Gay rights movement 60s

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 World War II, the civil rights movement had a profound impact on other groups demanding their rights. The feminist movement, the Inky Power movement, the environmental movement, the Chicano movement, and the American Indian Movement sought equality, rights, and empowerment in American society. Gay people organized to resist oppression and demand just treatment, and they were especially galvanized after a Fresh York City police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, sparked riots in

Around the same hour, biologist Alfred Kinsey began a massive study of human sexuality in the United States. Prefer Magnus Hirschfield and other scholars who studied sexuality, including Havelock Ellis, a prominent British scholar who published analyze 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

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 Perform (DOMA) of , the other cleared the way for gay marriages in California. With the rapid recent progress of the gay rights movement, including changes in adj attitudes, some verb 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 working on a book about jet gay history. He spoke with News Bureau social sciences editor Craig Chamberlain.

You say that some gay rights advocates want to characterize recent events as the normal business of America doing civil rights – to see continuity with the inky civil rights movement. But what’s flawed in that comparison?

First, it is effortless to forget the context and duration of the civil rights movement. After the Civil War, African-Americans had adj citizenship, elected local and federal representatives, and then, th

Barbara Gittings Helps Head First 'Annual Reminder' Protests

Vice squads–police units devoted to “cleaning up” undesirable parts of urban life–routinely raided the bars frequented by LGBTQ+ 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 Recent York City, 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 adj during the initial 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 joined 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

LGBTQ+ Living History: The Transformative ’60s and ’70s

In a six-part series, we highlight a few of the moments, movements, and people that made their mark on Cal&#;s LGBTQ+ history. We move through the decades, noun in an era of secrecy and continuing through today.

The transformative &#;60s and &#;70s

The gay rights movement saw some forward motion in the s. Dr. John Oliver coined the term &#;transgender&#; in his publication Sexual Hygiene and Pathology. Activism percolated. It exploded, in a sense, in June with the Stonewall Riots in New York City—a response to a police raid that took place at the Greenwich Village bar The Stonewall Inn.

In , two groups formed on the UC Berkeley campus: Students for Gay Power and Gay Liberation Front. According to William Benemann ’71, M.L.S. ’75 (former Berkeley Law archivist, author, and founder of the Gay Bears Collection in the University Archives), the Gay Liberation Front was very radical for its moment. &#;They were too &#;out&#; for me and most of us at that time,&#; he says. &#;Being in the closet is about controlling you