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

Certain gender identities and sexual orientations continue to generate unjustifiable rejection.

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

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

What does LGBT mean?

The acronym LGBT refers both to a collective and to a movement of political vindication.whose letters stand for: Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Bisexual-Transgender. These last words refer precisely to people who assume and recognize themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

Although the history of this movement is older, the concept of LGBT became popular especially since the 1990s. Among other things, it has made it possible to replace the term "gay community", which, although vindictive and very important at the time, had also left other identities and sexualities in silence.

The use of the term LGBT has made it possible to emphasize the diversity of sexual and gender identities, so that it can beThe use of the term LGBT has made it possible to emphasize the diversity of sexual and gender identities, so that it can be applied to many people, regardless of whether their bodies have been sexed as female or male.

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, referring to transsexuality; the letter "I" referring to Intersexuality, and the letter "Q" referring to people and the movement "Queer" or "Cuir", Spanishized.

Specifically, this last category has made it possible that, although some people who do not feel identified with any of the previous identities (lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-transsexual-transgender-intersexual), they can share spaces of vindication for their identity. can share spaces of vindication and struggles for diversity in equal opportunities.. This is much more complex and even problematic. Initially because the metaphor of "trans" has spread a sometimes deterministic conception about changes in gender identity (for example, that there is a pre-established beginning and end), among other complications.

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

Intersexuality, on the other hand, refers to bodies that share different organs and genetic or phenotypic characteristics that have been attributed by Western biomedicine to women and men in a differentiated manner. So, depending on the context we can find the concept of LGBT, as well as 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 identityTherefore, it is valid to defend the complete freedom to claim and live the identity that one feels over the one that is imposed.

First struggles: the LGTB rights

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

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

But, among other things, those feminist movements had been basically heterosexual.This soon led to many women publicly claiming lesbian identities. This opened a first starting point for the vindication of other sexualities that had also been reserved for the private space.

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

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

Ruptures with the Anglo-Saxon feminism

The Anglo-Saxon feminisms had made an important break in the most traditional norms of gender. However, they had organized themselves around a very naturalized vision of the gender-sex division, which continued to be binary, binary, binary, binary, binary and binary.which continued to be binary, and left other practices and experiences on the margins.

In other words, movements that only took a pro-women's stand were remaining on the same oppressive gender were remaining on the same oppressive gender basis, thus excluding other identities.and thus, other identities had been excluded. For example, homosexuality, lesbianism, trans identities, and all those that did not fit into these categories.

Thus, the LGBT movement had to establish a first break with feminism that had unintentionally ignored other expressions of sexuality. Likewise, and insofar as the production of knowledge is always situated in a specific experience and place, some feminists in the lesbian movement had adopted essentialist perspectives that were not useful for other claims and identities.

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

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

From criminalization to pathologization

Sexual and gender identities and practices that are not heterosexual have been criminalized and seriously penalized in different formats for many centuries. Currently and in the face of 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 gender practices are still understood as if they were a pathology..

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

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

In fact, it was only 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's more: these struggles are not over, because pathologization as a form of criminalization still exists.

Bibliographic references

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