LGBT in Media
Portrait of a Lady on Fire 
Oscar Wilde
The Dickson Experimental Sound Film
This is one of the first examples on film of what could be seen as suggested homosexuality. It is simply two men dancing to music that is being played next to them. However, audiences were very surprised with how unconventional the men were behaving.
The Hays Code or the Motion Picture Production Code
This code was created in 1930 after the release of many risqué films in the 1920s lead to many religious groups calling for censorship of movies.
ie gay characters could now only be vaguely suggested if even included at all.
Lawrence of Arabia
This movie came out in 1962. It was one of the first films that had both a heavily implied gay character but also an actual relationship between two men. It was proof a movie with a gay character could be successful in the box office.
Stonewall Riots
This is a French film released in 2019. It portrays the forbidden romance between two women, a young aristocrat and a painter, in 18th century France.
This is a beautiful example of LGBT representation in modern day film with the relationship between the two women being explicitly shown. However, it is more risqué than your average blockbuster movie.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire was awarded the Queer Palm and also won best screenplay at the 2019 Cannes film festival.
On June 28th, 1969, New York police officers began a raid of the Stonewall inn which was a well-known gathering place for people in the LGBT community but instead of dispersing like usually the patrons began fighting back against the police officers. The riot was the catalyst for a new generation of LGBT activists.
Obergefell vs. Hodges
Famous members of the LGBT community in media
Lady Gaga
Laverne Cox
Neil Patrick Harris
Protests in 2020
Before Stonewall (1984) is a critically acclaimed documentary film about the LGBT Community prior to the Stonewall Riots kickstarting the LGBT rights movement.
In the summer of 2020, thousands of people had taken to the streets in support of the Black Matters Movement happening throughout America. During this time, there was also a specific march in support of black transgender people.
Jane Lynch
On June 26th, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples are guaranteed the right to marriage by the fourteenth amendment.
He is a famous author who is most remembered for his plays. He lived during the late 1800s and was imprisoned for "gross indecency with men" in 1895.
There has been recent backlash against the tv and movie industry because they continue to cast straight, cis people in roles that could be played more authentically by LGBT actors.
Contemporary artists
Chris E Vargas
Mickalene Thomas
Jes Fan
Jes Fan is a Brooklyn based artist that uses their work to question the binary ideas of identity, gender, and also race. They use materials that often resemble biological objects such as organs, neurons, blood, and cells, sometimes even using the real thing in order to explore the biological components of identity.
Chris is an artist and video maker based in Washington who uses his work to highlight how queer and trans people find spaces for themselves and negotiate popular mainstream culture. He is also the creator and executive director of MOTHA, The Museum of Transgender History and Art.
Mickalene is a painter based in New-York whose paintings are known for incorporating rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel. Her work usually features young black women in provocative positions and same-sex relationships and includes elements African-American culture.
Glen or Glenda
Christine Jorgensen
This movie was released in 1953 and is part fiction part documentary. It is about a psychiatrist telling the story of a transvestite. This was one of the first films that attempted to prevent transgender people in a humanizing way but it still is very negative towards the community.
Christine Jorgensen was one of the first persons to have a widely known sex change surgery in the United States. Her surgery was in 1952. It is believed that the film Glen or Glenda was loosely inspired by her.
Rent: Rock Musical
Rent is a rock musical about the lives of a group of artists living in Manhattan's East Village dealing with the struggles of making ends meet and the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
HIV/AIDS
HIV is a virus that affects the body's immune system and is spread primarily through unprotected sex and sharing contaminated needles. AIDS is the name for the late term symptoms of the disease.
An HIV/AIDS pandemic broke out in the United States in the beginning of the 1980s and lasted to the beginning of the 1990s. AIDS had a greater impact on gay and bisexual men than the heterosexuals. It has been widely agreed that the Regan administration was slow to respond to the pandemic as a result of homophobia.
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