Assimilation Lgbt Community

“My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you”, Audre Lorde wrote in “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”(Lorde and Clarke 2007). The LGBT community has had to fight for social and political progress within many diverse spheres. Early movements often struggled to select the appropriate approaches towards achieving progress. Many issues the community has been confronted with were divisive in nature, with some preferring assimilation, while others preferred a more radical approach. In regards to some obstacles towards equality, working within the system quietly, while appearing to assimilate may prove beneficial in soothing the concerns of powerful opposing stakeholders. However, in the history of the contemporary LGBT movement, there have been instances in which quiet assimilation would not suffice. An unjustly marginalized population may only withstand oppression for so long before they will decide to catalyze progress through any means necessary. A historical personification of this community wide breaking point may be when Storme Delarverie encouraged her peers to fight back against the unjust treatment they …show more content…
While the previous progressive decades had allowed for increased visibility of the LGBT community, there was still an overwhelming lack of knowledge or understanding of the gay population. Furthermore, little was known about the transmission of the disease, and fear fueled the misconceptions that subsequently ensued. People feared transmission through casual contact, even airborne transmission. Meanwhile, those initially afflicted with the diseases were faced with two unimaginably tragic new realities; they had become afflicted with a life-ending disease, and they were about to be feared by the majority of the