In the United States,

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...

bisexual Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, or the attraction t ...

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

, and

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

(

LGBTQ LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, Gay men, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning (sexuality and gender), questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, Asexuality, asexual, ...

) people have a long history, including vibrant subcultures and advocacy battles for social and religious acceptance and legal rights. Though the first national gay organization was formed in 1950, the 1969

Stonewall riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, Stonewall revolution, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous riots and demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of ...

in New York City are often cited as the beginning of the modern gay civil rights era. The

AIDS crisis The global pandemic of HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) began in 1981, and is an ongoing worldwide public health issue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), by 2023, HIV/AIDS ...

in the 1980s was a large influence on gay communities and activism. In the late 20th century, social acceptance began to increase, and legal rights followed. Military policy was changed in 2011, allowing LGBTQ people to serve openly. Social conservatives briefly had success outlawing same-sex marriage at the state level in the 2000s, but the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015.

Demographics

In 2024, Gallup found that 7.6% of U.S. adults identified as LGBTQ or another sexual orientation besides heterosexual. Broken down by age group, this shows up at 22.3% among Gen Zers (born 1997–2012), 9.8% among Millennials (born 1981–1996), 4.5% among Generation Xers (born 1965–1980), 2.3% among Baby boomers (born 1946–1964), and 1.1% for members of the Silent Generation (born 1945 or earlier).

History

There are varying accounts of the place LGBT people occupied in

pre-Columbian era In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...

Native American tribes. In modern parlance, the term

Two-Spirit ''Two-spirit'' (also known as ''two spirit'' or occasionally ''twospirited'', or abbreviated as ''2S'' or ''2E'', especially in Canada) is a umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people who fulfill a trad ...

is often used to describe Native American LGBT people. There were (and are) hundreds of different tribes across the US, each with its own culture, thus acknowledgement and acceptance of and social roles for LGBT people varied across tribes. In the reservation era, Christian missionaries and European government agencies denounced homosexuality and gender variance, forcing LGBT people to adopt social roles and dress considered appropriate, such as making males cut their hair and making females wear dresses. Though the violence and intimidation enacted by the church and government were disproportionately directed at Native Americans, both Native and non-Native LGBT people often lived in hiding to avoid being incarcerated or killed because homosexuality was a criminal offense. The first person known to describe himself as a

drag queen A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses Drag (entertainment), drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate Femininity, female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have ...

was William Dorsey Swann, born enslaved in

Hancock, Maryland Hancock is a town in Washington County, Maryland, Washington County, Maryland, United States. The population was 1,557 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Western Maryland community is notable for being located at the narrowest part ...

. Swann was the first American on record who pursued legal and political action to defend the LGBTQ community's

right to assemble Freedom of assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right or ability of individuals to peaceably assemble and collectively express, promote, pursue, and defend their ideas. The right to fre ...

. During the 1880s and 1890s, Swann organized a series of

drag balls Gay balls, cross-dressing balls, pansy balls, or drag balls were (depending on the place, time, and type) public or private ball (dance event), balls that were celebrated mainly in the first third of the 20th century, where cross-dressing and ballr ...

in Washington, D.C.. Swann was arrested in police raids numerous times, including in the first documented case of arrests for female impersonation in the United States, on April 12, 1888. Gay dads life magazine

LGBT acceptance had shown slow improvement in the 19th century and first half of the 20th century. The first documented gay rights organization in American, the

Society for Human Rights The Society for Human Rights was an American gay-rights organization established in Chicago in 1924. Society founder Henry Gerber was inspired to create it by the work of German doctor Magnus Hirschfeld and the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee ...

, was founded in Chicago in 1924 by Henry Gerber, a German-American activist inspired by the progress made by

Magnus Hirschfeld Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German physician, Sexology, sexologist and LGBTQ advocate, whose German citizenship was later revoked by the Nazi government.David A. Gerstner, ''Routledge International Encyclopedia of Queer ...

in Berlin. The organization published two issues of a magazine, ''Friendship and Freedom'', but was short-lived due to police harassment and legal challenges. In the 1950s, there was both greater organization within the LGBTQ community and greater government repression, known as the Lavender Scare. In 1950, the first national gay organization was founded in Los Angeles. The Mattachine Society was a leader in the homophile movement of the 1950s and '60s. The organization rapidly lost popularity in the late '60s before ultimately filing for bankruptcy in 1976. The Mattachine formally opposed the

and put up a sign pleading for peace, which created tension between members who advocated for

assimilationist Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or fully adopts the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group. The melting pot model is based on this concept. A relat ...

versus radical tactics. The radicals broke off to form the Gay Liberation Front, while Mattachine membership continued to decline. The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a

police raid A police raid is an unexpected visit by police or other law enforcement officers, which aims to use the element of surprise to seize Evidence (law), evidence or arrest suspects believed to be likely to Tampering with evidence, hide evidence, res ...

that occurred across five nights in June – early July 1969, at the

Stonewall Inn The Stonewall Inn (also known as Stonewall) is a gay bar and recreational tavern at 53 Christopher Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It was the site of the 1969 Stonewall riots, which led to th ...

, in the

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the north, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the s ...

neighborhood of New York City. Although the demonstrations were not the first time American homosexuals fought back against government-sponsored persecution of sexual minorities, the Stonewall riots marked a new beginning for the

gay rights movement Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBTQ people in society. Although there is not a primary or an overarching central organization that represents all LGBTQ people and their i ...

and

gay liberation The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s in the Western world, that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride.Hoff ...

in the United States and around the world. The first gay pride parade, then called Christoper Street Liberation Day, was held on June 28, 1970, the anniversary of the first night of the riots. The riots ushered in a new era of open advocacy for gay rights. The

American Psychiatric Association The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the largest psychiatric organization in the world. It has more than 39,200 members who are in ...

removed homosexuality from the DSM and more states began decriminalizing sodomy. In the 1970s, activists lobbied for a number of anti-discrimination bills in their local communities. After an initial wave of success, the late '70s saw a backlash led by

Anita Bryant Anita Jane Bryant (March 25, 1940 – December 16, 2024) was an American singer and anti-gay rights activist. She had three top 20 hits in the United States in the early 1960s. She was the 1958 Miss Oklahoma beauty pageant winner, and a brand ...

's Save Our Children campaign, wherein a number of recently-passed bills were repealed. This decade saw the election of the first politicians to run as openly gay candidates, including Kathy Kozachenko, Elaine Noble, and

Harvey Milk Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was born and raised i ...

. In addition, while the early days of the gay movement were dominated by white gay males, the movement became more diverse in the 1970s with the formation of groups like

Lavender Menace Lavender Menace was an informal group of lesbian radical feminists formed to protest the exclusion of lesbians and their issues from the feminist movement at the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City on May 1, 1970. Members included ...

and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. Gay act up nyc manhattan

There were more rapid changes with HIV/AIDS crisis activism in the 1980s. The disease disproportionately affected gay men, leading to mass mortality within the community. Among gay men who were between the ages of 25-44 at the start of the epidemic, 1 in 10 had died of AIDS-related complications by 1995. Among the most visible groups of this time period was the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (

ACT UP AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, ...

), founded by author and activist Larry Kramer in 1985. The group lobbied for more research, funding, and treatment options for HIV/AIDS due to perceived apathy from the

Reagan administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following his landslide victory over ...

. A number of writers, artists and entertainers publicly acknowledged their homosexuality. In the 1990s, the popular media began including gay characters. ''

Ellen Ellen is a female given name, a diminutive of Elizabeth (given name), Elizabeth, Eleanor, Elena, and Helen (given name), Helen. Ellen was the 609th most popular name in the U.S. and the 17th in Sweden in 2004. People named Ellen include: * Elle ...

'' was cancelled in 1998, shortly after both the main character and her

namesake A namesake is a person, place, or thing bearing the name of another. Most commonly, it refers to an individual who is purposely named after another (e.g. John F. Kennedy Jr would be the namesake of John F. Kennedy). In common parlance, it may ...

star came out as a lesbian, making the series the first to have a gay main character. That same year, ''

Will & Grace ''Will & Grace'' is an American television sitcom created by Max Mutchnick and David Kohan. Set in New York City, the show focuses on the friendship between best friends Will Truman (Eric McCormack), a Gay men, gay lawyer, and Grace Adler (Debra ...

'' premiered. The cast and crew feared that it would be cancelled as well, but the series was well-received and went on for an initial eight-season run. The show is widely seen as having created the opportunity for future series with gay leads, and for helping to increase public acceptance of the LGBTQ community. The socially conservative Don't Ask Don't Tell policy (DADT) and the

Defense of Marriage Act The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 21, 1996. It banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage by limitin ...

(DOMA) were two of the highest-profile policy changes affecting LGBTQ people in the 1990s. At the time, DADT was seen as a compromise between the traditionally conservative military, which had banned homosexuals from service from its inception, and the Democratic Party, which increasingly favored ending the ban. DADT barred military officers not inquire into soldiers' sexual orientation, while also prohibiting soldiers from coming out. DOMA was passed in response to a number of states passing laws protecting

domestic partnerships A domestic partnership is an intimate relationship between people, usually couples, who live together and share a common domestic life but who are not married (to each other or to anyone else). People in domestic partnerships receive legal ben ...

for same-sex couples, as well as speculation that Hawai'i might legalize gay marriage. Under DOMA, neither the federal government nor any other state was required to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another state, excepting gay marriages from the

full faith and credit clause Article IV, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, the Full Faith and Credit Clause, addresses the duty that states within the United States have to respect the "public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state". Accor ...

. DADT was dropped in 2011, and DOMA was ruled unconstitutional in 2013. Anti-sodomy laws were ruled unconstitutional in 2003, making it legal throughout the nation for consenting adults to have sex with a person of the same gender. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, states began legalizing same-sex marriage. By 2015, 37 states had voted to legalize same-sex marriage.

Obergefell v. Hodges ''Obergefell v. Hodges'', ( ), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court which ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of th ...

ruled the remaining laws restricting marriage to heterosexual couples unconstitutional, effectively legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. Official church positions on LGBT issues have been slower to change and mostly among mainstream Protestant denominations.

Communities

The Mattachine Society

In 1950, a gay community in Los Angeles with communist ideals founded the movement "The Mattachine Society". It began in 1940 when a man named Harry Hay proposed the term the term

homophile Terms used to describe homosexuality have gone through many changes since the emergence of the first terms in the mid-19th century. In English, some terms in widespread use have been '' sodomite'', '' Sapphic'', '' Uranian or Urning'', '' homop ...

, with the hope that de-emphasizing the sexual aspect of homosexuality would increase societal acceptance. The Mattachine Society originated under the name "International Bachelors Fraternal Orders for Peace and Social Dignity." The new name was founded by the influence of European masked performers. The main goal of this movement was to go against discrimination and create a strong identity within the gay community. The goals started to change into assimilation instead of advocation and the group started to decline from being a national organization to smaller chapters in the 1950s. While never officially affiliated with the Mattachine Society, One Magazine is thought to have been started based on a discussion in a Mattachine Meeting.

The Lesbian Movement

In 1955 in San Francisco, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon founded

Daughters of Bilitis The Daughters of Bilitis (), also called the DOB or the Daughters, was the first lesbian civil and political rights organization in the United States. The organization, formed in San Francisco in 1955, was initially conceived as a secret soc ...

, part of the homophile movement, to create lesbian community. The organization was intended to be a safe space for lesbians and to advocate. It was influenced by The Mattachine Society and other groups. In the early 1970s, lesbian activists created their own communities and institutions including self defense schools. Many of their activities were separate from the broader feminist movement and from the gay men's movement. In the late 1970s, the lesbian movement dwindled due to the economic recession, and it generally integrated with the broader gay movement.

Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries

Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), founded in 1970 by

Sylvia Rivera Sylvia Rivera (July 2, 1951 – February 19, 2002) was an American gay liberation and transgender activism, transgender rights activist September 21, 1995. Accessed July 24, 2015. who was also a noted community worker in LGBT history in New Yo ...

and Marsha P. Johnson, provided housing and support to homeless LGBT youth in Lower Manhattan. Rivera and Johnson funded the organization largely through sex work, becoming known as the "mothers" of the household.''Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibily''. ed Reina Gossett, Eric A. Stanely, and Johannah Burton. "Trans History in a Moment of Danger: Organizing Within and Beyond 'Visibility' in the 1970s" by Abram J. Lewis Initially focused on housing, STAR later advocated for trans recognition in the

movement, leaving a legacy of resilience and advocacy. Rivera briefly revived STAR in 2001 as Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries, continuing the fight for transgender rights until her death in 2002.

Rights

LGBT rights in the US have evolved over time and vary on a state-by-state basis. Sexual acts between persons of the same sex have been legal nationwide in the US since 2003, pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in ''

Lawrence v. Texas ''Lawrence v. Texas'', 539 U.S. 558 (2003), is a List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws Sodom ...

''. Anti-discrimination laws vary by state. Same-sex marriage is legal in every state, pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in ''

''. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity are also punishable by federal law under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. Adoption policies in regards to gay and lesbian parents also vary greatly from state to state. Some allow adoption by same-sex couples, while others ban all "unmarried couples" from adoption.

Family rights after 1980

With the withering and downfall of sodomy laws on a state-by-state basis after 1960, LGBT rights activists began to develop increasingly detailed demands and campaigns for legal equality at all levels of government, a process which has been incremental in each jurisdiction. In 1984,

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

became the first jurisdiction to recognize same-sex unions of any type (then in the form of domestic partnership health benefits for city employees). In 1999, California passed its domestic partnership law, becoming the first state to recognize same-sex unions; Vermont became the first state to legalize civil unions (often seen as a reduced version of full marriage rights). However, following the Stonewall riots, the social conservative movement in the United States became increasingly defined by its opposition against rights for LGBT people. The most pre-eminent laws advocated at the federal level by social conservative politicians in the 1990s include

Don't ask, don't tell "Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was the official United States policy on Sexual orientation in the United States military, military service of homosexual people. Instituted during the Presidency of Bill Clinton, Clinton administration, the pol ...

, a continued restriction upon the service of LGBT persons in the United States Armed Forces, and the

(DOMA), which defines marriage as a heterosexual-exclusive institution and bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex unions enacted by municipal, state or foreign governments. These were followed by the passage in the 2000s of state-level statutory and constitutional prohibitions of legal recognition of same-sex marriages or unions of any type. The most controversial moment in the history of the movement for same-sex marriage rights took place in California during the period from May 2008, when the State Supreme Court abrogated Proposition 22, which barred the state from legalizing same-sex marriage, as unconstitutional, to November 2008, when

Proposition 8 Proposition 8, known informally as Prop 8, was a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment intended to ban same-sex marriage. It passed in the November 2008 California state elections and was later overturned by the ...

, a proposition against the court ruling brought by social conservatives, passed with 53% of the vote. Protests against the vote and its outcome ensued nationwide among pro-LGBT rights activists, media personalities and politicians, resulting in ''

Hollingsworth v. Perry ''Hollingsworth v. Perry'' was a series of United States federal court cases that reinstated same-sex marriage in the state of California. The case began in 2009 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which found that ...

'', a Supreme Court challenge to the constitutionality of Proposition 8 which ultimately struck down the initiative. On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in ''

'' that states must license and recognize same-sex marriages. Consequently, same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states, the District of Columbia,

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

Guam Guam ( ; ) is an island that is an Territories of the United States, organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. Guam's capital is Hagåtña, Guam, Hagåtña, and the most ...

U.S. Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands, officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and a territory of the United States. The islands are geographically part of the Virgin Islands archipelago and are located ...

, and

Northern Mariana Islands The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), is an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territory and Commonwealth (U.S. insular area), commonwealth of the United States consistin ...

. Currently, same-sex marriages are neither licensed nor recognized in

American Samoa American Samoa is an Territories of the United States, unincorporated and unorganized territory of the United States located in the Polynesia region of the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean. Centered on , it is southeast of the island count ...

, due to its unique constitutional status. The legal status of same-sex marriage also varies in Native American tribal nations, as their reservations are considered sovereign entities and were not affected by the Supreme Court's legalization in 2015. In December 2022, the final version of the bill

Respect for Marriage Act The Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA; ) is a landmark United States federal law passed by the 117th United States Congress in 2022 and signed into law by President Joe Biden. It repeals the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), requires the U.S. federal ...

repealed DOMA, requiring all U.S. states to recognize the validity of existing same-sex marriages. The law divided American religious groups morally opposed to same-sex marriage; it was supported by some as a suitable compromise between the rights of LGBT couples and religious liberty, a position that was taken by the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian restorationist Christian denomination and the largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement. Founded durin ...

, but was prominently opposed by the

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is the episcopal conference of the Catholic Church in the United States. Founded in 2001 after the merger of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and United States Catholic Co ...

and the

Southern Baptist Convention The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), alternatively the Great Commission Baptists (GCB), is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist organization, the largest Protestant, and the second-largest Chr ...

due to their views on

sexual ethics Sexual ethics (also known as sex ethics or sexual morality) is a branch of philosophy that considers the ethics or morality of Human sexual behaviour, sexual behavior. Sexual ethics seeks to understand, evaluate and critique interpersonal relatio ...

. Religious groups that supported the bill in support of their LGBT parishioners include the Episcopal Church, the

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a mainline Protestant church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. As of December 31, 2023, it ...

, the Union for Reform Judaism, the

Reformed Church in America The Reformed Church in America (RCA) is a mainline Reformed Protestant denomination in Canada and the United States. It has about 82,865 members. From its beginning in 1628 until 1819, it was the North American branch of the Dutch Reformed ...

, the

United Church of Christ The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a socially liberal mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Restorationist, Continental Reformed, and Lutheran t ...

, and the

Presbyterian Church (USA) The Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PCUSA, is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination, denomination in the Religion in the United States, United States. It is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States too. Its th ...

Hate crimes

Map of LGBT-related hate crime law in the United States

Even after the decriminalization of same-sex sexual activity, LGBT persons have continued to be targeted—violently and non-violently—by individuals who claim any degree of emotional or religious motivation for their crimes. This phenomenon has been variously attributed to the influence of institutional and authoritarian homophobia in various environments. The torture and murder of

University of Wyoming The University of Wyoming (UW) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming, United States. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, ...

student

Matthew Shepard Matthew Wayne Shepard (December 1, 1976 – October 12, 1998) was an American student at the University of Wyoming who was beaten, tortured, and left to die near Laramie on October 6, 1998. He was transported by rescuers to Poudre Valle ...

in 1998 became a rallying moment for activism against hate crimes, and the landmark Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed in 2009 under President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

; the Act was also the first federal legislation of any purpose to specifically refer to transgender persons. Anti-bullying and anti-hate crime movements increasingly focus on bias against sexual orientation and gender identity. The Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990 required data collection about crimes motivated by biases that included "sexual orientation." Since then, the FBI has produced an annual report with relevant statistics. In 2013, the FBI's hate crime report began separately considering bias against "gender identity" and "gender" for the first time. National data collection can be complicated by inconsistent reporting requirements on the state level. For example, as of 2019, 37 states still do not have anti-bias statutes for crimes based on gender identity. The FBI reports show that, throughout the 21st century, bias against sexual orientation has consistently accounted for between one-seventh and one-fifth of all reported incidents that were motivated by a single bias.

Violence

Violence against LGBT people LGBTQ people frequently experience violence directed toward their human sexuality, sexuality, gender identity, or gender expression. This violence may be enacted by the state, as in laws LGBTQ rights by country or territory, prescribing punishm ...

in the US is made up of assaults on gay men, lesbians, bisexual, transgender, queer and

intersex Intersex people are those born with any of several sex characteristics, including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binar ...

individuals (LGBTQI), legal responses to such violence, and hate crime statistics in the United States of America. Gay men are victimized by homophobic violence at a much higher rate than other identities within the LGBTQ umbrella. Those targeted by such violence are often perceived to violate

heteronormative Heteronormativity is the definition of heterosexuality as the normative human sexuality. It assumes the gender binary (i.e., that there are only two distinct, opposite genders) and that sexual and marital relations are most fitting between peo ...

rules and contravene perceived protocols of gender and sexual roles. While this violence is sometimes narrowly termed

homophobia Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who identify or are perceived as being lesbian, Gay men, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, or ant ...

or gay bashing, combating it is often understood as part of a broader struggle for human rights. The

Transgender Day of Remembrance The Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR), also known as the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, has been observed annually from its inception on November 20 to memorialize those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia. The ...

is organized annually to honor transgender victims of murder.

Anti-bullying activism

In 2009–2010, a number of suicides by teenage and young adult Americans who were victims of sexual orientation- or gender expression-related bullying by fellow students garnered headlines, bringing to the fore a debate on bullying in schools and other environments. In response, Seattle-area opinion columnist and rights activist

Dan Savage Daniel Keenan Savage (born October 7, 1964) is an American author, media pundit, journalist, and LGBTQ community activist. He writes Savage Love, an internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column. In 2010, Savage and his husband, ...

participated with his husband in the making of a video which encouraged children and teenagers to resist and overcome peer bullying, inaugurating an ongoing series of videos by politicians, media personalities, business leaders, activists and others both within and outside the United States listed under the

It Gets Better Project It Gets Better is an Internet-based 501(c)3 nonprofit with a mission to uplift, empower, and connect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) youth around the globe. It was founded in the United States by gay activist, author, m ...

Interest groups

The wide array of LGBT-related organizations in the United States includes National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD),

Human Rights Campaign The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is an American LGBTQ advocacy group. It is the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for L ...

(HRC), National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF or "the Task Force"), Empowering Spirits Foundation (Empowering Spirits or ESF), Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, Safe Space America, Independent Gay Forum, and many local LGBT community centers.

Freedom to Marry Freedom to Marry was the national bipartisan organization dedicated to ensuring marriage for same-sex couples in the United States. Freedom to Marry was founded in New York City in 2003 by Evan Wolfson. Wolfson was president of the organizatio ...

was the leading advocate for same-sex marriage; the organization closed after same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide. Some of the original staff from Freedom to Marry moved to a new organization called Freedom for All Americans, which now seeks to "adapt the multi-level and multi-prong strategies" of the marriage equality movement to a movement for "a broader array of LGBT rights and protections," according to Courtenay W. Daum.

Support in schools

Since the 1980s, Gay Straight Alliance organizations have helped students and teachers and provide resources to their institutions. The 1984 Federal Equal Access Act prohibits schools receiving federal funding from discriminating between clubs. This law has been used in legal challenges to reverse school bans against GSAs. Research has shown that LGBTQ adolescents feel safer and more included when they belong to these groups. Presence of a GSA on campus has been shown to increase LGBTQ student wellbeing and educational attainment.

Religion

Christian denominations that have long supported same-sex marriage include the

Unitarian Universalist Association Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is a liberal religious association of Unitarian Universalism, Unitarian Universalist congregations. It was formed in 1961 by the consolidation of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Ch ...

, the Episcopal Church, the

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) The Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PCUSA, is a mainline Protestant denomination in the United States. It is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States too. Its theological roots lie primarily in the Scottish Reformat ...