ABSTRACT
This essay provides an overview of the transnational movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. Its trajectory has involved individuals, informal networks, nongovernmental organizations, and states. It has not always worked in concert and has often faced resistance from a various but similar constellations of actors determined to stop the global movement for LGBT equality. While progress toward LGBT equality has been marked in many nations, there are other cases where LGBT people are brutally repressed. Although the global human rights community is working toward making LGBT rights an integral element of universal human rights, its ability to enforce these norms and close dramatic disparities in the experiences of LGBT people around the world is so far limited. Using selected historical figures, organizations, and events to illuminate critical junctures in the global LGBT movement, this essay asks readers to contemplate whether global LGBT equality is possible, what such equality might look like, and what actions could be taken at the international level to facilitate that aim.
