Unrstandg Los Angel (and Wt Hollywood) Gay History: Contuy and Disntuy

Contents:

• UNRSTANDG LOS ANGEL (AND WT HOLLYWOOD) GAY HISTORY: CONTUY AND DISNTUY
• MOVG TO LGBT LOS ANGEL, CALIFORNIA? HOW TO FD YOUR PERFECT GAY NEIGHBORHOOD!
• THE STGGL AND TRIUMPHS OF GROWG UP BROWN AND GAY IN LA
• GAYT PLAC IN CALIFORNIA FOR 2020
• THE BT GAY CISG SPOTS LOS ANGEL
• QUé PASó N EL ENOLA GAY, EL BOMBARRO QUE LANZó LA PRIMERA BOMBA ATóMI LA HISTORIA
• RUDY GAY EXPECTED TO DRAW TERT OM WARRRS, LAKERS, MAVERICKS, BULLS, PELINS

UNRSTANDG LOS ANGEL (AND WT HOLLYWOOD) GAY HISTORY: CONTUY AND DISNTUY

Im nsirg movg to LA full time and although beg gay isn’t my only inty or most important factor, is important for me to fd other gays for iends and potential relatnships. LA is not really known as beg a “gay cy” the way that SF and NYC are, and although I’m not lookg to pare who is better, I am terted opns and/or people who have moved om NYC to LA.

Don Kilhefner, a chronicler and creator of gay history, explas how we got to where we are today and fantasiz about where we may move the future. WeHo Pri 2019, on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebelln, the very reason for Pri’s existence, pletely ignored that earth-shakg event, pretendg like had never LA LGBT Center’s attempted 2019 to falsely rewre s early history and rrectly ced 1969 as the date for s 50th anniversary celebratn even though 1971 was the date ed to memorate s 25th Archiv refed to operate an attempt to provi a venue to asss the impact of Stonewall on the velopment of the Los Angel gay vic 1967 LAPD raid on the Black Cat, a Silver Lake gay bar, and s aftermath is skewed today to the pot of misreprentatn, and there are other exampl. To honor the seven men—Harry Hay, Bob Hull, Chuck Rowland, Rudi Gernreich, Dale Jenngs, Jam Gber, Konrad Stevens—who rpond to Hay’s origal ll for a homosexual anizatn that 1951 beme the Mattache Society, named after the masked mattachi urt jters of medieval Europe thought by Hay to be largely homosexual men.

MOVG TO LGBT LOS ANGEL, CALIFORNIA? HOW TO FD YOUR PERFECT GAY NEIGHBORHOOD!

Mattache reprented the first succsful attempt at anizg Amerin gay men and lbians and ed their opprsor’s word, “homosexual, ” to scribe themselv. Until the 1969 Stonewall Rebelln, protective super-paranoia based on dividual safety and survival om hetero supremacists’ vlence and physil and psychologil genoci characterized homosexual realy.

History, homosexuals intified themselv as an opprsed mory group, affirmed that there was such a thg as a homosexual culture, implied, but never actualized, llective polil actn, and anized succsful, but secret, discsn groups entirely by word of mouth. In a pneerg and remarkable manner at that time, homosexuals began to dialogue wh each other about their opprsn as they experienced —often cel and adly. (a name rived om Thomas Carlyle’s “A mystic bond of brotherhood mak all men one”) replaced Mattache and started g the scriptive term “homophile” (lover of man or same), importantly broang inty om a solely sexual fn to also clu relatnship.

A cir 1965As Mattache had started homosexuals talkg to each other about their opprsn, albe secretly, the Homophile era was important that, through s pneerg publitns, the wrten word also me out of the closet for the first time. For them, assiatn meant homosexuals need to adjt to the domance of heterosexual culture, stutns, and social norms, which they believed would lead to social acceptance. Addnal fg characteristics of the Homophile era clud nyg that a homosexual culture existed, law reform was a panacea, advot for social acceptance for homophil should not be homophil themselv but hetero profsnals (misters, attorneys, psychologists and psychiatrists), and, for safety purpos, psdonyms were wily ed to shield real inti.

THE STGGL AND TRIUMPHS OF GROWG UP BROWN AND GAY IN LA

The bt acunt of the Mattache and Homophile perds is gay historian John D’E’s “Sexual Polics, Sexual Communi: The Makg of a Homosexual Mory the Uned Stat, 1940-1970. D’E, lookg back over the attempted erasure of Mattache and the ascenncy of the Homophile effort, wr, “In sum, acmodatn to social norms replaced the affirmatn of a distctive gay inty, llective effort gave way to dividual actn, and nfince the abily of gay men and lbians to terpret their own experience yield to the wisdom of the experts. On June 28, 1969, at a Mafia-owned dive New York Cy, a global social revolutn of major proportns was lnched, and the liv and well-beg of gay and lbian people the U.

It is important to unrstand historilly that New York Cy, Los Angel, San Francis and elsewhere the seeds and spiratn for the early Gay Liberatn revolutn did not e om eher the Mattache or the Homophile efforts, whose history most people were unaware of, even many members of the Gay Liberatn Front of Los Angel (GLF), whose cy that history rid. Gay Liberatn was seed largely by the spiratn of and molg by the bravery of lunch unter s-s by black llege stunts, water hos and the ant black civil rights movement, the -your-face anti-Vietnam War protters, early femist thought and actn, and the righteons and zeal of numero other social jtice/social change movements. Before Stonewall, many gay and lbian people were actively engaged a myriad of progrsive social change efforts, sometim learship posns, but the closet due to the vilent and stutnalized hetero supremacy progrsive circl and society general.

GAYT PLAC IN CALIFORNIA FOR 2020

After Stonewall, a handful of those activists--other-, like 28-year old me, began to see our own personal fight for eedom as a gay person as well as the Gay Liberatn movement self as an sential part of the social revolutn occurrg around .

The word “gay, ” a mid-20th century -word creasgly ed by hip folk that was gay-rived and to which a new gay-fed and gay-fiant inty uld be poured, was married to the word “liberatn. In Los Angel and throughout the untry durg the Gay Liberatn perd, actualizg self-rpect replaced the urtg of acceptance by the rpectabily agenda of the Homophile perd.

A Homophile emancipatn md-set (heteros will give our eedom and accept if we behave and act jt like them) was supersed by a liberatn iology and a grassroots, radil prott movement (gay and lbian people will une llectively and antly ee ourselv). A., GLF, the central anizg enty facilatg the Gay Liberatn movement here, fought back agast hetero supremacy wh direct nontatnal polil actn and a fierce unwillgns to promise on anythg impactg the eedom and well-beg of gay and lbian people. Gay Liberatn was engaged somethg much larger than dividual selv—the liberatn of a people—and those volved were transformed by the procs and transformed others.

THE BT GAY CISG SPOTS LOS ANGEL

After a year and a half of dac monstratns and nontatns, 1971 GLF’s Gay Survival Commtee morphed to the Gay Communy Servic Center (now lled the LA LGBT Center) around which an anized, visible and polilly proactive gay muny alced where none had ever existed before. A., Gay Liberatn also supported and allied self wh other ant, muny-based efforts (black, latx, Asian, first natn, poor, civil rights, anti-war) that supported .

QUé PASó N EL ENOLA GAY, EL BOMBARRO QUE LANZó LA PRIMERA BOMBA ATóMI LA HISTORIA

Om psychologil exile New Mexi and 1979 lerally moved him back—the Mattache and Gay Liberatn historilly uned -creatg another leap forward gay-centered nscns, the Radil Faeri. Wh the troductn of protease hibors the 1990’s, the worst of the AIDS panmic, a gay muny and global nightmare, began gradually to rece the U.

While the ntemporary Neo-Homophile era is whout doubt many steps higher on the polil and cultural evolutnary ladr than s pre-Stonewall namake, the two eras have a basic ronance wh each other, even though there is no strict one-to-one rrponnce. The name fs bee today the Neo-Homophile’s unrlyg polil, personal inty, and cultural nscns rembl the earlier nservative Homophile era, but wh a liberal, public relatns veneer. Currently there is the same Homophile assiatn iology (we are no different than heteros except for the object of our sexual sire) wh a largely whe, upper middle-class agenda, often imatg and nformg to hetero culture—for example, marriage, which fails about 50% of the time and which was low on Gay Liberatn’s agenda.

RUDY GAY EXPECTED TO DRAW TERT OM WARRRS, LAKERS, MAVERICKS, BULLS, PELINS

Jam Baldw, our Black, gay brother, warned , that “whenever a mory assiat to the domant culture, always do so totally on the terms of the domant culture. Another characteristic of the Neo-Homophile era is s top-down, hierarchil stcture largely based on race, class, wealth and a dly- reformist agenda and nventnal electoral polics.