Why Beg “Gay the ’70s New York and L.A. Was Magic” (Gut Column) – The Hollywood Reporter

70s gay culture

Contents:

A GLIMPSE INTO 1970S GAY ACTIVISM

A gay-rights monstratn New York's Greenwich Village, June 8, 1977 (AP)This article is the 11th a seri featurg clips om the Amerin Archive of Public Broadstg, which is workg to digize televisn and rad piec so that they may be prerved for years to e. For more about the project, see our troductn to the seri, where you'll also fd a handy list of all the seri' piec so 1960s me to a close wh what is still perhaps the most nsequential event recent Amerin gay history: the Stonewall rts of June 28, Charl Kaiser put his history of gay New York, "No other civil rights movement Ameri ever had such an improbable unveilg: an urban rt sparked by drag queens.

But while many gay people remaed ignorant of Stonewall and others reacted to wh disfort, this 1960s versn of the Boston Tea Party would do more than any other event to transform gay life Ameri.

"Those years that followed, the of the 1970s, reprent a remarkable perd of transformatn for gays and lbians, particularly those livg Ameri's astal ci. Durg those years, there was the first gay televisn movie; a sexy on-screen kiss between two men  Sunday, Blood Sunday; and the release of Cabaret, which has been hailed as the first movie that "really celebrated homosexualy.

WHY BEG “GAY THE ’70S NEW YORK AND L.A. WAS MAGIC” — AND HOW HOLLYWOOD HAS CHANGED (GUT COLUMN)

" There were gas polics too: Edward Koch, then servg Congrs, "beme one of the first elected officials to publicly lobby on behalf of the homosexuals of Greenwich Village, " Kaiser wr. Gay Pri Week was tablished.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Perhaps most signifintly: In December of 1973, the board of the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn* voted 13-0 "to remove homosexualy om s list of psychiatric disorrs. "Perhaps spired by the chang, 1976 New York's public-televisn statn, WNET (today known as Channel 13) featured a live, three-hour special lled "OUTREACH: LESBIANS AND GAY MEN" (palizatn theirs). G., "has a homosexual experience"), the ntext of the 1970s, this special reprented a remarkably ank and sympathetic nversatn.

It may not have been right on the cuttg edge of gay and lbian activism, but wasn't trailg too far behd eher. As Kaiser told me over email, "Any discsn of anythg gay on televisn was still pretty rare then.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* 70S GAY CULTURE

A brief history of lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr social movements.

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