Gay men in history
12 LGBT icons from history you should know about
Marsha P. Johnson was an African American transgender-rights activist, whose work in the s and s had a huge impact on the LGBT community.
At this time, being gay was classified as a mental illness in the Together States. Gay people were regularly threatened and lost by police, and were shunned by many in society.
In June , when Marsha was 23 years old, police raided a gay bar in Novel York called The Stonewall Inn. The police forced over people out of the bar and onto the streets, and then used excessive violence against them.
Marsha, who was living and working in Fresh York at the period, was one of the key figures who stood up to the police during the raids.
Marsha resisted arrest, but in the following days, led a series of protests and riots demanding rights for gay people.
News of these protests spread around the world, inspiring others to join protests and rights groups to fight for equality.
Read more about Marsha P. Johnson here.
June is Pride Month, which commemorates the Stonewall riots of , when patrons of a gay block, The Stonewall Inn, in New York City fought back against a police raid. It was an inflection point in the gay liberation movement. To celebrate Pride Month, I wanted to share a bit about LGBTQ+ scientists of the past.
I often feel uncomfortable with these lists, especially when sexual orientation and/or gender persona is speculative. Many Homosexual people in history couldn't come out publicly (and the truth is that many today still can't), and it feels a little intrusive to guess based on a letter or some ambiguous anecdote. But I also know that the good that comes from the visibility of those historical figures is significant. It's important to learn about the contributions LGBTQ+ people have drawn-out been making. So I've included in this list people who were general about their identity and/or orientation as well as people who are consideration to have been LGBTQ+.
This list is more on the historical side and includes mostly (though not entirely) people who are no longer workin
The early s saw a major spread of the Council of Europe membership due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. In , for example, there were 22 member states whereas by this had risen to
To join the Council of Europe, new member-states must undertake certain commitments, including conforming their criminal laws to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). As we know from the situation in Northern Ireland described in Dudgeon above, the ECHR right to privacy prohibits the criminalisation of homosexual activity. By the time candidate states from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet bloc applied for membership of the Council of Europe, it was a condition of their accession to decriminalise.
By way of example, the monitoring countries decriminalised at or around the time they joined: Lithuania (joined the Council of Europe in ; decriminalised in ), Estonia (; ), Romania (; ), Serbia (; ), Ukraine (; ), Albania (; ), Latvia (; ), Macedonia FYROM (; ), Moldova (; ), Russia (; ), Bosnia and Herzegovina (; ), Georgia (; ), Armenia (; )
Historical Figures of LGBTQ+ History
Barbara Jordan was born on February 21, , in Houston, Texas. After attending Phyllis WheatleyHigh School, Jordan graduated in Upon graduation, Jordan attended Texas Southern University and earned her bachelor’s degree in She then obtained her commandment degree from Boston University to practice law in Houston, TX. In , Jordan began her political career and ran for the Texas House of Representatives. She lost this election and ran again in However, she lost again, so in she decided to run for Texas Senate, instead. This time, Jordan won and became the first African American woman to be elected in that was the first African American state senator in the U.S. since On March 28, , she was elected President of the Texas Senate, making her the first Black woman in America to oversee a legislative body. She also ran for Congress, during this time, and became the first African American in the 20th century to be elected to Congress from the South. In addition to these accomplishments, Barbara was also the first LGBTQ+ woman in Congress. Nancy Earl, an edu