Who Are The LGBT Community?

By: Richard Lyon

The collection of people referred to as the LGBT community is a highly diverse bunch of people.

Is it these people?



Or is this it?







Or this?



Or this?



Or this?



Or this?




The LGBT community is all of these and a whole lot more besides. It means lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender persons. We show up in all ethnic, racial and economic groups. The one thing that this collection of folks have in common is that in various ways our lives and personal identities are in conflict with the strictly constructed demands of traditional gender restricted behavior. This conflict consistently gives rise to prejudice and oppression. While there has been some progress over the past 50 years, that oppression is still very much with us. Of the various minority groups in the US we lag behind others in gaining legal protections of our civil rights. At the national level there still are no basic civil rights laws and there are federal statutes that explicitly discriminate such as DADT and DOMA still on the books.

The history of efforts to build movements that could bring LGBT people together to overcome the oppression has been long and difficult and the goal has been imperfectly realized. What was then termed the gay rights movement began in the 1950s with groups such as The Mattachine Society and The Daughters of Bilitus. Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon who are pictured above at their marriage ceremony were the founders of the Daughters. These were very small groups that were making very tentative efforts at building networks for something more than just sexual and social connections. They existed in a very hostile environment. The Stonewall riots of the summer of 1968 occurred in the context of the great social upheavals spawned by the era of the Vietnam War and all of the related protest. Stonewall was the starting point for an active gay rights movement. Modern feminism was gathering momentum from the same general social environment at about the same time. The movement for lesbian rights probably draws its heritage in about equal measure from both feminism and Stonewall.





The African American civil rights movement has a similar history in its organizational development. The early organizations of the Urban League and the NAACP were born in the progressive era and originally partook of the rather paternalistic philosophy of the times. The membership was composed of middle class African Americans and their middle class white allies. The ferment of the 60s had a similar impact on that movement as well. New organizations such as CORE and SNCC came along to challenge the leadership and philosophy of the older groups.

Up until recently The Human Rights Campaign has attempted to present itself as the voice of the LGBT community. It's primary focus has been on fund raising for political campaign contributions. It has always had a preference for glitzy fund raising events attended by designer clothed celebrities. They were pursuing the beltway inside track. Since they were providing politicians with money and very modest requests for social change they made non-threatening mascots for the Democratic Party. The Republicans had the Log Cabin Republicans who followed a similar approach. More recently there has been a growing impatience with such a gradualist approach and organizations with a more aggressive approach have emerged. Two groups that have been very publicly visible are The Service Members Legal Defense Network and Get Equal.

There are literally hundreds of LGBT organizations in the US. Many of them are focused on particular types of associations such as professional, occupational or religious interest. Others are limited to particular geographic locations such as cities or states. There are several that have focused on providing specialized legal support such as Lambda Legal and The National Center For Lesbian Rights. Also the ACLU has a special section dealing with LGBT rights issues.

There really aren't any organizations that can plausibly claim to speak for all LGBT people. Get Equal has made outreach to minority communities a priority in their organizational development. The Pipeline Project offers a very interesting and promising initiative. It is an effort to build leadership skills for young LGBT people of color and to connect them to established LGBT organizations.

The Pipeline Project

There are some policy goals of national significance that are being pursued and supported by a fairly broad spectrum of LGBT organizations. These include:

ENDA- Employment Non-Discrimination Act

This basically proposed to extend non-discrimination provisions that have already been codified into law for women and racial minorities. One of the controversies has been over the issue of including specific provisions and protections for transgender persons. At present the status of making the bill fully inclusive is still muddy. However, there doesn't seem to be any real commitment from the administration or the congressional leadership to trying to get it passed in any form

Repealing DADT Don't Ask Don't Tell

This is clearly an LGB issue as transgender persons are specifically excluded from military service under separate policies that will not be effected even if there is some sort of repeal of DADT.

Marriage Equality

In addition to working toward the right to marry in individual states the repeal of DOMA the federal Defense Of Marriage Act is essential if couples who do marry are going to enjoy the many federal benefits attached to recognized marriage.

None of these objectives offer equal personal benefit to all LGBT persons. There are some glaring exclusions for transgender people. Not everybody wants to be married and many people have no interest in a military career. However, attainment of these objectives would represent important steps toward political and legal justice. They also have some practical economic implications for many people. ENDA will not guarantee people jobs, but it could make it possible for some people to hold onto the job they have and reduce some of the barriers to employment for others. Marriage equality and getting rid of DOMA offers important federal rights and benefits for married couples and surviving spouses. Being able to hold onto a military career and the benefits that go with it is a significant thing for the people who are now living under the shadow of DADT.

So just who is supporting these initiatives? As anecdotal information here are some photos from a recent rally for marriage equality.

Photo Diary: Hundreds Rally in DC in Support of Marriage Equality


So that's a predominantly white crowd, but not exclusively so. The current political reality is that the prospects for immediate realization of any of these objectives through congress do not look entirely bright. After the November elections it may be possible to make a clearer assessment.

While it is clear that LGBT people are made up of a highly diverse collection of individuals, the historical experience of people from those diverse backgrounds finding common ground or even being willing to look for it very hard has generally been less than consistently positive. There are white gay men whose primary dissatisfaction with being gay seems to be that it robs them of their birth right of privilege. That's true of the Log Cabin crowd and others as well. For other people whose lives are impacted by race and gender, having a minority sexual orientation may not stand out as the single biggest issue in their lives. For people coming from such fundamentally different perspectives it is difficult for them to build enough trust to work together toward a common goal. Many times it just doesn't happen.

LGBT individuals and groups exist within the context of the broader society. The present is not a shining moment of optimism for America. Many people are under serious economic pressure. Prosperity does not appear to be just around the corner. We are a small minority of the population. On our own we cannot force the society to give us the equality that we deserve. However, we do have the power to reach out to each other in a search for shared values and treat ourselves as equals. The path to that goal is engage in dialog with each others as equals. WGLB and friends will be developing and presenting such conversations.