October is the dedicated the national ‘Gay Coming Out Month’ for the LGBTQ community. On Oct. 11, will mark the 27th annual National Coming Out Day. The Human Rights Campaign was quoted saying, “Coming out - whether it is as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or allied - STILL MATTERS. When people know someone who is LGBTQ, they are far more likely to support equality under the law. Beyond that, our stories can be powerful to each other”.
The month of October is a time to celebrate the Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgenderd, Transsexuals, and Allies. However, coming out and being out wasn’t always a celebration in the LGBTQ community. This month is also time to reflect on the history of the LGBTQ community all over the United States and world.
Oct. 14th, 1979, hundreds of thousands of people flooded to Washington, D.C., in protest the assassination on the openly gay Californian politician, Harvey Milk. The thousands of people marched to fight against the laws that banned and discriminated against homosexuals. They had five demands; passing a Gay Rights bill to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace, repeal all of the anti-LGBTQ laws, stop the discrimination in the lesbian mother and gay father child custody court cases, and to protect the LGBTQ youth from discrimination laws in education and other social environment areas.
An American journalist, Allen Young, became extremely invested in the movement and helped write the Welcome Program for the march. His closing paragraph is seen as one of the most moving and influential paragraphs from the whole program.
He wrote as follows:
"Today in the capital of America, we are all here, the almost liberated and the slightly repressed; the butch, the femme and everything in-between; the androgynous; the monogamous and the promiscuous; the masturbators and the fellators and the tribadists; men in dresses and women in neckties; those who bite and those who cuddle; celebates[sic] and pederasts; diesel dykes and nelly queens; amazons and size queens, Yellow, Black, Brown, White, and Red; the shorthaired and the long, the fat and the thin; the nude and the prude; the beauties and the beasts; the studs and the duds; the communes, the couples, and the singles; pubescents and the octogenarians. Yes, we are all here! We are everywhere! Welcome to the March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights!"
During this time, being out as homosexual was looked upon negatively and considered taboo. Young and other influential people had started to open the eyes of people who saw the movement as just Lesbian and Gay, to realize that it was much more than that.
This movement was not only a march, during the three days, there were workshops that were held, artistic events, groups gathered for strategy planning, and the leaders of the movement met with over one hundred House members and fifty Senators.
The fight for Gay Rights has come so far over the years. Some people argue that the movement really took off in the 1980s due to the AIDs epidemic and misunderstanding of the disease. AIDs used to be called the “Gay Disease” and according to some, it was “God’s way of killing off the homosexuals”.
However, we now know that anyone can get AIDs, can get it in many different ways and that the previous statement isn’t true. In the 1990s, many college students across the United States became very involved with pushing the rights for the LGBT community. These students protested, held “Days of Silence”, and formed LGBT organizations.
In 1993, a law was passed for the military, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, which allowed lesbian and gay citizens to enter into the military, but if it was known or found out that they were gay, they were dishonorably discharged. This law was later repealed in 2010.
The Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and the National Education Association endorsed the idea of October becoming the LGBTQ History Month
Earlier this year in the ‘Gay Pride Month’ of June, in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, the United States Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4, that the state-level laws that exclude same-sex marriage are unconstitutional. This made the United States the 17th country to legalize same-sex marriages. This case was a huge step for the LGBT movement, and was just in time for the Pride Parades that followed the ruling a few days later.
The Gay Pride month of June was placed into effect after the Stonewall Riots that occurred in Manhattan, New York City in 1969. Although very violent, these riots were in protest to the New York Police Department raid of the Stonewall Inn, for “homosexual acts”. This inn was run by the mafia and one of the establishments that served the LGBT community and allowed them a place to feel themselves. Unfortunately, during this time, police raids on homosexual bars were routine.
A few months after the Stonewall Riots, people banded together and formed Gay Activist Organizations and put a plan into action. On June 28, 1970, the first Gay Pride marches took place in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago. These parades followed every year, showing the community and the rest of the world, that being Gay and Proud is something that shouldn’t be shunned. The tradition of a Gay Pride parade are still held annually.
Some ways you can celebrate National Coming Out Day is to come out as lesbian, gay, transgendered, or a heterosexual ally. Another way is to support people who are coming out or have already come out, share and listen to experiences with one another, and to volunteer somewhere to help others.