Ahead of a new exhibn markg the 30th anniversary of the Homosexual Law Reform Act, David Herkt reveals what was like to grow up gay the 1970s, while Sam Brooks explas what 's like today.
Contents:
- GAY LIBERATN MOVEMENT
- A ‘EAKG FAG REVOLUTNARY’ REMEMBERS THE EARLY YEARS OF GAY LIBERATN CHIGO
- DANCG THE GAY LIB BLU: A YEAR THE HOMOSEXUAL LIBERATN MOVEMENT
- GAY LIBERATN
- DIANNE AND MANDY AT 'GAY LIB DANCE PARTY', 1974
- GAY LIB DANCE
- DANCG THE GAY LIB BLU
- NIGHTCLUBBG: THE ENDUP, SAN FRANCIS’S GAY EPICENTER
- GROWG UP GAY - THEN AND NOW
- GAY LIBERATN FRONT AT ALTERNATE U.
GAY LIBERATN MOVEMENT
Fna Clark - Dianne and Mandy at 'Gay Lib Dance Party', 1974 * gay lib dance *
Throughout November 29, 1965 and December 9, 1965 there was a seri of articl that were published the newspaper about “Sexual Mori”, focg on gay mal. The featur edor of the seri the newspaper was Konstant Berlandt, who was an early gay activist known for phg the lims of the universy about gay liberatn. The seri begs wh the headle “There are probably 2, 700 homosexuals at Cal”, and go to tail about how police officers have been crackg down on the "homosexual activy" on mp, cludg removg every other door the men’s rtroom, so that would stop people om drillg glory hol the stalls.
Then there are a seri of personal stori by anonymo thors who speak about the gay activy that occurred on mp and San Francis at the time. The Gay Liberatn Front was a polil anizatn, and they foced their attentn on the radil unter-culture to help fight discrimatn agast gays “dtry, the mass media, ernment, schools, and church” (Gay Liberatn Movement). Durg that Fall term, there would be the first of many protts llg for an end of police officers supprsg gay activy on the Berkeley mp.
A ‘EAKG FAG REVOLUTNARY’ REMEMBERS THE EARLY YEARS OF GAY LIBERATN CHIGO
Dancg the Gay Lib Blu by Arthur Bell, 1971, Simon and Schter edn, Hardver English * gay lib dance *
Durg the Fall Quarter of 1969 stunts picketed, llg for an end to the efforts of mp police to supprs homosexual activy wh the environs of the gym" (Social Prott Collectn). The Stunts for Gay Power, end up changg their name to the Gay Stunts Unn 1970, and they distanced themselv om the more radil Gay Liberatn Front stunt anizatn.
At the Universy of Geia the fall of 1971, spired by the post-Stonewall anizg, John Hoard and Bill Green formed the Commtee on Gay Edutn to spread awarens and te about the gay liftyle and homosexualy general. One of the first ma objectiv of the CGE was to hold a ‘Gay Dance’ to make themselv known and to ga regnn om the straight muny and universtiy at large by showg them that gays really do exist.
Durg this s- the stunts veloped a list of mands for the Universy which clud: the Universy support the repeal of sodomy laws, the Universy provi facili for the CGE, the Universy give permissn to hold the gay dance as planned, and the Universy enforce the rignatn of John Cox. In addn to the great event that was the dance, the CGE hosted many nscns raisg events the form of symposiums hop of exposg gays to their own opprsn and to te and raise awarens the straight muny about gays, their liftyle, and the acpanyg challeng. Her semars tend to reflect on the liftyl of gays society and specifilly the workforce hop of tg gays about ways to improve their qualy of life.
DANCG THE GAY LIB BLU: A YEAR THE HOMOSEXUAL LIBERATN MOVEMENT
Can a sgle club’s history enpass the wild arc of gay liberatn? If the walls (and throbbg dancefloor) at The EndUp San Francis uld talk, they’d reveal an epochal tale that leads om the hedonistic dis days of Gay Lib right through to today’s pop-EDM mastream assiatn – wh stops at Hi-NRG and sleaze, ’90s rave, soulful hoe, and unrground techno along the way. Marke B. tails the club’s long past, and s parallels wh the cultural upheavals of the time." name="scriptn * gay lib dance *
Addnally, another symposium entled, “Open the Door” was held May 16-18, 1973 and featured Barbara Gtgs, a noted lbian activist speakg on “Gay Lib: What Every Heterosexual Needs to Know. ” The CGE hoped that this would give closeted gays a chance to blend to the expected crowd of heterosexuals and expose them to the problems people who are gay face a heteronormative society while also exposg them to a supportive gay muny.
GAY LIBERATN
Have you ever attend a gay tea dance party and want to throw your own? Click through to learn more about which brews, spic, and sugars have to make onto your menu! * gay lib dance *
The CGE also signated a “Blue Jean Day” which all gays and gay supporters were to wear blue jeans to show the universy that gays do exist and do make up a nsirable portn of the universy populatn. Addnally, the CGE sponsored the Southeast Regnal Gay Coaln over the weekend of November 14, 1972 which legat om over 16 gay activist anizatns the Southeast and members of the general gay populatn and gay supporter populatn attend.
DIANNE AND MANDY AT 'GAY LIB DANCE PARTY', 1974
The Stunt Homophile League, believed to be the first universy supported anizatn for gay stunts, was found at Columbia 1966 and advertised their group the stunt paper, the Columbia Daily Spectator.
The group was found to create a safe space on the Columbia mp for gay stunts to talk wh others about problems they might be facg as gay stunts or jt as stunts general. The anizatn was open to people of all sexual orientatn and was found by an equal number of gay and straight stunts hopg to te the mp about gay liberatn, acceptance, and tolerance. Phillip, the Director of Counselg Servic, ially felt that the group was unnecsary and that issu gay stunts faced were problems faced by everyone on mp.
His rponse was not so much agast gays havg an anizatn so much as he found the Stunt Homophile League to be purposels and a waste of rourc. Those who feel themselv to be homosexual or bisexual or who are uncerta about their sexual orientatn n expect sympathetic and nfintial nsiratn om most of the relig unselors and the staff of the Columbia Counsellg Service, as well as om the SHL [Stunt Homophile League] self.
GAY LIB DANCE
The Gay Activists Alliance was found at the end of the 1960s New York and was a natnal group rather than tied exclively to Columbia, but many members of Gay People at Columbia were also members of the Gay Activists Alliance. In 1971, Morty Manford, print of Gay People at Columbia, fought vigilantly for a gay lounge the uned basement of Furnald Hall sistg “Gay people need a place where they n get together unopprsed.
McGill rpond to the Spectator that he didn’t believe Columbia was “obliged to give lounge space for the cultural activi of gay people” and felt he had to “draw the le” somewhere. Manford did get his lounge eventually and went on to fight for tegrated school danc, a homosexualy studi partment at Columbia, and for equal rights among gay profsors. When the annual Pri Para steps off om the tersectn of Broadway and Montrose at noon on Sunday, June 30—wh Lori Lightfoot, Chigo’s first openly gay mayor, servg as honorary grand marshal— will reprent a very different md-set om the event that lnched the pri para tradn.
I was a teenaged member of Chigo Gay Liberatn, the loose-kn, short-lived group that anized the first pri para on Saturday, June 27, 1970.
DANCG THE GAY LIB BLU
The last thg on our mds was the possibily of any mayor, let alone an openly gay one, leadg the way; we were happy the cy’s then-mayor, “Boss” Richard J. Between 150 and 300 people (pendg on which acunt you read) showed up to celebrate what our flyer promotg the event clared ( all pal letters) was: “THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF GAY PEOPLE TELLING THE WARPED, SICK, MALADJUSTED, PURITAN AMERIKAN SOCIETY THAT THEY HAVE HAD ENOUGH SHIT.
NIGHTCLUBBG: THE ENDUP, SAN FRANCIS’S GAY EPICENTER
”That flyer is on display as part of “Out of the Closets & Into the Streets: Power, Pri & Ristance Chigo’s Gay Liberatn Movement, ” a new exhib at Gerber/Hart Library and Archiv, the midwt’s largt LGBTQ library and rearch center.
Conceived by the library’s director, Wil Brant, and curated by a team of young volunteers cludg profsnal librarians Chase Ollis and Jam Conley and signer Kurt Conley, the display is drawn om Gerber/Hart’s extensive archival march marked the first anniversary of a rt New York Cy on June 28, 1969, when patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay nightclub Greenwich Village owned by the Genove crime fay, reacted vlently to what had begun as a route police raid. That event, and the events leadg up to and followg , are well vered a new book, The Stonewall Rts: A Documentary History by Marc Ste (NYU Prs) that first Stonewall anniversary march wasn’t the first activy of Chigo Gay Liberatn, which started up fall 1969 after Universy of Chigo grad stunt Henry Wiemhoff placed an ad the Chigo Maroon stunt newspaper seekg a gay roommate.
GROWG UP GAY - THEN AND NOW
The first public Gay Lib event I participated was a prott four months before the Stonewall march, on the snowy afternoon of Wednday, Febary 25, 1970, outsi the Loop headquarters of the Women’s Bar Associatn of Illois. The blond, mcular p was notor for entrappg gay men Lln Park rtrooms; wearg street cloth, he would pretend to solic guys for sex and then arrt them if they rpond to his vatn.
Mattache Midwt, an tablished “homophile” anizatn town, published Manley’s picture s mimeographed monthly newsletter and mockgly suggted Manley himself was a closet se: “If I were gay and I didn’t want anybody to know, and I felt very, very guilty, I thk I might get a job where I uld cise the public tert, ” wrote David Stienecker, the newsletter’s edor. Our aim was not to boytt the movie—which ed waspish humor to illtrate the pathologil, self-hatg behavr of a group of gay New York men—but to e as a teachg opportuny. Though same-sex dancg wasn’t illegal, was forbidn the mob-owned gay bars Boss Daley’s Chigo, where perdic police raids were a given.
GAY LIBERATN FRONT AT ALTERNATE U.
As historian Timothy Stewart-Wter, thor of Queer Clout: Chigo and the Rise of Gay Polics (Universy of Pennsylvania Prs), reunts a Slate article tled “Beyond Stonewall: How Gay History Looks Different From Chigo”:.
Memorabilia om the early days of the Chigo Gay Alliance on display at Gerber/ Chase OllisThe Gerber/Hart exhib clus pi of the mimeographed newsletters that Gay Lib ed to spread s msage those long-ago pre-Inter days. Also on display is a py of the Chigo Seed, the cy’s hippie/radil unrground paper, which published an eight-page Gay Liberatn supplement one issue.
After publishg a one time “Gay Pri” paper to promote the 1971 Pri Para (which by then had been reloted to the Lln Park/Lakeview area on the north si), Robson put out two edns of The Paper, a 1972 tabloid that vered lol LGBTQ arts and polics. But by then the cy had s first (more or ls) regularly published newspaper, the Chigo Gay Csar, eded by activist Michael Bergeron wh py edg supervisn by his lover Bill Kelley. A dart board bearg the image of Ana Bryant’s face, sold rponse to her anti-gay mpaignCred: Chase OllisThe succs of the June 1970 Stonewall anniversary march (no one got arrted!