Tradition
Gay liberation
Overview
The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s in the Western world, that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride. In the feminist spirit of the personal being political, the most basic form of activism was an emphasis on coming out to family, friends, and colleagues, and living life as an openly lesbian or gay person.
The Stonewall Inn in the gay village of Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, was the site of the June 1969 Stonewall riots, and became the cradle of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, and the subsequent gay liberation movement. Early in the 1970s, annual political marches through major cities, (usually held in June, originally to commemorate the yearly anniversary of the events at Stonewall) were still known as "Gay Liberation" marches. Not until later in the 1970s (in urban gay centers) and well into the 1980s (in smaller communities) did the marches begin to be called "gay pride parades". The movement involved the lesbian and gay communities in North America, South America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
Gay liberation is also known for its links to the counterculture of the time (e.g. groups like the Radical Faeries) and for some gay liberationists' intent to transform or abolish fundamental institutions of society such as gender and the nuclear family. For some offsets of movement, the politics were radical, anti-racist, and anti-capitalist. In order to achieve such goals, consciousness raising and direct action were employed. While HIV/AIDS activism and awareness (in groups such as ACT UP) radicalized a new wave of lesbians and gay men in the 1980s, and radical groups have continued to exist ever since, by the early 1990s the radicalism of gay liberation was eclipsed in the mainstream by newly-out, pro-assimilationist gay men and women who stressed civil rights and mainstream politics.
The term gay liberation sometimes refers to the broader movement to end social and legal oppression against LGBTQ people. Sometimes the term gay liberation movement is even used synonymously or interchangeably with the gay rights movement. The Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee was formed in New York City to commemorate the first anniversary of the June 1969 Stonewall riots, the beginning of the international tradition of a late-June event to celebrate gay pride. The annual gay pride festivals in Berlin, Cologne, and other German cities are known as Christopher Street Days or "CSD"s.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
This process is called "sublimation," and in adopting this process we subscribe to the general standard which places social aims above selfish sexual desires. Sublimation is, as a matter of fact, only a special case of the relation of sexual to non-sexual desires. We shall have occasion to talk more about this later in another connection.
Sigmund Freud, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
States what Gay liberation is.
Many component urges, each driving in a different direction, eventually consolidate, ultimately to serve the purpose of propagation. Not all of the individual component urges prove of equal value, in view of the ultimate task they are called upon to serve. Many of them have to be “re-routed,” refashioned, partially subdued. Such a protracted process of development cannot always be pursued smoothly, without obstacles…
Sigmund Freud, The problem of lay-analyses
States what Gay liberation is.
As I view the matter, the fact of the racial peculiarities of Jews is bound to have an influence on their social intercourse. I believe that German Judaism is thus being influenced to a great extent by anti-Semitism. With increasing wealth and increasing education the religious customs which formerly prevented the mixing of Jews with Gentiles have tended to disappear. There was thus nothing but the antithesis which…
Albert Einstein, About Zionism
States what Gay liberation is.
Related ideas
- Feminism
- Greenwich Village
- Counterculture
- Queer theory
- Columbia University Press
- Nuclear family
- Oscar Wilde
- Stonewall riots
- The New York Times
- Berlin
- Civil and political rights
- Gender
- New Left
- Anti-capitalism
- Cologne
- Oppression
- Cambridge University Press
- University of Paris
- Gay Liberation Front
- Mattachine Society
Place in the tradition
Part of Socialism.