hen mass amounts of people started moving into urban areas, leaving their farm jobs and moving to the city in hopes of better jobs, along with migration, made it easier for gay and lesbian Americans explore their sexuality because the people were more diverse and it was easier to find people who were like themselves (Wright). Areas that flourished with these kind of communities included San Francisco's Barbary Coast, New York's Harlem and Greenwich Villages, and the French quarter of New Orleans (Wright). People started to viewing homosexuals as not only morally corrupt but a threat to American culture ("Gay Rights"). Thus, police began to arrest gay men on sodomy charges in Manhattan in masses beginning in 1918, when 238 men were fined and jailed("Gay Rights"). State laws across the country criminalized same-sex acts, and even simple signs of affection like holding hands between two men or two women could get them arrested. Even revealing that one was gay resulted in admission to mental institution without a hearing. (Wright).
             A significant rebellion and push forward into the movement was the Stonewall Riots. On June 27, 1969, in New York's Greenwich Village, eight police officers entered into a suspected gay bar
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