Gay Liberatn Movement · Civil Rights Digal History Project · exhibs

Contents:

• PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI
• THE HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN
• GAY LIBERATN
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT: ONE VICTORY AT A TIME
• GAY LIBERATN MOVEMENT
• GAY LIBERATN NEED THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

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

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. 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. 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 HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN

) 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.

GAY LIBERATN

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. 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”.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT: ONE VICTORY AT A TIME

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 .

GAY LIBERATN MOVEMENT

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. 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. 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.

GAY LIBERATN NEED THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Organizatns dited to gay pri clud the Unn of Sexual Mori, the Gay Women’s Alliance, the Seattle Counselg Service, the Gay Communy Center, Seattle’s chapter of the Gay Liberatn Front, Stonewall (a dg and alhol rehabilatn center), and the Lbian Rource Center. Some lbian and femist groups believed that separatism (livg, anizg, and socializg wh women only) was the answer to endg male domance, yet the Unn of Sexual Mori, a aln of gay men and women who shared anti-racist and anti-imperialist views, believed this approach to be shortsighted bee society is posed of both women and men.

The expansn of the Ain Amerin populatn the adjacent Central District durg and after World War II also ma the southern part of Capol Hill ls attractive to more well-to-do whe rints, drivg rents down and thereby makg the area more affordable for gay rints. The Seattle Urban League, an Ain Amerin anizatn, leased space s buildg the Central District for the Gay Communy Center the late 1970s, and the Central District voted agast Iniative 13 at a higher rate than any other neighborhood Seattle 1978. The Pike/Pe Planng Study, which brought together varoi anizatns and fancial support om the Cy of Seattle’s Neighborhood Matchg Fund to study the velopment of the Pike/Pe Corridor, clus the gay muny as belongg to the area while ignorg the historil prence of Ain Amerins.

The glam rock explosn saw a new theatrily burst onto the scene and, while straight acts such as The Sweet, Alice Cooper, and New York Dolls experimented wh make-up and pantomime performance, genue progrs was ma when, 1972, David Bowie announced to the world he was gay – even though he wasn’t. Rod Stewart’s story of a gay-bashg, “The Killg Of Geie, ” was a huge ternatnal h 1976; The Rocky Horror Show, wh s subversive them wrapped up a sh of mp humor, had been nng on stage for years; and dis began to emerge as the fg sound of the dancefloor.

While lbian sger-songwrers such as Cris Williamson, Holly Near (later to live wh a man and renounce labels), Joan Armatradg, and Janis Ian enjoyed some succs, the mastream kept them largely on the sil favor of safer, straighter women the lik of Diana Ross, who rerd “I’m Comg Out” 1980 and ma a pot of urtg the gay market to mata their reers. Androgyno in Sylvter had a worldwi h wh “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and the scene even tablished s own gay supergroup, wh Village People savg weddg playlists for evermore when they released songs such as “YMCA” and “In The Navy” at the ’s close. Gay polics pop would also mata a healthy momentum wh artists such as Tom Robson, who had e out the prev and sred a major UK succs wh “Glad To Be Gay, ” and Bronski Beat, who ma their classic but wh 1984’s “Smalltown Boy, ” ntug to wre mic born om a different perspective.