This Is What Gay Liberatn Looked Like In The '70s

Contents:

• POIGNANT, EXUBERANT PHOTOS OF GAY LIFE THE ’70S — JT TIME FOR PRI
• THIS IS WHAT GAY LIBERATN LOOKED LIKE IN THE '70S
• LOOKG BACK ON THE HISTORIC GAY ‘THAT 70S SHOW’ STORYLE THAT SHOULD’VE BEEN

POIGNANT, EXUBERANT PHOTOS OF GAY LIFE THE ’70S — JT TIME FOR PRI

But when one particular look cropped up the post-Stonewall gay scene of the 1970s, was so popular—and so distct—that the guys who sported were dismissed as “clon. ) And while the nickname was ially pejorative, the clone perd marked perhaps the first time that gay men prented themselv wh a queer-signalg uniform that was a direct rponse to societal stereotyp.

Amid the flurry of rabow-lan rporate logos, sponsored events and news ems about gay pengus, is difficult to turn on a televisn or set foot public durg June whout the remr that is Pri Month for LGBT and queer people. Gee Dudley, a photographer and artist who also served as the first director of New York Cy’s Llie-Lohman Mm of Gay and Lbian Art, documented scen om pri paras New York Cy om the late 1970s through the early ‘90s. The years saw Ana Bryant’s homophobic csa through the “Save Our Children” mpaign 1977, the electn and assassatn of Harvey Milk 1978, and the Whe Night rts the followg summer after the lenient sentencg of Milk’s murrer, Dan Whe.

THIS IS WHAT GAY LIBERATN LOOKED LIKE IN THE '70S

And October 1979, the Natnal March on Washgton for Gay and Lbian Rights took place wh roughly 100, 000 participants. “It was, a sense, the year we buted on the larger public stage, ” says Jim Saslow, a profsor of art history at the Cy Universy of New York and an early gay activist. “We were beg acceptable enough that a gay person uld have a signifint polil reer, but we also beme very aware of how much of a nerve that was touchg for nservative people.

Saslow, who was also a iend of Dudley’s, marks this era as a shift the gay liberatn movement. But as the number of out gay people grew, says Saslow, the paras transned om timate gathergs of like-md people to events attend by a broar array of participants. “The muny started to attract more mastream folks who weren’t necsarily polilly radil or untercultural — they jt happened to be gay.

“The guy a drs wh a beard, nng ont of the task force banner, ptur a lot of the atmosphere of the early gay liberatn muny, bee so much of me out of the hippie movement, ” says Saslow. Members of the Natnal Gay Task Force march 1981.

LOOKG BACK ON THE HISTORIC GAY ‘THAT 70S SHOW’ STORYLE THAT SHOULD’VE BEEN

Partners Charl Llie and Frz Lohman began to exhib art by gay artists their SoHo loft 1969, the same year the Stonewall uprisg took place. “There weren’t that many people documentg the gay world at that time, so Gee’s photographs have an enormo importance, ” says Saslow.