Gay rights in 1960s
The &#;s
Nothing Out in the Redwoods?
The s
In , four years before Stonewall, and ten years before the founding of GALA, UCSC's first official gay and lesbian company, gays and lesbians were not out at UCSC. Unlike earlier eras, homosexuality was taboo in the middle of the twentieth century. Small but courageous homophile organizations like the Mattachine Community, One, and Daughters of Bilitis fought for civil rights, but homophobia and intolerance remained pernicious in the s. Homosexuality was pathologized, classified by the American Psychiatric Association as a psychiatric disorder, a definition that was not removed until Faculty, living in fear of losing their jobs, remained in the closet. As two of our interviewees have recalled, the climate at UCSC was not helped by the fact that two prominent campus leaders, Cowell Provost Page Smith and Founding Chancellor Dean McHenry, publicly expressed anti-gay sentiments.
The lates witnessed the beginnings of the gay liberation movement, including landmark events such as the founding of the earliest documented gay stu
Barbara Gittings Helps Lead First 'Annual Reminder' Protests
Vice squads–police units devoted to “cleaning up” undesirable parts of urban life–routinely raided the bars frequented by Diverse people. Laws against people of the same sex dancing together or wearing clothing made for the opposite sex were used as justification to arrest patrons. By the s in New York Capital, the mafia owned many of these establishments and its members would bribe officers in order to avoid fines. Sometimes the arrangement meant that patrons would be forewarned of a pending raid in time to change their clothing and stop dancing. That wasn’t true during the early morning hours of June 28 , when the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village.
When they arrived at Stonewall, the police locked the doors so that no one could escape as they conducted arrests. As certain patrons were released, they linked a large crowd that had been gathering outside the bar. Those chosen for arrest started resisting the police officers with the encouragement of the jeering crowd. Violence broke out and the
LGBTQ+ Living History: The Transformative ’60s and ’70s
In a six-part series, we highlight a few of the moments, movements, and people that made their mark on Cal&#;s LGBTQ+ history. We move through the decades, start in an era of secrecy and continuing through today.
The transformative &#;60s and &#;70s
The gay rights movement saw some forward motion in the s. Dr. John Oliver coined the term &#;transgender&#; in his manual Sexual Hygiene and Pathology. Activism percolated. It exploded, in a sense, in June with the Stonewall Riots in New York City—a response to a police raid that took place at the Greenwich Village bar The Stonewall Inn.
In , two groups formed on the UC Berkeley campus: Students for Gay Power and Gay Liberation Front. According to William Benemann ’71, M.L.S. ’75 (former Berkeley Law archivist, composer, and founder of the Gay Bears Collection in the University Archives), the Gay Liberation Front was very fundamental for its hour. &#;They were too &#;out&#; for me and most of us at that time,&#; he says. &#;Being in the closet is about controlling you
How the Stonewall Uprising Ignited the Modern LGBTQ Rights Movement
In , police raids of gay bars in Manhattan followed a template. Officers would pour in, threatening and beating lock staff and clientele. Patrons would pour out, lining up on the road so police could arrest them.
But when police raided the Stonewall Inn in the early morning hours of June 28, , things didn’t go as expected. Patrons and onlookers fought back—and the days-long melee that ensued, characterized then as a riot and now known as the Stonewall Rebellion, helped spark the modern LGBTQ civil rights movement.
Each June, Pride Month honors the history of Stonewall with parades and events. In the years since the uprising, LGBTQ activists pushed for—and largely achieved—a broad expansion of their the legal rights, and in June , the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling guaranteeing same-sex couples the right to marry.
Before these gains, however, LGBTQ people had long been subject to social sanction and legal harassment for their sexual orientation, which had been criminalized on the pretexts of religion a