The Gay Academic Union was a group of LGBT academics who aimed at making the academia more amenable to the LGBT community. It was formed in April 1973, just four years after the Stonewall riots

Stonewall riots

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City...

,, held 4 yearly conferences (the last in November, 1976) and conducted other scholarly activities. It disbanded some time after that.

History

Members included Martin Duberman

Martin Duberman

Martin Bauml Duberman is an American historian, playwright, and gay-rights activist. He is Professor of History Emeritus at Lehman College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York and was the founder of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the CUNY Graduate School...

, Bertha Harris

Bertha Harris

Bertha Harris was an American lesbian novelist. Born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, she moved to New York City in the 1960s. She is highly regarded by critics and admirers, but her novels are less familiar to the broader public.-Career and published works:She is best known for her stylistically...

, Karla Jay

Karla Jay

Karla Jay is a professor of English and the director of the Women's and Gender Studies program at Pace University. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, she is widely published....

, John D'Emilio

John D'Emilio

John D'Emilio is a professor of history and of women's and gender studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He taught at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1982, where his advisor was William Leuchtenburg...

, Jonathan Ned Katz

Jonathan Ned Katz

Jonathan Ned Katz is an American historian of human sexuality who has focused on same-sex attraction and changes in the social organization of sexuality over time...

, Barbara Gittings

Barbara Gittings

Barbara Gittings was a prominent American activist for gay equality. She organized the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis from 1958 to 1963, edited the national DOB magazine The Ladder from 1963 to 1966, and worked closely with Frank Kameny in the 1960s on the first picket lines that...

, George Whitmore

George Whitmore

- Biography :George Whitmore lived in Manhattan.He was a member of The Violet Quill, the Gay Academic Union and the Gay Men's Health Crisis.Alongside his novels and non-fiction work, he wrote for the New York Times Magazine,the Advocate, the New York Native, and Christopher Street.- Bibliography...

, Andrea Dworkin

Andrea Dworkin

Andrea Rita Dworkin was an American radical feminist and writer best known for her criticism of pornography, which she argued was linked to rape and other forms of violence against women....

, Dawn M. Atkins. They held their first conference on November 23 and 24, 1973, at the City University of New York

City University of New York

The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...

 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

Martin Duberman remembers that lesbians were often discriminated against by other white male homosexuals. He recalls an argument with George Whitmore.

By 1975, many radicals had left the group and conferences were moved to Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, although Wayne Dynes and others stayed in New York. The 1976 conference, however, was held at Columbia University in New York City: http://www.rainbowhistory.org/GAU41976.pdf.