LGBTQ people in the United States
In the United States, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people have a long history, including subcultures and advocacy battles for social and religious acceptance and legal rights.
Though the first national gay organization was formed in 1950, the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City are often cited as the beginning of the modern gay civil rights era. The AIDS crisis in the 1980s was a large influence on gay communities and activism. In the late 20th century, social acceptance began to increase, and legal rights followed.
Military policy was changed in 2011, allowing LGBTQ people to serve openly. Social conservatives briefly had success outlawing same-sex marriage at the state level in the 2000s, but the SCOTUS legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015.
Demographics
In 2024, Gallup found that 7.6% of U.S. adults identified as LGBTQ or another sexual orientation besides heterosexual. Broken down by age group, this shows up at 22.3% among Gen Zers, 9.8% among Millennials, 4.5% among Generation Xers, 2.3% among Baby boomers, and 1.1% for members of the Silent Generation.History
There are varying accounts of the place LGBTQ people occupied in pre-Columbian era Native American tribes. In modern parlance, the term Two-Spirit is often used to describe Native American LGBTQ people. There were hundreds of different tribes across the US, each with its own culture, thus acknowledgement and acceptance of and social roles for LGBTQ people varied across tribes. In the reservation era, Christian missionaries and European government agencies denounced homosexuality and gender variance, forcing LGBTQ people to adopt social roles and dress considered appropriate, such as making males cut their hair and making females wear dresses. Though the violence and intimidation enacted by the church and government were disproportionately directed at Native Americans, both Native and non-Native LGBTQ people often lived in hiding to avoid being incarcerated or killed because homosexuality was a criminal offense.The first person known to describe himself as a drag queen was William Dorsey Swann, born enslaved in Hancock, Maryland. Swann was the first American on record who pursued legal and political action to defend the LGBTQ community's right to assemble. During the 1880s and 1890s, Swann organized a series of drag balls in Washington, D.C.. Swann was arrested in police raids numerous times, including in the first documented case of arrests for female impersonation in the United States, on April 12, 1888.
LGBTQ acceptance had shown slow improvement in the 19th century and first half of the 20th century. The first documented gay rights organization in American, the Society for Human Rights, was founded in Chicago in 1924 by Henry Gerber, a German-American activist inspired by the progress made by Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin. The organization published two issues of a magazine, Friendship and Freedom, but was short-lived due to police harassment and legal challenges.
In the 1950s, there was both greater organization within the LGBTQ community and greater government repression, known as the Lavender Scare. In 1950, the first national gay organization was founded in Los Angeles. The Mattachine Society was a leader in the homophile movement of the 1950s and '60s. The organization rapidly lost popularity in the late '60s before ultimately filing for bankruptcy in 1976. The Mattachine formally opposed the Stonewall riots and put up a sign pleading for peace, which created tension between members who advocated for assimilationist versus radical tactics. The radicals broke off to form the Gay Liberation Front, while Mattachine membership continued to decline.
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that occurred across five nights in June – early July 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Although the demonstrations were not the first time American homosexuals fought back against government-sponsored persecution of sexual minorities, the Stonewall riots marked a new beginning for the gay rights movement and gay liberation in the United States and around the world. The first gay pride parade, then called Christoper Street Liberation Day, was held on June 28, 1970, the anniversary of the first night of the riots.
The riots ushered in a new era of open advocacy for gay rights. The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the DSM and more states began decriminalizing sodomy. In the 1970s, activists lobbied for a number of anti-discrimination bills in their local communities. After an initial wave of success, the late '70s saw a backlash led by Anita Bryant's Save Our Children campaign, wherein a number of recently-passed bills were repealed. This decade saw the election of the first politicians to run as openly gay candidates, including Kathy Kozachenko, Elaine Noble, and Harvey Milk. In addition, while the early days of the gay movement were dominated by white gay males, the movement became more diverse in the 1970s with the formation of groups like Lavender Menace and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.
There were more rapid changes with HIV/AIDS crisis activism in the 1980s. The disease disproportionately affected gay men, leading to mass mortality within the community. Among gay men who were between the ages of 25–44 at the start of the epidemic, 1 in 10 had died of AIDS-related complications by 1995. Among the most visible groups of this time period was the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power , founded by author and activist Larry Kramer in 1985. The group lobbied for more research, funding, and treatment options for HIV/AIDS due to perceived apathy from the Reagan administration. A number of writers, artists and entertainers publicly acknowledged their homosexuality.
In the 1990s, the popular media began including gay characters. Ellen was cancelled in 1998, shortly after both the main character and her namesake star came out as a lesbian, making the series the first to have a gay main character. That same year, Will & Grace premiered. The cast and crew feared that it would be cancelled as well, but the series was well-received and went on for an initial eight-season run. The show is widely seen as having created the opportunity for future series with gay leads, and for helping to increase public acceptance of the LGBTQ community.
The socially conservative Don't Ask Don't Tell policy and the Defense of Marriage Act were two of the highest-profile policy changes affecting LGBTQ people in the 1990s. At the time, DADT was seen as a compromise between the traditionally conservative military, which had banned homosexuals from service from its inception, and the Democratic Party, which increasingly favored ending the ban. DADT barred military officers not inquire into soldiers' sexual orientation, while also prohibiting soldiers from coming out. DOMA was passed in response to a number of states passing laws protecting domestic partnerships for same-sex couples, as well as speculation that Hawaiʻi might legalize gay marriage. Under DOMA, neither the federal government nor any other state was required to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another state, excepting gay marriages from the Full Faith and Credit Clause. DADT was dropped in 2011, and DOMA was ruled unconstitutional in 2013.
Anti-sodomy laws were ruled unconstitutional in 2003, making it legal throughout the nation for consenting adults to have sex with a person of the same gender. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, states began legalizing same-sex marriage. By 2015, 37 states had voted to legalize same-sex marriage. Obergefell v. Hodges ruled the remaining laws restricting marriage to heterosexual couples unconstitutional, effectively legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
Official church positions on LGBTQ issues have been slower to change and mostly among mainstream Protestant denominations.
Communities
The Mattachine Society
In 1950, a gay community in Los Angeles with communist ideals founded the movement "The Mattachine Society". It began in 1940 when Harry Hay proposed the term homophile, with the hope that de-emphasizing the sexual aspect of homosexuality would increase societal acceptance. The Mattachine Society originated under the name "International Bachelors Fraternal Orders for Peace and Social Dignity." The new name was founded by the influence of European masked performers. The main goal of this movement was to oppose discrimination and to create a strong identity within the gay community. The goals started to focus on assimilation instead of advocacy, and the group started to decline from a national organization to smaller chapters in the 1950s.While never officially affiliated with the Mattachine Society, One Magazine is thought to have been founded based on a discussion at a Mattachine Meeting.
The Lesbian Movement
In 1955 in San Francisco, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon founded Daughters of Bilitis, part of the homophile movement, to create lesbian community. The organization was intended to be a safe space for lesbians and to advocate. It was influenced by The Mattachine Society and other groups.In the early 1970s, lesbian activists created their own communities and institutions including self defense schools. Many of their activities were separate from the broader feminist movement and from the gay men's movement. In the late 1970s, the lesbian movement dwindled due to the economic recession, and it generally integrated with the broader gay movement.