We Have Always Been Here: LGBTQ Voices in History

Baker v. Nelson (1971)

A case in which the Minnesota Supreme Court decided that construing a marriage statute to restrict marriage licenses to persons of the opposite sex "does not offend" the U.S. Constitution.

Gay Activist Alliance (GAA)

A group founded in New York City on December 21, 1969, almost six months after the Stonewall riots, by dissident members of the Gay Liberation Front.

Romer v. Evans (1996)

A landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with sexual orientation and state laws. It was the first Supreme Court case to address gay rights since Bowers v. Hardwick, when the Court had held that laws criminalizing sodomy were constitutional.

Georgia and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2020)

A landmark United States Supreme Court case which ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects transgender people from employment discrimination.

United States v. Windsor (2013)

A landmark United States Supreme Court civil rights case concerning same-sex marriage. The Court held that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which denied federal recognition of same-sex marriages, was a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Bostock v. Clayton County (2020)

A landmark United States Supreme Court civil rights case in which the Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination because they are gay or transgender.

Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda (2020)

A landmark United States Supreme Court civil rights case which ruled that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 employees could not be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Civil Rights Act (1964)

A landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, and later sexual orientation and gender identity.

Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)

A landmark civil rights case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

One Inc. v. Olesen (1958)

A landmark decision of the US Supreme Court for LGBT rights in the United States. It was the first U.S. Supreme Court ruling to deal with homosexuality and the first to address free speech rights with respect to homosexuality.

Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000)

A landmark decision of the US Supreme Court, decided on June 28, 2000, that held that the constitutional right to freedom of association allowed the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) to exclude a homosexual person from membership in spite of a state law requiring equal treatment of homosexuals in public accommodations.

homosexual

A person who is sexually attracted to people of their own sex.

advocate

A person who publicly supports or recommends a particular cause or policy.

Hollingsworth v. Perry (2013)

A series of United States federal court cases that legalized same-sex marriage in the state of California. The case began in 2009 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which found that banning same-sex marriage violates equal protection under the law.

Stonewall Riots/Uprising

A series of spontaneous demonstrations by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City.

paradigm

A typical example or pattern of something; a model.

stereotype

A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

HIV/AIDS

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a chronic, potentially life-threatening condition caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). By damaging your immune system, HIV interferes with your body's ability to fight infection and disease.

Roth v. United States (1957)

Along with its companion case Alberts v. California, this case was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court which redefined the Constitutional test for determining what constitutes obscene material unprotected by the First Amendment.

Bayard Rustin

An African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement in 1941 to press for an end to racial discrimination in employment.

Marsha P. Johnson

An American gay liberation activist and self-identified drag queen. Known as an outspoken advocate for gay rights, Johnson was one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall uprising of 1969.

Sylvia Rivera

An American gay liberation and transgender rights activist who was also a noted community worker in New York. Rivera, who identified as a drag queen, participated in demonstrations with the Gay Liberation Front.

Stormé DeLarverie

An American woman known as the masculine-presenting lesbian whose scuffle with police was, according to her and many eyewitnesses, the spark that ignited the Stonewall riots, spurring the crowd to action.

Mary Yu

An Associate Justice of the Washington Supreme Court and former judge of the King County Superior Court. She is the state's first openly gay, Asian American, and Latina Justice. She is also the 6th woman currently serving and the 11th woman ever to serve on Washington state's Supreme Court.

LGBTQIA+

An acronym representing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and/or Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual and/or Ally. Adding a "+" to the acronym is an acknowledgment that there are non-cisgender and non-straight identities that are not included in the acronym. This is a shorthand or umbrella term for all people who have a non-normative gender identity or sexual orientation.

prejudice

An assumption or an opinion about someone simply based on that person's membership to a particular group. For example, people can be prejudiced against someone else of a different ethnicity, gender, or religion.

LGBT

An initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.

police raids

An occurrence in which police suddenly enter a place in a forceful way

queer

An umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender. Originally meaning "strange" or "peculiar", queer came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century.

AIDS epidemic

Caused by HIV, this epidemic raged through the world in the 1980s, killing hundreds of thousands of people. It disproportionately affected the LGBT community.

First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

gender-nonconforming

Denoting or relating to a person whose behavior or appearance does not conform to prevailing cultural and social expectations about what is appropriate to their gender.

cisgender (cis)

Describes a person whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth. The word cisgender is the antonym of transgender. The prefix cis- is not an acronym or abbreviation of another word; it is derived from Latin meaning on this side of.

heterosexism

Discrimination or prejudice against gay people on the assumption that heterosexuality is the normal sexual orientation.

activism

Efforts to promote, impede, direct, or intervene in social, political, economic, or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good.

Jim Crow

State and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States and elsewhere within the United States.

Gay Youth and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR)

Later changed to Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries, STAR made a huge impact in the Gay Liberation movement in the 1970s. Its members advocated for gay rights, protections for incarcerated queers and made one of the first attempts to address the needs of homeless trans youth in New York.

human rights

Moral principles or norms for certain standards of human behavior. These are regularly protected in municipal and international law.

Pulse shooting

On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old man, killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States.

Gay Liberation Front (GLF)

The name of a number of gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots.

transgender (trans)

People who have a gender identity or gender expression that differs from the sex that they were assigned at birth.

Title VII

Prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.

Intersectionality

The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.

LGBTQ rights

Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. These rights vary greatly by country or jurisdiction – encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality.

LGBT movement

Social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. They may focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, or liberation, as in the gay liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

Civil Rights Movement

The 1954-1968 civil rights movement in the United States was preceded by a decades-long campaign by African Americans and their like-minded allies to end legalized racial discrimination, disenfranchisement, and racial segregation in the United States.

liberation

The act of setting someone free from imprisonment, slavery, or oppression; release.

same-sex marriage

The marriage of two people of the same sex or gender, entered into in a civil or religious ceremony.

Greenwich Village

The epicenter of New York City's 1960s counterculture movement.

U.S. Supreme Court

The highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States of America. Also known as the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).

U.S. Constitution

The supreme law of the United States of America. This founding document, originally comprising seven articles, delineates the national frame of government.

discrimination

The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.

Gay Lesbian Student Education Network (GLSEN)

This network advises on, advocates for, and researches comprehensive policies designed to protect LGBTQ students as well as students of marginalized identities.

ally

To unite oneself with another to promote a common interest