One can not talk about fashion and creation without paying tribute to the designers, stylists, creators, artistic directors, to Christian Dior, to the Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint-Laurent as well as Tom Ford and Richard Buckley couples who from the beginning of the former century to now have brought their support to the liberation of an oppressed majority, women. It is also to these talented and determined men that we owe the recognition of gay rights.
It's in the USA, land of all the 20th century's revolutions, that the fight burst out in June 1969 against the security forces, and carried on in America's Courts. The first gay pride parades took place in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco on the 28th of June, 1972, which will soon be followed by another one in April 1972 in Munich. Until now, these parades celebrate sexual freedom, and the idea that all communities can live together.
Just as it did for other minorities, the press will play a major part in the fight for the recognition of gay rights. Pierre Bergé will dedicate a part of his fortune and his political connections to this cause. In 1995, he founded the Têtu magazine which will exist thanks to the advertising support of fashion and new technologies firms. Many celebs, artists, politicians, will choose Têtu to do their coming out. In 2002, Jacques Chirac was the first president to give an interview to the magazine. In December 2002, Pierre Lellouche, drafts the “Lellouche Act” which criminalizes homophobia on an equal footing with racism and antisemitism.
During electoral periods, the magazine has become a must for all candidates who have to express their views on the future of civil liberties.
Today, the gay family has expanded. Starting from June 2013, after the implementation of a civil partnership in the French legal system, the Republican marriage will no longer be subjected to sexual preferences conditions. Besides, thanks to aviation, to the Internet, and to more favorable foreign legislations pushed by the evolution of mentalities and scientific progress in the field of medically assisted procreation, gay couples are no longer subject to local adoption laws that relegated them to the second plan. In fact, those who can afford it can already legally know about the joys of parenthood. The envious ones can no longer call them DINKs, for double income no kids.
While the fashion world has played an important part in the recognition of gay rights, gays have played a major part in freedom and comfort of men's clothing, allowing them to enter into a new seduction game, the one in which you please yourself. Proud of their looks, gays have reviewed, resized, colored all the clothes and acessories which used to be considered as outdated in town because they uncover men's bodies: shorts, flip-flops, sandals, marcel tank tops... Gays allowed them to play again, bringing a new comfort, a less formal elegance to all men. They allowed men to access diets, hair removal, skin care, to have their hair cut short or long, and to find their way back to the gym.
That's what advertisers, who always have had a penchant for etiquettes and weird grammar, call Metrosexuals :-)