Protesting
This gem of our cultural heritage surely needs no introduction, due in no small part to our ongoing need to fight for our rights. Protesting is a necessity; the creativity with which it is done, however, is tradition.
kiss-in
Act Up-Paris stages a kiss-in outside of the Nigerian Embassy, 2007. William Hamon.
Kiss-ins are usually held to protest blatant homophobia, particularly from governments and institutions. Most recently, Voices 4 and RUSA LGBT staged a kiss-in to protest violence enacted by Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Azerbaijan against their LGBT+ populations.
die-in
Act Up stages a die-in outside of the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1990.
Die-ins are used to protest policies that very literally contribute to the deaths of many people. In LGBT+ history, die-ins are heavily associated with the AIDS crisis.
Marching
Madrid, 2017. Adolfo Lujan.
London, 2016. Alisdare Hickson.
Moscow, 2008. Nikolai Alekseev.
Sometimes you just gotta march. It's probably the most common form of protest, and often the most effective - after all, what is Pride? One big protest.
Art
Photography by the legendary Paola Revenioti.
Keith Haring's iconic contribution to art raising awareness of AIDS.
Patricia Cronin's "Memorial to a Marriage" was created in 2002 when same-sex marriage was not legal in New York, nor did the artist believe it would be in her lifetime. The original sculpture rests in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
Art is emotive, provocative, and unavoidable, making it the perfect medium for protest. This was common during the AIDS crisis, but given the creativity of the LGBT+ community, art as political statement is firmly a part of our culture.
Sip-in
The Mattachine Society at Julius’. Photo via Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images.
If you ever wondered why we have bars that we specifically designate as “gay bars”, it’s not just because regular bars have historically been unsafe for the LGBT+ community'; in the U.S., ‘homosexuals’ were informally barred from being served alcohol on the grounds that we were, by nature, ‘disorderly’. In 1966, the Mattachine Society, led by Dick Leitsch, held a ‘sip-in’ at Julius’ in NYC. The resulting lawsuit clarified that the LGBT+ community should be allowed to be served in bars, and the Mattachine Society continued to work towards ending police raids right up until the Stonewall Riots, which became, of course, the monumental revolution against those raids.