Though sometim fotten, the history of gay liberatn was wrten wh the history of Ain Amerins md.
Contents:
- WRG GAY HISTORY
- REVIEW: ROBERT JON JR. SHEDS LIGHT ON LIV OF ENSLAVED GAY MEN ‘THE PROPHETS’
- SUBS LOOKG FOR DOMS (GAY MEN ONLY)
WRG GAY HISTORY
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By 1976, Jonathan Ned Katz, who had been traed as a textile signer, had e out of the closet and bee volved the gay liberatn movement, which officially menced 1969. LGBT people had risted arrt at a mafia-owned gay bar, The Stonewall Inn, durg a police raid.
Katz immediately drew analogi between black ristance and the rise of gay liberatn. He then me across a pamphlet, wrten by two gay activists, about the Nazi persecutn of gay people durg WWII, which, at the time, had not been rerd any major history book and was not even part of the public memory. He eventually unvered a range of primary source documents om lonial urt s on sodomy to anecdot about Willa Cather to polil slogans om the lbian activist group Radilbians to then ntemporary news reports of gay men beg arrted for “disorrly nduct.
REVIEW: ROBERT JON JR. SHEDS LIGHT ON LIV OF ENSLAVED GAY MEN ‘THE PROPHETS’
On June 16, 1972, Katz’s play, Comg Out!, premiered at a firehoe the Wt Village, which a gay polil anizatn had rented. He had wnsed how, wh the exceptn of a sgle pamphlet, there were few documents about the persecutn and murr of thoands of gay men and women durg Hler’s reign.
He also regnized how the Nazis stroyed evince of a thrivg gay muny Berl before Hler took ntrol of Germany. Consequently, he feared that the history of gay liberatn the 1970s also risked not beg documented. In a nversatn wh me 2012, he scribed how the Amerin Historil Associatn (AHA) did not reprent or even re about the history of gay people the 1970s.
But even wh this radil shift, Katz had ltle nfince that the AHA would m self to rpectg, teachg, and centerg gay history. Katz did not have a doctorate history, let alone an unrgraduate gree, so he sadly had ltle standg or affiliatn wh the profsn—though he remas one of the most prolific and important gay historians four s later.
SUBS LOOKG FOR DOMS (GAY MEN ONLY)
He returned to the archiv and found even more evince, which he then published, 1976, as the first LGBT anthology of primary sourc, unr the tle Gay Amerin History.
While many profsnal historians did not appreciate his book, the gay muny embraced . He beme a rock star wh the gay muny, givg talks throughout the natn, appearg LGBT newspapers, and fdg rears around the world.
In the 1970s, the emergence of gay history, like black history, began on the streets and then eventually ma s way to the amy. While Katz’s book remas a leadg ntributn to the field and scholars ntue to study the history of gay liberatn, for many LGBT people of lor and transgenr people the story of liberatn prov to be rrect.