank Thompson, served as a soldier and a nurse. She was later married to a man and published a book about her experience as a man.

Post-Civil War Era (1866-1880)

• Industrial age saw a rise in working class women who passed as men, as well as a rise in same-sex relationships among middle-class women who trained together in higher education.
• Same-sex households, or ‘Boston Marriages’, were quite common and often established by females who attended college together.
• Virginia Robinson and Jessie Taft were in a “Boston Marriage,” and they left a lasting impression in their community as child welfare social workers.

Science Breakthrough Era (1881-1913)

• Scientific interest in the origins of homosexuality emerged in 1880s. Homosexuality was believed to be a hereditary disease.
• When Dr. Magnus Hirshfield introduced the term transvestism to describe individuals whose cross-dressing behaviors were separate from their sexual behaviors, Americans began to realize the difference between sexual orientation and gender expression.
• Gay/lesbian & transgender establishments increased in larger cities.

World War I, the Flapper Era (1914-1940)

• One of the first transsexuals in literature is Dr. Alan Hart, who was female at birth, underwent psychotherapy and surgery in 1918, and proceeded to live as a man.
• The “Roaring Twenties” was a time of sexual experimentation for many, particularly those who lived in urban cities.
• During the Harlem Renaissance period, fraternization between black lesbians and gay men were frequent and there were many famous LGBT members during that period, including Bessie Smith, Gladys Bentley, Langston Hughes, Richard Barthe, and Zora Neale Hurston.
• Publication of The Well of Loneliness in 1928, gave hope to many lesbians who found solace in knowing that their sexual identity is not uncommon.

World War II and Post War Era

• Military lifestyle provided an opportunity for communities of gays and lesbians to develop.
• During the decade after WWII, states passed legislatures that recognized homosexuality as a socially threatening disease. Many lesbians and gay men went through psychotherapy to treat their “disease.”
• Homophile movement emerged and the first homophile advocacy organization, the Mattachine Society, was founded by a group of gay men. A series of other homophile organizations were put in place across the country following Mattachine.

Civil Rights Era (1956-1968)

• In 1964, lesbians and gay men protested the treatment of homosexuals by the government following the firing of Frank Kameny, a gay federal government employee.
• New gay rights activists gathered in all the large cities across the East Coast to form the East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO).
• During the late 1960s and early 1970s, homophile organizations across universities flourished.
• Sexual revolution of the 1960s helped make homosexuality more accepted among heterosexuals.

Stonewall Rebellion (1969-1979)

• On June 27, 1969, the Stonewall Rebellion took place in Greenwich Village in New York.  Police raided the Stonewall Inn, a private GLBT club to check if liquor was sold without a license.  The 200 patrons staged a rebellion and the riot continued for another day. This was an epic moment in GLBT history.
• Before Stonewall, fewer than 50 GLBT organizations existed nationwide. After wards, more than 700 lesbian and gay groups emerged.
• The GLBT organizations that emerged were very diverse and represented different groups within the larger GLBT community, such as lesbian feminist groups, gay liberation fronts, transgender organizations, and bisexual groups.
• In the early 1970s, the first formal bisexual groups developed in the U.S., such as the National Bisexual Liberation Group in New York.
• Transgender activism also emerged in the 1970s when Renee Richards, a male-to-female transsexual tennis player was barred from competing in tennis tournaments.

Post-Stonewall Era to the Present

• In 1982, the first openly gay member of Congress, Gerry Studds, revealed his sexual orientation to the House of Representatives.
• More public figures began to reveal their sexual orientation during these decades as the visibility of GLBT people in the US increased, including:

  Martina Navratilova, golfer
  Melissa Etheridge, singer
  Ellen Degeneres, comedian
  K.D. Lang, singer
  Steven Grendel, journalist

• In 1998, the gruesome death of Matthew Shepard, a gay man, sparked demonstrations and a stronger push for hate crime legislation.
• There is an increasing presence of GLBT communities, particularly in the political realm.  Bill Clinton was the first president that sought and received support from the GLBT community.