Gay Pride Research Paper

How Do You Show Pride

Although many people oppose it, very little people know how Gay Pride and it's events all started. They do not understand that the oppression the homosexuals went through formed into an enormous equal rights movement. That is how Gay Pride started. From 1861 to the present, homosexuals have been put down, ridiculed, arrested, and even killed over their sexual preference. Did they let that stop them though? No, they did not because every year more than 30 countries hold Gay Pride events.

Gay pride was nearly non-existent up until the 1960s when the police raided a bar in Greenwich Village, New York called the Stonewall Inn. The Stonewall Inn was a gay bar used as a type of refuge to refrain from being harassed. Cops

Some have been repealed but many still stand. 1861, Henry VIII of England passed the "Buggery Act". It made sexual relations between men a criminal offense punishable by hanging. Parliament was not far behind in expressing their views toward homosexuality. In 1885, Parliament passed an amendment that created the "gross indecency" offense, again for male sexual relations, allowing for prosecution. However, that offense did not apply to lesbians because their relations "were unimaginable by male legislators". Many people argue this offense because of the lack of prosecution to lesbians saying it was unfair that it was not applicable to women. In paragraph 175 of the final German penal code, same-sex male relations were criminalized and made punishable by prison and loss of civil rights. There were many other laws and such that were similar in multiple countries. The world is down to less than eighty (closer to seventy-seven) countries with anti-homosexuality laws or sodomy laws, non of these countries lying within Europe. Before 1973, the United States considered homosexuality a disease. In 1973, it was removed by the American Psychiatric Association. 1979 was the ten-year anniversary and first National March for equal rights for lesbians and gays in Washington. When AIDS was first discovered it was know as "GRIDS (gay-related immune deficiency), gay cancer,

It included eight colors, all with a specific meaning. Hot pink meant sexuality, red meant life, orange meant healing, yellow meant the sun, green meant nature, blue meant art, indigo meant harmony, and violet meant spirit. Over the years the flag has evolved into just six colors being: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet/indigo. The meanings of the colors are all the same except for blue which now meant harmony and indigo/violet was spirit. There are other flags within the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer community. One of the flags represents bisexuality. It is composed of one broad stripe of magenta on top, one broad stripe of blue on the bottom, and a thinner lavender stripe in the middle. The top stripe represents same-gender attraction, the bottom stripe represents opposite-gender attraction, and the middle stripe represents the dual-gender attraction. Another flag is the "equal signs" that represents the Human Rights Campaign and is most often a blue flag with a yellow equal sign. The Transgender flag applies to "transvestites, transsexuals, intersexual, and other transgender people" and is depicted with two light blue stripes on the top of the flag, two stripes of lavender beneath the blue, and a stripe of white in the middle. Asexuality is when a person does not have sexual feelings or desires; their flag is, from top to bottom, black, grey, white, and purple.