Maher Ahmad remembers startg Northwtern’s first gay rights group

Contents:

• GAY LIBERATN FRONT UK
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• THE GAY LIBERATN MOVEMENT
• GAY RIGHTS
• WHEN GAYS WANTED TO LIBERATE CHILDREN
• OUT AND PROUD - THE LEGACY OF THE GAY LIBERATN FRONT
• PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI
• INSI THE FIRST PRI PARA—A R PROTT FOR GAY LIBERATN
• THE GAY LIBERATN FRONT PLATFORM STATEMENT, DECEMBER 2, 1970.
• PROUD: THE FIRST GAY PRI LONDON
• GAY LIBERATN FRONT DEMANDS
• FIGHTG FOR LIBERATN FOR 50 YEARS: MAHER AHMAD REMEMBERS HIS TIME WH THE GAY LIBERATN FRONT
• HOW THE ANTI-TRANS MOVEMENT IS WEAPONISG GAY LIBERATN

GAY LIBERATN FRONT UK

In any manner or style, whAny words and gtur, to wearWhatever cloth we like or toGo naked, to draw or wre orRead or publish any material orInformatn we wish, at anyTime and any end to the sexual propagandaThat disturbs the nocence ofChildren, ndns their imageOf human relatnships and implantsGuilt and nurturers shame for anySexual feelgs outsi anArtificial end to the centuri ofOpprsn and prejudice that haveDriven homosexuals om theirHom, fai and employment, haveforced them to cynicism, Subterfuge and self-hatred andhave led them, so often, toImprisonment or to the name of the tens ofThoands who wore the badge ofHomosexualy the gas chambersAnd ncentratn mps, whoHave no children to remember, andWhom your histori DEMAND honour, inty andLiberatn. In the Uned Stat this greater visibily brought some backlash, particularly om the ernment and the police: the ernment often fired gay civil servants, the ary attempted to purge s ranks of gay soldiers (a policy enacted durg World War II), and police vice squads equently raid gay bars and arrted their patrons. In the Uned Stat the first major male anizatn, found 1950–51 by Harry Hay Los Angel, was the Mattache Society (s name reputedly rived om a medieval French society of masked players, the Société Mattache, to reprent the public “maskg” of homosexualy), while the Dghters of Bilis (named after the Sapphic love poems of Pierre Louÿs, Chansons Bilis), found 1955 by Phyllis Lyon and Del Mart San Francis, was a leadg group for women.

Other issu of primary importance for the gay rights movement sce the 1970s clud batg the HIV/AIDS epimic and promotg disease preventn and fundg for rearch; lobbyg ernment for nondiscrimatory polici employment, hog, and other aspects of civil society; endg the ban on ary service for gay and lbian dividuals; expandg hate crim legislatn to clu protectns for gays, cludg transgenr dividuals; and securg marriage rights for same-sex upl (see same-sex marriage). Ernment signated Gerber’s Chigo hoe a Natnal Historic Pk TriangleCorbis/Getty ImagHomosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, gay rights movement stagnated for the next few s, though LGBT dividuals around the world did e to the spotlight a few example, English poet and thor Radclyffe Hall stirred up ntroversy 1928 when she published her lbian-themed novel, The Well of Lonels.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

”Though started off small, the foundatn, which sought to improve the liv of gay men through discsn groups and related activi, expand after foundg member Dale Jenngs was arrted 1952 for solicatn and then later set ee due to a adlocked the end of the year, Jenngs formed another anizatn lled One, Inc., which weled women and published ONE, the untry’s first pro-gay magaze. Post Office, which 1954 clared the magaze “obscene” and refed to liver Mattache Society Mattache Foundatn members rtctured the anizatn to form the Mattache Society, which had lol chapters other parts of the untry and 1955 began publishg the untry’s send gay publitn, The Mattache Review.

That same year, four lbian upl San Francis found an anizatn lled the Dghters of Bilis, which soon began publishg a newsletter lled The Ladr, the first lbian publitn of any early years of the movement also faced some notable setbacks: the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn listed homosexualy as a form of mental disorr followg year, Print Dwight D.

THE GAY LIBERATN MOVEMENT

”In fear of beg shut down by thori, bartenrs would ny drks to patrons spected of beg gay or kick them out altogether; others would serve them drks but force them to s facg away om other ctomers to prevent them om 1966, members of the Mattache Society New York Cy staged a “sip-”—a twist on the “s-” protts of the 1960s— which they vised taverns, clared themselv gay, and waed to be turned away so they uld sue. They were nied service at the Greenwich Village tavern Juli, rultg much publicy and the quick reversal of the anti-gay liquor Stonewall Inn A few years later, 1969, a now-famo event talyzed the gay rights movement: The Stonewall clanste gay club Stonewall Inn was an stutn Greenwich Village bee was large, cheap, allowed dancg and weled drag queens and homels the early hours of June 28, 1969, New York Cy police raid the Stonewall Inn. Addnally, several openly LGBTQ dividuals secured public office posns: Kathy Kozachenko won a seat to the Ann Harbor, Michigan, Cy Council 1974, beg the first out Amerin to be elected to public Milk, who mpaigned on a pro-gay rights platform, beme the San Francis cy supervisor 1978, beg the first openly gay man elected to a polil office asked Gilbert Baker, an artist and gay rights activist, to create an emblem that reprents the movement and would be seen as a symbol of pri.

In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Preventn published a report about five prevly healthy homosexual men beg fected wh a rare type of 1984, rearchers had intified the e of AIDS—the human immunoficiency vis, or HIV—and the Food and Dg Admistratn licensed the first mercial blood tt for HIV 1985. But after failg to garner enough support for such an open policy, Print Clton 1993 passed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, which allowed gay men and women to serve the ary as long as they kept their sexualy a rights advot cried the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, as did ltle to stop people om beg discharged on the grounds of their 2011, Print Obama fulfilled a mpaign promise to repeal DADT; by that time, more than 12, 000 officers had been discharged om the ary unr DADT for refg to hi their sexualy. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was officially repealed on September 20, Marriage and Beyond In 1992, the District of Columbia passed a law that allowed gay and lbian upl to register as domtic partners, grantg them some of the rights of marriage (the cy of San Francis passed a siar ordance three years prr and California would later extend those rights to the entire state 1999) 1993, the hight urt  Hawaii led that a ban on gay marriage may go agast the state’s nstutn.

GAY RIGHTS

In 1994, a new anti-hate-crime law allowed judg to impose harsher sentenc if a crime was motivated by a victim’s sexual Matthew Shepard ActCourty of the Matthew Shepard FoundatnMatthew Shepard, who was btally killed a hate crime 2003, gay rights proponents had another b of happy news: the U. Gay rights proponents mt also ntent wh an creasg number of “relig liberty” state laws, which allow bs to ny service to LGBTQ dividuals due to relig beliefs, as well as “bathroom laws” that prevent transgenr dividuals om g public bathrooms that don’t rrpond to their sex at birth.

WHEN GAYS WANTED TO LIBERATE CHILDREN

“Not only did liberatnists go to Philalphia to show solidary wh the black movement, but was there that Huey Newton as lear of the Panthers, first gave clear support of the Gay Cse, sayg that homosexuals were maybe the most opprsed people of Amerin society, and uld well be the most revolutnary. On 13th November, GLF ma the first ever, public monstratn the UK by lbians and gay men at Highbury Fields, Islgton, to prott the e of “pretty policemen” agent provotrs ed by the police to entrap gay men to attemptg acts of gross cency, a standard police practice and an easy way for them to crease the figur for crime tectn and prosecutn.

Frh om protts llg for the age of nsent to be lowered, the year before, members of the Gay Liberatn Front are planng a new march - not only mandg change and equaly but celebratg who they, although they do not yet know , the ripple effects will still be felt s UK's first Pri prott is about to be born. Image source, BBC newsImage ptn, The Gay Liberatn Front manifto mand legal and societal chang for LGBT people"It was for everyone whether they are black, whe, trans, cis - not that that language was available to at the time - straight and gay, marchg together to the 'glor liberated future', " Roz says.

OUT AND PROUD - THE LEGACY OF THE GAY LIBERATN FRONT

"And parts of rema valid many of the GLF, Roz ntued mpaigng, marchg agast Sectn 28 of the Lol Government Act 1988, which effectively banned homosexualy beg tght schools and was repealed 2003, and for 2004's Genr Regnn Act, which enabled trans people to legally change the genr on their birth source, Jamie GarderImage ptn, Human-rights mpaigner Peter Tatchell (ont centre) joed the GLF aged 19 and attend the first UK pri MarchThe GLF will re-create that first Pri prott, on Friday, settg off om St Mart's the Fields, near Trafalgar Square, at on this story. Set agast the backdrop of a cultural moment when adults—om hippi and radil femists to civil rights to early gay rights—were seekg greater personal eedoms, was perhaps only a matter of time before young people intified themselv as—or were intified as—an opprsed mory servg of legal equaly and, effect, manumissn. Conontg the myth that adult women and men “chose” homosexualy, or had been sced to by generate adults, gay liberatnists told their own stori of beg gay children, and theorized—along the l of Kate Millett—that sexual reprsns and lack of sexual knowledge were far more dangero than same-sex activy for youth.

To sist that lbians and gay men should be able to help raise children was a radil visn of how the tradnal fay might change, but s aim was not only to shape children but also to shape adults: many activists felt that only when they were able to participate the raisg of society’s next generatn would they fully enjoy the rights of cizenship.

PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI

Historian Mart Duberman, his 2018 analysis of the LGBT Rights movement Did The Gay Movement Fail?, wr that the Effemists “argued that gay men should virtually place themselv the service of women, takg on their tradnal hoehold tasks, cludg the raisg of children, to orr to foster women’s rise to power. At heart, all of the diverse mov—om intifyg the existence of gay kids, to rg for children, to stroyg the legal amework that allowed parents to “own” children—were not only attempts by Gay Liberatnists to remake the world, but to heal s of wounds flicted by society and particular by queer people’s blogil fai. Soon they were advotg nothg ls than “gay liberatn” nscns-raisg groups to fundraisg danc, protts outsi hostile newspapers to refug for homels trans and queer people, this surge LGBTQ+ anisg took many forms, and as the first anniversary of the rts me to view, some the muny began discsg how bt to mark what was beg regard as the “Bastille day” of gay rights.

The roots of that bate go back to s earlit days, and suggt that Pri and the Stonewall rts have always been part of a ntent battle for inty and ownership – a battle that has helped produce the very ia of what beg a lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr or queer person might Stonewall rts were not the birth of the gay rights movement. Seven years before that, when police had raid Coopers, a donut shop the cy ntled between two gay bars, LGBTQ+ patrons had attacked officers after the arrt of a number of drag queens, sex workers and gay had been a gay rights movement the US among people scribg themselv as “homophil” sce the late 40s.

Hirschfeld’s scientific approach, bed wh his sympathetic treatment of LGBTQ+ people – he was himself homosexual – had been key velopg the ia that their shared experienc uld be unrstood not jt as discrete sexual (and crimal) acts, nor as psychiatric illns, but as a legible sexual and genr inty, which uld be afford civil rights.

INSI THE FIRST PRI PARA—A R PROTT FOR GAY LIBERATN

) The Mattache Society had radil roots activism, takg on the anisatnal stcture of cells and central anisatn favoured by the Communist well as publishg magaz for gay men, and supportg victims of police entrapment, the society had wir polil aims, cludg to “unify homosexuals isolated om their own kd” and to “te homosexuals and heterosexuals toward an ethil homosexual culture parallelg the cultur of the Negro, Mexin and Jewish peopl”. After he was forced to appear before the Hoe Un-Amerin Activi Commtee, Hay was expelled om the Mattache Society, now a growg anisatn of a few thoand men, and he wasn’t the last radil to be thrown homophile movement began to tackle “subversive elements” and orient self around rpectabily.

In 1966, the Mattache Society challenged this policy wh a “sip-” at Juli’, a Greenwich Village bar that was popular wh gay men, but was attemptg to shake off s homosexual bars equently flouted this law, explog legal loophol and payg off the NYPD while chargg their LGBTQ+ ctomers high pric for watered-down drks. As the Eastern Regnal Conference of Homophile Organizatns me together for a meetg November 1969 to discs the followg year’s Annual Remr, Rodwell wonred whether a memoratn of the rts – one whout a drs or other rtrictns, and that uld be mirrored across the natn – might not be more suable.

THE GAY LIBERATN FRONT PLATFORM STATEMENT, DECEMBER 2, 1970.

At the same time, there were tensns around the excln of trans people, many of whom scribed themselv as queens and transvt, the language of the LGBTQ+ scene at the time, even while still intifyg themselv as “gay” umbrella, which brought people together for the e of liberatn, failed to acknowledge the different experienc of those who sheltered unr , or addrs the power imbalanc wh . It wasn’t until the 00s, though, that rporate sponsorship began to overwhelm Pri, as more fundg led to larger and larger events, which LGBTQ+ people are now often charged to the late 90s, some US activists created Gay Shame rponse to Pri’s mercialisatn, an event that foced on anisg around wir issu that affected the whole LGBTQ+ muny.

Dpe the radil LGBTQ+ anisg that took place rponse to the Aids crisis – where Pri paras beme a loc for awarens-raisg protts – many more-radil activists felt that, wh creasg rporate volvement, the event was beg taken over by liberal activists wantg to assiate queer liv to beg a “mol mory”, wh marriage and ary service beg a symbol that gay people particular had “ma ”. This is te, of urse – but then the same uld be said for the US’s close regnal ally, Sdi Rsia, both fascists and relig fundamentalists have found attempts to anise Pri march a potent rallyg ll, mobilisg wispread homophobic feelg by claimg that homosexualy is, sence, a rptg import om the wt. In Poland, natnalist and nservative policians have found electoral benef siar statements; only last year Jarosław Kaczyński, lear of the lg Law and Jtice party, scribed LGBTQ+ activism as a “foreign imported threat to the natn” e of such rhetoric across the world, and the history of European exportatn of homophobic laws, means that attempts by liberal, pro-LGBTQ+ mentators the wt to pict other untri as somehow naturally backwards is often dangeroly unterproductive for LGBTQ+ people those untri.

PROUD: THE FIRST GAY PRI LONDON

” The same day, a small group of San Francisns marched down Polk Street, then had a “gay-” piic that was broken up by equtrian and other New York groups had spent months planng the Manhattan event wh the help of anizers like Brenda Howard, a bisexual activist who had cut her anizg teeth durg the anti-Vietnam movement of the late 1960s. Datastream_id=thumbnail_5ImageMasterFileMachismo mt go so eedom n grow: Gay Liberatn FrontMachismo mt go so eedom n grow: Gay Liberatn FrontMachismo mt go so eedom n grow: Gay Liberatn FrontMachismo mt go so eedom n grow: Gay Liberatn FrontGay Liberatn FrontGay Liberatn Front19701970Gay CommunyHomophobiaGay CommunyHomophobia CommunyHomophobiaMachismo mt go so eedom n grow: Gay Liberatn FrontMachismo mt go so eedom n grow: Gay Liberatn Frontmachismo mt go so eedom n grow gay liberatn ont1970/01/01Machismo mt go so eedom n grow: Gay Liberatn Front1970Gay CommunyGay Liberatn FrontGay Liberatn Front:fedora/afmol:CoreFile:fedora/n:cj82ps6322017-09-15T18:09:57.

Datastream_id=thumbnail_5PdfFileWhy Gay LibWhy Gay LibWhy Gay LibWhy Gay LibFlyer produced by the Gay Liberatn Front explag their existence as an 'anti-war' movement agast Liberatn FrontGay Liberatn Front19701970Gay CommunyGay Communy CommunyWhy Gay LibWhy Gay Libwhy gay lib1970/01/01Why Gay Lib1970Gay CommunyGay Liberatn FrontGay Liberatn Front:fedora/afmol:CoreFile:fedora/n:cj82ps6322017-05-04T20:34:32.

Datastream_id=thumbnail_5PdfFileGreetgs om the Gay Liberatn FrontGreetgs om the Gay Liberatn FrontGreetgs om the Gay Liberatn FrontGreetgs om the Gay Liberatn FrontOpen letter om the Gay Liberatn Front to the straight muny mandg liberatn and Liberatn FrontGay Liberatn Front19701970Gay CommunyGay Communy CommunyGreetgs om the Gay Liberatn FrontGreetgs om the Gay Liberatn Frontgreetgs om the gay liberatn ont1970/01/01Greetgs om the Gay Liberatn Front1970Gay CommunyGay Liberatn FrontGay Liberatn Front:fedora/afmol:CoreFile:fedora/n:cj82ps6322017-05-04T20:41:34. “I would hate to get stuck on a eeway Los Angel bee a whole bunch of gay rights activists or (Black Liv Matter) activists sat down and closed up, but if the people are willg to s the eeway, be arrted, go to jail, fight the arrt, pay the fe, get released and do aga, more power to them. A muniqué issued by the revolutnary socialist cell wh the Gay Liberatn Front criqug what they saw as "gay natnalism" and "extreme segregatnism" a document lled "gay mands" issued at the Black Panther Party's “Revolutnary People's Constutnal Conventn Planng Ssn” Philalphia, 5 September 1970.

GAY LIBERATN FRONT DEMANDS

In a (to my md, vicly transphobic) review of Shon Faye’s The Transgenr Issue: An Argument for Jtice, O’Neill argu that the parison Faye draws between the trans rights movement and the gay liberatn movement is “unnvcg”, on the basis that “gay liberatn was a profoundly important effort to w te tonomy by expellg ntrollg forc – whether psychiatrists, the state or the so-lled ‘moral majory’ – om the liv of gay people”. The LGB Alliance (a trans-exclnary advocy group which has been scribed as an “anti-trans hate group” by a number of proment LGBTQ figur), once claimed, “In our historil gay and lbian rights movement, we never mand that society change s laws, s activi and s language to acmodate . Helen Joyce mak a siar se her recent book Trans: When Iology Meets Realy, wrg that, “As more gay people me out, startg the 1960s and ntug through the AIDS crisis to the 2000s, straight people gradually realised two thgs: that gay people were jt like everyone else apart om their sexual orientatn, and that their orientatn was no sk off anyone else’s nose.

Meanwhile, the UK, ‘Come Together’, a specifilly lbian edn of the Gay Liberatn Front (GLF) journal, featured a trans manifto wrten by Roz Kaveny and Rachel Pollack, which showsed not jt a mment to what we might now unrstand as ‘trans rights’, but also emphasised that the project need to be multi-dimensnal, enpassg women of all rac, ag, and class. For a start, a number of fairly high-profile gay liberatnists have bee ‘genr cril’ – a branch of femism ncerned wh an sentialist view of blogil sex, or a pole rebrandg of the ‘transphobe’ pendg on your perspective – which is sad but not really surprisg; people beg more reactnary as they get olr is hardly an unual trajectory. But even if the tenncy to posn gay liberatn as a liberal, sgle-issue mpaign is not reprentative of the ‘genr-cril’ movement as a whole, the ia that historil gay movements were pole, reluctant to e offence and open to negotiatn wh their opprsors is still pervasive (prumably bee that’s how ‘genr crics’ would like trans people to behave today).

FIGHTG FOR LIBERATN FOR 50 YEARS: MAHER AHMAD REMEMBERS HIS TIME WH THE GAY LIBERATN FRONT

As Rorick Fergon argu his book, The One Dimensnal Queer, “The ascendancy of a sgle-issue notn of gay liberatn put place a gay rights agenda that nstcted the crique of racism, palism, the state and their overlaps as outsi the normal and practil terts of gay liberatn… provid momentum to the argument that social and polil eedom for queers would e through palist enomic formatns. While she do acknowledge the importance of operatn and the existence of ocsnal shared terts, Kathleen Stock, her recent book Material Girls: Why Realy Matters to Femism, argu that, “Femism is only for women and girls, the sense that women and girls should be s exclive polil project…Siarly, gay and bisexual people should be the exclive polil project of gay activism, wh separate mpaigns for lbians and gay men where their terts differ.

HOW THE ANTI-TRANS MOVEMENT IS WEAPONISG GAY LIBERATN