LGBT Rights: 1940s-1950s

Organizations demanding respect and equal rights for people regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation emerged in the United States in the 1950s.

By the time patrons fought back against a police raid of the Stonewall Inn in 1969 – the moment that most would call the beginning of the modern LGBT rights movement – LGBT people had been making themselves visible and organizing for nearly two decades.

To address the discrimination they faced, gays and lesbians started organizing formally in the early 1950s. Called “homophile organizations," these pioneering groups worked to provide awareness, education, and unification of this oppressed minority.

The late 1950s and the 1960s are best described as a period of transition leading up to the gay rights movement. It is during this time that the first gay rights organizations were formed.

Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), one of the first lesbian organizations to be established.

Barbara Gittings interviewed by Jonathan Ned Katz in 1974 about her development as a Lesbian, and about the founding and early history of the New York Daughters of Bilitis.

Begun in 1950, the Mattachine Society was an early homosexual rights advocacy organization. It became the subject of an FBI internal security investigation between 1953 and 1956.

The Mattachine Society was one of the first gay rights groups in the country. On April 21, 1966 they staged a "Sip-In": they went into a tavern, declared that they were gay, ordered a drink — and waited to be served, or turned away, in order to sue.

New York Times book review of Allan Berube's 1990 book, Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two.

Armed forces long prohibited gay people from service – but that only encouraged their communities and cause

By some estimates, as many as 100,000 service members were discharged for being gay between World War II and the 2011 repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Online exhibit from the GLBT Historical Society.

University of Chicago interview with David K. Johnson, author of The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government.

Online exhibit from the GLBT Historical Society.

For decades, the agency purged gay and lesbian workers believing their sexual orientation made them security risks.

Kinsey’s research led him to publish Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953). These reports, based on 18,500 personal interviews, indicated a wide variation in behavior.

During the 1950’s, Christine Jorgensen’s story brought the matter of sex change to the center stage of American public consciousness.

Early gay rights activist who coined the phrase "Gay is good" passed away in 2011.

American gay rights activist, believed that gay people should see themselves as an oppressed minority entitled to equal rights.

James Baldwin was an essayist, playwright and novelist regarded as a highly insightful, iconic writer with works like The Fire Next Time and Another Country.

American gay rights activist who was in the forefront of the battle for lesbian and gay rights for more than 50 years.