Reassessing and expanding the model

The previous two chapters have traced the parallel developmental pattern of the British and American gay and lesbian movements: a changing opportunity – or multiple opportunities – was exploited by pre-existing organizations and coupled with cognitive liberation and subsequent collective affirmative identity formation to produce a social movement. This movement then spurred sundry interest groups at various levels of government. These histories are paradoxical; although the American movement emerged first, was recognized as the international leader, and maintained the largest mass constituency, it has been unable to secure any formalized national recognition of legal equality. Yet, its smaller British counterpart achieved this feat at a date when a movement – as defined by the political process model – had not yet fully formed.

Similar mobilization histories are told with regard to the AIDS crisis possibly because AIDS acts as an exogenous shock to the movement. In other words, AIDS was recognized as a global crisis fostering mobilization by gay organizations throughout the world. Second, both the United States and the United Kingdom were governed by conservative leaders at the beginning of the epidemic.