The New York Times Editorial Staff - Sex and Sexuality

TY WRIGHT/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Lena Williams, right, and Crystal Zimmer hold hands after they were married at Hamilton County Courthouse in Cincinnati on June 26, 2015.

The reporting on these topics demonstrates the interconnectedness of the lives of LGBT+ individuals and women with the political and cultural gains these groups have made. Our understanding of sex and sexuality is a direct result of minority groups fighting and advocating for equal treatment.

These articles also show how the attitudes of the reporters and the newspaper as a whole have evolved over time. As an article in the first chapter shows, reporting on gay rights in the past featured opinions from psychoanalysts who believed homosexuality could be treated and referred to gay men as deviates and inverts. For many years, most articles on transgender people focused on surgery or violence, sensationalizing but not humanizing transgender issues. And words like pansexual, genderqueer and gender-noncomforming were nowhere in The New York Times archives.

It is important to note that this title bridges several issues surrounding sex and sexuality. Sexual orientation is distinct from gender identity: while the former has to do with ones attraction to other people, the latter relates to ones understanding of ones own self.

The cultural conversation around sex and sexuality continues to develop with time. In 2017, when news of Harvey Weinsteins history of sexual assault broke, women across the world spoke up as part of the #MeToo movement, elevating the dialogue about gender equality. Sexual assault cases on college campuses raised conversations about sexual consent, and dating apps have changed the dynamics of dating. And the youngest generation has already demonstrated an interest in creating a world without such rigid gender and sexual categories. Ultimately, the individual pieces in this title celebrate the diversity of gender identities and sexual expressions that make up American life and culture.

In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, New York City police conducted a raid on the patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in the West Village. What followed was a spontaneous riot that became known as the foundation of the gay rights movement. This chapter documents The New York Times' reporting on gay and lesbian rights, demonstrating the growing cultural acceptance of gay identities and evolving editorial attitudes toward how these issues should be covered.

BY MURRAY SCHUMACH | MAY 7, 1967

when word got out last week that Columbia University had become the first collegiate organization in the nation to issue a charter to an organization seeking equal rights for homosexuals, it brought a few rays of sunshine to the twilight world that alternates between the furtive and the flagrant.

And yet, to those homosexuals who have taken considerable risk to try to win for themselves the right to be judged as individuals, it was hardly surprising that this advance for them was made in New York City. For it is here that the third sex is establishing a national capital.

From the police and the District Attorneys office, as well as from the Mattachine Society, defender of homosexual rights, come reports that the homosexuals find in New York these days more opportunities

for employment than they have ever known in this country anywhere. They still find plenty of evidence of discrimination, hostility and harassment, but the climate has improved decidedly. Says an important police official:

The whole area of morals is a problem and probably always will be. But the situation for homosexuals has improved since last April when we decided that the police were not to be used to entrap homosexuals. I think it has been made very clear to the police that homosexuality is not illegal. A guy can mince down the street with marcelled blond hair and if he doesnt bother anyone it is not illegal. What we get is a steady stream of complaints about such situations.