The LGBTQ Movement has experienced one of the most remarkable ascendancies in modern civil rights organizing. As late as 2003, ten states criminally sanctioned same-sex sexual behavior while it was legal in more than three-quarters of the states to discriminate in employment, public accommodations, the provision of healthcare and education, family services and adoption, and banking because one was (or was suspected of being) lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer. Yet, by 2015, the United States recognized the legal right of same-sex couples to marry and almost three-quarters of the population live in states that protect residents regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. What accounts for this remarkable rise? What is the future of LGBTQ rights in the United States and around the world? Throughout this course, we will analyze these two key questions. This course is a survey of the emergence and growth of sexual and gender minority political identity, primarily in the United States. This course focuses on the intersectional nature of socially constructed identities and the effect of intersecting social and political power structures on the LGBTQ Movement, LGBTQ interest groups, and individual LGBTQ political attitudes and behaviors.