Culture

Europe and LGBT Pride: A History

Records of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) people are as old as written records are. However, LGBT Pride, the movement seeking the end to discrimination against LGBT people and social equality, is only fifty years old. It only started as a response against a police raid at the Stonewall Inn, a well-known gay club in New York where the police incursion was met with upheaval.

One year after the uprising, small Pride marches took place in two other American cities. In two years’ time, Europe would follow suit. With time, Pride marches moved from the fringes to the mainstream of European culture and would be the promoter of profound social change.

Despite the first spark being kindled in America, active European LGBT activism predates the riots by decades. Precisely, the interwar period saw the blossoming of European associations, building on a pre-existing demand to decriminalise homosexual relationships.

In this article, we travel from the darkest times to the days of glitter and celebration most of Europe lives in. Of course, we also cast a light on the places where the rainbow is yet to shine.

Historical Precursors in Europe

Male homosexual relationships were usual in Ancient civilisations until the adoption of Christianism by the Roman Empire and the Christian interpretation of marriage became institutionalised. The Middle and Modern Ages brought no significant change, and death was often the legal punishment for male homosexuals and cross-dressers.

On the other hand, female homosexuality records are few and far between them; Sappho‘s verses are the remarkable exception in the Greek island of Lesbos. Female homosexuality was harshly punished during the Middle Ages, but romantic friendship rarely raised concerns in the 18th century.Despite the differences in the statutory books, lack of acceptance of homosexual relationships cut across European borders in the 18th century.

Sappho
A representation of Lesbian poet Sappho.

The 18th and 19th Centuries: an ugly read and a glimmer of hope

Precisely, European criminal laws of the time were those of the Ancient Regime. Before the French Revolution, homosexuals could be burned to death in France or hanged in Great Britain. The Holy Roman Empire made it also a capital crime, as did Denmark.

What was striking there was not the fact that homosexual intercourse could be punished by death, but the fact that these provisions had not been relaxed during the 18th century. Notably, the Spanish Inquisition stoned, castrated, and burned sodomites1 until 1700. Italy would change its sodomy laws in 1786, replacing executions by imprisonment.

It was in 1791, in the wake of the French Revolution, that French legislators wrote homosexual intercourse off the criminal law. Before the turn of the century, Monaco, Prussia, Luxembourg, and Belgium followed the French example. During the 19th century, the Netherlands, Portugal (later rolled back), the Ottoman Empire, San Marino, and Italy followed the French example. Nevertheless, it was nearly impossible for homosexuals to have an open relationship. Societies of the time were far from accepting same-sex couples, irrespective of what the law said, and charges of indecency could still be brought upon.

Indeed, setbacks did occur during the 19th century, as queen Victoria gave royal assent to the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885. It made male homosexual relationships punishable with up to two years in prison, with sexual intercourse bringing a life sentence where proven. Eminently, the bisexual writer Oscar Wilde was prosecuted and sentenced to two years behind bars under this amendment’s provisions.

A notable example: the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft

In May 1871, a mere four months after German Unification, Paragraph 175 came into force to punish male homosexual acts with prison terms. However, it did not arrive without voiced objections. As early as 1897 the physician Magnus Hirschfeld collected as many as six thousand signatures to revoke it. In the coming years, attempts to delete it from German legislation failed, and they even backfired as plans were introduced to outlaw female homosexual acts as well, but World War I halted them.

Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, LGBT centre in interwar Germany
The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, which championed the LGBT cause in Germany prior to World War II. (Haus der Kulturen der Welt)

It was in the Great War’s aftermath that Dr Hirschfeld and Arthur Kronfeld set up the Institute for Sex Research with the purpose of gathering scientific research on human sexuality from the medical and psychological points of view, as well as offering advice on marriage and sex. The Institut organised a series of conferences that culminated in the creation of the World League for Sexual Reform in 1921.

Its platform ultimately sought the legalisation of all sexual acts between consenting adults, whether hetero- or homosexual. Remarkably, they also campaigned for gender equality, comprehensive sex education, and reforms to eliminate the dangers of prostitution.

Some of the Institut’s most famous work consisted in the first successful sex reassignment surgery. Lili Elbe, who has come to be known as ‘the Danish Girl’ in popular media, was the first person who successfully underwent this surgery.

Assigned male at birth (1882), she had lived as Einar Wegener and enjoyed a successful career as a painter. As Einar, she married her wife, Gerda Gottlieb in 1904 and settled in Paris. During her marriage, Lili started identifying as female and, would openly live as a lesbian couple with her wife. In 1930, after knowing about Dr Hirschfeld’s Institut, she would trust him with her physical transition.

Lili underwent surgery and went on to obtain legal documents, including her passport, reflecting her affirmed identity. However, her marriage with Gerda Gottlieb was annulled and the couple eventually parted ways. Lili would die as a result of complications derived from her fourth operation in 1931.

The rise of totalitarianism

However, perilous times awaited the Institut and the German gay community in general, as Adolf Hitler rose to power in January 1933. Within weeks of achieving the government, the Nazi Party started its purge of gay clubs in Berlin, banned homosexual publications, and forbade gay groups; this crackdown led up to the Institut’s dissolution, and the German LGBT community would not be exempt from the horrors of the Third Reich

The rise of totalitarian regimes and WW2 brought generalised deterioration of civil liberties in continental Europe, and LGBT people were normally sentenced to hard labour. In Britain, gay men had to choose between serving a prison term or undergoing conversion therapies2, as did war hero Alan Turing before committing suicide in 1954.

The turning point: Stonewall inn

In the sixties, the United States of America were not essentially different from Europe, as police custody without charges was common for homosexuals. On top of that, very few establishments accepted gay people. However, clubs that welcomed LGBT individuals started to break through in populous cities like New York.

These clubs, which were the only place where gay people could find a space of liberty, had a strong clientele made up of LGBT people. Being in the only safe space they could afford could make them an easy target for vigilantes and the police.

Raided premises NYPD
In the sixties, gay clubs were often found with this sign indicated that the police had raided them. (teleSUR English)

The riots

Soon after midnight on the 28th of June, 1969, the New York Police Department took the Stonewall Inn, a Mafia-owned LGBT club. Arrests followed, and some customers refused to be identified. Inspector Pine, in charge of the raid, decided to take everyone to the police station. However, there were way more people than expected that night, and they were angrier than usual; they had had enough.

Thus, as employees were frog-marched to a police wagon, the revolt began. Detainees escaped police wagons, and a fight broke out, overwhelming the raiding police. The NYPD Tactical Patrol Force was deployed to besiege the Inn; the ensuing tumult resulted in thirteen arrests, four injured police officers, and the club’s devastation.

The Stonewall riots.
Baton-wielding police officers seize the Stonewall Inn during the raid that triggered LGBT Pride. (All that’s interesting)

The following night, the outbreak sparkled through surrounding streets and the uprising escalated further. There would be fires, as well as some other urban battle tactics. Car ravaging and some looting followed the fracas. All in all, this was the first time the LGBT community directly fought back against government action.

The after-effects of the riots

Before the riots, American LGBT activists were divided in two factions: on the one hand, the integrationists sought normalisation and aspired to take one step at a time; on the other hand, the confrontationists took pride in their differences and demanded greater change. However, the Stonewall riots brought the former to the latter’s side.

Traditionally, American activists organised a peaceful picket in front of Philadelphia Independence Hall every 4th of July, with all participants conforming to the social norms of the time. That year, having reached their limits, they found the courage to hold hands – a gesture many thought they could not afford.

It gave them fresh press attention, and two associations came to prominence – the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance -, now seeking outright liberation. Police raids and marches interspersed with one another in the following twelve months. On 28th June 1970, simultaneous Pride marches were held in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago for the first time ever. Demonstrators not only commemorated the riots’ anniversary but also claimed visibility -by occupying public spaces- and legal change -at first, legalisation, then equality.

First pride march
Picture of the first Pride march in Times Square, New York, in June 1970. (New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division)

Pride comes to Europe: the 20th Century

In 1971, Pride marches spread far and wide in the United States, as well as debut in Europe: London, Dublin, and Oslo held the first demonstrations on European soil. By that time, the activists’ aim was no longer to convince people that they could pass for heterosexuals, but to vindicate them being exactly as they were.

London celebrated its first Pride march in 1972. Two thousand demonstrators marched down Oxford Street demanding equality and fair treatment on 1st July, the closest Saturday to the revolt’s anniversary. London Pride kept gathering small crowds until 1988. That year, thirty thousand demonstrators showed their opposition to the recently introduced Section 28, which aimed to limit the promotion of homosexuality.

London LGBT Pride 1988
London Pride march in 1988. (BBC News)

Many European capitals rapidly followed London’s example. By the late eighties, Pride events were widespread throughout Western Europe. Indeed, Madrid celebrated its first Pride event in 1978, a mere three years after Franco’s death. Seven thousand people joined the march to demand decriminalisation of homosexuality. In that same spirit, Berlin hosted its first Pride event in 1979, with only 500 attendants, a number that would also grow year after year.

Momentum and legal change

In the West, the success of Pride marches across European borders propelled the inception of EuroPride in 1992. This is a pan-European LGBT event hosted in a different European city every year, reaching not only the West but also Eastern capitals like Warsaw and Riga. Still, activists would reach some milestones before the first EuroPride parade.

In 1979, Sweden removed homosexuality from the list of mental disorders following the occupation of the National Board of Health and Welfare by a group of activists. The World Health Organisation would need an additional eleven years to pull homosexuality out of International Classification of Diseases’ tenth version.

Sweden is, in fact, one of the most progressive countries in terms of social acceptance of LGBT individuals in the world. In 1972, the Nordic country became the first country to offer free sex reassignment treatment. Under the Gender Recognition Act 2012, Swedes may freely choose their legal gender, with sterilisation no longer being a requirement for sex reassignment surgery.

Denmark led the race towards same-sex civil unions. Early in the eighties, the Danish National Organisation for LGBT put forward a bill to offer same-sex couples an alternative to marriage, for marriage was a matter reserved to the Church. Thus, the Danish Parliament passed the Registered Partnership Act in 1989 following an arduous legislative process. Even if it fell short of granting full equality, this law was an important stepping stone.

Denmark gay wedding
One of the first gay civil unions that were celebrated in Copenhaguen.

Western countries followed the Danish model in the nineties, with the LGBT community gathering broader support form the greater public to make historic gains. With Germany ditching Paragraph 175 in 1994 and domestic partnerships becoming the norm in Western Europe, the train of LGBT rights seemed unstoppable.

Across the Iron Curtain

Eastern Europe had to wait until 1999 to see its first Pride event. It was Minsk, Belarus, the first former Soviet city where LGBT people would demand their rights in a series of conferences organised by the magazine Forum Lambda and the Belarusian League for Sexual Equality. Most Pride-related events would be banned the following years or interrupted midway. As of today, six years have passed since Minsk’s latest Pride march.

Warsaw hosted the largest Pride march in Eastern Europe, with more than 50,000 attendants in 2019. The Czech Republic follows closely behind, with an estimation of 40,000 participants in Prague Pride 2018. Nonetheless, celebrating Pride events is not permitted in some Eastern European cities: due to a local ban by Moscow’s city courts, Pride marches are illegal in Russia’s capital until the year 2112.

Warsaw LGBT Pride march in 2019.
50k people turned out to the Warsaw streets on the 8th of June, 2019, celebrating the largest Pride march in Eastern Europe to this day. (NY Times)

Into the 21th century

In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to enact same-sex marriage. Same-sex partners won full recognition under Dutch law in spite of the staunch opposition of Christian parties.

The Dutch charity Cultuur en Ontspanningscentrum (Centre for Culture and Leisure) was essential in the development of a gay subculture in Amsterdam during the fifties and sixties. Henk Krol led the movement in the eighties to further enhance tolerance towards LGBT community and, as early as 1995, the Dutch Parliament set up a commission to explore the possibility of granting equal marriage rights to same-sex partners. Six years after, the impossible had already been achieved.

Belgium followed suit in 2003.

The largest European Pride: Madrid

With the turn of the millennium, Madrid Pride’s success had not only brought LGBT rights to the fore but it also helped Madrid blossom as a gay-friendly touristic destination.

Madrid city hall with LGBT flag
Madrid city hall featuring the LGBT flag during World Pride (June 2017).

In 2005, Spain became the third country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage. Despite two thirds of Spaniards supporting the bill, its passage was nothing short of controversial, as a 180,000-strong crowd spearheaded by senior Catholic bishops and the People’s Party congregated under the motto family matters to show their opposition to the proposal.

Probably owing to this and the demonstrations that followed, LGBT matters kept gaining public attention to make Spain one of the most open and tolerant countries in the world. Nowadays, Madrid Pride is the largest LGBT event in Europe and the second in the world, with more than 1.5 million people every year.

Pride and equality today

At the time of writing, Western Europe has become a beacon of marriage equality. As of today, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland France, Great Britain, Iceland, the Republic of Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden have recognised same-sex couples the right to marry.

Madrid is not the only massive Pride event nowadays; London Pride is now one of the most popular events in the UK’s Capital and one of the greatest Pride parades in the world with more than one million attendants every year. Paris, Stockholm, Brussels, Vienna and Amsterdam are but five European capitals where Pride marches gather hundreds of thousands.

Same-sex couples in Europe and surroundings
Countries in navy blue celebrate same-sex marriages; in royal blue, civil partnerships; in grey-ish blue, cohabitational registration; foreign same-sex weddings are recognised in lighter blue countries. Purple countries’ constitutions forbid same-sex marriage. Russia also restricts freedom of expresion and association. (Wikipedia)

Shadows Remain on the East

While same-sex marriage enjoys widespread support in Western Europe, the West-East divide on LGBT rights remains a substantial challenge to European cohesion since as many as fourteen Eastern European countries have introduced constitutional amendments to exclusively define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Given the Catholic Church’s grip in Poland, LGBT rights are largely limited. The ruling PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński asseverated in 2005 that “homosexuality is the downfall of civilization“, and the country’s constitution bans same-sex marriage. Notwithstanding these facts, Poland lets homosexual males donate blood, which is something still forbidden in several Western countries, and it can take pride in being the only European country where homosexuality has never been illegal.

Both Russia and Belarus pose serious concerns for the LGBT community, where discrimination is still legal. While Russia lets trans persons change their documents after undergoing reassignment surgery, federal law explicitly prohibits so-called gay propaganda, actually making nearly impossible for LGBT individuals to live openly and to discuss all matters related to their sexual orientations or gender identities. Contrary to what the laws suggest, recent polls suggest that 47% of Russians agree that lesbians and gays should enjoy equal rights.

Moscow ersatz LGBT Pride
A performance by Spanish activists in Moscow during the 2018 World Cup. (Euronews)

Romania has taken encouraging steps towards equality by introducing protection against discrimination, yet there remain significant hurdles to clear. As a token, the country held in 2018 a referendum to introduce a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage; the amendment was only not adopted since the vote failed to meet the turnout threshold.

Czech and Slovakian breakthroughs

The Czech Republic remains a beacon of progress in LGBT matters in Central and Eastern Europe. While registered partnerships have been legal since 2006, albeit with some major drawbacks: for instance, joint adoption and in vitro fecundation are still out of reach for same-sex couples. Nevertheless, a light appeared on the horizon in 2018 with the introduction of a bill to extend marriage to same-sex couples.

Neighbouring Slovakia is keeping a close watch, for the victory of liberal and pro-LGBT rights Zuzana Čaputová in the 2019 presidential election offers Slovaks a bit of blue sky in their way towards LGBT equality.

Footnotes

1. Sodomites: legal term used for men involved in sexual intercourse with other men. It commonly included bestiality, thus giving male homosexuals and zoophiles the same treatment.
2. Conversion therapy: term used for the pseudo-therapies, i.e. programmes with the aspect of clinical therapy but without the backing of solid scientific research, that aimed to change the so-called patient’s sexual orientation or desire, or gender identity.

 

This article has been jointly written by Samuel Ranz and Cristina Zamora García.

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Samuel Ranz

Samuel Ranz is a PhD student in geometry, athlete, and football referee. He is passionate about European history and politics, as well as he is about exploring the recondite corners of our beloved continent.

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