What exactly is LGBTQ+ History Month and why is it important to both LGBTQ+ people and the wider community? Regardless of how you may identify, find out more here.
LGBTQ+ History Month offers an opportunity to reflect on the progress made in the fight for equality since the Stonewall Riots. It is a time to recognise the individuals, groups, and communities who paved the way for greater inclusion, and to recognise the courage and resilience that made today’s freedoms possible. It also provides space for people of all backgrounds to better understand the complexities, battles, and struggles the LGBTQ+ community has endured.
LGBTQ+ History Month invites us to reflect on where we are and where we are heading — particularly in an increasingly polarised world where identity and diversity are too often misunderstood.
The theme for this year’s LGBTQ+ History Month is ‘Science and Innovation’:
While celebrating LGBTQ+ history is essential, it is equally important to acknowledge the historical harm inflicted on the LGBTQ+ community through the exploration and misuse of science, including the medicalisation of LGBTQ+ identities, and to recognise that the impacts of this legacy still require attention today and acknowledge the ongoing need to address its lasting effects.
However, it is also a time where we look back at the scientific contributions made by LGBTQ+ people.
Here are a few prominent and recognised LGBTQ+ people who contributed to Science and Innovation:
Turing was a mathematician, computer scientist and logician, who is most famous for breaking the German’s ‘Enigma Code’ during World War Two. Turing’s development helped the British government to decode hundreds of thousands of secure messages from the German’s and contributed to Britain winning the war, saving roughly 14 million lives. However, after Turing’s orientation was discovered in the 1950s, he was charged with gross indecency and chemically castrated, and he died a few years later. Regardless of how crucial Turing’s work was in winning the World War, the criminalisation of homosexuality meant that Turing was excluded from civil society and his work disregarded.
Hirschfeld was a sexologist who shaped modern ideas about sexuality and founded the world’s first LGBTQ+ rights organisation in Germany. He set up the Scientific Humanitarian Committee to challenge anti-LGBTQ+ prejudice, and campaign to decriminalise homosexuality. He also opened the Institute for Sexual Science, supporting LGBTQ+ people in Germany with gaining access to medical care and gender-affirming treatment. However, the Nazi’s destroyed the institute in 1933 as part of their persecution of LGBTQ+ people and Hirschfeld exiled himself to avoid persecution and never returned before his death. Hirschfeld’s work with the establishment of the Institute for Sexual Science was the one of the first of it’s kind in supporting LGBTQ+ people, and those questioning their gender identity, paving the way for the establishment of gender-affirming treatment across the globe.
El-Attar is an engineer, computer scientist, drag performer, and refugee who uses their work to support marginalised communities, especially the LGBTQ+ community and through their performances, directly raises money for LGBTQ+ causes. El-Attar also set up the ‘Shrouk El-Attar Trust’ (SEAT) in 2020, a charity that seeks to support the LGBTQ+ community, particularly LGBTQ+ who grew up/live in the Middle East and North Africa, who face imprisonment, exclusion, and brutality from society - all for the crime of simply existing and being themselves. SEAT provides aid to individuals which has been used for a multitude of purposes; safer housing, funding small businesses, and funding for gender-affirming care/surgery. This money is raised through El-Attar’s performances and lectures, as well as donations from civil society. As a result of their work, El-Attar was named as one of the BBC’s 100 most influential women in 2018 for their contribution to activism and engineering, and their work continues to support LGBTQ+ people in the Middle East and North Africa.
Interested in learning more about LGBTQ+ history?
Here are some resources that explore the history of the LGBTQ+ movement:
Articles:
How the Pride March Made History
The Gay Liberation Front (GLF)
Stonewall at 50: The Night that changed America's Gay Rights Movement Forever
Memories of Britain's First LGBTQ+ Pride in 1972
How the Stonewall Rising Ignited Modern LGBTQ+ Rights Movements
Books:
The International LGBT Rights Movement - Laura A. Belmonte
Stonewall: The Definitive Story Of The LGBTQ Rights Uprising That Changed America - Martin Duberman
The Stonewall Reader - Jason Baumann & Edmund White
Before Gender: Lost stories from trans history 1850-1950