Section II

Theories and Interventions

5

Queer Normalization and Beyond

This chapter traces the continued development of gay rights movements throughout the last part of the 20th century and into the 21st. We pay particular attention to the impact of the AIDS crisis on LGBTQ political thought as well as arguments about the politics of assimilation. We conclude with consideration of LGBTQ activism in an increasingly global context.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Upon completion of this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

· 5.1 Summarize how the AIDS epidemic changed queer activism.

· 5.2 Describe the backlash to queer activism at the end of the 20th century.

· 5.3 Explain “normalization” as one strategy of contemporary gay activism.

· 5.4 Discuss inclusion and assimilation as competing strategies of rights activism.

· 5.5 Explain the importance of trans activism and its rise at the turn of the 21st century.

· 5.6 Summarize the state of LGBTQ rights in a global context.

As the turbulent 1970s came to an end, it seemed as if sexual liberation was a goal that was possible to achieve. To be sure, the civil rights-based organizations remained, and activists like Harvey Milk had begun to enter the established political system. But the faces and voices of queerness—especially of white gay men—appeared openly in the media as never before in an insistent and celebratory way.

AIDS: EPIDEMIC AND ACTIVISM

Suddenly, in the early 1980s, doctors in some large urban centers in the United States began reporting a syndrome affecting an individual’s ability to fight disease. The syndrome, which seemed viral in nature, was appearing predominantly among gay men, prompting doctors and health officials to call it gay-related immune deficiency (GRID) or gay cancer. Eventually, reports spread about other affected groups, mostly prostitutes and intravenous drug users, and the syndrome was relabeled AIDS—acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Initial reports about the disease were largely confined to gay or large urban news sources, but AIDS reached national awareness when actor Rock Hudson, looking emaciated and frail, held a press conference in 1985 to announce that he had AIDS—and was gay. In addition, some early cases of the disease resulting from blood transfusions, such as the illness of teenager Ryan White, helped spread publicity; the Ryan White CARE Act, which provided services for people living with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus, which can lead to AIDS) and AIDS, was signed on August 18, 1990.

Panic spread first among gay men and then among the larger public, prompting some officials to close bathhouses. Some politicians argued for quarantining gay men, or at least those diagnosed with AIDS. HIV is passed from person to person through semen, blood, breast milk, or vaginal secretions, and the virus can lie dormant for several years before compromising an individual’s immune system, resulting in the syndrome itself, AIDS. Because the disease is primarily transmitted through anal sex and intravenous drug use, government officials during the 1980s, particularly in the Reagan-controlled White House, were reluctant to identify it as a public health concern. In fact, President Reagan himself never mentioned the term AIDS until after the death of Rock Hudson, and even then, his administration never supported meaningful funding for AIDS research (Shilts).

In the face of government apathy, a variety of gay and lesbian activists began organizing politically both to protest the government’s inaction and to assist those with AIDS. They were aided in the popular consciousness by revelations that certain well-known, presumably straight figures, such as athletes Arthur Ashe and Magic Johnson, had contracted AIDS as “innocent victims” (Ashe from a blood transfusion, Johnson from heterosexual sex). The AIDS epidemic galvanized gay and lesbian people in ways that more abstract political issues such as repeal of sodomy laws had not (Miller). Organizations such as Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) responded directly to both health concerns and political necessities around AIDS. ACT UP—the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power—was formed in 1987. Using direct action techniques, ACT UP employed tactics that were often confrontational and controversial. For instance, ACT UP activists yelled slogans and threw condoms during a 1989 mass held by Cardinal John Joseph O’Connor, a New York priest who outspokenly opposed gay and lesbian rights. Spin-off groups from ACT UP, such as Queer Nation and Lesbian Avengers, continued this work into the 1990s, holding kiss-ins and zaps and popularizing one of the major slogans protesting the government’s reluctance to deal with AIDS: “Silence = Death” (Figure 5.1). At this time, many gay activists started using the term queer to describe their politics and identities; the term suggested an unwillingness to conform and a desire to oppose the norms that called for silence around gay and lesbian sexualities.

Randy Shilts estimates that “[o]n the day the world learned that Rock Hudson was stricken [1985], some 12,000 Americans were already dead or dying of AIDS and hundreds of thousands more were infected with the virus that caused the disease” (xxii). Thirty years later, the official United Nations Global Report on the worldwide AIDS epidemic stated that after a peak in new HIV infections in the late 1990s, “the overall growth of the global AIDS epidemic appears to have stabilized.” The 2.3 million newly infected people reported in 2013 represented a 33% decrease from the 3.4 million infected in 2001. In the United States and the Global North, advanced antiretroviral therapies (ART) have greatly improved the quality of life for people living with HIV. In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV/AIDS was once so prevalent as to virtually paralyze national economies, a combination of available drugs, “the impact of HIV prevention efforts, and the natural course of HIV epidemics” have led to a dramatic drop in new infections since 2001 (Global Report).

U.S. AIDS advocacy groups were astonishingly successful at promoting public awareness of the epidemic and at raising money for patient services and research. Nonetheless, widespread publicity and increased visibility led to a backlash against gay men in particular, who were seen as the cause of AIDS, despite the fact that the disease had been identified as a health problem in Africa in the 1970s. In 1982, for instance, a Georgia man named Michael Hardwick was arrested for sodomy; his lawyers argued the case during the same years that AIDS was causing national panic in the United States, and in 1986, the Supreme Court, by a 5–4 vote, upheld Georgia’s sodomy statute and, by extension, the right of states to outlaw sodomy. In the years following the Bowers v. Hardwick decision, a number of states, mostly in the South, refined their laws to criminalize only homosexual, not heterosexual, sodomy. Fear of AIDS was clearly leading to a polarization of national opinion, for which homosexuality served as a fulcrum.

Figure 5.1 AIDS activism slogans.

Scott DeWitt & Trauman

Find Out More in Douglas Crimp’s book, AIDS: Cultural Analysis, Cultural Activism, MIT Press, 1988.

In the United States and the Global North throughout most of the 1980s, it was assumed that only gay people got AIDS. In fact, in the late 1980s, Sebastian Bach of the band Skid Row appeared on stage wearing a T-shirt that read “AIDS: Kills Fags Dead,” a parody of the popular slogan for the spray insecticide Raid, which was “RAID: Kills Bugs Dead.” Though Bach issued a public apology for the incident and claimed he had no idea what was written on the T-shirt, the slogan was then popularized—to the point where the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas (infamous for its God Hates Fags campaign), adopted it as a slogan when they protested at the funeral of Matthew Shepard. Even today the slogan “AIDS Cures Gays” is still around, and some people still believe that HIV and AIDS are “gay diseases.” The United Nations AIDS organization UNAIDS is among the many organizations that have attempted to correct this flawed assumption. UNAIDS estimates that 19.2 million women were living with HIV/AIDS worldwide in 2019, accounting for about half of the 38 million adults living with HIV/AIDS. In many countries, HIV spreads mostly through sex between men and women. And in the United States, the number of people with HIV/AIDS who became infected through sex between men and women continues to grow (UNAIDS Data 2020).

Nonetheless, antigay activists continue to equate HIV and AIDS with homosexuality. As an extreme example, the God Hates Fags crusade claims that those who die from complications related to HIV/AIDS, as well as American casualties of war, are being punished by a higher power to make the United States suffer for becoming a “fag nation” (http://www.godhatesfags.com/). In a controversial decision upholding the right of the Westboro protesters to deploy such speech in hurtful ways, the U.S. Supreme Court’s chief justice, John Roberts, said in his majority opinion that the court protects “even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate” (Sherman). In addition, the 2020 UNAIDS report lists a shocking number of discriminatory attitudes and behaviors against HIV+ people worldwide.

ANTIGAY BACKLASH AND HATE-CRIMES LEGISLATION

The election of conservative governments throughout the West, as well as the fall of communist states in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s, signaled a mass cultural shift toward more conservative values and ideas. As early as the late 1960s, the phrase “family values” began to be used to describe ideals related to a valuing of the “traditional” heterosexual, intact family unit. The phrase came to function as a euphemism for various antiabortion, anti-sex education, antifeminist, and anti-LGBTQ ideologies. Among such ideologies is abstinence-only education, a cornerstone of George W. Bush’s presidency (2001–2009). It assumed (falsely) that a refusal to mention sexuality in school curricula leads to less teen sex and fewer out-of-wedlock births. Operating on the assumption that teenagers should refuse categorically to engage in sexual activity, abstinence-only programs denied young people basic information about sexual safety (“The Truth”). For instance, these programs have been implicated in the rise of unprotected sex among young people (“The Dangers”). Also notable for LGBTQ people are movements such as the Save Our Children campaign and the ex-gay movement, which have given rise to a rhetoric of healing through programs designed to convince gay and lesbian youth and adults to pursue only heterosexual relationships. Avoiding the essentialist argument about whether LGBTQ people are born with their sexualities, these programs have been successful in employing a “gay is a choice” ideology to connect homosexuality to sin and to assert the righteousness of allowing active discrimination against LGBTQ people. We note a recurring pattern here—right-wing organizations camouflaging aggressive antigay policies and practices with the rhetoric of compassion and healing.

In 1991, the Colorado for Family Values organization wrote the following proposed amendment to the state constitution:

No Protected Status Based on Homosexual, Lesbian, or Bisexual Orientation. Neither the State of Colorado, through any of its branches or departments, nor any of its agencies, political subdivisions, municipalities or school districts, shall enact, adopt or enforce any statute, regulation, ordinance or policy whereby homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships shall constitute or otherwise be the basis of or entitle any person or class of persons to have or claim any minority status, quota preferences, protected status or claim of discrimination. (“Civil Rights”)

Colorado voters passed this amendment in 1992 by a 54% to 47% margin. However, after a protracted legal battle, the Supreme Court overturned the amendment in 1996, stating that Colorado could not pass laws making homosexuals “unequal to everyone else. A State cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws” (Robinson). A similar ordinance passed in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1993, but the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal against the discriminatory Article XII of that city’s charter. Eventually, voters in Cincinnati overturned Article XII in 2004, swayed more by economic arguments (e.g., a boycott against bringing convention business to town) than by fairness arguments.

During Bill Clinton’s presidency (1993–2001), several particularly gruesome cases of gay bashing received wide publicity, and the nation saw the devastating results of homophobic violence. In December 1993, Brandon Teena, a 21-year-old transman, was killed—along with his friends Lisa Lambert and Philip DeVine—in Lambert’s home in Humboldt, Nebraska. Teena was killed by John Lotter and Tom Nissen in an attempt to keep him from testifying against them for raping him during an attack motivated by their discovery of Teena’s biological sex. After the brutal murder in October 1998 of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student (Figure 5.2), Clinton’s attempt to widen the definition of hate crimes to include lesbians and gays was defeated in Congress. A year later, Wyoming also tried to add lesbians and gays to its hate crimes statute; that measure was defeated after a 30–30 tie in the Wyoming House of Representatives. Also in 1999, Billy Jack Gaither, an Alabama man, was killed by two men after Gaither allegedly showed sexual interest in them. The murderers attempted what has come to be known as the gay panic legal defense, claiming that Gaither’s “talking queer stuff” caused them to respond with uncontrollable violence (“Assault”). The two men were sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. President Clinton compared Gaither’s killing to Shepard’s and also to that of James Byrd, an African American man dragged to death in a racially motivated attack in Texas the year before. In 2002, lesbians Carla Grayson and Adrienne Neff, along with their 22-month-old son, barely escaped after arsonists set fire to their Montana home. The fire was apparently set in retaliation for a lawsuit filed against the University of Montana by Grayson and other employees that called for the extension of domestic partner benefits to same-sex couples.

Figure 5.2 Matthew Shepard vigil.

Evan Agostini/Getty Images

Public opinion and legislative and executive will finally coincided to address the hate-crime issue after the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2009. In October of that year, Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which was intentionally included by Democrats in a defense spending bill to forestall anticipated Republican opposition. At the signing, Obama said, “[W]e must stand against crimes that are meant not only to break bones but to break spirits—not only to inflict harm but to instill fear” (Zeleny). Despite this more progressive legal context, antigay bullying of young people continues and has led some activists, such as Dan Savage, to set up the It Gets Better Project to provide encouragement for LGBT youth [λ Chapter 12]. To be sure, hate crimes, especially when committed by “lone wolf” attackers, seem immune to “prevention” by legislation. Omar Mateen, the New York-born son of Afghan immigrants to the United States, died in a hail of police bullets after killing and injuring 100 people in a gay bar in Orlando, Florida, in 2016. No boosting of his prison sentence on account of his having committed a hate crime would have changed his deadly plans.

The election of President Donald Trump in 2016 represented one example of the worldwide trend toward right-wing, authoritarian governments (which also has included the rise to power of people such as Vladimir Putin in Russia, Boris Johnson in England, Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Kim Jong-un in North Korea, and others). It signaled a worrisome reversal for LGBTQ people in the United States. Along with sustained attacks on progressive policies on health, the environment, and immigration, the Trump administration and its allies attacked LGBTQ rights directly. Trump appointed three known anti-LGBTQ justices (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett) to the U.S. Supreme Court. He directed the Bureau of Prisons to restrict assignment of inmates according to biological sex only. He reversed Obama’s directive allowing trans people to serve in the U.S. military. And perhapd worst of all, Trump supported discrimination against LGBTQ people under the banner of “religious freedom.” Related to this, this edition is going to press as the U.S. Supreme Court is considering overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that legalized abortion. LGBTQ activists have expressed concern that along with reproductive choice, the country is ready to backtrack on such issues as contraception and same-sex marriage. It begs the question, are we dealing with a religious freedom issue or a religious tyranny issue?

Battles over gay rights have occurred in a global context that has witnessed the spread of religious fundamentalism, which is notoriously hostile to gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. These belief systems work against progressive impulses to enhance freedoms and life choices. In the United States, the word fundamentalist normally refers to right-wing Christians. In Iran, however, a conservative Muslim government arrests and at times executes those convicted of sodomy. In 2005, two Iranian teens were hanged, the government claiming that they were guilty of raping a 13-year-old boy; gay rights organizations around the world claimed that the “crime” they were “guilty” of was really consensual sodomy.

In an article about the hanging, Homan, a Los Angeles-based Iranian LGBTQ group, asserts that “according to Iranian human rights campaigners, over 4000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Ayatollahs seized power in 1979” (“Execution”). Nothing, however, is as simple as it appears. A common solution to transsexuality in rigidly heteronormative Iran is sex reassignment surgery, performed to create heterosexuals from presumptive homosexuals. “So encouraging is the Iranian government of such surgery,” writes Rochelle Terman, “that it currently subsidizes procedures for qualified applicants” (28). In fact, more sex reassignment surgeries are performed in Iran now than in any country besides Thailand, where gender surgery has become “a growing niche” in the nation’s “$4 billion medical tourism market” (“How Thailand”).

THE ATTRACTIONS AND EFFECTS OF NORMALIZATION

Two cases that show the difficulty faced when a progressive political agenda in favor of LGBTQ rights meets political opposition can be seen in the efforts to end the ban on gays in the military and to allow same-sex couples the right to marry. A frequent flash point for debates about LGBTQ rights has been the issue of gays in the military. A number of nations—Israel, Canada, Denmark, Great Britain, and others—have for years allowed LGB people to serve openly in the armed forces. Until recently, the United States implemented a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy, which neither pro-gay nor antigay groups much liked. In 1993, public opinion seemed primed for a reversal of the rules instituted during World War II stipulating that homosexuals be discharged from the armed forces [λ Chapter 3]. During his 1992 presidential campaign, candidate Bill Clinton promised to lift the ban on gays in the military, but after his election, he encountered stiff opposition from the Pentagon and Republican leadership. To the intense disappointment of many LGBTQ activists, Clinton instituted a compromise policy officially named Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue, Don’t Harass. This policy did not succeed in integrating homosexual people into the military; what it did was mandate punishment for those who came out while serving. Under this policy, members of the armed services could not “make a statement that they are lesbian, gay or bisexual; engage in physical contact with someone of the same sex for the purposes of sexual gratification; or marry, or attempt to marry, someone of the same sex” (Human Rights Campaign). Ironically, this policy, which was supposed to be a progressive move designed to end the U.S. military’s practice of ferreting out or actively pursuing LGBTQ people, actually extended the “offenses” that could result in expulsion from the military. While DADT was in force, approximately 14,000 people were discharged from the military; the minimum estimated cost of the policy was $288 million (Servicemembers United, Warren). Finally, a Democratic-majority Congress voted to repeal DADT in December 2010. President Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen certified that repeal would not harm military readiness, and DADT officially ended as of September 2011. Then, in 2016, the Pentagon announced that the U.S. military would no longer discriminate against transgender troops, thus eliminating “one of the last barriers to service based on gender identity or sexual orientation” (Vanden Brook). The primary sticking points in the process were financial concerns about the potential costs of service members transitioning and logistical concerns about what point in a recruit’s transition would represent the right time for them to be accepted for service. Medical, housing, and uniform issues are expected to be resolved despite the discomfort of some high-ranking officers with the idea. Former President Trump’s undoing of the trans military acceptance policy has since been reversed via an executive order from President Joe Biden in 2021.

DADT had stipulated that military personnel must not marry a person of the same sex. Absent DADT, a major prop of “traditional” marriage disappeared. Let us consider events of the last two decades that relate to this issue. The national Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman, was enacted in 1996 during the Clinton administration, partly in response to increasing agitation (e.g., in Hawaii) for same-sex marriage. Subsequently, and culminating in the national election of 2004—when Republicans put state-level DOMAs on many ballots to encourage conservative voters to come to the polls and vote for George W. Bush—a temporary antigay mood led some legislators to talk about a national constitutional amendment restricting marriage to one man and one woman. Efforts to accomplish this failed during the George W. Bush administration. Still, in 2012, 39 states had either an amendment or a law against same-sex marriage (“Defining Marriage”). Conversely, 15 states and the District of Columbia permitted either full marriage (Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont) or state-sanctioned civil unions or domestic partnerships (California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and the District of Columbia) (“Same-Sex”). The drive to restrict marriage to heterosexual participants seemed to have reached its zenith in the first decade of the 21st century. However, in this same period, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned sodomy laws (Lawrence v. Texas), and later, President Obama decided that his administration would no longer defend the constitutionality of the federal DOMA (“Obama: DOMA Unconstitutional”). The stage was set for major change.

In 2013, the Supreme Court overturned a central piece of the national DOMA in the case of Windsor v. United States. The ruling held that “the federal government cannot discriminate against married lesbian and gay couples for the purposes of determining federal benefits and protections.” Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer had married in Canada, and they lived in New York where same-sex marriages were recognized by the state. But when Thea died, the federal government taxed Edie’s inheritance as if she and her wife had been strangers. Windsor v. United States recognized the women’s legal marriage and opened the door for further change. The Supreme Court then agreed to hear the case of Obergefell v. Hodges. Plaintiff James Obergefell and his terminally ill partner John Arthur married in Maryland, then asked the Ohio Registrar to identify Obergefell as the surviving spouse on Arthur’s death certificate. Locally, the registrar validated the unconstitutionality of discriminating against the couple, but Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office announced its intention to defend Ohio’s same-sex marriage ban. After the customary appeals, the Supreme Court cited both the due process clause and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ruling 5–4 in June 2015 that same-sex couples have the fundamental right to marry.

Find Out More about the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage in the readings at the end of this chapter.

Internationally, the Netherlands (2001) and Belgium (2003) were among the first European nations to legalize gay marriage. Such moves built on a global push to extend basic civil rights to LGBTQ people; in 1996, the new constitution of South Africa was the first in the world to specifically prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Since then, a number of nations have legalized same-sex marriage. As of this writing, 15 countries (Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and Uruguay) and certain subjurisdictions (parts of Denmark, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States) allow same-sex couples to marry. The context in which same-sex marriage is legalized often underscores the tensions between progressive and conservative impulses; debates about gay marriage are often volatile, even when countries move to secure marriage rights for lesbians and gays. As a compromise position, some countries have adopted civil unions that guarantee some of the marriage rights given to heterosexual couples.

Despite progress in some areas, striking contradictions continue to exist between stated national policies and actions on the ground. In South Africa, for instance, despite the 1996 Constitution, which officially guarantees formal legal protections for persons of all sexual orientations, considerable antigay violence remains. Such practices as “corrective rape”—the rape of perceived lesbians and gay men to “cure” them of their gayness—seem to be part of a larger homophobic reaction to the new legal protections. Similarly, the Constitutional Tribunal of Ecuador overturned sodomy laws, the new 2008 Constitution recognized same-sex unions, and transgender and intersex people have the right to change their legal names in accord with their adopted sex. At the same time, however, “de-homosexualization” centers have sprung up, attempting to change sexual interest through coercion despite laws intended to ban the most abusive practices (Lind and Keating).

INCLUSION VERSUS ASSIMILATION: TWO APPROACHES TO SECURING RIGHTS

Debates about gay marriage, and LGBTQ rights in general, elicit strong reactions. What can get lost in discussions of ideals and values is the personal cost to individual lives when rhetoric touches reality. For instance, who pays when Jerry Falwell calls AIDS “God’s punishment for homosexuality”? Who pays when legislation or policy insists on drawing a connection between sex education and immorality? These examples of antigay, anti-sex rhetoric seem to condone, even encourage, verbal, moral, or physical violence against sexual minorities and nonconformists. Furthermore, since HIV disease is still spread primarily through sexual contact, the disease has sparked calls for greater and more comprehensive sex education both in the West and throughout the world. In the United States, however, such calls have prompted heated debates among politicians and their constituents about promoting alternative lifestyles.

One way the problem of public policy fairness plays out is in questions about the approach rights-based organizations take to securing civil rights for LGBTQ people. In the United States, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest and best funded American civil rights organization, describes its mission in this way:

The Human Rights Campaign is organized and will be operated for the promotion of the social welfare of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. By inspiring and engaging individuals and communities, HRC strives to end discrimination against LGBT people and realize a world that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all. (“Mission Statement”)

Since the turn of the 21st century, HRC has focused much of its energy and financial resources on advocacy for the rights of gays and lesbians to marry, to serve openly in the military, and to feel secure and free from discrimination in the workplace. HRC has also initiated dialogues with religious leaders in an effort to address homophobia in church communities. In general, despite the words human rights in its name, HRC is a civil rights organization, which works to obtain for LGBTQ people the same rights that are enjoyed by heterosexual, cisgender citizens of the United States.

Some U.S. gay organizations take a more in-your-face approach, even though their work shares the HRC’s focus on civil rights. A leaflet distributed in 1990 at a New York pride march by an organization called Queers announced, “I Hate Straights.” The authors advocated a forceful approach marked by pride in sexuality and “sexualness.” While the pamphlet is not as “anti-straight” as the title might suggest, the tone is aggressive:

The next time some straight person comes down on you for being angry, tell them that until things change, you don’t need any more evidence that the world turns at your expense. You don’t need to see only hetero couples grocery shopping on your TV You don’t want any more baby pictures shoved in your face until you can have or keep your own. No more weddings, showers, anniversaries, please, unless they are our own brothers and sisters celebrating. And tell them not to dismiss you by saying, “You have rights,” “You have privileges,” “You are overreacting,” or “You have a victim’s mentality.” Tell them “Go away from me, until you change.” Go away and try on a world without the brave, strong queers that are its backbone, that are its guts and brains and souls. Go tell them go away until they have spent a month walking hand in hand in public with someone of the same sex. After they survive that, then you’ll hear what they have to say about queer anger. (“History is a Weapon”)

The HRC and Queers strategies couldn’t be more different. HRC’s approach has consistently emphasized the need for equality with straights, arguing that anything less is unfair and unjust. Queers, in contrast, provocatively asks straights to examine their own privilege, their lives, and their behavior. HRC wants to ensure that queers are treated as well as heterosexuals. Queers suggests LGBTQ people have much to teach heterosexuals about sexuality and gender.

An example of how these different philosophies approach a specific issue may be useful. Many queer activists and theorists have criticized the push among some Western gays and lesbians for the right to marry and thus to assimilate into the mainstream of society; they feel that strategizing for marriage rights, while laudable in many ways, distracts us from more fundamentally questioning the institution of marriage itself. Marriage, they argue, honors commitments between two people (same sex or “opposite” sex), but what about intimate arrangements that don’t fit those parameters? Is marriage an institution designed specifically to channel sexual expression into monogamous, sexist, and heterosexist forms? Marital rights extended to gays and lesbians, as the HRC imagines them, honor some nontraditional relationships but would most likely still be limited in significant ways. Thus, it is important to look beyond the civil rights paradigm and critique institutional systems, asking who is served by them and who is excluded.

An important point to recognize in the two-part discussion we have undertaken in this chapter—AIDS and civil rights—is the fact that not all LGBTQ people wholeheartedly rejoice in the marriage and military victories in the United States and elsewhere. Sarah Schulman, for example, identifies a phenomenon she calls “the gentrification of the mind.” More than the familiar gentrification whereby privileged individuals (often white, often male, and sometimes gay) physically replace “communities of diverse classes, ethnicities, races, sexualities, languages, and points of view from the central neighborhoods of cities,” this internal gentrification represents a “replacement that alienated people from the concrete process of social and artistic change” (14). Spurred by the devastation of AIDS, Schulman argues, American cities lost their most creative LGBTQ activists, whose deaths opened up physical space for gentrifiers. But these new arrivals were hardly revolutionaries; they were assimilationists who repurposed the once-radical gay organizations toward realization of a homogeneous society in which queer people adopted the values, and enjoyed the civil rights, of the larger culture. As Jack Halberstam writes, “[W]hite LGBT communities can imagine themselves as part of the nation and its prosperity while queer communities of color are situated as sites of crime, illegality and protest cultures” (“Who Are We”). Thus AIDS—emblematized in the popular imagination by ACT UP activists throwing condoms in St. Patrick’s Cathedral—finally gave rise to organizations working for the most conservative goals of all: repeal of DADT and same-sex marriage.

TRANS¹ BECOMING VISIBLE

LGB organizing in the past nearly always elided the experiences and struggles of the T. Later in this book, we include a 2007 article by John Aravosis (“How Did the T Get in LGBT?”) in which the author openly argues for keeping transgender Americans out of the target group covered by the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and restricting its coverage to cisgender lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. Some version of ENDA has been proposed regularly in Congress since 1974 but never passed. In 2009, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) floated a trans-inclusive bill, which again failed to pass. The Senate approved a 2013 ENDA, but it has languished without a vote in the House ever since. In the United States, activists have continued to work to achieve equal employment opportunity. Surprisingly, given the Trump administration’s packing of the Supreme Court with conservative justices, the court ruled 6–3 in 2020 that federal law prohibits “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.” This language originates in the Equality Act, which has been passed by the U.S. House of Represenatives, but still awaits a vote in the Senate. The story of ENDA/Equality illustrates the discomfort many Americans feel when binary gender markers are blurred. Despite the fact that trans women were front and center at the Compton Cafeteria riot in 1966 and the Stonewall uprising in 1969, and that trans Americans suffered from AIDS at rates disproportional to their numbers, only in the last few years have queer activists focused on trans issues to any meaningful extent. It is difficult to gather accurate statistics about queer people in general and transpeople in particular, but a survey from the National Center for Transgender Equality found that 90% of their respondents reported experiencing harassment, mistreatment, or discrimination on the job (Grant et al.). In addition to work-related problems, transgender people, and particularly transgender people of color, are subject to social and physical harassment, and many live far below the poverty line. Not only has the U.S. Congress failed to pass any kind of LGBTQ-inclusive ENDA, but since the Windsor and Obergefell Supreme Court cases legalizing same-sex marriage, the religious right and their Republican allies have turned their focus on transpeople. What Jack Halberstam has called “the bathroom problem” is a key issue for both sides. Trans supporters understand that bathrooms are universally labelled either M or F, with no place available for those whose gender identifications do not lie at either of the binary extremes. The right counters by conjuring up the specter of predatory, male-bodied men in women’s clothing entering women’s bathrooms to harass, even sexually assault, vulnerable females and children. The 2016 Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, for example, feels that “if [a] man to wants to dress as a woman, and live as a woman,” he should only use “a bathroom at home” (Ford). A recent Vox article claims that the trans bathroom issue represents “the new frontier of LGBT civil rights” now that the same-sex marriage victory has been won (Lopez).

Yet bathroom access is not the only recent anti-trans gambit from the right. Many oppose allowing MTF transwomen to compete against cisgender women in sports. “There is ongoing debate over the impact of biological sex differences in humans on sports abilities. People who oppose transgender women competing in women’s sports say that they are given an unfair advantage over cisgender women due to higher testosterone levels and different muscle and fat distribution” (Wiik et al.). There has been much discussion about South African Olympian Caster Semenya, who was raised as and considers herself female, but has high testosterone levels that have boosted her athletic performance. Research seems to show that certain athletic events, for example foot races of between 200 and 800 meters, reveal a consistent advantage for those with high testosterone. Runners such as Semenya and others were banned from the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games after blood tests showed testosterone levels higher than the Olympic guideline for women. In other events, the idea of trans athletes competing with cis athletes is combined with the testosterone issue. In weightlifting, for instance, where testosterone appears to play a negligible part, Olympic rules have been interpreted to permit trans athletes to compete. New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard, a transwoman, competed in 87k weightlifting in Tokyo, although she was eliminated after not completing a successful lift. By contrast, transgender runner Cece Teller was ruled ineligible to participate in the U.S. Olympic trials (AP). Very recent television coverage has focused on transwomen competing against cis women in high school track meets (O’Rourke). Clearly these are not simple problems. Some opposition originates in anti-trans religious bigotry, to be sure. But some originates in the lived experiences of (cis) women athletes, who take acertain kind of feminist stance on behalf of women in sports (Nanos).

Like earlier LGBT activism, trans rights movements are based in individuals defining their own sex and claiming access to symbolic markers (e.g., the bathroom) of that self-definition. As Richard Juang writes, the struggle over trans access transforms the bathroom “from a place of passive ‘urinary segregation,’ in which entry and exit occur with minimal thought, into spaces requiring a vigilant and active patrolling of sex definition and their own bodies” (740). The current right-wing trans bathroom paranoia resembles nothing so much as the policing of sex and gender options enacted by the murderers of Barry Winchell, Fred C. Martinez, and countless others.

In many ways, the treatment of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgendered has come to mark how progressive a particular country is—or is not. In his book The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida notes that the presence of an open, vibrant queer subculture is one of the markers of intellectual and creative stimulation in U.S. cities. In Maneuvers, Cynthia Enloe proposes a connection between LGBT rights and a progressive national image on the global stage. While some cultures have begun to recognize LGBT and queer lives through progressive laws and attitudes, the battle over what rights to extend to LGBTQ people continues around the world.

LGBTQ RIGHTS IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT

A crucial distinction to make when talking about notions related to inclusion and equality is between civil rights (the rights of citizenship) and human rights (the rights many assume that we should have because we are human). LGBTQ activists in the Global North are sometimes criticized because, in our efforts to garner civil rights for sexual and gender nonconformists, we can become blinded to the needs of people (including LGBTQ people) who lack access to food, shelter, and health care. This critique assumes that human rights are more basic than civil rights in that they focus on the bedrock conditions of existence rather than on legislative mechanisms. And granted, the fight for civil rights occurs only in contexts where many or most citizens generally enjoy freedom of association, speech, and religion—freedoms that many consider fundamental but are not necessarily respected as civil rights by some governments.

But as we shall see, a focus internationally on human rights has also been helpful as LGBTQ people have fought for inclusion and equality in their respective countries. Just after World War II (1948), as the post-Holocaust world attempted to come to grips with what had just occurred, the United Nations announced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which writer Donn Mitchell interprets as establishing “a right to be free from discrimination of any kind.” The Universal Declaration states that “everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, origin, property, birth or other status” (qtd. in Mitchell 13). Mitchell argues that the use of the phrase “such as” allows for expansion of the protections offered by the declaration. It seems reasonable to assume that the declaration applies to gender nonconformists and sexual minorities particularly because it was a response to the Holocaust, and homosexuals were among the groups persecuted by the Nazis. Richard Schneider points out that “[a]t a time when our enemies are able to score points by charging ‘special rights,’ perhaps a shift toward a broader definition of human rights, one that encompasses the rights of all oppressed groups in society, would make sense” (4). One of the great challenges in creating a movement that works for LGBTQ people around the world has been to articulate the connections between local organizations and priorities and the concept of universal human rights. Schneider’s advocacy of “a broader definition of human rights” implies an insistence on others viewing LGBTQ people as fully human, working with other fully human individuals for the benefit of “all oppressed groups in society.”

One way to understand local work for inclusion and equality in a global context is to think seriously about the mythology that has grown up around the U.S. LGBTQ civil rights struggle. The common assumption is that the United States is a leader in the quest for LGBTQ inclusion and equality; in reality, however, our efforts have occurred in a global context of similar and related struggles. Much is made in this country of the dangers faced by lesbian and gay people before and during the 1960s. The story is that the Compton and Stonewall riots occurred partly in response to systematic police harassment of LGBTQ people who met in bars and other social spaces. While this is true, that harassment was not unique to the United States. For instance, as Joe Knowles points out, in the 1960s, Cuban homosexuals “were rounded up and put to work in military camps. This was also the time when the Cuban government passed Resolución Número 3, which mandated that homosexuals working in the arts be fired and reassigned jobs in hard labor” (19). Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state laws against sodomy were unconstitutional, followed two decades after the 1981 European Court of Human Rights decision that bans on homosexual sex violated the European Convention on Human Rights. Dian Killian argues that while the “Republic of Ireland is still perceived by many Americans as a bog island of thatched cottages and donkey carts, and the United States as the gay-mythologized land of Stonewall,” stringent hate crimes laws in Ireland “make it an offense even to incite violence against lesbians or gay men.” Ireland has amended its Unfair Dismissals Act to protect gays in the workplace, and Ireland’s national gay paper is “partially funded” by the state (24–25). Denmark also has national hate crimes legislation and other protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, although that country still denies LGBTQ people the right to adopt children, except for the biological children of partners (Jensen). In 2006, however, Danish legislators ruled that lesbians and single women were entitled to the same access to artificial insemination in public hospitals as heterosexual women (Wockner).

It is important to keep in mind that understanding queerness as a mode of political agency is a very Western concept. In other cultures, in which queerness and the homoerotic are understood differently, opening up a space for politicking is difficult. Tom Boellstorff, for example, identifies how constructions of queerness in non-Western cultures problematize strategies for resistance and civil rights activism. In Indonesia, he writes,

Gay men and lesbi do not “come out of the closet” but speak of being “opened” … or “shut.” … We find not an epistemology of the closet but an epistemology of life worlds, where healthy subjectivity depends not on integrating diverse domains of life and having a unified, unchanging identity in all situations but on separating domains of life and maintaining their borders against the threat of gossip and discovery. (228)

In Indonesia, then, queerness might not register as a domain for rights activism. It might be rejected outright as simply an unhealthy management of identities, and thus the space for considering renegotiation of boundaries and values might not open up.

African struggles for LGBTQ inclusion and equality are perhaps the best illustration of the mixed attitudes toward LGBTQ people internationally. South Africa was the first country in the world to write LGBTQ equality into its constitution. Under the leadership of Nelson Mandela and others attempting to create a post-Apartheid liberal government, South Africa adopted a constitution that protects its people from discrimination based on “race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.” What’s more, South Africa’s sodomy laws have been struck down.

In stark contrast, across the border in neighboring Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe referred to homosexuals as “dogs and pigs” and said, “Animals in the jungle are better than these people because at least they know how to distinguish between a male and a female” (Monifa 41). Similarly, the prime minister of nearby Swaziland, Sibusiso Dlamini, called homosexuality an “abnormality and sickness,” and one of his predecessors, Prince Bhekimpi Alpheus Dlamini, proclaimed that “homosexuality is regarded as satanic in Swaziland. Therefore, I am forced to evict all gays and lesbians in my area” (Monifa 41). The official position in Zambia is that gays are to be arrested. More drastically in 2015, Uganda’s Parliament passed, and President Yoweri Museveni signed, an anti-homosexuality bill that increased the penalties already in place by creating a new category of offense called “aggravated homosexuality.” According to the text of the bill, aggravated homosexuality covers same-sex sexual assault against, for instance, minors, people with disabilities, or family members (Fodden). The penalty for such assault is extreme, as a person found guilty of aggravated homosexuality would face the death penalty; thus, the proposed bill has been referred to as the “Kill the Gays Bill.” Fortunately, “the country’s Constitutional Court later struck down the bill, finding that the speaker of parliament acted illegally by moving ahead with a vote on the law despite at least three lawmakers objecting to a lack of quorum” (Williams). A troubling aspect of the Ugandan antigay movement was the involvement of American evangelicals, specifically a group known as The Family, a “secretive American evangelical organization whose members include Senators James Inhofe, Jim DeMint, and Tom Coburn” (Goldberg). The American Family members lent an extreme antigay ideology to their Ugandan associates, sponsoring seminars designed to inflame homophobic passions. Cooler heads, both at home in Uganda and worldwide, protested the bill—see, for instance, then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech in favor of LGBTQ rights in the readings at the end of this chapter—and President Museveni rationalized its repeal by pointing out that previous British colonial laws still on the books should have much the same effect. Still, this narrative indicates the deep divisions between progressive and fundamentalist forces globally.

Find Out More in the excerpt from the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa at the end of this chapter.

Many African countries have organizations that work to address the needs of and provide some protections for LGBTQ people, but in national climates where homosexuality is officially demonized, protections are limited and providers of such services place themselves in physical danger. These widely varying situations in Africa exemplify the inconsistent practice of governments around the world toward their LGBTQ citizens and highlight the difficulty of crafting policy for positive change. Contradictions abound. President Mugabe in Zimbabwe claimed that homosexuality is a white disease brought to Africa by European colonizers. At the same time, anti-sodomy laws and other antigay policies were also European in origin. Mugabe, of course, made no effort to resolve this contradiction, and Zimbabwe is among the most extreme examples of governmental homophobia in Africa. But Mugabe’s desperate effort to tag homosexuality as a white phenomenon resembles the way AIDS, for instance, has been conceptualized. In South Africa, much has been made of the fact that the first documented AIDS cases were white gay men. Indeed, the vast majority of early research on AIDS in South Africa focused on white—and Black and colored—men who have sex with men (MSM). The implication was that AIDS was not a problem among heterosexuals, although it now appears that many “straight” people were struggling with AIDS away from cities and health care resources. In recent years, though studies (e.g., in Malawi) show that most AIDS cases were contracted in an MSM context, some sub-Saharan countries have attempted to “de-gay” AIDS—that is, to emphasize its heterosexual transmission—presumably to reduce the gay stigma attached to AIDS and encourage heterosexuals to be tested and, if necessary, treated. Still, anecdotal evidence from Malawi suggests that LGBTQ people avoid seeking medical attention generally, and for AIDS in particular, out of fear of homophobic violence (Currier).

Finally, we ask again, what role have LGBTQ organizations played in changing attitudes and expanding opportunities over the years? Despite radical origins, the mid-20th-century homophile groups worked for assimilation—striving to keep their most flamboyant members invisible and mandating a conservative dress code at protests. After Stonewall, national organizations took a backseat to exultant prosex activities (for men) and radical lesbian feminism (for women) during the 1970s. AIDS ushered in a sudden and fundamental change. New organizations sprang up to support AIDS research and direct care; they were extraordinarily successful in disseminating information, lobbying government officials, and positioning LGBTQ issues more centrally in public awareness. The success of these organizations led to expansion of existing groups, both AIDS related and civil rights related. Over the years, LGBTQ activists were able to parlay the grassroots organizing experience gained during the nightmarish first decade of the AIDS epidemic into an effective political network. Unlike their predecessors in GMHC and ACT UP, who often worked outside the system, these activists focused on winning access to the system itself. As AIDS became more manageable in the last years of the 20th century, activists put their organizing skills to work for very different goals. The victories in the battles for equal military service and same-sex marriage have now been won. Employment nondiscrimination is the last of the major assimilationist goals of the LGBTQ civil rights movement. The growing commitment to and solidarity with transpeople represents the movement’s most recent human rights dimension. Is it too much to conclude that the devastation of AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s has enabled the normalization of LGBTQ people in the 21st century?

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Earlier in this chapter, we pointed out how different organizations across the world have used the name Stonewall in the titles of a variety of LGBTQ social and political organizations. Research one of these organizations on the internet, and examine how exactly the term Stonewall is used. Is reference made to the Stonewall riots of 1969? What other markers of LGBTQ identity are used that are familiar to you? What markers are new to you?

2. Take a look at the AIDS Memorial Quilt website at https://www.aidsmemorial.org/quilt and think about how people who have died of AIDS have been memorialized in this creative and emotionally evocative way. Thinking about the LGBTQ people and issues we have discussed in the past four chapters, choose either one person or one event to memorialize in a creative way. What form will your memorial take? How will you creatively talk about the past in ways that will be educational, relevant, and meaningful for contemporary audiences?

3. Look up the deaths of Barry Winchell and Fred C. Martinez. In what ways were their murderers attempting to police normative gender and sexuality? In what other ways does our culture perform such policing?

4. Hillary Clinton’s speech (included in this chapter’s readings) has been critiqued by leftist queer feminists because it seems to imply that neocolonial states, such as the United States, establish neoliberal policies whereby nonrecognition of LGBTQ rights indicates barbarism. Read the speech carefully, and look up neocolonial and neoliberal. Do you or do you not have a problem with Clinton’s speech? Explain why or why not.

READINGS

From the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa

(1996), South Africa

Preamble

We, the people of South Africa,

Recognise the injustices of our past;

Honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land;

Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and

Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.

We therefore, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic so as to

Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights;

Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;

Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person; and

Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations.

May God protect our people.

Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika. Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso.

God seën Suid-Afrika. God bless South Africa.

Mudzimu fhatutshedza Afurika. Hosi katekisa Afrika.

Section on Equality from the Bill of Rights

Equality

· Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law.

· Equality includes the full and equal enjoyment of all rights and freedoms. To promote the achievement of equality, legislative and other measures designed to protect or advance persons, or categories of persons, disadvantaged by unfair discrimination may be taken.

· The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.

· No person may unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds in terms of subsection (3). National legislation must be enacted to prevent or prohibit unfair discrimination.

· Discrimination on one or more of the grounds listed in subsection (3) is unfair unless it is established that the discrimination is fair.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Free and Equal in Dignity and Rights,” Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, 12 December 2011

Good evening, and let me express my deep honor and pleasure at being here. I want to thank Director General Tokayev and Ms. Wyden along with other ministers, ambassadors, excellencies, and UN partners. This weekend, we will celebrate Human Rights Day, the anniversary of one of the great accomplishments of the last century.

Beginning in 1947, delegates from six continents devoted themselves to drafting a declaration that would enshrine the fundamental rights and freedoms of people everywhere. In the aftermath of World War II, many nations pressed for a statement of this kind to help ensure that we would prevent future atrocities and protect the inherent humanity and dignity of all people. And so the delegates went to work. They discussed, they wrote, they revisited, revised, rewrote, for thousands of hours. And they incorporated suggestions and revisions from governments, organizations, and individuals around the world.

At three o’clock in the morning on December 10th, 1948, after nearly two years of drafting and one last long night of debate, the president of the UN General Assembly called for a vote on the final text. Forty-eight nations voted in favor; eight abstained; none dissented. And the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. It proclaims a simple, powerful idea: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. And with the declaration, it was made clear that rights are not conferred by government; they are the birthright of all people. It does not matter what country we live in, who our leaders are, or even who we are. Because we are human, we therefore have rights. And because we have rights, governments are bound to protect them.

In the 63 years since the declaration was adopted, many nations have made great progress in making human rights a human reality. Step by step, barriers that once prevented people from enjoying the full measure of liberty, the full experience of dignity, and the full benefits of humanity have fallen away. In many places, racist laws have been repealed, legal and social practices that relegated women to second-class status have been abolished, the ability of religious minorities to practice their faith freely has been secured.

In most cases, this progress was not easily won. People fought and organized and campaigned in public squares and private spaces to change not only laws, but hearts and minds. And thanks to that work of generations, for millions of individuals whose lives were once narrowed by injustice, they are now able to live more freely and to participate more fully in the political, economic, and social lives of their communities.

Now, there is still, as you all know, much more to be done to secure that commitment, that reality, and progress for all people. Today, I want to talk about the work we have left to do to protect one group of people whose human rights are still denied in too many parts of the world today. In many ways, they are an invisible minority. They are arrested, beaten, terrorized, even executed. Many are treated with contempt and violence by their fellow citizens while authorities empowered to protect them look the other way or, too often, even join in the abuse. They are denied opportunities to work and learn, driven from their homes and countries, and forced to suppress or deny who they are to protect themselves from harm.

I am talking about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, human beings born free and given bestowed equality and dignity, who have a right to claim that, which is now one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time. I speak about this subject knowing that my own country’s record on human rights for gay people is far from perfect. Until 2003, it was still a crime in parts of our country. Many LGBT Americans have endured violence and harassment in their own lives, and for some, including many young people, bullying and exclusion are daily experiences. So we, like all nations, have more work to do to protect human rights at home.

Now, raising this issue, I know, is sensitive for many people and that the obstacles standing in the way of protecting the human rights of LGBT people rest on deeply held personal, political, cultural, and religious beliefs. So I come here before you with respect, understanding, and humility. Even though progress on this front is not easy, we cannot delay acting. So in that spirit, I want to talk about the difficult and important issues we must address together to reach a global consensus that recognizes the human rights of LGBT citizens everywhere.

The first issue goes to the heart of the matter. Some have suggested that gay rights and human rights are separate and distinct; but, in fact, they are one and the same. Now, of course, 60 years ago, the governments that drafted and passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were not thinking about how it applied to the LGBT community. They also weren’t thinking about how it applied to indigenous people or children or people with disabilities or other marginalized groups. Yet in the past 60 years, we have come to recognize that members of these groups are entitled to the full measure of dignity and rights, because, like all people, they share a common humanity.

This recognition did not occur all at once. It evolved over time. And as it did, we understood that we were honoring rights that people always had, rather than creating new or special rights for them. Like being a woman, like being a racial, religious, tribal, or ethnic minority, being LGBT does not make you less human. And that is why gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.

It is a violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave. It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished. It is a violation of human rights when lesbian or transgendered women are subjected to so-called corrective rape, or forcibly subjected to hormone treatments, or when people are murdered after public calls for violence toward gays, or when they are forced to flee their nations and seek asylum in other lands to save their lives. And it is a violation of human rights when life-saving care is withheld from people because they are gay, or equal access to justice is denied to people because they are gay, or public spaces are out of bounds to people because they are gay. No matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we are, we are all equally entitled to our human rights and dignity.

The second issue is a question of whether homosexuality arises from a particular part of the world. Some seem to believe it is a Western phenomenon, and therefore people outside the West have grounds to reject it. Well, in reality, gay people are born into and belong to every society in the world. They are all ages, all races, all faiths; they are doctors and teachers, farmers and bankers, soldiers and athletes; and whether we know it, or whether we acknowledge it, they are our family, our friends, and our neighbors.

Being gay is not a Western invention; it is a human reality. And protecting the human rights of all people, gay or straight, is not something that only Western governments do. South Africa’s constitution, written in the aftermath of Apartheid, protects the equality of all citizens, including gay people. In Colombia and Argentina, the rights of gays are also legally protected. In Nepal, the supreme court has ruled that equal rights apply to LGBT citizens. The Government of Mongolia has committed to pursue new legislation that will tackle anti-gay discrimination.

Now, some worry that protecting the human rights of the LGBT community is a luxury that only wealthy nations can afford. But in fact, in all countries, there are costs to not protecting these rights, in both gay and straight lives lost to disease and violence, and the silencing of voices and views that would strengthen communities, in ideas never pursued by entrepreneurs who happen to be gay. Costs are incurred whenever any group is treated as lesser or the other, whether they are women, racial, or religious minorities, or LGBT. Former President Mogae of Botswana pointed out recently that for as long as LGBT people are kept in the shadows, there cannot be an effective public health program to tackle HIV and AIDS. Well, that holds true for other challenges as well.

The third, and perhaps most challenging, issue arises when people cite religious or cultural values as a reason to violate or not to protect the human rights of LGBT citizens. This is not unlike the justification offered for violent practices towards women like honor killings, widow burning, or female genital mutilation. Some people still defend those practices as part of a cultural tradition. But violence toward women isn’t cultural; it’s criminal. Likewise with slavery, what was once justified as sanctioned by God is now properly reviled as an unconscionable violation of human rights.

In each of these cases, we came to learn that no practice or tradition trumps the human rights that belong to all of us. And this holds true for inflicting violence on LGBT people, criminalizing their status or behavior, expelling them from their families and communities, or tacitly or explicitly accepting their killing.

Of course, it bears noting that rarely are cultural and religious traditions and teachings actually in conflict with the protection of human rights. Indeed, our religion and our culture are sources of compassion and inspiration toward our fellow human beings. It was not only those who’ve justified slavery who leaned on religion, it was also those who sought to abolish it. And let us keep in mind that our commitments to protect the freedom of religion and to defend the dignity of LGBT people emanate from a common source. For many of us, religious belief and practice is a vital source of meaning and identity, and fundamental to who we are as people. And likewise, for most of us, the bonds of love and family that we forge are also vital sources of meaning and identity. And caring for others is an expression of what it means to be fully human. It is because the human experience is universal that human rights are universal and cut across all religions and cultures.

The fourth issue is what history teaches us about how we make progress towards rights for all. Progress starts with honest discussion. Now, there are some who say and believe that all gay people are pedophiles, that homosexuality is a disease that can be caught or cured, or that gays recruit others to become gay. Well, these notions are simply not true. They are also unlikely to disappear if those who promote or accept them are dismissed out of hand rather than invited to share their fears and concerns. No one has ever abandoned a belief because he was forced to do so.

…. .

A fifth and final question is how we do our part to bring the world to embrace human rights for all people including LGBT people. Yes, LGBT people must help lead this effort, as so many of you are. Their knowledge and experiences are invaluable and their courage inspirational. We know the names of brave LGBT activists who have literally given their lives for this cause, and there are many more whose names we will never know. But often those who are denied rights are least empowered to bring about the changes they seek. Acting alone, minorities can never achieve the majorities necessary for political change.

So when any part of humanity is sidelined, the rest of us cannot sit on the sidelines. Every time a barrier to progress has fallen, it has taken a cooperative effort from those on both sides of the barrier. In the fight for women’s rights, the support of men remains crucial. The fight for racial equality has relied on contributions from people of all races. Combating Islamophobia or anti-Semitism is a task for people of all faiths. And the same is true with this struggle for equality.

…. .

The women and men who advocate for human rights for the LGBT community in hostile places, some of whom are here today with us, are brave and dedicated, and deserve all the help we can give them. We know the road ahead will not be easy. A great deal of work lies before us. But many of us have seen firsthand how quickly change can come. In our lifetimes, attitudes toward gay people in many places have been transformed. Many people, including myself, have experienced a deepening of our own convictions on this topic over the years, as we have devoted more thought to it, engaged in dialogues and debates, and established personal and professional relationships with people who are gay.

This evolution is evident in many places. To highlight one example, the Delhi High Court decriminalized homosexuality in India two years ago, writing, and I quote, “If there is one tenet that can be said to be an underlying theme of the Indian constitution, it is inclusiveness.” There is little doubt in my mind that support for LGBT human rights will continue to climb. Because for many young people, this is simple: All people deserve to be treated with dignity and have their human rights respected, no matter who they are or whom they love.

There is a phrase that people in the United States invoke when urging others to support human rights: “Be on the right side of history.” The story of the United States is the story of a nation that has repeatedly grappled with intolerance and inequality. We fought a brutal civil war over slavery. People from coast to coast joined in campaigns to recognize the rights of women, indigenous peoples, racial minorities, children, people with disabilities, immigrants, workers, and on and on. And the march toward equality and justice has continued. Those who advocate for expanding the circle of human rights were and are on the right side of history, and history honors them. Those who tried to constrict human rights were wrong, and history reflects that as well.

I know that the thoughts I’ve shared today involve questions on which opinions are still evolving. As it has happened so many times before, opinion will converge once again with the truth, the immutable truth, that all persons are created free and equal in dignity and rights. We are called once more to make real the words of the Universal Declaration. Let us answer that call. Let us be on the right side of history, for our people, our nations, and future generations, whose lives will be shaped by the work we do today. I come before you with great hope and confidence that no matter how long the road ahead, we will travel it successfully together. Thank you very much.

This is a transcript of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Human Rights Day speech, delivered in Geneva. Available at http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/12/178368.htm

U.S. Congress Original Defense of Marriage Act Legislation

H.R.3396

One Hundred Fourth Congress of the United States of America

At The Second Session

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Wednesday, the third day of January, one thousand nine hundred and ninety-six

An Act

To define and protect the institution of marriage.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

Section 1. Short Title

This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Defense of Marriage Act’’.

Sec. 2. Powers Reserved to the States

1. IN GENERAL.—Chapter 115 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by adding after section 1738B the following:

“1738C. Certain acts, records, and proceedings and the effect thereof”

‘‘No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.’’

1. CLERICAL AMENDMENT.—The table of sections at the beginning of chapter 115 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 1738B the following new item:

‘‘1738C. Certain acts, records, and proceedings and the effect thereof.’’

Sec. 3. Definition of Marriage

1. IN GENERAL.—Chapter 1 of title 1, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

‘‘§7. Definition of ‘marriage’ and ‘spouse’

‘‘In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.’’

H.R.3396—2

1. CLERICAL AMENDMENT.—The table of sections at the beginning of chapter 1 of title 1, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 6 the following new item:

‘‘7. Definition of ‘marriage’ and ‘spouse’.’’

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate.

H.R. 3396 (104th): Defense of Marriage Act. www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/104/hr3396/text.

U.S. Supreme Court Ruling on Same-Sex Marriage, June 2015

Supreme Court of the United States

Obergefell et al. v. Hodges, Director, Ohio Department of Health, et al., certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

No. 14–556. Argued April 28, 2015—Decided June 26, 2015¹

Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. The petitioners, 14 same-sex couples and two men whose same-sex partners are deceased, filed suits in Federal District Courts in their home States, claiming that respondent state officials violate the Fourteenth Amendment by denying them the right to marry or to have marriages lawfully performed in another State given full recognition. Each District Court ruled in petitioners’ favor, but the Sixth Circuit consolidated the cases and reversed.

Held: The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State. Pp. 3–28.

1. Before turning to the governing principles and precedents, it is appropriate to note the history of the subject now before the Court. Pp. 3–10.

1. The history of marriage as a union between two persons of the opposite sex marks the beginning of these cases. To the respondents, it would demean a timeless institution if marriage were extended to same-sex couples. But the petitioners, far from seeking to devalue marriage, seek it for themselves because of their respect—and need—for its privileges and responsibilities, as illustrated by the petitioners’ own experiences. Pp. 3–6.

2. The history of marriage is one of both continuity and change. Changes, such as the decline of arranged marriages and the abandonment of the law of coverture, have worked deep transformations in the structure of marriage, affecting aspects of marriage once viewed as essential. These new insights have strengthened, not weakened, the institution. Changed understandings of marriage are characteristic of a Nation where new dimensions of freedom become apparent to new generations.

This dynamic can be seen in the Nation’s experience with gay and lesbian rights. Well into the 20th century, many States condemned same-sex intimacy as immoral, and homosexuality was treated as an illness. Later in the century, cultural and political developments allowed same-sex couples to lead more open and public lives. Extensive public and private dialogue followed, along with shifts in public attitudes. Questions about the legal treatment of gays and lesbians soon reached the courts, where they could be discussed in the formal discourse of the law. In 2003, this Court overruled its 1986 decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U. S. 186, which upheld a Georgia law that criminalized certain homosexual acts, concluding laws making same-sex intimacy a crime “demea[n] the lives of homosexual persons.” Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U. S. 558. In 2012, the federal Defense of Marriage Act was also struck down. United States v. Windsor, 570 U. S. _____ Numerous same-sex marriage cases reaching the federal courts and state supreme courts have added to the dialogue. Pp. 6–10.

· a)

The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex. Pp. 10–27.

o 1. The fundamental liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause extend to certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices defining personal identity and beliefs. See, e.g., Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438; Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479–486. Courts must exercise reasoned judgment in identifying interests of the person so fundamental that the State must accord them its respect. History and tradition guide and discipline the inquiry but do not set its outer boundaries. When new insight reveals discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed.

Applying these tenets, the Court has long held the right to marry is protected by the Constitution. For example, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, invalidated bans on interracial unions, and Turner v. Safley, 482 U. S. 78, held that prisoners could not be denied the right to marry. To be sure, these cases presumed a relationship involving opposite-sex partners, as did Baker v. Nelson, 409 U. S. 810, a one-line summary decision issued in 1972, holding that the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage did not present a substantial federal question. But other, more instructive precedents have expressed broader principles. See, e.g., Lawrence, supra, at 574. In assessing whether the force and rationale of its cases apply to same-sex couples, the Court must respect the basic reasons why the right to marry has been long protected. See, e.g., Eisenstadt, supra, at 453–454. This analysis compels the conclusion that same-sex couples may exercise the right to marry. Pp. 10–12.

· b) Four principles and traditions demonstrate that the reasons marriage is fundamental under the Constitution apply with equal force to same-sex couples. The first premise of this Court’s relevant precedents is that the right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy. This abiding connection between marriage and liberty is why Loving invalidated interracial marriage bans under the Due Process Clause. See 388 U. S., at 12. Decisions about marriage are among the most intimate that an individual can make. See Lawrence, supra, at 574. This is true for all persons, whatever their sexual orientation.

A second principle in this Court’s jurisprudence is that the right to marry is fundamental because it supports a two-person union unlike any other in its importance to the committed individuals. The intimate association protected by this right was central to Griswold v. Connecticut, which held the Constitution protects the right of married couples to use contraception, 381 U. S., at 485, and was acknowledged in Turner, supra, at 95. Same-sex couples have the same right as opposite-sex couples to enjoy intimate association, a right extending beyond mere freedom from laws making same-sex intimacy a criminal offense. See Lawrence, supra, at 567.

A third basis for protecting the right to marry is that it safeguards children and families and thus draws meaning from related rights of childrearing, procreation, and education. See, e.g., Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510. Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser. They also suffer the significant material costs of being raised by unmarried parents, relegated to a more difficult and uncertain family life. The marriage laws at issue thus harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples. See Windsor, supra, at._____. This does not mean that the right to marry is less meaningful for those who do not or cannot have children. Precedent protects the right of a married couple not to procreate, so the right to marry cannot be conditioned on the capacity or commitment to procreate.

Finally, this Court’s cases and the Nation’s traditions make clear that marriage is a keystone of the Nation’s social order. See Maynard v. Hill, 125 U. S. 190. States have contributed to the fundamental character of marriage by placing it at the center of many facets of the legal and social order. There is no difference between same- and opposite-sex couples with respect to this principle, yet same-sex couples are denied the constellation of benefits that the States have linked to marriage and are consigned to an instability many opposite-sex couples would find intolerable. It is demeaning to lock same-sex couples out of a central institution of the Nation’s society, for they too may aspire to the transcendent purposes of marriage.

The limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples may long have seemed natural and just, but its inconsistency with the central meaning of the fundamental right to marry is now manifest. Pp. 12–18.

1. The right of same-sex couples to marry is also derived from the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. The Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause are connected in a profound way. Rights implicit in liberty and rights secured by equal protection may rest on different precepts and are not always co-extensive, yet each may be instructive as to the meaning and reach of the other. This dynamic is reflected in Loving, where the Court invoked both the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause; and in Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U. S. 374, where the Court invalidated a law barring fathers delinquent on child-support payments from marrying. Indeed, recognizing that new insights and societal understandings can reveal unjustified inequality within fundamental institutions that once passed unnoticed and unchallenged, this Court has invoked equal protection principles to invalidate laws imposing sex-based inequality on marriage, see, e.g., Kirchberg v. Feenstra, 450 U. S. 455–461, and confirmed the relation between liberty and equality, see, e.g., M. L. B. v. S. L. J., 519 U. S. 102–121.

The Court has acknowledged the interlocking nature of these constitutional safeguards in the context of the legal treatment of gays and lesbians. See Lawrence, 539 U. S., at 575. This dynamic also applies to same-sex marriage. The challenged laws burden the liberty of same-sex couples, and they abridge central precepts of equality. The marriage laws at issue are in essence unequal: Same-sex couples are denied benefits afforded opposite-sex couples and are barred from exercising a fundamental right. Especially against a long history of disapproval of their relationships, this denial works a grave and continuing harm, serving to disrespect and subordinate gays and lesbians. Pp. 18–22.

1. The right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same-sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty. Same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. Baker v. Nelson is overruled. The State laws challenged by the petitioners in these cases are held invalid to the extent they exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples. Pp. 22–23.

2. There may be an initial inclination to await further legislation, litigation, and debate, but referenda, legislative debates, and grassroots campaigns; studies and other writings; and extensive litigation in state and federal courts have led to an enhanced understanding of the issue. While the Constitution contemplates that democracy is the appropriate process for change, individuals who are harmed need not await legislative action before asserting a fundamental right. Bowers, in effect, upheld state action that denied gays and lesbians a fundamental right. Though it was eventually repudiated, men and women suffered pain and humiliation in the interim, and the effects of these injuries no doubt lingered long after Bowers was overruled. A ruling against same-sex couples would have the same effect and would be unjustified under the Fourteenth Amendment. The petitioners’ stories show the urgency of the issue they present to the Court, which has a duty to address these claims and answer these questions. Respondents’ argument that allowing same-sex couples to wed will harm marriage as an institution rests on a counterintuitive view of opposite-sex couples’ decisions about marriage and parenthood. Finally, the First Amendment ensures that religions, those who adhere to religious doctrines, and others have protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths. Pp. 23–27.

3. The Fourteenth Amendment requires States to recognize same-sex marriages validly performed out of State. Since same-sex couples may now exercise the fundamental right to marry in all States, there is no lawful basis for a State to refuse to recognize a lawful same-sex marriage performed in another State on the ground of its same-sex character. Pp. 27–28.

772 F. 3d 388, reversed.

Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Roberts, C. J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Scalia and Thomas, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas, J., joined. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Scalia, J., joined. Alito, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Scalia and Thomas, JJ., joined.

Obergefell et al. v. Hodges, Director, Ohio Department of Health, et al. No. 14-566. Supreme Ct. of the US. 28 Apr. 2015, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf.

Note

1. We have chosen to spell the word trans without an asterisk, although some activists have used trans* to emphasize the fact that this is an umbrella term. Other trans activists are moving away from the asterisk, arguing that trans itself is an umbrella term. For more information, see http://www.transstudent.org/asterisk.