LGTBI Movement: what is it, what is its history and what struggles does it bring together

The LGBT movement has marked the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century in an important way. Through a great diversity of social and political struggles, they have managed to make experiences visible, desires, knowledge, discomforts and feelings that had been denied and pathologized for a long time. time.

On the other hand, the history of the LGBT and LGTBI movement It is very long and can be approached from very different starting points. Below we will point out some events that marked its beginning and development in the West.

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What does LGBT mean?

The acronym LGBT refers to both to a collective and to a movement of political demands, whose letters mean: Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender. These last words refer precisely to people who are assumed and recognized as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

Although the history of this movement is older, the LGBT concept became popular especially from the 1990s. Among other things, it has made it possible to replace the term “gay community”, which, although it was demanding and very important at one time; it had also silenced other identities and sexualities.

The use of the term LGBT has made it possible emphasize the diversity of sexual and gender identities, with which it can be applied to many people, regardless of whether their bodies have been sexualized as feminine or masculine.

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Where does diversity end? The LGTBI claim

Within the framework of these political demands, other struggles and identities have also been added. From this the letters of the term LGBT have increased. For example, the letter "T" has been added, which refers to transsexuality; the letter “I” that refers to Intersex, and the letter “Q” that refers to people and the “Queer” or “Cuir” movement, Spanishized.

Specifically, this last category has made it possible for some people who may not feel identified with none of the above identities (lesbian-gay-bisexual-transsexual-transgender-intersex), yes can share spaces for claims and struggles for diversity in equal opportunities. This is rather more complex and even problematic. Initially, because the metaphor of "trans" has spread a sometimes deterministic conception of changes in gender identity (for example, that there is a pre-established beginning and end), among others complications.

In an introductory way we can say that transsexuality refers to someone who makes a body modification to go from one sex-gender to another; while the word "transgender" refers to practices that are also visible in the body, for example in aesthetics, but that do not necessarily include an organic change. In this context, the need to separate the trans by sex or gender has been discussed, an issue that has also been problematic.

For its part, intersex refers to bodies that share different organs and characteristics. genetic or phenotypic traits that have been attributed by Western biomedicine to women and men in a similar way. differentiated. So, depending on the context, we can find both the concept of LGBT, and that of LGBTI, LGBTIIQ, LGBTQ, and perhaps others.

The LGTTBIQ movement arises from many people who have made it explicit that the assigned gender identity does not always correspond to the felt gender identity, with which, it is valid to defend the complete freedom to claim and live the identity that one feels over the one that is imposed.

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First struggles: LGTB rights

There are many versions about the beginning of the movement in the West. One of the most accepted is that it was used for the first time to name the student movements in the United States in the 1960s that demanded the depathologization of non-normative behaviors and equal rights.

The development context of the LGTB movements was characterized mainly by the fact that many people denounced that they had been systematically made invisible by the norms of the heterosexuality. This became visible especially in the United States and in Europe, where the feminist movements were also gaining greater diffusion.

But, among other things, those feminist movements had been basically heterosexual, which very soon caused many women to publicly claim lesbian identities. Here a first starting point was opened for the claim of other sexualities that had also been reserved for the private space.

We could even go back further and look at some of the background of the early 20th century, when some European intellectuals who they had homosexuality as an experience, they took on the task of writing and publishing in favor of the legitimization of their desires and practices sexual.

However, this did not generalize until those people who had also seen their rights violated took to the streets, in the form of social movements and activism.

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Breaks with Anglo-Saxon feminism

Anglo-Saxon feminisms had made a very important break in the most traditional gender norms. However, they had organized around a very naturalized view of the gender-sex divide, which continued to be binary, leaving aside other practices and experiences.

That is, the movements that only positioned themselves in favor of women they were staying on the same oppressive gender basis, with which other identities had been excluded. For example, homosexuality, lesbianism, trans identities, and all those that do not fit into these categories.

Thus, the LGBT movement had to make a first break with feminism, which had involuntarily ignored other expressions of sexuality. Likewise, and while the production of knowledge is always located in an experience and a specific place, some feminists of the lesbian movement had adopted essentialist perspectives that were not useful for other demands and identities.

For example, people who are assumed to be bisexual were reproached for not being able to "come out of the closet" in the hegemonic terms. That was how, after a period of accommodation, separation and feedback, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender groups came together in a single fighting collective.

The term LGBT was probably first used to refer to student activists who went out to these struggles mainly in Europe and United States from the 1960s, although there are different versions about when it was first used, and also about who was the first person to use it. use it.

From criminalization to pathologization

Non-heterosexual sexual and gender identities and practices have been criminalized and seriously penalized in various formats for many centuries. Currently and given the preeminence of biomedical paradigms that position themselves as the social instructors par excellence, as well as through supposed mental pathologies, many of the non-hegemonic practices of gender are still understood as if they were a pathology.

The protest movements of the 1960s, and many of the movements today, have fought in against the circulation of pejorative, violent and offensive concepts towards people non-heterosexual.

But not only that, but have denounced explicitly violent and repressive practices such as lgtbphobia (which in many cases ends in murder); and other very common, naturalized and apparently innocuous practices such as pathologization.

In fact, it was not until after these social movements of vindication led by a large part of the LGBT community itself, when homosexuality ceased to be considered a mental pathology by the APA and the WHO. Just 45 and 28 years ago respectively. And what is more: these struggles are not over, because pathologization as a way of criminalizing still exists.

Bibliographic references

• John and crespa (2012). History of the LGBT community. Retrieved May 18, 2018. Available in http://lgbtdehoy.blogspot.com.es
• Solá, m. (Y/A). The re-politicization of feminism, activism and post-identity microdiscourses. MACBA Publications. Retrieved May 18, 2018. Available in https://www.macba.cat/uploads/publicacions/desacuerdos/textos/desacuerdos_7/Miriam_Sola.pdf.