LGBTQ movements in the United States

Sociologist Mary Bernstein writes: For the lesbian and gay movement, then, cultural goals include (but are not limited to) challenging dominant constructions of masculinity and femininity, homophobia, and the primacy of the gendered heterosexual nuclear family (heteronormativity).

Though this was a regular incident in gay bars like Stonewall, the reaction of its patrons, as they refused to leave and clashed with the raiding police officers, ultimately led to street riots.

This event gave way to mass media attention on the issues facing the LGBT community and therefore increased public awareness, making it possible to have an influential movement.

The relative liberalism of the decade is demonstrated by the fact that the actor William Haines, regularly named in newspapers and magazines as the number-one male box-office draw, openly lived in a gay relationship with his lover, Jimmie Shields.

The society began sponsoring discussion groups in 1951, which provided lesbian and gay men an ability to openly share feelings and experiences, also fear and internal disagreements.

Attendance at the Mattachine Society meetings dramatically increased in short time, and such discussion groups spread throughout the United States, even beginning to sponsor social events, write newsletters and publications, and hold fundraisers.

In a column of the Los Angeles Mirror in March 1953 called it a "strange new pressure group" of "sexual deviants" and "security risks" who were banding together to wield "tremendous political power.

ONE, Inc. was started by William Dale Jennings joined with his colleagues Don Slater, Dorr Legg, Tony Reyes, and Mattachine Society founder Harry Hay.

"[35] The GLF's statement of purpose clearly stated: "We are a revolutionary group of men and women formed with the realization that complete sexual liberation for all people cannot come about unless existing social institutions are abolished.

Lesbians brought the principles of radical feminism on the emerging new philosophy, and GLF activists argued that the institution of heterosexual families necessitated the oppression of homosexuals, allowing them to define their gayness as a form of political resistance.

[45][46] The NTCU's success was partially due to financial support from the Erickson Education Foundation(EEF), which funded renting an office space and hiring two full time peer counselors.

Far more significant was Mario Martino's creation of the Labyrinth Foundation Counseling Service in the late 1960s in New York, the first transgender community-based organization that specifically addressed the needs of female-to-male transsexuals.

Nevertheless, legal status improved across the country, resulting in easier paths for transgender people to change the gender designations on state-issued identification documents and to find professional and affordable health care.

In Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, it successfully argued before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that to restrict marriage to heterosexual couples was a violation of the state constitution.

Militant groups such as ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and Queer Nation crafted a media-oriented, direct-action politics that proved congenial to a new generation of transgender activists.

He was the leader of FTM International from March 1991 to August 1999 and a member of the Human Rights Campaign Business Council until late 2007, when he resigned over the organization's stance on transgender inclusion in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

[68] Its stated mission, in part, is to "[amplify] the voice of the LGBT community by empowering real people to share their stories, holding the media accountable for the words and images they present, and helping grassroots organizations communicate effectively.

The founding group included film scholar Vito Russo; Gregory Kolovakos, then on the staff of the NYS Arts Council and who later became the first executive director; Darryl Yates Rist; Allen Barnett;[70] and Jewelle Gomez, the organization's first treasurer.

On March 20, 1990, sixty LGBT people gathered at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Services Center in New York's Greenwich Village to create a direct action organization.

The group's breakthrough was at New York's Gay Pride parade when militant AIDS activists passed out to the assembled crowd an inflammatory manifesto, bearing the titles "I Hate Straights!"

The lived political necessity of understanding the nexus of gender and sexuality in this broadening social movement, in turn, helped launch the field of "queer studies" in higher education.

After a five-year hiatus, Camp Trans returned in 1999, led by transgender activists Riki Ann Wilchins and Leslie Feinberg, as well as many members of the Boston and Chicago Lesbian Avengers.

The murders, depicted in Kimberly Peirce's Academy Award-winning feature film Boys Don't Cry (2000), called dramatic attention to the serious, on-going problem of anti-transgender violence and hate crimes.

[80][81] The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) was a non-profit advocacy group founded in 1993 by Cheryl Chase to end shame and secrecy; they also advocated deferring most genital surgeries on children.

[86] ISNA closed in June 2008 after supporting the creation of a new clinical term for intersex conditions, Disorders of Sex Development (DSD) albeit ambivalently, as a means of opening "many more doors" and engaging with clinicians.

In terms of violence prevention, GenderPAC collaborates with a Capitol Hill-based coalition of bipartisan organizations to further public education and media awareness about gender-based violent crimes.

This view brought the organization to crisis when it took on the case of a self-identified "butch lesbian" who sought help after being repeatedly harassed at work and ultimately fired for allegedly looking "too masculine."

In her book entitled "Gay and Lesbian Movement," Margaret Cruikshank provides statistical data from the Harris and Yankelvoich polls which confirmed that over 80% of American adults believe that students should be educated about sexuality within their public school.

"[136] In 1976, the party published a pamphlet, Gay Rights: A Libertarian Approach, which called for an end to sodomy laws and other legal discrimination, including with regard to marriage and adoption.

[138] In terms of interest groups, the Human Rights Campaign is the largest LGBT organization in the United States, claiming over 725,000 members and supporters,[139] though this membership count is disputed.