End of year Individual Research Projects

being male, female, both or neither, which is separate from your biological sex.
People who have a different sexual orientation or gender identity from most people
fall under the umbrella term LGBTQ+. It is really important to know that identifying as
LGBTQ+ is NOT a mental illness or disorder. (Mhanational, n.d)
WHEN DID LGBTQIA+ AWARENESS START TO BE MORE
OR LESS MAINSTREAM?
It is important to remember that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people,
communities, and relationships existed long before these names were commonly
used. LGBTQIA+ people existed back in ancient Rome and Greece and are seen in
a lot of art from that era. (lgbtqhistory, n.d)
The history of gay rights movements, initially LGBT and later LGBTQI, can be
understood only in light of the forms of persecution and oppression faced by
individuals who had relationships with people of their own gender and/or did not
conform to the social expectations of their own gender. They first started being
normalised in the first half of the nineteenth century. There has been an increasing
awareness of the demands made by the LGBTQI movement during the early twentyfirst
century, mostly with regard to measures for combating discrimination, which are
at the foundation of the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. (ehne,
n.d)
The Second Republic, a republican government that ruled Spain from 1931 to 1936,
saw women's legal rights expand and remove the crime of homosexuality from the
Spanish Criminal Code in 1932. The Second Republic marked the start of an era of
rising intellectualism and cultural awareness in Spain for the LGBTQ+ population.
LGBTQ+ people in Spain suffered brutal persecution under Francisco Franco's rule
after the Civil War. Multiple national laws and decrees passed made homosexuality
illegal under the Franco dictatorship, and LGBTQ+ people were held in internment
camps, imprisoned, or killed.
5