Queer regionalist scholars such as Mary Gray have illustrated that organizing for LGBT issues in the post-Stonewall U.S. has centered around a politics of visibility. Within this political framework, publicly claiming a minority sexual orientation is viewed as inherently political. Visibility politics claim that, by making one's own queerness visible, 'out' individuals resist heteronormativity and the erasure of non-heterosexual behaviors and identities as well as illustrate to their local, national, and global communities that queer people exist and need equal rights and protection under the law. Therefore, visibility politics view a public declaration of queer identity as the primary road to political liberation and equality for queer communities.