Wednesday 01-02-2023 - 12:04

Written by Juan Andres Cuervo, Communications & Campaigns Assistant at Birkbeck Students' Union

 

In the United Kingdom, LGBTQ+ History Month is celebrated in February. Since 2005, it has become an annual event in the country. The election of February has a symbolic and political connotation: it coincides with the 2003 abolition of Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988. This legislation, implemented under the regime of Margaret Thatcher, banned local authorities and schools from "promoting homosexuality". 

This a clear example that LGBTQ+ members have traditionally been demonised. Alongside them, different collectives including women, immigrants, black communities and other ethnic groups have been forced to struggle extensively in order to seek equality in society. For that reason, the history of gay rights coalesced with the Civil Rights movements in the USA during the 1960s, meaning that these protests influenced each other. While figures like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. became the symbols of the struggle for black liberation, the 1969 Stonewall uprising is considered as one of the moments that sparked the LGBTQ+ movement. 

 

The History of the LGBTQ+ movement: Stonewall as a catalyst 

The LGBTQ+ community had been oppressed for centuries, and the Stonewall Uprising represented the spark of a revolt against the established system. On the 28th of June of 1969, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club located in Greenwich Village. The violence perpetrated by the police led to six days of protests and clashes. This was an illustration of the 60s around the world: a decade of social movements in countries like France, Mexico, the UK, Czechoslovakia and Egypt, among many others. In the US, this wave of discontent was channelled by the Civil Rights Movement: the students' revolts, the feminist protest and the Stonewall Uprising. The ideals of anti-racism, feminism and protection of the LGBTQ+ community united together to achieve equality for all the collectives.  

The Stonewall Uprising was the consequence of a systemic state violence clashing against people who had been fighting for a while to achieve more rights. Decades before Stonewall, queer activists built a movement in New York City, Henry Gerber founded the Society for Human Rights in Chicago.  

During the Cold War, in the age of a conservative anti-communist current implemented by senator McCarthy, groups such as the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis formed chapters in several cities and openly identified as homosexuals at demonstrations and in televised appearances. Despite the threat of arrest, being fired from their jobs, or being disowned by their families, they fought passionately to create social consciousness within society and to provide more equality for a community which had always been vilified. 

 

Some key dates in British LGBTQ+ History 

1500s - A law was passed that outlawed anal sex, making it punishable by death. This was known as the Buggery Act. This was the first time that male homosexuality was criminalised by law in the UK. 

1835 - John Smith and James Pratt were the last people to be executed under this law. Anal sex did, however, remain a capital offence for several years after their deaths. 

1895 - The murdering of gay people affected people from all strata. For instance, Oscar Wilde was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ for his relations with another man and eventually was sentenced to two years hard labour in prison.  

1952 - Similarly to Wilde, Alan Turing was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ and forced to undergo hormone therapy to reduce his sex drive. He died just two years later of cyanide poisoning. That was the way the British government thanked the British mathematician for his fundamental role to defeat the Nazis. Turing cracked Enigma, the Nazi code-generating machine, thereby helping the Allies to win the Second World War. 

1972 - Around 2,000 people took part in the UK’s first Pride rally in London. 

1988 - The discussion around same-sex relationships was limited at this time due to an amendment to the law named Section 28. This prohibited the ‘promotion of homosexuality’, meaning that teachers were unable to discuss it with students, even during support groups for LGBTQ+ students. 

1994- LGBTQ+ History Month was founded in 1994 by Missouri high-school history teacher Rodney Wilson. 

2003 - The Criminal Justice Act sanctioned acts of homophobic hate crime. The same year saw Section 28 repealed in England and Wales.  

2005 - LGBTQ+ History Month started in the UK. 

2011 - The UN Human Rights Council passed the 'Human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity' resolution, the first to call for an end to sexuality discrimination worldwide.

2022 - On the 50th anniversary of the first Pride March in the UK, over 1,5 million people went to the Pride in London. It was described by the organisers as the ‘biggest and most inclusive event in history’.  

 

The LGBTQ+ movement nowadays: pushing through a reactionary wall

Although contemporary societies seem overall more inclusive than in past decades, the numbers are far from showing an ideal landscape for the spread of Human Rights. According to the report of the International Lesbian and Gay Association published in December 2021, arrests and prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual acts or for diverse gender expressions continued to take place during that year. In other words, the LGBTQ+ community was forced to fines, arbitrary arrests, prosecutions, corporal punishments, imprisonments and even the death penalty. 

The same organisation had denounced in 2014 that almost 2.8 billion people were living in countries where identifying as gay could lead to imprisonment, corporal punishment or even death. By contrast, only 780 million people were based in countries where same-sex marriage or civil unions were established as a legal right. 

Regarding Transgender rights, the situation is even more dismal. In many countries, it is illegal to change your gender. In others, the legal and administrative process for people to change their status can take years and may include requirements such as psychiatric diagnosis, hormone treatment, gender reassignment surgery or even sterilisation. 

Nowadays, only around 15 countries allow transgender people to change their status with a simple declaration. Among those are Argentina, the pioneer in this regard, Denmark, the first in Europe to adopt these policies, Bolivia, Belgium, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, Ireland, Malta, Peru and Uruguay. And recently, the left-wing Government in Spain formed by the PSOE and Unidas Podemos passed transgender rights bills. 

 

Conclusion: There is still a long path ahead 

Although the acceptance of homosexuality has increased in many countries during the last two decades, the reactionary backlash is threatening to diminish fundamental victories attained after so much struggle and suffering.  

The political theorist Judith Butler perfectly relates the current juncture: "The attacks on so-called 'gender ideology' have grown in recent years throughout the world, dominating public debate stoked by electronic networks and backed by extensive rightwing Catholic and evangelical organizations. Although not always in accord, these groups concur that the traditional family is under attack, that children in the classroom are being indoctrinated to become homosexuals, and that 'gender' is dangerous, if not diabolical, ideology threatening to destroy families, local cultures, civilization, and even 'man' himself." 

The aim of these far-right movements is to reverse the progressive legislation won by subaltern movements. In other words, the advances made by feminism, LGBTQ+ movements or Black Lives Matter are being threatened by this wave of hate.  

However, after many decades of international solidarity movements, it seems very hard to wither away the massive levels of social consciousness that have taken root in many societies. That does not mean that we must ignore the real threat of the xenophobic groups that jeopardise our world. On the contrary, we as people must keep organising in the public sphere to preserve and increase the rights of everybody.