Gay history facts
Every year during the month of June, across streets and screens around the country and the world, rainbow flags are widely displayed in celebration of Lgbtq+ fest Month. America is proud to support the LGBTQ+ community and share its history, starting with these facts you may not have known.
The Pride flag was inspired by America’s bicentennial
Artist, Vietnam War veteran and drag actor, Gilbert Baker, designed the rainbow flag. He was put to the task by the openly gay politician, Harvey Milk. Baker was inspired by the many American flags of the bicentennial celebrations, which helped him remember the gay community’s need for a similar unifying symbol. Using his clothing design skills and with the help of volunteers, Baker produced the first version of the iconic rainbow flag. It was first displayed on June 25, in San Francisco during the Gay Freedom Morning Parade.
Women got ‘married’ in the late s and early s
Boston Marriages, the union between two financially independent women who lived with each other, became very common in New England towards the end of the 19th century. This
8 Important Facts About Pride Month and What It Represents
Every June, the Homosexual community and allies celebrate Pride Month with events, parades, marches and parties. While large cities' Pride events can garner crowds of thousands of people, it wasn't always that way. In fact, the history and origins of Pride Month rendezvous back to the s — and it might shock you to absorb how Pride Month began, why the iconic rainbow flag was created and more fun proof about Pride Month.
Everyone should include queer joy in whichever way makes them happy, but it's also essential to understand why we celebrate Event Month, what the flag represents and more. So, before you stick a rainbow pin on your Pride outfit and head to your local celebration, check out these tidbits of gay history and evidence about Pride Month that you never knew.
1. The Stonewall Riots inspired Pride Month
Some of you may know this one, but June was designated Pride Month because the uprising at the Stonewall Inn began on June 28, . The Stonewall Inn is a homosexual bar in Modern York City that was raided by the police on that
The LGBT history you probably didn't learn in school
Newsbeat reporter
If you think we live in an open-minded, sex-positive world now, just wait until you hear what may have been going on down the Yorkshire mines in the s.
February is recognised as LGBT history month in the UK, but even now there's a lot of LGBT history many of us don't know - and this is partly because of Section
Section 28 was a ban on the "promotion of homosexuality" in schools which was introduced in by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government.
It ran until in Scotland and in England and Wales.
But it's also partly because so much of LGBT history happened in secret.
"Even in the 19th century, it's very difficult to talk about gay or lesbian identity," says Harry Cocks, associate history professor at the University of Nottingham.
"It didn't really exist, there wasn't really any such thing."
Of course, everyone was still at it. The existence of Molly Houses in the 18th century
During the nineteenth century, the first gay liberation thinkers laid the groundwork for a militant movement that demanded the end of the criminalization, pathologisation and social rejection of non-heterosexual sexuality. In , the Swiss man Heinrich Hössli () published in German the first essay demanding recognition of the rights of those who followed what he called masculine love. Nearly three decades later, the German jurist Karl-Heinrich Ulrichs () wrote twelve volumes between and as part of his “Research on the Mystery of Love Between Men” (“Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe”). He also circulated a manifesto to create a federation of Uranians (), a term which designated men who loved men. He was engaged in the struggle to repeal § of the German penal code, which condemned “unnatural relations between men,” and in publicly declared he was a Uranist during a congress of German jurists. He died in exile in Italy before the birth of the liberation movement which he had called for.
A first gay liberation movement emerged in Berlin in , revolving