282 articles
2008 California Proposition 8
2008 California Proposition 8, the Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry initiative, added a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage with 52 percent of the vote, was upheld in Strauss v. Horton, then voided after Hollingsworth v. Perry (2013).
2026 in LGBTQ rights
2026 in LGBTQ rights: Botswana repealed its Penal Code ban on same-sex intimacy, Spain topped ILGA-Europe's Rainbow Map, the CJEU ruled against Hungary's content law, and the US Supreme Court ruled against Colorado's conversion therapy ban while upholding transgender sports bans.
ACT UP
ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), direct-action activist group founded March 1987 in New York after Larry Kramer's call; eighty chapters by 1993; FDA shutdown 1988, Storm the NIH 1990; credited with accelerated drug approval, lower AZT costs, needle exchanges.
African-American LGBTQ community
African-American LGBTQ community: Black Americans identifying as LGBTQ or same-gender-loving. Known for Harlem Renaissance queer artists, Bayard Rustin, 1970s groups like the Association of Black Gays, and intersectional stigma research.
Agender
Agender: a gender identity meaning "without gender", little or no connection to gender systems. Related to genderless, gender neutral, neutrois; placed under nonbinary and trans umbrellas; 15% of nonbinary youth in a 2021 US survey.
Alan Turing law
Alan Turing law: informal name for section 166 of the UK Policing and Crime Act 2017, which pardoned about 49,000 deceased men convicted of abolished same-sex offences; living men apply via the Home Office disregard process.
Alicia Roth Weigel
Alicia Roth Weigel, intersex activist, author of the 2023 memoir Inverse Cowgirl, Austin Texas Human Rights Commissioner, and subject of the documentary Every Body, advocates against non-consensual intersex surgeries.
Alliance Defending Freedom
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), formerly Alliance Defense Fund, is a US conservative Christian legal advocacy group founded in 1994, active in religious liberty, abortion, and LGBTQ litigation, with over $100 million annual revenue and an SPLC hate-group designation it disputes.
American College of Pediatricians
American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), not to be confused with the American Academy of Pediatrics: a small socially conservative U.S. pediatric group founded in 2002, Atlanta-based, 501(c)(3), anti-LGBTQ positions, SPLC-designated hate group.
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), formerly National Federation for Decency, is a Tupelo, Mississippi-based conservative Christian 501(c)(3) founded in 1977 by Donald Wildmon, known for TV decency campaigns, American Family Radio, One Million Moms, corporate boycotts, and its SPLC hate-group designation.
An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code
Bill C-16 (42-1), the 2016 Canadian statute adding gender identity or expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code hate propaganda and sentencing provisions; Royal Assent 19 June 2017, S.C. 2017 c. 13.
And the Band Played On
And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts's 1987 investigative history of the early American AIDS epidemic, its institutional failures, the disputed Patient Zero narrative, and the 1993 HBO film adaptation.
Andrew Cray
Andrew Cray (died 2014) was an American trans man and LGBTQ health policy advocate at the Center for American Progress who co-founded Out2Enroll, advanced transgender-inclusive insurance coverage, and married Sarah McBride days before dying of oral cancer at 28.
Androphilia and gynephilia
Androphilia and gynephilia are behavioral-science terms for sexual attraction to adult males and to adult females respectively; ambiphilia denotes both. They classify attraction by its object, independent of the person's own sex or gender identity, and are preferred over homosexual/heterosexual for cross-cultural and transgender research.
Angie Xtravaganza
Angie Xtravaganza, original mother of the House of Xtravaganza, the first Latinx ballroom house, and a star of Paris Is Burning (1990). Led the house until her death from AIDS-related liver disease in 1993, aged 27.
Anita Bryant
Anita Bryant, American singer, Miss Oklahoma 1958, and Florida orange juice spokeswoman, led the 1977 Save Our Children campaign that repealed Dade County's gay-rights ordinance, triggering a national orange juice boycott; died 2024 at 84.
Anti-gay purges in Chechnya
Anti-gay purges in Chechnya: waves of detention, torture, and honor-killing incitement against men presumed gay, begun February 2017 under Ramzan Kadyrov, denied by officials, and continuing through 2024-2026 with wartime blackmail.
Anti-gender movement
Anti-gender movement: transnational campaigns against gender equality, feminism, and LGBTQ rights framed as opposing 'gender ideology'; originated in Vatican circles after the 1994 Cairo and 1995 Beijing UN conferences, now funded by conservative religious, Russian, and American donors.
Anti-transgender movement in the United Kingdom
Anti-transgender movement in the UK, also called the gender-critical movement: campaigns opposing trans rights, driven by GRA reform debate, groups like For Women Scotland and Sex Matters, culminating in the April 2025 Supreme Court FWS ruling defining sex as biological in the Equality Act 2010.
Ariadne Getty
Ariadne Getty, Italian-born Getty-family philanthropist based in Los Angeles, leads the Ariadne Getty Foundation (formerly Fuserna, est. 2004), a major LGBTQ-rights funder via GLAAD and the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
Aromanticism
Aromanticism, or being aro, is a romantic orientation marked by little or no romantic attraction, distinct from asexuality. Covers spectrum terms, amatonormativity, queerplatonic relationships, stigma research, and Ace Community Survey data.
Asexuality
Asexuality (ace) is a sexual orientation of little or no sexual attraction, distinct from celibacy and HSDD. About 1% prevalence; most asexuals are romantic; AVEN founded 2001; split attraction model distinguishes romantic orientation.
Asylum claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity
Asylum claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity are refugee claims by people fearing persecution at home, resting on the 1951 Refugee Convention's particular social group ground.
Attraction to transgender people
Attraction to transgender people: romantic and sexual interest toward trans individuals and its social context. Key findings: cis men respond more negatively than cis women, mediated by transphobia; perceived deception, non-disclosure, fetishization, and relationship survival after transition are central research themes.
Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey
Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey (AMLPS): voluntary, non-binding ABS survey of electors, September–November 2017, on same-sex marriage; 61.6% yes, 79.5% participation, upheld by the High Court, led to December 2017 legalization.
Ball culture
Ball culture (ballroom, house-ball community) is an LGBTQ+ subculture founded by Black and Latino queer and trans people in New York, with judged balls, vogue dance, and chosen-family houses; the modern scene dates to Crystal LaBeija's House of LaBeija in the early 1970s.
Barrie Drewitt-Barlow
Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, British businessman known as one of Britain's first gay fathers through US surrogacy (twins Aspen and Saffron, 1999) and co-owner of Maldon & Tiptree FC; charged with husband Scott in 2026 with rape, sexual assault, and trafficking offences, which they deny.
Bathroom bill
Bathroom bills are US state laws requiring restroom use by sex assigned at birth rather than gender identity; about 21 states have them, from North Carolina's 2016 HB2 to Idaho's 2026 criminal ban, with active litigation and documented health effects.
Bear (gay culture)
Bear is a gay male subculture of larger, hairy, bearded men; the word was coined in The Advocate in 1979, organized in 1980s San Francisco via BEAR Magazine and the Lone Star Saloon, and went global in the 1990s.
Beard (companion)
Beard is LGBT slang for an opposite-sex companion or spouse whose presence disguises someone's homosexuality, distinct from the bear subculture. The mid-1950s term covers escorts to cover marriages (lavender marriages), documented in Hollywood and still used where coming out is costly.