The LGBTQ+ community has had many positive and negative challenges throughout the years in many different countries. During the Nazi Germany regime the pink triangle became a symbol for “gay male prisoners held in concentration camps” (Rorholm and Gambrell, 2018-2019, p. 63). Then in the United States, the LGBTQ+ community faced obstacles but also had advantages. The community had the Stonewall Riots, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and finally the legalization of gay marriage in 2015. All of these major topics are historical moments in the LGBTQ+ community which is why I chose to work with the history lens out of the four general education lens. Learning the history of the LGBTQ+ community allows people to understand how the LGBTQ+ community has been able to deal with the challenges it faced head on without loosing hope over their community.

When looking more at what happened to gay men during the Nazi regime, “the number of gay men in German concentration camps is hard to estimate” (Rorholm and Gambrell, 2018-2019 p. 65). While one might think that memorials would have been made for them not too long after WWII, “It was not until the 1980s that the local Munich LGBTQAI+ community took the initiative to have memorials to the Pink Triangle victims erected worldwide.” (Rorholm and Gambrell, 2018-2019 p. 66).

Many decades after WWII, the United States had one of the biggest impacts on the LGBTQ+ community. That being the Stonewall Riots. During this event, we are introduced to Marsha P. Johnson who “grabbed a cobblestone from the ground, heaved it at the police, and screamed, “You can’t do that!”” (Poehlmann, 2017, p. 44). While Marsha P. Johnson was not the only person to be at the protest, she is one of the most talked about. There were many people there who helped with the protest. “Two muscular gay men wrestled with a damaged parking meter, trying to pry it out of the cracked sidewalk. It had been hit by a car and was bent at an angle, and the men rocked it back and forth until they managed to uproot it. Holding the parking meter like a battering ram, they slammed it repeatedly into the door of the bar.” (Poehlman, 2017, p. 45). “Then someone in the crowd had the idea to create makeshift Molotov cocktails—empty beer bottles filled with gasoline that would explode into small fires when they hit the bar floor. If the bar caught fire, the police would have to abandon the building and rush headfirst into the crowd.” (Poehlman, 2017, p. 47). Yet, the LGBTQ+ community had won, “The police were embarrassed that LGBT people had bested them, and they were angry enough to do almost anything in revenge.” (Poehlman, 2017, p. 48). The people there protesting didn’t let the police’s revenge of bringing in a riot squad stop them. They still fought against them and continued after the police. “The crowd’s resistance was fierce and determined, even as they were beaten and chased. They taunted the police, surrounding them from both sides of the street. Then they hurried down hidden alleys to catch up to the police when they moved. The street youths’ knowledge of the Village’s quirky layout allowed them to slip away from the riot squad many times.” (Poehlman, 2017, p. 50). Eventually, the LGBTQ+ protestor were the ones that ended the fight, “in the early hours of Saturday morning, the crowd began thinning out of its own accord. After fighting with the TPF and running through the streets all night, groups began splitting off from the crowd. They drifted away to catch up with friends and recount their experiences. By four o’clock in the morning, the full moon hung over streets that were eerily quiet.” (Poehlman, 2017, pp. 50-51).