LGBTQ+ movement: History, rights, and the fight for visibility

When we talk about the LGBTQ+ movement, a decades-long struggle for dignity, legal rights, and social acceptance for people outside heteronormative norms. Also known as gay rights movement, it began not with parades, but with police raids, whispered meetings, and quiet acts of rebellion. This isn’t just about identity—it’s about survival. From the 1950s homophile groups hiding in basements to the explosion of visibility after Stonewall, the movement forced a world that wanted to ignore them to pay attention.

The Stonewall Uprising, the 1969 rebellion at a New York gay bar after a routine police raid. Also known as Stonewall riots, it became the spark that turned scattered activism into a national force. Before Stonewall, being openly gay meant risking your job, your family, even your freedom. After? The movement grew louder, angrier, and more organized. But even within the LGBTQ+ community, some identities were pushed to the margins. Bisexual erasure, the constant denial that bisexuality is real, valid, or even exists. Also known as biphobia, it’s still alive today—in media, in dating apps, and sometimes even in LGBTQ+ spaces that demand you pick one side. Transgender people faced the same silence, their struggles often left out of mainstream narratives. Meanwhile, the fight for basic rights—housing, jobs, healthcare—continued while marriage equality stole the spotlight.

What you’ll find here isn’t a polished history. It’s the messy, real, often forgotten pieces: the banned erotic poems of Elizabethan England, the erased lesbian archives, the medical lies that called same-sex desire a disease, the steam-powered vibrators sold to treat "hysteria," and the legal battles that still aren’t over. These stories aren’t just about the past. They’re the foundation of every pride flag, every courtroom win, every parent who lets their child wear what they want. The LGBTQ+ movement didn’t end with a Supreme Court ruling. It’s still here—in the silence of those who still can’t speak, in the courage of those who refuse to hide, and in the archives that fought to remember what the world tried to erase.