Revised Article Number One Kassandra Barber

Kassandra Barber

WGST 202

T/Th 9:30-10:45

Professor Currans

Blog Topic: Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Rights Movement

Article Review #1

Wesley, Joan Marshall, Ercilla Dometz Hendrix, and Jasmine N. Williams. “Moving  Forward: Advancing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Under the Obama Administration through Progressive Politics.”  Race, Gender & Class 18.3 (2011): 150-68. ProQuest. Web. 17 Sep. 2013.

            The first article I am reviewing is called “Moving Forward: Advancing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Under the Obama Administration through Progressive Politics.”  The authors bring up that being gay, bisexual, lesbian, or transgender is a lot like facing the same battle that people with discriminated races, genders, and classes face.  In the article the authors talk about what exactly the Obama Administration is doing to make strides for Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian and Transgender people in the United States. The main point of the article is looking at what the Obama administration has been doing to move forward in the LGBT movement and what they’re doing to help the community.  The areas that they cover in the article are marriage, military rights, housing and family rights as well.  The authors touch base on each subject and what the Obama Administration has done in each area to advance on it. 

The article starts off by discussing the statistics of how many same sex couples there actually are in the United States during the year 2000 according to the census.   The numbers came out to be roughly an astonishing 600,000 people. This information was brought to the article via research done by Dang and Frazer.  The authors go on to bring up that anti-discrimination policies and civil rights have gotten more attention and in doing so, pushed the LGBT community as well as scholars and justice advocated to fight for the equality of people who stepped out of the heterosexual bounds of human nature.  The article discusses the fact that in other countries having relations with someone of the same sex is considered a crime, and would go so far as to inflict the death penalty on someone who participated in such acts.  The LGBT community has done a very good job in raising awareness about fighting for their equal rights in the United States.  Because of their hard work in getting the government to realize the importance of equal rights for LGBT, the Obama Administration as appointed 170 people to positions in the executive branch who are supportive of the LGBT community. 

The article moves on to discuss how marriage and family rights are effected when people stray away from the heterosexual norms of society and what the Obama administration is doing to help ease the discrimination the LGBT community is facing.  It has been increasingly hard for families that are led by same sex couples to be able to pursue adoption.  The Defense of Marriage Act or DOMA banned same sex marriages in 1996.  This act doesn’t make it completely impossible for people of the same sex to get married.  According to the article, each state has the right to allow people to have same sex marriage but only within its state lines, anywhere else the marriage wouldn’t be considered a marriage.  The LGBT community is touching base, or making strides with pretty much every aspect of life in the United States, including the military.   At first the policy of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” was enacted.  This basically meant that army personnel could be part of the LGBT community but they had to do it in a secretive sense.  This meaning that sure they could be in the military and be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, they just could tell anyone about it while they were enlisted.  But it 2010 the United States government turned around this act for the best by repealing it.  This is a major step forward for the LGBT community in the military aspect of life in the United States.

Last but not least, the authors touch base on housing.  Not much progress has been made by way of housing discrimination against the LGBT community according to the authors, but the Obama Administration is making an attempt to address the issue.  President Obama has directed HUD to perform a survey to find out how many people belonging to the LGBT community are actually being discriminated against when it comes to housing.  As a result the administration and HUD discovered that there are in fact people being denied homes, or even evicted solely based on the fact that they were Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgender. In response to the results the administration had received HUD was ordered to propose rules regarding defining sexual orientation, making it so people couldn’t ask what another person’s sexual orientation or gender identity was when applying for housing. And lastly, it wasn’t permissible to use a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity as a factor in deciding whether someone deserved a home or not. Even though these rules were put into effect, it seemed to be that the housing discrimination for LGBT had actually increased. 

This article is about as closely related to my topic as you can possibly get.  My topic is the Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Rights Movement.    This article explores all the different areas in which the LGBT community is discriminated against in the United States and what the Obama Administration has done to make progress in equality for the community.  These areas include housing, the military, family rights, and marriage.  This article is tied into class because it’s related to social movements.  Much like feminism, the LGBT communities fight for rights has come in waves.  In most of these areas the changes the Obama Administration made actually seemed to make some improvements for the LGBT community this could be considered the waves.  With the Obama Administration being supportive of the community and helping to make all these changes there has been great progress made.  This article is great because it touches base with all of the areas of life in the United States that the LGBT community struggle with because people discriminate against them.  The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender rights movement is growing more and more each day and I strongly recommend joining it and fighting for the equal rights of everyone no matter what their sexual orientation or gender identity is.