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A good example of a sexual minority, its difficult beginnings, its growth, and its successes, can be studied in the American city of San Francisco.
This famous city on the Pacific coast had, since the days of the “Gold Rush” in the mid-19th century, harbored people from every ethnic and religious background. As a city of minorities, it also had a reputation of social tolerance. However, this tolerance had never extended to its Chinese immigrants, who suffered all kinds of discrimination, and, at least after WW II, it had also excluded homosexual men. In fact, well into the 1960’s “gay” bars were raided by the police and the patrons arrested. After all, male homosexual contact was a serious crime in
California.
Nevertheless, the tireless work of a few courageous individuals, not only in San Francisco, but also in other American cities, had already laid the the groundwork for a “gay” civil rights
movement. When, in June 1969, a police raid on a “gay” bar on New York’s Christopher Street met resistance and caused violent protests, San
Francisco's “gay and lesbian community” was ready with an appropriate response of its own.
The city’s ethnic minorities had long been accustomed to demonstrating their presence and voting power in annual parades, beginning with the Chinese New Year in February and ending with the Italian Columbus Day in October. In fact, almost every month had such a parade, except June. This offered a welcome opportunity for a large “gay” parade that would simply use the already existing pattern to achieve the same ends: Recognition as a social minority. Indeed, the stratagem proved successful beyond all
exceptions. Once the mayor and other politicians saw the enormous numbers of potential voters, the joined the parade as they always had joined the others. Soon, the first “gay” member of the city council was elected, the California law against male homosexual contact was repealed, and the diagnosis of homosexuality as an
illness was removed from the diagnostic handbook of American psychiatrists. Thus, San
Francisco's “gays and lesbians” were set on the path to “normalization” and eventual full social
acceptance. (Minority parades were also common in many other American cities, and their subsequent “gay” parades also took
advantage of this existing pattern. However, San Francisco offers the most instructive example.)
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