Today Gay History: The First Gay Prott

Contents:

• WHAT IT WAS LIKE AT THE FIRST GAY RIGHTS DEMONSTRATN OUTSI WHE HOE 50 YEARS AGO
• INSI THE FIRST PRI PARA—A R PROTT FOR GAY LIBERATN
• PICKET FRONT OF U.S. ARMY BUILDG, FIRST-EVER U.S. GAY RIGHTS PROTT
• PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• LGBTQ HISTORY MONTH: THE ROAD TO AMERI'S FIRST GAY PRI MARCH
• 50 YEARS AGO THE FIRST MAJOR GAY RIGHTS MONSTRATN HAPPENED SILVER LAKE
• HOW ACTIVISTS ORGANIZED THE FIRST GAY PRI PARAS

WHAT IT WAS LIKE AT THE FIRST GAY RIGHTS DEMONSTRATN OUTSI WHE HOE 50 YEARS AGO

— -- Pl Kuntzler said that when he and ne other people picketed the Whe Hoe 50 years ago today, prottg the ernment's treatment of gays and lbians, he uld not image how far the gay rights movement would e five prott on April 17, 1965, is believed to the first gay rights monstratn, advot say. Though that showg outsi the Whe Hoe was the most groundbreakg or memorable picket of s time, was actually preced by a prott that happened seven months earlier, on September 19, was the day Randy Wicker, Jefferson Poland, and eight other members of the Sexual Freedom League, six of them straight, gathered outsi the army's ductn center at 39 Whehall Street New York Cy to prott the armed forc's anti-gay discrimatn and plicy wch hunts. Their voic were for the most part ignored that day, but we all know that the end they won: the army's official discrimatn agast gay and lbian members end we're on the subject of Whehall Street ductn center, here's some bon history: the lotn beme so notor durg the Vietnam draft that found s way to Arlo Guthrie's classic "Alice's Rtrant:" "They got a buildg down New York Cy, 's lled Whehall Street/Where you walk , you get jected, spected, tected, fected/Neglected and selected.

“Comg out” me wh threats of vlence and social that changed the aftermath of the 1969 Stonewall uprisg—when a group of LGBTQ people rted rponse to a police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar New York Cy. ” 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. It’s important to realize that beg gay or lbian was a crime the Uned Stat up to 2003, and was also thought of as a mental illns that [people] uld be stutnalized and subjected to electroshock treatment for.

So for the people to publicly make a statement that they were gay or lbian was this enormo risk for them — they uld have lost of the statement that was beg ma the early march was the refal to be an visible mory. While Stonewall is remembered as the rt that sparked the gay liberatn movement as we know , others me before , most prott of unwarranted police surveillance and btaly agast disenanchised queer people of lor.

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

” In several books, cludg Lillian Farman’s The Gay Revolutn: The Story of the Stggle, Johnson is remembered for climbg a lamppost and shatterg an officer’s squad r wh a heavy object, which prompted other prottors to strike the police wh penni, beer ns, and glass bottl. “For the gay men, drag queens, and trans people that equented the Stonewall Inn, the regnn of police btaly as a tool of genr opprsn was a pot of adjacency ma possible by the prolific acunts of police btaly circulated and amplified by the civil rights movement general, and the Black Panthers, particular, ” argued Lisa M.

“Whatever your personal opns and your securi about homosexualy and the var liberatn movements among homosexuals and women (and I speak of the homosexuals and women as opprsed groups), we should we should try to une wh them a revolutnary fashn, ” he said. Organized by Randy Wicker of the Homosexual League of New York (HLNY), and the New York Cy League for Sexual Freedom (LSF), protted the ary’s treatment of gay people – cludg rejectn, ls-than-honorable discharg, and vlatn of privacy through a policy of sendg gay men’s rerds to current and potential employers. Wicker is also thought to have been the first gay person to appear openly on East Coast televisn, whout a disguise or a fake name, when he appeared on the “The L Crane Show” on January 31, 1964, and answered qutns about homosexualy.

Jog Wicker and Poland that day were eight people, cludg his boyiend, Peter Ogren; 23-year-old Craig Rodwell, future owner of the Osr Wil Memorial Bookshop; 20-year-old Renée Cafiero, a rare female MSNY member, who would go on to bee one of the first openly gay (alternate) legat, at the 1972 Democratic Natnal Conventn; her girliend Nancy Garn, who later wrote the first young adult lbian novel Annie on My Md  1982; and Jack Diether, a noted mic cric active LSF. 1965: Philalphia – Dewey’s Rtrant S-InDewey's rtrant Philalphia, Pennsylvania as appeared May April 25, 1965, the 17th Street lotn of Dewey’s rtrant Philalphia nied service to approximately 150 people who appeared to be gay or genr non-nformg. McDarrah/Getty ImagAfter pourg their drks, a bartenr Juli's Bar ref to serve John Timms, Dick Lesch, Craig Rodwell, and Randy Wicker, members of the Mattache Society who were prottg New York liquor laws that prevented servg gay ctomers, 1966.

PICKET FRONT OF U.S. ARMY BUILDG, FIRST-EVER U.S. GAY RIGHTS PROTT

McDarrah/Getty Imag)In sprg 1966, members of the early gay rights anizatn Mattache Society staged a “sip-”—a twist on “s-” prott— which they vised taverns, clared themselv gay, and waed to be turned away so they uld sue. 1966–1967: Los Angel – Black Cat Tavern Protts, Los AngelOpened November 1966, Black Cat Tavern was a haven for Silver Lake’s queer muny, who were subjected to harassment om police enforcg anti-homosexualy laws.

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. Wh a sgle lifetime, homosexualy has moved om beg a crime and a psychiatric disorr, punished the US by imprisonment, chemil stratn, social ostracisatn and a lifetime as a registered sex offenr, to a socially and legally regnised sexual inty. To relig and cultural nservativ, Pri paras are nothg ls than the public flntg of viancy, while many LGBTQ+ people regard today’s rporate-sponsored paras as havg sold out the radil, revolutnary mands of the gay liberatn movement.

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.

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

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. Photograph: Getty ImagIn Los Angel 1950, a group of experienced polil activists and munists, cludg Communist party USA member Harry Hay, me together to form the Mattache Society, one of the first homosexual rights anisatns the US.

) 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”. It wasn’t enough to fend men who had sex wh men; rather, a polil stggle uld only be waged by creatg the ia of the homosexual as an inty, the same polil mol as other mori – someone who uld regnise him or herself as part of a wir culture. Such aims would bee key to the ncept of “gay pri” some two s two s, however, would be among the harst for LGBTQ+ people US history, as the greater visibily of the homosexual inty led to a nservative backlash, and a moral panic the media that was palised upon by policians.

Ironilly, sackg 5, 000 feral employe and thstg them out of the closet, the red-baers provid a new hort of activists for the homophile movement, such as the army map service astronomer Frank Kameny, who voted the rt of his life to the LGBTQ+ e. 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.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Dpe his own rervatns about the place, Mattache activist Dick Lesch, wrg jt a month after the rts, acknowledged how Stonewall was more than jt a dance bar, terg for those “who are not wele, or nnot afford, other plac of homosexual social gatherg”. When, ncerned by the ongog unrt, members of the society pated on the board-up wdows of the Stonewall “WE HOMOSEXUALS PLEAD WITH OUR PEOPLE TO PLEASE HELP MAINTAIN PEACEFUL AND QUIET CONDUCT ON THE STREETS OF THE VILLAGE – MATTACHINE”, their ll went unheed.

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. 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 . I’ve been tryg to get up here all day for your gay brothers and your gay sisters jail that wre me every motherfuckg week and ask for your help and you all don’t do a goddamn thg for them … I have been to jail.

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.

LGBTQ HISTORY MONTH: THE ROAD TO AMERI'S FIRST GAY PRI MARCH

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 ”.

Gay assiatnists want to make sure they’re on the wng si the cizenship wars, and see no need to nont the legaci of systemic and systematic US opprsn that prevent most people livg this untry (and everywhere else) om exercisg their supposed ‘rights.

In recent years accatns have been ma that Pri has bee part of a “homonatnalist” project, where the victori won by LGBTQ+ activists sce the 50s, the face of wispread opposn and hostily, are now portrayed as evable products of a natnal culture.

50 YEARS AGO THE FIRST MAJOR GAY RIGHTS MONSTRATN HAPPENED SILVER LAKE

Last year, Richard Grenell, Donald Tmp’s ambassador to Germany, attacked Iran, sayg that “barbaric public executns are all too mon a untry where nsensual homosexual relatnships are crimalised and punishable by floggg and ath”. 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.

HOW ACTIVISTS ORGANIZED THE FIRST GAY PRI PARAS

E., for lbians, gays [homosexual mal], bisexuals, transgenr persons, and queer persons); seeks to elimate sodomy laws; and lls for an end to discrimatn agast LGBTQ persons employment, cred, hog, public acmodatns, and other areas of life. ) Gay rights prr to the 20th century Relig admonns agast sexual relatns between dividuals of the same sex (particularly men) long stigmatized such behavur, but most legal s Europe were silent on the subject of homosexualy and bisexualy. Dpe Paragraph 175 and the failure of the WhK to w s repeal, homosexual and bisexual men and women experienced a certa amount of eedom Germany, particularly durg the Weimar perd, between the end of World War I and the Nazi seizure of power.