The third issue that the Gay Left has addressed is the "traditional" one of the relationship of homosexuality to capitalism, social class, and the economic forms of oppression. The Gay Left has long challenged the myth that the glbtq community is an economically privileged elite. Gay left writers have explored the ways that the economy has shaped the lives of glbtq people who come from all social classes and occupations. Amy Gluckman and Betsy Reed's pioneering anthology, Homo Economics (1997), brings together many of these perspectives.

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Right-wing groups in the U.S. have opposed the civil rights of glbtq people with the argument that the glbtq community is wealthier and more prosperous than the average American family and that glbtq people are therefore in no need of any "special" civil rights to participate in the economy or have an opportunity to hold a decent job.

Conservatives made such an argument in 1996 before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Romer v. Evans, concerning an amendment to the Colorado state constitution that barred the passage of any gay and lesbian civil rights legislation. However, economist Lee Badgett and progressive activists developed the argument and the data to counter the right-wing's claim. Their argument may have been influential on the Court's majority in the historic ruling in Romer v. Evans, though conservative Associate Justice Antonin Scalia mouthed the right-wing's line in his bitter dissent when he fulminated that "those who engage in homosexual conduct tend to reside in disproportionate numbers in certain communities, have high disposable income, and . . . possess political power much greater than their numbers, both locally and statewide."

In addition, during the 1990s many large corporations developed high-powered marketing campaigns targeting glbtq communities. Many of these campaigns have promoted narrow standards of beauty, restricted social needs, and fostered a limited social expression that operates within mainstream consumerism. The Gay Left has critiqued the effects of such consumerism on glbtq communities and political tactics.

New formations on the Gay Left have also emerged to address the inequalities of income and opportunity that affect glbtq people from minority and working-class backgrounds.

While Gay Left has not had an enduring institutional presence in glbtq communities, its political and intellectual perspectives have been influential for many decades.

Most gay, lesbian, and bisexual American writers who adhered to Marxist-oriented parties and social movements between 1917 and the 1960s strove to hide their sexual orientation, and some even depicted homosexuals negatively in their fiction and drama.

Although one cannot speak of a gay community in Cuba, one can speak of a homoerotic environment for meeting and socializing in Havana that is constantly moving and reshaping itself.

A growing body of scholarly and other work on Cultural Identities challenges the "naturalness," and even the political necessity, of a unitary gay and lesbian identity.

The U.S. gay rights movement has made significant progress toward achieving equality for glbtq Americans, and in the process has become more inclusive and diverse, but much remains to be done.

Not limited to activity in the traditionally conceived political sphere, identity politics refers to activism, politics, theorizing, and other similar activities based on the shared experiences of members of a specific social group, often relying on shared experiences of oppression.

The lesbian "sex wars" of the 1980s, centered on issues of pornography and s/m, constituted one of the most significant debates among second-wave feminists in North America and Europe.

Over the past decade, the field of market research has developed a more complete snapshot of a highly diverse population of glbtq consumers by using newer scientific methodologies.

A cultural crossroads between Asia and Europe, Russia has a long, rich, and often violent heritage of varied influences and stark confrontations in regard to its patterns of same-sex love.

The sexual revolution of post-World War II America changed sexual and gender roles profoundly.

The Women's Liberation Movement, which flourished during the 1970s, constitutes the largest and most widely publicized social movement of women in history.

Australian political scientist and self-described "international activist-academic" Dennis Altman has studied both the glbtq political movement and the globalization of sexual identities.

One of the most accomplished poets of the twentieth century, W. H. Auden found that his gayness led him to new insights into the universal impulse to love and enlarged his understanding of all kinds of relationships.

Edward Carpenter, a champion of both women's and homosexuals' liberation, was one of the great socialist visionaries of England at the turn of the twentieth century.

Robert Duncan wrote a remarkable series of poems that deal directly with the love of men for other men.

Controversial radical feminist and anti-pornography crusader Andrea Dworkin wrote and spoke extensively on the cultural subjugation of women.

Henry Havelock Ellis--British psychologist and writer--was one of the first modern thinkers to challenge Victorian taboos against the frank and objective discussion of sex.

One of the leading philosophers of the twentieth century, Foucault has had an enormous influence on our understanding of the lesbian and gay literary heritage and the cultural forces surrounding it.

The founder of psychoanalysis and the discoverer of the unconscious, Sigmund Freud initiated a fundamental transformation in the self-understanding of Western men and women, including especially the role of sexuality.

Formed soon after the Stonewall Riots of 1969, the short-lived but influential Gay Liberation Front brought a new militancy to the movement that became known as gay liberation.

André Gide, one of the premier French writers of the twentieth century, reflected his homosexuality in many of his numerous works.

An energetic political organizer, fiery radical, and a passionate free spirit, anarchist Emma Goldman outspokenly defended the rights of homosexuals.

The candor with which the bisexual Paul Goodman wrote about the homosexual libido in his poetry and fiction made him an important and highly visible advocate of gay liberation.

French leftist Daniel Guérin came out publicly as a homosexual in his late sixties and for the remainder of his life worked to fuse gay liberation and left-wing politics.

German-born Magnus Hirschfeld deserves recognition as a significant theorist of sexuality and the most prominent advocate of homosexual emancipation of his time.

The work of African-American activist and writer Audre Lord was greatly influenced by her lesbianism.

German-born philosopher Herbert Marcuse had an enormous influence on theories of sexual liberation, particularly in the early post-Stonewall gay movement and on the left.

One of the earliest American gay movement organizations, the Mattachine Society was dedicated to the cultural and political liberation of homosexuals; but in the face of McCarthyism, it adopted conservative policies of accommodationism.

In her own works, Cherríe Moraga defines her experience as a Chicana lesbian; and in her capacity as editor/publisher, she provides a forum for traditionally silenced lesbians of color.

Through her writing, teaching, editing, and activism, Joan Nestle has devoted her life to promoting awareness of glbtq culture and advancing glbtq equality.

Adrienne Rich, who aestheticized politics and politicized aesthetics, is America's most widely read lesbian poet.

Romer v. Evans (1996) marks the first time in its history that the U. S. Supreme Court recognized lesbians and gay men as worthy and deserving of equal rights.

The confrontations between police and demonstrators at the Stonewall Inn in New York City the weekend of June 27-29, 1969 mark the beginning of the modern glbtq movement for equal rights.

John Addington Symonds was the most daring innovator in the history of nineteenth-century British homosexual writing and consciousness.

Celebrating an ideal of manly love in both its spiritual and physical aspects, Walt Whitman has exerted a profound and enduring influence on gay literature.

Oscar Wilde is important both as an accomplished writer and as a symbolic figure who exemplified a way of being homosexual at a pivotal moment in the emergence of gay consciousness.