We realized my brother was gay when his photo was on the cover of Time magazine titled “The Homosexual in America”.
To modern ears, this quote from Time magazine issue (October 1969) after the Stonewall riots the previous June may seem offensive, but it was par for the time:
|
Though they still seem fairly bizarre to most Americans, homosexuals have never been so visible, vocal or closely scrutinized by research…. Their new militancy makes other citizens edgy, and it can be shrill.1 |
Stonewall launched the beginning of the gay rights movement and my family’s introduction to a closely held secret. We realized my brother was gay when the issue of Time magazine posted his photo on the cover. An unusual way to come out to one’s family and friends, but he got the job done.
More than five decades later, gays are still regarded as “bizarre” to many people who still believe there is only one right way to have a romantic relationship. On June 2, 2023 in Cedar Park, Texas (north of Austin), a woman was shot and killed at a gas station after the shooter called her a gay slur. She was gay, Black, and a woman, but the identity that got her killed was being gay.2
One week later, the White House hosted 1500 people for a celebration of LBGTQ+ progress. To quote The Washington Post:3 “A deep political reconfiguration on LGBTQ+ rights is reverberating across the country, a chasm now widening between the states and the federal capital.” Official policy and personal animosity in some regions of the country appear to be at odds.
GLAAD (formerly the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) published a study of public acceptance, revealing much the same dichotomy.
On the one hand…
|
[T]he 2023 Accelerating Acceptance study4 reveals that a record number of non-LGBTQ Americans support equal rights for the LGBTQ community… GLAAD finds that support for LGBTQ equal rights in America among non-LGBTQ people is now at an all-time high…5 |
Universally, non-LGBTQ Americans overwhelmingly agree that LGBTQ people should be free to live their lives and not be discriminated against.
On the other…
|
Yet, GLAAD knows that a majority of LGBTQ people are experiencing discrimination…. Misinformation and the spread of false narratives about the LGBTQ community remain at an all-time high, despite record acceptance figures. |
According to the GLAAD report, 91% of non-LGBTQ people agree that LGBTQ people should have the freedom to live their life and not be discriminated against. Support for equal rights has increased measurably in just the past two years.
To my family’s relief, my brother has been the beneficiary of these changing attitudes. Fast forward from 1969 to 2011 and a medical emergency in a small town in Utah. We had concerns that his partner would not be granted family rights in the hospital. To our great relief they were both treated with kindness. A work friend – a loyal member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – sent her gay son to my brother’s bedside to lend support. I doubt they changed anyone’s attitudes, but compassion prevailed.
As reported by the American Bar Association,6 the march toward progress in legal recognition has been slow but steady: In 1969, at the time of the Stonewall Rebellion, people who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or nonbinary (LGBTQ+) essentially had few or no legal protections in most states. Anyone known to be involved in same sex relationships was typically viewed negatively during custody and divorce hearings, with the assumption that being a member of the gay community in and of itself made parents unqualified to raise their own children.
That began to change in the 1980s, when the courts started to consider the quality of people’s relationships and the impact of their decisions on the children.
The report continues to explain that in 2003, in Lawrence vs Texas, the Supreme Court ruled that government cannot control people’s sexual activities in private between consenting adults.
Legal recognition of same sex relationships followed piecemeal. The legislation began in local government, when California – then Vermont and New Jersey – allowed for civil unions.
The watershed decision came in 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same sex marriage in Obergefell v Hodges. By this time 24 states already had such laws on the books, as a result of the fierce advocacy work of gay rights activism. Those engaged in inclusion and equity legislation were ecstatic. Many marriages followed, and most thought this was settled law.
But the rights of transgender, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, and intersex people were not protected and still aren’t. And now in 2023, what we all took to be settled law is being fiercely opposed by political forces on the right.
A quick summary of the letters. This is not definitive; letters are added as people self-identify. Some people list as many groups as possible in the letters LGBTQIA2S+: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning/queer, intersex, asexual, two-spirit, and everyone else under that umbrella who is not yet named. Some include P for pansexual, which includes polygamy (one man, several women), polyandry (one woman, several men), and polyamory (multiples with no fixed gender roles).7
This complete set of number of letters evokes incredulity in many people, so we add the plus after the letter Q: LGBTQ+
According to The Washington Post:8
|
A record 7.1 percent of U.S. adults self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual, and members of Generation Z are driving the growth, according to results from a Gallup survey. This year’s record high includes 21 percent of Gen Zers who have reached adulthood — which Gallup defines as those born between 1997 and 2003 — making them the generational group with the largest proportion of LGBTQ people. Among millennials, 10.5 percent self-identify as LGBTQ+, while 4.2 percent of Generation X, 2.6 percent of baby boomers and 0.8 percent of traditionalists do, according to the Gallup data. Meanwhile, 86.3 percent of respondents self-identified as straight or heterosexual. |
Those statistics may seem cut and dry, but only to millions like me who are heterosexual and assumed people were either heterosexual or homosexual. I became disabused of that notion when after 25 years of marriage, my husband realized he was gay, divorced me, and went on to have a good life with a male partner. I had no awareness of this as even a possibility and was devastated.
But he was finally free and happy, and continued being an excellent father and ex-husband. We remained on (mostly) good terms, and I learned a lot about being authentic.
I had more to learn. My now adult daughter told me in junior high that she was lesbian. Was I pleased? No. Now, 30+ years later, I host her and her polyamorous friends. The highlight of my own evolution was the Thanksgiving she came to dinner with her boyfriend and her transgender lesbian girlfriend. What did I say to them? “Do you want more cranberry sauce?”
I am not the only person to note that one of the facilitators of increasing acceptance of gay pride is that most of us have at least one family member, friend, or colleague who is open and out. When a group goes from “them” to “us,” acceptance is easy.
Here is a review of how we got from there to here. ABC News published this timeline in the fight for gay rights.9
Attitudes are changing, but not changed. There is still a long way to go. According to a study from the Center for American Progress,10 more than 1 in 3 LGBTQ Americans faced discrimination of some kind in the past year, including more than 3 in 5 transgender Americans.
To avoid the experience of discrimination, more than half of LGBTQ Americans report hiding a personal relationship, and about one-fifth to one-third have altered other aspects of their personal or work lives. Fifteen percent (15%) of LGBTQ+ Americans report postponing or avoiding medical treatment due to discrimination, including nearly 3 in 10 transgender people.
My brother doesn’t discuss whether (or if) he has faced discrimination. All I know is that from coming out in 1969 to marrying his long-time partner five years ago, we’ve come a long way. It’s up to all of us to support the rest of the journey toward equality.
Questions to ask yourself
|
We are a leadership development firm that helps people and organizations create resilient, sustainable, multicultural, and inclusive settings. The ability to lead consciously can help you gain true awareness and earn the respect and trust of others.
It’s the assumptions we have about people’s lives that are the biggest obstacles to growth, awareness, and success. We help you understand how those assumptions are preventing you from becoming the best you can be as an organization, an inclusive leader, and a person.
