Throughout history there have been debates on gay rights and whether homosexuals should have rights or not. The United States didn’t always believe in gay rights. In the United States it used to be illegal to a homosexual. In the 1940’s the United States believed that homosexuality was a mental illness based on the American Psychiatric Association and Alfred Kinsey. During this time homosexuals were in fear of being imprisoned, psychiatric lockup, losing custody of their children, and losing their job. On December 15, 1950 a Senate report titled "Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government" was passed to Congress saying that it was a security risk to hire homosexuals because they are mentally ill and aren’t emotionally stable.
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Hooker wrote a paper titled "The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual" that she shared at the American Psychological Association Convention in Chicago. She did research on recent homosexual and heterosexual mental evaluations and saw that they really differ. Her paper really helped people start taking the right steps towards gay rights. In court something that never occurred before happened. For the first time ever the United States Supreme Court rules in favor of homosexuals. The case was Inc. v. Olesen the magazine company was allowed to publish a magazine on gays, lesbians, and transgender, and on January 1, 1962 Chicago, Illinois was the first state to legalize homosexuality. Things really started looking up for gays; and in 1969 homosexuals had their first riot. The police raided a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn in New York City. Instead of the gays allowing them to raid the place they started to fight back. According to History of Gay Rights in the U.S. article “The Stonewall Riots served as the spark that turned the gay rights movement into a much larger protest for equal rights and acceptance. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders.” [History of Gay Rights in the U.S.] A year later on Christopher Street, the location of the Stonewall Inn riots, there was a celebration of the Stonewall Inn
Hooker wrote a paper titled "The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual" that she shared at the American Psychological Association Convention in Chicago. She did research on recent homosexual and heterosexual mental evaluations and saw that they really differ. Her paper really helped people start taking the right steps towards gay rights. In court something that never occurred before happened. For the first time ever the United States Supreme Court rules in favor of homosexuals. The case was Inc. v. Olesen the magazine company was allowed to publish a magazine on gays, lesbians, and transgender, and on January 1, 1962 Chicago, Illinois was the first state to legalize homosexuality. Things really started looking up for gays; and in 1969 homosexuals had their first riot. The police raided a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn in New York City. Instead of the gays allowing them to raid the place they started to fight back. According to History of Gay Rights in the U.S. article “The Stonewall Riots served as the spark that turned the gay rights movement into a much larger protest for equal rights and acceptance. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders.” [History of Gay Rights in the U.S.] A year later on Christopher Street, the location of the Stonewall Inn riots, there was a celebration of the Stonewall Inn