Why New York City Remains Central to LGBTQ History and Community

New York City occupies an unusually important place in the history and present-day geography of LGBTQ life in the United States. It is home to one of the country’s largest self-identifying lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer populations, and has been described as a central hub of LGBTQ political and social life.

That prominence is closely tied to Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan. The neighborhood was the site of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, an event widely regarded as crucial to the formation of the modern gay rights movement in the United States. Its influence also extended beyond the country, helping give New York a lasting role in the broader history of LGBTQ liberation.

The city’s significance is not only historical. An estimate from 2005 counted 272,493 self-identifying gay and bisexual residents in New York City. For the wider New York metropolitan area, the estimate was 568,903 self-identifying LGBTQ residents. These figures come from different geographic measures and should not be treated as interchangeable, but together they indicate the scale of the region’s LGBTQ population.

New York is also home to the largest transgender population in the United States, according to an estimate from 2018. That population was estimated at 50,000 people, with residents concentrated in Manhattan and Queens. The estimate offers a broad view of where transgender New Yorkers lived at that time, while avoiding the assumption that the city’s LGBTQ communities are located in only one neighborhood or borough.

The city’s LGBTQ story therefore has several dimensions. Greenwich Village represents a landmark of movement history, while Manhattan and Queens are identified as important centers of transgender population. Across the city and metropolitan region, the available estimates point to a large and varied community whose presence has shaped New York’s civic and cultural identity.

Because the population figures are estimates gathered for particular years, they provide snapshots rather than a current census. They also reflect the limits of self-identification and the categories used in the underlying counts. Even with those limitations, the material supports a clear conclusion: New York City’s LGBTQ importance rests both on its role in the history of gay liberation and on the continuing scale of its LGBTQ communities.

Source and reuse information This automatically generated backgrounder adapts text from “List of LGBTQ people in New York City” on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LGBTQ_people_in_New_York_City The adapted text is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. The source article’s linked references are provided below where available. This story has not been independently reviewed or fact-checked.

Further links listed by the Wikipedia page (not independently checked): - https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/new-york/articles/why-new-york-city-is-a-major-destination-for-lgbt-travelers/ - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/25/nyregion/stonewall-inn-named-national-monument-a-first-for-gay-rights-movement.html - https://books.google.com/books?id=pZPYLuUnzJ4C&pg=PA28 - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/25/arts/design/a-monument-to-gay-and-trangender-people-is-coming-to-new-york.html - https://news.columbia.edu/news/digital-project-maps-sites-new-yorks-lgbt-history - https://www.jjay.cuny.edu/faculty/kevin-l-nadal Image rights Photograph description: Artwork for THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER Underground House Mix Black Lives Matter / LGBTQ Pride 2020 Edition EXB Mix 2020.08 Length: 1:56:59 Released 27 June 2020 Mount Vernon, Baltimore MD MIXCLOUD <a href=" https://www.mixcloud.com/ElvertBarnes/june-2020-things-can-only-get-better-underground-house-black-lives-matter-lgbtq-pride-mix/ " rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.mixcloud.com/ElvertBarnes/june-2 Creator: Elvert Barnes. License: CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0). Original image page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACover.ThingsCanOnlyGetBetter.House.BLM.Pride.June2020_(50050005212).jpg. The image was resized for display; no other changes were made.