Gay Liberation
Encyclopedia
Gay liberation is the name used to describe the lesbian
, gay
, bisexual and transgender
movement of the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s in North America
, Western Europe
, and Australia
and New Zealand
. The phrase is somewhat synonymous with the contemporary gay rights movement and broader LGBT social movements
, but following the academic use, this article is about movements of a particular historical period that shared similar goals and strategies.
Specifically, the word 'gay' was preferred to previous designations such as homosexual or homophile
; some saw 'gay' as a rejection of the false dichotomy heterosexual/homosexual. Lesbians and gay men were urged to "come out
", publicly revealing their sexuality to family, friends and colleagues as a form of activism, and to counter shame with gay pride
. Coming out and Pride parades have remained an important part of modern LGBT movements, and the visibility of lesbian and gay communities has continued to grow.
Gay lib is also known for its links to the counterculture
of the time, and for the Gay liberationists' intent to transform fundamental institutions of society such as gender
and the family
. In order to achieve such liberation, consciousness raising
and direct action
were employed. By the late 1970s, the radicalism of Gay liberation was eclipsed by a return to a more formal movement that espoused gay and lesbian civil rights
.
in 1969 in New York
are popularly remembered as the spark that produced a new movement, the origins predate this iconic event. Certainly, militant resistance to police bar-raids was nothing new — as early as 1725, customers fought off a police raid at a London homosexual/transgender molly house
. Organised movements, particularly in Western Europe
, have been active since the 19th century, producing publications, forming social groups and campaigning for social and legal reform. The movements of the period immediately preceding Gay lib, from the end of World War II
to the late 1960s, are known collectively as the Homophile movement. The homophile movement has been described as "politically conservative", although their calls for social acceptance of same-sex love and transsexuality were seen as radical fringe views by the dominant culture of the time.
, advocated direct action
, and the group staged the first public homosexual demonstrations
and picket lines in the 1960s. Frank Kameny, founder of Mattachine Washington in 1961, had advocated militant action reminiscent of the black civil rights campaign, whilst also arguing for the morality of homosexuality.
The New York State Liquor Authority did not allow homosexuals to be served in licensed bars in the state under penalty of revocation of the bar's license to operate. This denial of public accommodation had been confirmed by a court decision in the early 1940s. A legal study, commissioned by Mattachine New York on the city’s alcohol beverage law concluded that there was no law that prohibited homosexuals gathering in bars but that there was a law that prohibited disorderly behaviour in bars, which the SLA had been interpreting as homosexual behaviour. Leitsch, then, announced to the press that three members of Mattachine New York would turn up at a restaurant on the lower east side, announce their homosexuality and upon refusal of service make a complaint to the SLA. This came to be known as the ‘Sip In’ and only succeeded at the third attempt in the Julius Bar (New York City) in Greenwich Village. The ‘Sip In’, though, did gain extensive media attention and the resultant legal action against the SLA eventually prevented them from revoking licenses on the basis of homosexual solicitation in 1967.
In the years before 1969 the organization also was effective in getting New York City to change its policy of police entrapment of gay men, and to rescind its hiring practices designed to screen out gay people. The significance of the new John Lindsay administration and the use of the media by Mattachine New York should not be underestimated in ending police entrapment though. Lindsay would later gain a reputation for placing much focus on quelling social troubles in the city and his mayorship coinciding with the end of entrapment should be seen as significant. By late 1967, a New York group called the Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods (HYMN), essentially a one-man operation on the part of Craig Rodwell
, was already espousing the slogans "Gay Power" and "Gay is Good" in its publication HYMNAL.
The 1960s was a time of social upheaval in the West, and the sexual revolution
and counterculture
influenced changes in the homosexual subculture, which in the U.S. included bookshops, publicly sold newspapers and magazines and a community center. It was during this time that Los Angeles saw its first big gay movement. In 1967, the night of New Years, several plain clothed police officers infiltrated the Black Cat Tavern
. After arresting several patrons for kissing to celebrate the occasion, the self-unidentified police officers began beating several of the patrons and ultimately arrested 16 more bar attendees which included 3 bartenders. This created a riot in the immediate area, ultimately bringing about a more civil demonstration of over 200 attendees several days later protesting the raids. The protest was met by squadrons of armed policemen. It was from this event that the publication The Advocate
and organization Metropolitan Community Church
(led by Pastor Troy Perry) was born.
Few areas in the U.S. saw a more diverse mix of subcultures than Greenwich Village, which was host to the gay street youth. A group of young, effeminate runaways, shunned by their families, society and the gay community, they reflected the countercultural movement more than any other homosexual group. Refusing to hide their homosexuality, they were brutalised, rebellious tearaways who took drugs, fought, shoplifted and hustled older gay men in order to survive. Their age, behaviour, feminine attire and conduct left them isolated from the rest of the gay scene, but living close to the streets, they made the perfect warriors for the imminent Stonewall Riots. These emerging social possibilities, combined with the new social movements
such as Black Power
, Women's liberation, and the student insurrection of May 1968 in France, heralded a new era of radicalism. After the Stonewall riots in New York City in late June 1969 many within the emerging Gay liberation movement in the U.S. saw themselves as connected with the New Left
rather than the established homophile groups of the time. The words "Gay liberation" echoed "Women's liberation"; the Gay Liberation Front
consciously took its name from the National Liberation Fronts of Vietnam and Algeria
; and the slogan "Gay Power", as a defiant answer to the rights-oriented homophile movement, was inspired by Black Power, which was a response to the civil rights movement
.
He then co-founded a militant group, the Committee for Homosexual Freedom, with Gale Whittington--a young man who had been fired from States Steamship Company for being openly gay, after his photo appeared in the Berkley Barb, next to the headline "HOMOS, DON'T HIDE IT!", the revolutionary article by Leo Laurence. The same month Carl Wittman
, a member of CHF, began writing Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto, which would later be described as "the bible of Gay Liberation". It was first published in the San Francisco Free Press and distributed nation-wide, all the way to New York City, as was the Berkeley Barb with Leo's stories on CHF's Gay Guerilla militant initiatives.
The GLF's
statement of purpose explained:
GLF
activist Martha Shelley
wrote, "We are women and men who, from the time of our earliest memories, have been in revolt against the sex-role structure and nuclear family structure."
In December 1969 the Gay Liberation Front
voted a cash donation to the Black Panthers, some of whose leaders had expressed the most virulent homophobic
sentiments. Prominent GLF
members were also strong supporters of Fidel Castro's
regime, which was rounding up gay people and putting them in detention camps. These actions cost GLF, a numerically small group, popular support in New York City
, and some of its members left to form the Gay Activists' Alliance
. The GLF virtually disappeared from the New York City political scene after the first Stonewall commemoration parade
in 1970.
Mark Segal, a member of GLF from 1969–71, continues to push gay rights in various venues. Many refer to Segal as the dean of American gay journalism. As a pioneer of the local gay press movement, he was one of the founders and former president of both The National Gay Press Association and the National Gay Newspaper Guild. He also is the founder and publisher of the award winning Philadelphia Gay News which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. As a young gay activist, Segal understood the power of media. In 1973 Segal disrupted the CBS evening news with Walter Cronkite, an event covered in newspapers across the country and viewed by 60% of American households, many seeing or hearing about homosexuality for the first time. Before the networks agreed to put a stop to censorship and bias in the news division, Segal went on to disrupt The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and Barbara Walters on the Today show. The trade newspaper Variety claimed that Segal had cost the industry $750,000 in production, tape delays and lost advertising revenue. Aside from publishing, Segal has also reported on gay life from far reaching places as Lebanon, Cuba, and East Berlin during the fall of the Berlin Wall. He and Bob Ross, former publisher of San Francisco's Bar Area Reporter represented the gay press and lectured in Moscow and St. Petersburg at Russia's first openly gay conference, referred to as Russia's Stonewall. He recently coordinated a network of local gay publications nationally to celebrate October as gay history month, with a combined print run reaching over a half million people. His determination to gain acceptance and respect for the gay press can be summed up by his 15 year battle to gain membership in the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association one of the nation's oldest and most respected organizations for daily and weekly newspapers. The 15 year battled ended after the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette joined forces and called for PGN's membership. Today Segal sits on the Board of Directors of PNA. In 2005, he produced Philadelphia's official July 4 concert for a crowd estimated at 500,000 people. The star-studded show featured Sir Elton John, Pattie Labelle, Brian Adams, and Rufus Wainwright. On a recent anniversary of PGN an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer stated "Segal and PGN continue to step up admirably to the challenge set for newspapers by H.L. Menchen. "To afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted."
was also formed in the U.S in response to both the male domination of other Gay Lib groups and the anti-lesbian sentiment in the Women's Movement. Lesbianism was advocated as a feminist choice for women, and the first currents of lesbian separatism began to emerge.
In August of the same year, Huey Newton, the leader of the Black Panthers, publicly expressed his support for the Gay liberation, contrary to previous statements by Panther leaders and Women's liberation movements.
(FHAR) disrupted a live radio broadcast entitled “Homosexuality, This Painful Problem”. The expert guests, including a Catholic priest, were suddenly interrupted by a group of lesbians from the audience, yelling, "It's not true, we're not suffering! Down with the heterocops!" The protesters stormed the stage, one young woman taking hold of the priest’s head and pounding it repeatedly against the table. The control room quickly cut off the microphones and switched to recorded music.
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
, gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
, bisexual and transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
movement of the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
, and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. The phrase is somewhat synonymous with the contemporary gay rights movement and broader LGBT social movements
LGBT social movements
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements share inter-related goals of social acceptance of sexual and gender minorities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies have a long history of campaigning for what is generally called LGBT rights, also called gay...
, but following the academic use, this article is about movements of a particular historical period that shared similar goals and strategies.
Specifically, the word 'gay' was preferred to previous designations such as homosexual or homophile
Homophile
The word homophile is an alternative to the word for homosexual or gay. The homophile movement also refers to the gay rights movement of the 1950s and '60s....
; some saw 'gay' as a rejection of the false dichotomy heterosexual/homosexual. Lesbians and gay men were urged to "come out
Coming out
Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....
", publicly revealing their sexuality to family, friends and colleagues as a form of activism, and to counter shame with gay pride
Gay pride
LGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity...
. Coming out and Pride parades have remained an important part of modern LGBT movements, and the visibility of lesbian and gay communities has continued to grow.
Gay lib is also known for its links to the counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
of the time, and for the Gay liberationists' intent to transform fundamental institutions of society such as gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
and the family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
. In order to achieve such liberation, consciousness raising
Consciousness raising
Consciousness raising is a form of political activism, pioneered by United States feminists in the late 1960s...
and direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
were employed. By the late 1970s, the radicalism of Gay liberation was eclipsed by a return to a more formal movement that espoused gay and lesbian civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
.
Origins and history of movement
Although the Stonewall riotsStonewall 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...
in 1969 in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
are popularly remembered as the spark that produced a new movement, the origins predate this iconic event. Certainly, militant resistance to police bar-raids was nothing new — as early as 1725, customers fought off a police raid at a London homosexual/transgender molly house
Molly house
A Molly house is an archaic 18th century English term for a tavern or private room where homosexual and cross-dressing men could meet each other and possible sexual partners. Molly houses were one precursor to some types of gay bars....
. Organised movements, particularly in Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
, have been active since the 19th century, producing publications, forming social groups and campaigning for social and legal reform. The movements of the period immediately preceding Gay lib, from the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
to the late 1960s, are known collectively as the Homophile movement. The homophile movement has been described as "politically conservative", although their calls for social acceptance of same-sex love and transsexuality were seen as radical fringe views by the dominant culture of the time.
1960s
Early 1960s New York, under the Wagner administration, was beset with harassment against the gay community, particularly by the NYPD. Homosexuals were seen as the subject of a drive to rid the city of undesirables. Subsequently, only the mafia had the power and financial resources to run gay bars and clubs. By 1965, influenced by Frank Kameny’s addresses in the early 1960s, Dick Leitsch, the president of the New York Mattachine SocietyMattachine Society
The Mattachine Society, founded in 1950, was one of the earliest homophile organizations in the United States, probably second only to Chicago’s Society for Human Rights . Harry Hay and a group of Los Angeles male friends formed the group to protect and improve the rights of homosexuals...
, advocated direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
, and the group staged the first public homosexual demonstrations
Demonstration (people)
A demonstration or street protest is action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause; it normally consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, to hear speakers.Actions such as...
and picket lines in the 1960s. Frank Kameny, founder of Mattachine Washington in 1961, had advocated militant action reminiscent of the black civil rights campaign, whilst also arguing for the morality of homosexuality.
The New York State Liquor Authority did not allow homosexuals to be served in licensed bars in the state under penalty of revocation of the bar's license to operate. This denial of public accommodation had been confirmed by a court decision in the early 1940s. A legal study, commissioned by Mattachine New York on the city’s alcohol beverage law concluded that there was no law that prohibited homosexuals gathering in bars but that there was a law that prohibited disorderly behaviour in bars, which the SLA had been interpreting as homosexual behaviour. Leitsch, then, announced to the press that three members of Mattachine New York would turn up at a restaurant on the lower east side, announce their homosexuality and upon refusal of service make a complaint to the SLA. This came to be known as the ‘Sip In’ and only succeeded at the third attempt in the Julius Bar (New York City) in Greenwich Village. The ‘Sip In’, though, did gain extensive media attention and the resultant legal action against the SLA eventually prevented them from revoking licenses on the basis of homosexual solicitation in 1967.
In the years before 1969 the organization also was effective in getting New York City to change its policy of police entrapment of gay men, and to rescind its hiring practices designed to screen out gay people. The significance of the new John Lindsay administration and the use of the media by Mattachine New York should not be underestimated in ending police entrapment though. Lindsay would later gain a reputation for placing much focus on quelling social troubles in the city and his mayorship coinciding with the end of entrapment should be seen as significant. By late 1967, a New York group called the Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods (HYMN), essentially a one-man operation on the part of Craig Rodwell
Craig Rodwell
Craig L. Rodwell was an American gay rights activist known for founding the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop on November 24, 1967, the first bookstore devoted to gay and lesbian authors and as the prime mover for the creation of the New York City pride demonstration...
, was already espousing the slogans "Gay Power" and "Gay is Good" in its publication HYMNAL.
The 1960s was a time of social upheaval in the West, and the sexual revolution
Sexual revolution
The sexual revolution was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the Western world from the 1960s into the 1980s...
and counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
influenced changes in the homosexual subculture, which in the U.S. included bookshops, publicly sold newspapers and magazines and a community center. It was during this time that Los Angeles saw its first big gay movement. In 1967, the night of New Years, several plain clothed police officers infiltrated the Black Cat Tavern
Black Cat Tavern
The Black Cat Tavern was an LGBT bar formerly located at 3909 W. Sunset Blvd. in the Silverlake section of Los Angeles, California.-History:The bar was established in November of 1966. Two months later, on the night of New Year's 1967, several plain-clothes police officers infiltrated the Black Cat...
. After arresting several patrons for kissing to celebrate the occasion, the self-unidentified police officers began beating several of the patrons and ultimately arrested 16 more bar attendees which included 3 bartenders. This created a riot in the immediate area, ultimately bringing about a more civil demonstration of over 200 attendees several days later protesting the raids. The protest was met by squadrons of armed policemen. It was from this event that the publication The Advocate
The Advocate
The Advocate is an American LGBT-interest magazine, printed monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a web site. Both magazine and web site have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to LGBT people...
and organization Metropolitan Community Church
Metropolitan Community Church
The Metropolitan Community Church or The Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches is an international Protestant Christian denomination...
(led by Pastor Troy Perry) was born.
Few areas in the U.S. saw a more diverse mix of subcultures than Greenwich Village, which was host to the gay street youth. A group of young, effeminate runaways, shunned by their families, society and the gay community, they reflected the countercultural movement more than any other homosexual group. Refusing to hide their homosexuality, they were brutalised, rebellious tearaways who took drugs, fought, shoplifted and hustled older gay men in order to survive. Their age, behaviour, feminine attire and conduct left them isolated from the rest of the gay scene, but living close to the streets, they made the perfect warriors for the imminent Stonewall Riots. These emerging social possibilities, combined with the new social movements
New social movements
The term new social movements is a theory of social movements that attempts to explain the plethora of new movements that have come up in various western societies roughly since the mid-1960s which are claimed to depart significantly from the conventional social movement paradigm.There are two...
such as Black Power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
, Women's liberation, and the student insurrection of May 1968 in France, heralded a new era of radicalism. After the Stonewall riots in New York City in late June 1969 many within the emerging Gay liberation movement in the U.S. saw themselves as connected with the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
rather than the established homophile groups of the time. The words "Gay liberation" echoed "Women's liberation"; the Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front was the name of a number of Gay Liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots, in which police clashed with gay demonstrators.-The Gay Liberation Front:...
consciously took its name from the National Liberation Fronts of Vietnam and Algeria
National Liberation Front (Algeria)
The National Liberation Front is a socialist political party in Algeria. It was set up on November 1, 1954 as a merger of other smaller groups, to obtain independence for Algeria from France.- Anticolonial struggle :...
; and the slogan "Gay Power", as a defiant answer to the rights-oriented homophile movement, was inspired by Black Power, which was a response to the civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
.
1966
In 1966 Adrian Ravarour and Billy Garrison founded Vanguard an LGBT youth organization that was funded and hosted by its sponsor and venue Glide Foundation and Glide Memorial Methodist Church in San Francisco that also provided ministerial advisors (Rev Ed Hansen; Rev Larry Mamiya). Garrison wanted a community town-hall type of meeting to bring together fractions of the San Francisco Tenderloin neighborhood to air differences and resolve problems. Ravarour proposed civil rights actions to picket and demonstrate for equality and an end of discrimination. The Vanguard youth marched, picketed and demonstrated to demand acceptance. Ravarour and his mate were interviewed on San Francisco radio where they humanized homosexuality as normal human relations. Vanguard also held weekend same-sex dances at Glide. In August 1966 a sit-in at the Doggie Diner was followed by the Compton's Cafeteria uprising. By the end of 1966 the youth group relocated to a theatre and then to 330 Grove Street where it changed its name to The Gay and Lesbian Center, the first in the nation.1969
On March 28, 1969 in San Francisco, Leo Laurence (the editor of Vector, magazine of the United States' largest homophile organization, the Society for Individual Rights) called for "the Homosexual Revolution of 1969," exhorting gay men and lesbians to Join the Black Panthers and other left-wing groups and to "come out" en masse. Laurence was expelled from the organization in May for characterizing members as "timid" and "middle-class, uptight, bitchy old queens."He then co-founded a militant group, the Committee for Homosexual Freedom, with Gale Whittington--a young man who had been fired from States Steamship Company for being openly gay, after his photo appeared in the Berkley Barb, next to the headline "HOMOS, DON'T HIDE IT!", the revolutionary article by Leo Laurence. The same month Carl Wittman
Carl Wittman
Carl Wittman was a member of the national council of Students for a Democratic Society and later an activist for LGBT rights. He co-authored "An Interracial Movement of the Poor?" with Tom Hayden and wrote "A Gay Manifesto"...
, a member of CHF, began writing Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto, which would later be described as "the bible of Gay Liberation". It was first published in the San Francisco Free Press and distributed nation-wide, all the way to New York City, as was the Berkeley Barb with Leo's stories on CHF's Gay Guerilla militant initiatives.
The GLF's
Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front was the name of a number of Gay Liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots, in which police clashed with gay demonstrators.-The Gay Liberation Front:...
statement of purpose explained:
"We are a revolutionary group of men and women formed with the realization that complete sexual liberation for all people cannot come about unless existing social institutions are abolished. We reject society's attempt to impose sexual roles and definitions of our nature."
GLF
Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front was the name of a number of Gay Liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots, in which police clashed with gay demonstrators.-The Gay Liberation Front:...
activist Martha Shelley
Martha Shelley
-Life and early work:Martha Altman, later Martha Shelley, was born on December 27, 1943, in Brooklyn, New York, to parents of Russian-Polish Jewish descent. Samuel R. Delany was a Bronx High School of Science friend. She was involved in a group based on the work of Harry Stack Sullivan which led to...
wrote, "We are women and men who, from the time of our earliest memories, have been in revolt against the sex-role structure and nuclear family structure."
In December 1969 the Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front was the name of a number of Gay Liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots, in which police clashed with gay demonstrators.-The Gay Liberation Front:...
voted a cash donation to the Black Panthers, some of whose leaders had expressed the most virulent homophobic
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
sentiments. Prominent GLF
Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front was the name of a number of Gay Liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots, in which police clashed with gay demonstrators.-The Gay Liberation Front:...
members were also strong supporters of Fidel Castro's
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
regime, which was rounding up gay people and putting them in detention camps. These actions cost GLF, a numerically small group, popular support 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...
, and some of its members left to form the Gay Activists' Alliance
Gay Activists' Alliance
The Gay Activists Alliance was founded in New York City on December 21, 1969, after the Stonewall riots, by dissident members of the Gay Liberation Front . Some early members included Jim Owles, Marty Robinson, Kay Lahusen, Arthur Bell, Arthur Evans, Sylvia Rae Rivera, Marsha P...
. The GLF virtually disappeared from the New York City political scene after the first Stonewall commemoration parade
Gay pride parade
Pride parades for the LGBT community are events celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender culture. The events also at times serve as demonstrations for legal rights such as same-sex marriage...
in 1970.
Mark Segal, a member of GLF from 1969–71, continues to push gay rights in various venues. Many refer to Segal as the dean of American gay journalism. As a pioneer of the local gay press movement, he was one of the founders and former president of both The National Gay Press Association and the National Gay Newspaper Guild. He also is the founder and publisher of the award winning Philadelphia Gay News which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. As a young gay activist, Segal understood the power of media. In 1973 Segal disrupted the CBS evening news with Walter Cronkite, an event covered in newspapers across the country and viewed by 60% of American households, many seeing or hearing about homosexuality for the first time. Before the networks agreed to put a stop to censorship and bias in the news division, Segal went on to disrupt The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and Barbara Walters on the Today show. The trade newspaper Variety claimed that Segal had cost the industry $750,000 in production, tape delays and lost advertising revenue. Aside from publishing, Segal has also reported on gay life from far reaching places as Lebanon, Cuba, and East Berlin during the fall of the Berlin Wall. He and Bob Ross, former publisher of San Francisco's Bar Area Reporter represented the gay press and lectured in Moscow and St. Petersburg at Russia's first openly gay conference, referred to as Russia's Stonewall. He recently coordinated a network of local gay publications nationally to celebrate October as gay history month, with a combined print run reaching over a half million people. His determination to gain acceptance and respect for the gay press can be summed up by his 15 year battle to gain membership in the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association one of the nation's oldest and most respected organizations for daily and weekly newspapers. The 15 year battled ended after the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette joined forces and called for PGN's membership. Today Segal sits on the Board of Directors of PNA. In 2005, he produced Philadelphia's official July 4 concert for a crowd estimated at 500,000 people. The star-studded show featured Sir Elton John, Pattie Labelle, Brian Adams, and Rufus Wainwright. On a recent anniversary of PGN an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer stated "Segal and PGN continue to step up admirably to the challenge set for newspapers by H.L. Menchen. "To afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted."
1970
By the summer of 1970, groups in at least eight American cities were sufficiently organized to schedule simultaneous events commemorating the Stonewall riots for the last Sunday in June. The events varied from a highly political march of three to five thousand in New York and thousands more at parades in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. While groups using the Gay Liberation Front name appeared around the U.S., in New York that organization was replaced totally by the Gay Activist Alliance. Groups with a "Gay Lib" approach began to spring up around the world, such as Campaign Against Moral Persecution (CAMP, Inc.) in Australia and the British Gay Liberation Front. The lesbian group Lavender MenaceLavender Menace
The Lavender Menace was an informal group of lesbian radical feminists formed to protest the exclusion of lesbians and lesbian issues from the feminist movement at the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City on May 1, 1970...
was also formed in the U.S in response to both the male domination of other Gay Lib groups and the anti-lesbian sentiment in the Women's Movement. Lesbianism was advocated as a feminist choice for women, and the first currents of lesbian separatism began to emerge.
In August of the same year, Huey Newton, the leader of the Black Panthers, publicly expressed his support for the Gay liberation, contrary to previous statements by Panther leaders and Women's liberation movements.
1971
Although a short-lived group, the Comite Pederastique de la Sorbonne, had meetings during the student uprising of May 1968, the real public debut of the modern gay liberation movement in France occurred on 10 March 1971, when a group of lesbians from the Front Homosexuel d'Action RévolutionnaireFront homosexuel d'action révolutionnaire
The front homosexuel d'action révolutionnaire was a loose Parisian movement founded in 1971, resulting from a rapprochement between lesbian feminists and gay activists. If the movement could be considered to have leaders, they were Guy Hocquenghem and Françoise d'Eaubonne, while other members...
(FHAR) disrupted a live radio broadcast entitled “Homosexuality, This Painful Problem”. The expert guests, including a Catholic priest, were suddenly interrupted by a group of lesbians from the audience, yelling, "It's not true, we're not suffering! Down with the heterocops!" The protesters stormed the stage, one young woman taking hold of the priest’s head and pounding it repeatedly against the table. The control room quickly cut off the microphones and switched to recorded music.