page_title: LGBT social movements
section_title: Overview
hierarchical_section_title: LGBT social movements / Overview
caption_attribution_description: English: A peaceful demonstration on behalf of the Add the Words campaign and against HB427 held in the Idaho capitol on Presidents' Day 2014.
context_page_description: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Social movements may focus on equal rights, such as the 2000s movement for marriage equality, or they may focus on liberation, as in the gay liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Earlier movements focused on self-help and self-acceptance, such as the homophile movement of the 1950s. Although there is not a primary or an overarching central organization that represents all LGBT people and their interests, numerous LGBT rights organizations are active worldwide. The earliest organizations to support LGBT rights were formed in the early 20th century.
  A commonly stated goal among these movements is social equality for LGBT people, but there is still denial of full LGBT rights. Some have also focused on building LGBT communities or worked towards liberation for the broader society from biphobia, homophobia, and transphobia. There is a struggle for LGBT rights today. LGBT movements organized today are made up of a wide range of political activism and cultural activity, including lobbying, street marches, social groups, media, art, and research.
context_section_description: 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). Political goals include changing laws and policies in order to gain new rights, benefits, and protections from harm." Bernstein emphasizes that activists seek both types of goals in both the civil and political spheres.
  As with other social movements, there is also conflict within and between LGBT movements, especially about strategies for change and debates over exactly who represents the constituency of these movements, and this also applies to changing education. There is debate over what extent lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender people, intersex people, and others share common interests and a need to work together.  Leaders of the lesbian and gay movement of the 1970s, 80s and 90s often attempted to hide masculine lesbians, feminine gay men, transgender people, and bisexuals from the public eye, creating internal divisions within LGBT communities. Roffee and Waling (2016) documented that LGBT people experience microaggressions, bullying and anti-social behaviors from other people within the LGBT community. This is due to misconceptions and conflicting views as to what entails "LGBT". For example, transgender people found that other members of the community were not understanding to their own, individual, specific needs and would instead make ignorant assumptions, and this can cause health risks.  Additionally, bisexual people found that lesbian or gay people were not understanding or appreciative of the bisexual sexuality. Evidently, even though most of these people would say that they stand for the same values as the majority of the community, there are still remaining inconsistencies even within the LGBT community.
  LGBT movements have often adopted a kind of identity politics that sees gay, bisexual, and transgender people as a fixed class of people; a minority group or groups, and this is very common among LGBT communities. Those using this approach aspire to liberal political goals of freedom and equal opportunity, and aim to join the political mainstream on the same level as other groups in society. In arguing that sexual orientation and gender identity are innate and cannot be consciously changed, attempts to change gay, lesbian, and bisexual people into heterosexuals ("conversion therapy") are generally opposed by the LGBT community. Such attempts are often based in religious beliefs that perceive gay, lesbian, and bisexual activity as immoral.
  However, others within LGBT movements have criticized identity politics as limited and flawed, elements of the queer movement have argued that the categories of gay and lesbian are restrictive, and attempted to deconstruct those categories, which are seen to "reinforce rather than challenge a cultural system that will always mark the non heterosexual as inferior."
  After the French Revolution the anticlerical feeling in Catholic countries coupled with the liberalizing effect of the Napoleonic Code made it possible to sweep away sodomy laws. However, in Protestant countries, where the church was less severe, there was no general reaction against statutes that were religious in origin. As a result, many of those countries retained their statutes on sodomy until late in the 20th century. However,some countries still have retained their statutes on sodomy. for example in 2008 a case in India's high court was judged using a 150 year old reading that was punishing sodomy.
caption: An LGBT protest at the Idaho statehouse in 2014.
exif: {"Image Software": "Google", "Image ExifOffset": "46", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF Tag 0x9009": "[10, 9, 144, 1, 1, 168, 1, 1, 192, 1, 1]"}