LGBTQ+ Resistance: How Queer Communities Fought for Visibility and Rights

When we talk about LGBTQ+ resistance, the organized, often dangerous acts of defiance by queer people to claim space, dignity, and legal protection. Also known as queer activism, it’s not just about parades or pride flags—it’s about surviving when the world says you don’t belong. This resistance didn’t start in 2020 or even 1990. It began in secret rooms, coded letters, underground bars, and the quiet refusal to disappear.

Bisexual erasure, the systematic denial or invisibility of bisexual identities within both straight and gay communities is one form of that resistance being undermined. People who love more than one gender have been told they’re confused, greedy, or not real enough to matter. Meanwhile, Stonewall Uprising, the 1969 police raid turned rebellion in New York City that ignited modern LGBTQ+ rights movements wasn’t just a riot—it was the moment transgender women of color, drag queens, and street youth said: enough. They didn’t wait for permission. They fought back with bricks, heels, and voices.

That same spirit shows up in the archives where lesbian relationships were erased, in the medical records that labeled same-sex desire as illness, and in the laws that still let employers fire people for who they love. The fight isn’t over. Even today, LGBTQ+ rights, legal protections covering housing, employment, healthcare, and public access are being rolled back in states across the country. But resistance lives in every story that gets told, every archive that gets preserved, every person who refuses to be silenced.

What you’ll find here aren’t just articles—they’re records of survival. From the banned erotic poems of Elizabethan England to the hidden sexual depictions in ancient tombs, from the medical myths that pathologized masturbation to the feminist essays that redefined female pleasure, this collection shows how power tries to control desire—and how queer people have always found ways to reclaim it. These stories aren’t just history. They’re blueprints.