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jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span><a class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM ByleLk-gEnFiw iUEiRd ggMZaT cXqSTL eErqIx byle__name-lk button" href="/ntributors/anc-fzgerald">Franc FzGerald</a></span></span></p></div><time data-ttid="ContentHearPublishDate" dateTime="1986-07-14T20:00:00-04:00" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ContentHearPublishDate-eIBicG iUEiRd kYZrFA kEBrdf">July 14, 1986</time></div></div></div></div></div></hear></div><div data-attribute-verso-pattern="article-body" class="ArticlePageContentBackGround-cNiFNN kbAoLA article-body__ntent"><div class="ActnBarWrapperContent-lasBkU cAHp"><div class="ActnBarWrapperComponent-cjwxLS bEeSLb"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh kNjTbQ viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save this story" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU hQrwCF bookmark large-screen"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" 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22.1845V8.83866H20V23.9508Z"></path><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M23 3H20V0H19V3H16V4H19V7H20V4H23V3Z"></path></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd bkefvo gkccfO">Save this story</span></button></div></div></div><div class="LightboxWrapper-dxsWBV hhylRt"><div class="ArticlePageChunksContent-etcMtP bwyLBj"><div data-ttid="ArticlePageChunks" class="ArticlePageChunks-fLyCVG gBDqlf"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn iHBnEl llout--has-top-borr set-embedd-le" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Harvey Milk sworn as the first Gay San Francis Supervisor on steps of cy hall" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w, 1920w, 2240w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Photograph by Robert Clay / Alamy</span></div></figure></div><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg">It was one of those days San Francis when the weather is so close to perfect that there seems to be no weather. The sun shone out of a celean sky, lightg the streets to a shadowls tensy. It was a Sunday morng, and the streets were almost empty, so our pickup tck sped unterpted up and down the hills, givg those of the back a Ferris- wheel view of the cy. On Pacific Heights, the ros were bloomg, the holli were berry, and enormo clumps of daisi billowed out om unr palm tre. On Rsian Hill, Victorian ho wh ice-cream-lored faças seemed to reflect this bewilrment of seasons. At the bottom of the hill, skyscrapers wheeled across our horizon, and the tck reered through the serted nyons of the fancial district headg for the wateront.</p><p class="paywall">“Don’t worry,” Armistead Mp said. “We’re on gay time, so the para won’t have started yet.” He was right. The Gay Freedom Day Para had not yet begun. Roundg a rner, we me upon a le of statnary floats. Bouquets of lavenr, pk, and silver balloons cloud the sky, and bands were warmg up. People stum led about amid a crowd of young men and women bluejeans.</p><p class="paywall">Our tck nosed self to the para lp behd a group of marchers wh signs readg “L<em class="small">utherans</em> C<em class="small">oncerned</em> <em class="small">for</em> G<em class="small">ay</em> P<em class="small">eople</em>” and a hay wagon advertisg a gay roo Reno. Our tck had no sign on , but rried, addn to me and another journalist, two people well known to the gay muny of the cy: Mp, San Francis’s most proment gay fictn wrer, and Dave Kopay, the profsnal football player. In the ont seat were Ken Maley and a uple of other iends of Armistead’s.</p><p class="paywall">In a few mut, our part of the para began to move forward; a untry-and-Wtern band stck up behd , and a number of men drsed as wboys or clowns took their plac and around the hay wagon. A clown wheface wh baggy overalls walked along bi our tck. I asked him about the roo, and he said matter-of-factly, “This is only our send year, so we don’t expect any bulldoggg, but we’ve got a lot of lf ropers, some bronc rirs, and some really wonrful Dale Evans imatns. You’ve <em>got</em> to e.”</p><p class="paywall">The clown drifted off, and I turned to watch a man a Batman pe and a sequned jockstrap roller-skatg by. He had the torso of a dancer, and he moved wh liquid, dreamlike movements, crossg and recrossg the street. He glid through the Lutheran ntgent and then swept through a group of clergymen rryg large plards pictg J on the Cross. At the next tersectn, he looped around a yellow taxib filled wh young women T-shirts. The young women were leang out of the wdows cheerg and wavg a sign that read “L<em class="small">bian</em> T<em class="small">axi</em> D<em class="small">rivers</em> <em class="small">of</em> S<em class="small">an</em> F<em class="small">rancis</em>.” I regnized one of them, a slim young woman wh long blond hair, as the taxi-driver who had brought me om the airport a few weeks before.</p><p class="paywall">Eventually, our tck turned onto Market Street, the cy’s ma thoroughfare. Here we uld sudnly see the whole first half of the para—floats and l of marchers fillg the street ont of —on s way to Cy Hall. The sun now looked like a klieg light; burnished the streets and set the wdows of the skyscrapers on fire. Nearby, an elrly Che man wh a dog walked along the siwalk close to the buildgs, his head bowed, his ey averted om the marchers. A block away, a woman a baggy at and a kerchief scuttled to a doorway jt time to avoid the sight of a transvte py of herself hulkg down the avenue. Otherwise, the siwalks and the streets leadg off to the downtown were nearly serted; there were no spectators to watch this hor, s outlandish stum, march to the cy.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">That summer— was 1978—timat of the gay populatn of San Francis ranged om seventy-five thoand to a hundred and fifty thoand. If the oft-ced figure of a hundred thoand was more or ls rrect, that meant that this cy of fewer than seven hundred thoand people approximately one out of every five adults and perhaps one out of every three or four voters was gay. Many of the gay people—at least half of them—had moved to the cy wh the past eight years. And most of them were young, whe, and male. There were by this time some nety gay bars the cy, and perhaps a hundred and fifty gay anizatns, cludg church groups, social service groups, and bs associatns. There were ne gay newspapers, two gay foundatns, and three gay Democratic clubs—one of them the largt Democratic club California. Though gays had settled all over the cy, they had created an area of almost exclively gay settlement the Eureka Valley, a neighborhood known as the Castro. The prev year, the Castro had elected a cy supervisor, Harvey Milk, who ran as a gay ndidate agast sixteen opponents, cludg another gay man. Now, que visibly, this area of settlement was spreadg all directns: up to the hills above Castro Street, down to the Missn district, and across to the lower Haight Street neighborhood. While New York and Los Angel probably had more gay rints, the proportns were nowhere as high as they were San Francis. In fact, the sheer ncentratn of gay people San Francis may have had no parallel history.</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-un__slot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">At that time, most San Francisns still ntrived to ignore the growg gay populatn their midst. The lol prs reported on gay events, and ocsnally on the growth of the Castro, but most San Francisns I talked to seemed not to have noticed the piec, or they had fotten them. Small wonr, perhaps, for the articl were not sensatnal any sense. Lol reporters seemed to have got ed to the gay muny whout ever givg s due. They now took certa thgs for granted. Earlier that year, an out-of-town reporter had gone wh the mayor and other cy officials to the annual Bex Arts Costume Ball. The event had shaken him, but the lol newspapers had reported as they would a mayoral vis to, say, a Knights of Columb dner. It was, after all, the third year the mayor had gone to a drag ball the civic dorium.</p><p class="paywall">The program my prs k showed that there were a hundred and thirty-eight ntgents the para, and that wh a few exceptns, such as Straights for Gay Rights and the San Francis Commissn on the Stat of Women, all of them reprented gay anizatns of one sort or another. Wh the program, was possible to sort the anizatns to certa tegori: polil anizatns, human-rights groups, profsnal associatns, social-service anizatns, ethnic-mory groups, relig anizatns, llege groups, out-of-town ntgents (such as the Napa Gay People’s Coaln), aternal anizatns (such as transsexuals and bisexuals for gay rights), sports groups, and mercial enterpris. The para anizers, however, had chosen to mix up all the groups, so the actual orr of the para might have e om the pag of Cl Lévi-Strss.</p><p class="paywall">By the time our tck turned onto Market Street, I was too late to see the head of the para: the Gay Amerin Indian ntgent, followed by Disabled Gay People and Friends, and then by a nety-piece marchg band and the gay polil lears of the cy. Leavg the tck to walk along the sil, where a crowd was now gatherg, I ma my way up to No. 41, the Gay Lato Alliance, or <em class="small">GALA</em>—a group of young men dancg down the street to mariachi mic. Jt behd them was a group reprentg the gay synagogue—a rather ser group of people, the men wearg yarmulk and rryg a banner wh the Star of David. This ntgent was closely followed by a Marilyn Monroe look-alike on stilts, battg six-ch-long eyelash and swayg to the mic of a dis float jt behd her. Farther back were people untry work cloth wh a sign for the Orr of Displaced Oki. The Lol Lbian Associatn Kazoo Marchg Band led a number of women’s groups, cludg the San Francis Women’s Center, U.C. Berkeley Women’s Studi Stunt Cc, and Dyk on Bik. This last group uld be easily found: every time the members—six or seven pete women tight jeans, men’s unrshirts, and boots—me to an tersectn, they would rev up their motorcycl, brgg loud applse om the crowd. Farther back, behd the Gay Pagans, the Free Beach Activists, the Zimbabwe Medil Drive, and the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club, me the float that many had been wag for: a sequned, spangled, and tulle-wrapped chart, holdg the Council of Grand D and Duchs of San Francis. Somewhere this neighborhood there was a tly unfortunate juxtaposn. The Women Agast Vlence Pornography and Media had taken their proper place le, but then somehow, perhaps as a rult of some nfn the Society of Jan, elements of the sadomasochistic liberatn ont had moved jt behd them. The pallid-lookg men uniforms were not draggg chas—the para anizers had unselled agast that—but they were rryg a sign that read “B<em class="small">LACK</em> <em class="small">AND</em> B<em class="small">LUE</em> I<em class="small">s</em> B<em class="small">EAUTIFUL</em>.”</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">At that time—the very height of gay liberatn—many Amerins believed that the homosexual populatn of the Uned Stat had greatly creased the past ten or twenty years. And they were willg to expla . Some said that the untry was gog soft—that there was no disciple any more, and no moraly. Others, cludg a number of gay men, said that the untry was the act of fdg s elogil balance and creatg natural lims to populatn growth. There was, however, no evince for the premise—to say nothg of the theori built upon . Demographic studi showed that male homosexuals had remaed a fairly stable percentage of the populatn sce 1948, when the first Ksey report me out. What had happened sce then—and particularly the past ten years—was that homosexuals had assumed much greater visibily. Gay liberatn was, more than anythg else, a move to nscns. The movement “created” some homosexuals that permted some people to disver their homosexual feelgs and to exprs them, but s ma effect was to brg large numbers of homosexuals out of the closet and to the nscns of others. A sendary effect was to create a great wave of migratn to the tolerant ci of the untry. All the gay immigrants I talked to said that they had always known they were attracted to the same sex; their cisn was not to bee a homosexual but to live openly as one, and a gay muny. “I lived Rochter,” a young polil nsultant told me. “I was whe, male, and middle-class, and I had gone to Harvard. I thought I uld do anythg I wanted, so I rented havg to nceal somethg as basic as sex. I rented beg nmned to reprs or ignore my homosexualy, and to live turmoil for the rt of my life. The solutn was to move here.”</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><asi class="PersistentAsiWrapper-VGrR daRVRt persistent-asi" style="posn:absolute;top:to;height:to" data-ttid="PersistentAsiWrapper"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="ct3n5"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></asi></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="s0dm6b"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The para was advancg slowly, and the farther up Market Street we went the more spectators there were. First, there was a le of people, and then a crowd fillg the siwalks and spillg out to the streets behd. Many of the spectators were young men, and now happened equently that one of them would ll out “Hey, ’s Armistead!” or “Look, ’s Dave Kopay!”</p><p class="paywall">Kopay, tall, broad-shoulred, and lantern-jawed, was not hard to regnize: he looked like the movie versn of a football player. A veteran nng back, he had played pro ball for eight years wh the 49ers, the Lns, the Redsks, the Sats, and the Packers. He retired 1972, and three years later, nvced that mors of his homosexualy had nied him a achg job, he cid to e out to a newspaper reporter dog a story on homosexualy profsnal sports. The reporter had talked to a number of gay athlet, but only Kopay permted his name to be ed. His gture created a sndal the sports world, for while everyone knew there were homosexuals profsnal football, no one wanted evince of . But Kopay beme somethg of a hero among gay men.</p><p class="paywall">Armistead Mp, who was wearg a lavenr-and-yellow hockey jersey and a hat pulled down over bright-blue ey, might have been more difficult to regnize. But San Francis he was jt as well known as Kopay. He was the thor of “Tal of the Cy,” a humoro serial about San Francis life that appeared the San Francis <em>Chronicle</em>. The terra he mapped his “Tal” was the world of young sgle people, gay and straight, who me to San Francis to change their liv. It was a world he knew well. Mp, as happened, me om an aristocratic and ultranservative North Carola fay. On graduatg om the Universy of North Carola at Chapel Hill, 1966, he joed the Navy, went through officers’ school, and served a tour of duty Vietnam. He then spent an addnal summer Vietnam, as a volunteer, buildg refugee hog wh some fellow-officers. On his return, Print Nixon ved him to the Whe Hoe and honored him as the very mol of patrtic young Republinism. He worked for a year on a newspaper Charlton, South Carola, and then left for San Francis.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Mp, bee of his wrg but also bee of his enormo Southern charm, had bee the Gay Personaly of San Francis. The year before, he had been master of ceremoni of the gay para, and he had opened the annual game between the San Francis Sheriff’s Department and the Gay Softball League by throwg out an orange. Once, to monstrate that nothg is sacred, cludg amour propre, he turned up a whe rabb su to sell jockstraps for a gay chary. The epigraph for his first book was a quotatn om Osr Wil: “It’s an odd thg, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen San Francis.”</p><p class="paywall">Most of the spectators now crowdg the siwalks appeared to be their twenti or thirti. Drsed California style, natural fibr and hikg or joggg sho, both the men and the women looked lean, tan, and athletic. Many of the men, now shirtls the sun, had admirably mcled chts. Lookg out at a row of them sunbathg on a wall, Armistead said, “Jt thk of all the fortun spent on bodybuildg equipment.” There were some olr people, cludg a group of four women wh butch haircuts and led fac, and a uple of men wh intil beards and intil n, but not very many. And apart om a few glum-lookg tourist fai there were hardly any mixed upl or children. To the expert observers on my tck, most of the spectators appeared to be gay.</p><p class="paywall">The majory of San Francisns uld ntue to ignore the growg gay populatn their midst part bee the cy was still centralized, s rintial neighborhoods a seri of ethnic villag: black, Hispanic, Irish, Italian, Che. Like all the other mori, the gays had their own neighborhoods and plac of entertament, which other San Francisns circumnavigated as they went om home to work and back. But, then, unlike the rt, most gay people had no distguishg marks, no permanent badg of lor, class, or accent. Gog to work downtown, gay people—black or whe, men or women—were visible to others for as long as they wanted to be. Polilly speakg, they acted like a highly anized ethnic group; ed, this year they had persuad the cy ernment to give the gay para the same sum gave ethnic paras for the purpose of enuragg tourism. Yet this mory, beg fed by sire alone, materialized full only once a year, on Gay Freedom Day.</p><p class="paywall">From time to time durg the slow march up Market Street, me to me to see the gay para as the unfurlg of a municipal dream sequence—the clowns, the drag queens, and the men their leather sus beg the fantastic imagery of the cy’s llective unnsc. Sigmund Frd, after all, had believed that man was born bisexual and that every human beg had homosexual sir some gree. From this perspective, seemed unreasonable that the para should not clu everyone San Francis. On the other hand, Frd believed that each dividual’s ner world was unique—dividual sir havg different quali or textur, different gre of tensy and mos of exprsn. And om this perspective seemed unreasonable that all the thoands of people should pick up a banner labelled “G<em class="small">AY</em>” and march wh to Cy Hall. What ma the experience more bewilrg still was that to watch the ntgents pass by was to watch a nfn of tegori somethg like that of Kafka’s Che list: Dyk on Bik, California Human Rights Advot, Sutro Baths, Lbian Mothers, the Imperial Silver Fox Court. Lookg at the stum—the leather and the tulle—I wonred which were new and which had been worn for s, even centuri, the unrgrounds of Paris or London. Which were the permanent archetyp of sir, and which merely fashns or the jok of the young? My iends on the tck would answer wh the unterculture koan that everyone was drag—all of . And yet some of the stum and dream imag had settlement patterns the cy.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="9ex8c5"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">There were four gay centers San Francis, each geographilly distct, each ntag what appeared to be a distct subculture or culture-part. The olst gay center lay the Tenrlo, a triangle of sleazy bars and cheap hotels borred by the bs district, the theatre district, and Market Street. Like s unterparts other ci, the Tenrlo was by no means exclively gay. The home of wos and bums, was a trans statn for sailors and impecun travellers, and harbored most of the prostutn, both gay and straight, for the entire cy. In the late afternoon, female prostut, male htlers, and transvte whor uld be seen performg a plited street-rner ballet as they tried at once to eva the police and sort out their ially undifferentiated ctomers. In the neteen-fifti, the district had harbored most of the gay bars the cy, but now only the htler bars and the drag-queen bars were left. The Kokp, owned by a queen lled Sweet Lips, had been operatn for a . Now led wh trophi and photographs of untls drag balls, had bee a kd of Toots Shor of drag San Francis. A few blocks away was a bar of a profsnal and much more highly specialized nature, where six-to-seven-foot-tall black transvt htled whe men bs sus.</p><p class="paywall">Chronologilly, Polk Street, or Polk Gulch, was the send gay center of the cy. It was the rators’ district, and the sixti a number of gay bars had moved to blocks led wh antique shops and furnure stor. Sce then, had been the major se of the Halloween ftivi. On that one night a year, the police stood by, leavg the street to a rnival of wch, clowns, nuns on roller skat, and Jackie Kennedy look-alik, or Patty Hearst look-alik wh toy mache guns. Polk Street was a mixed neighborhood—both gay and straight people lived there, and s rtrants tered to both crowds. Its gay bars were th not nspicuo except at night, when groups of young htlers stood out on the siwalks around them. A number of the gay bars still tered to the stylish and the well-to-do. They had low lights, expensive furnure, and mic by the old favor—Marlene Dietrich, Noël Coward, and Judy Garland. Even to outsirs, their patrons would be regnizable, for Polk Street was still the land of good taste and attu: the silk srf perfectly knotted, the sentimentaly, the wty ltle jab.</p><p class="paywall">A newer gay center lay on Folsom Street, the old warehoe district, south of Market. At night, Folsom Street was the plement of Polk Street, for was led wh leather bars: the Stud, the Brig, the Ramrod, to name a few. Late at night, groups of men bluejeans, motorcycle jackets, and boots would circle around ranks of Triumphs and Harley-Davidsons, eyg one another warily. The bars had sawdt on the floors, and men drank beer standg up, shoulr to shoulr, a d of heavy metal and hard rock. In the Black and Blue, some of them wore studd wristbands, studd neckbands, and ps wh Nazi signia; above the bar, a huge motorcycle was spend a wash of psychelic lights. On Wednday nights, the Arena bar had a slave ctn, at which men would be stripped almost naked, chaed up by men black masks wh whips, and sold off to the hight bidr. Such was the theatre of Folsom Street. The men leather me om Polk Street and other quiet neighborhoods; the money went to chary; and the “slave” put on a bs su and went to work the next day. The Folsom district was a night town—the Valley of the Kgs, was lled, as opposed to the Valley of the Queens, the Tenrlo, and the Valley of the Dolls, on Polk Street. In addn to the leather bars, a variety of gay rtrants, disthèqu, bathho, and sex clubs had moved to s abandoned wareho and manufacturg lofts. It was an entertament place, and few people lived there.</p><p class="paywall">The Castro, by ntrast, was a neighborhood. Though gays first settled there—homtead, effect—only the early seventi, had bee the fulcm of gay life the cy by 1977. At first glance, was much like other neighborhoods: a four-block ma street wh a dgstore, rner groceri, a liquor store, dry cleaners, and a revival movie hoe. Here and there, money was visibly at work: a fé advertised crab ravigote, a store sold expensive glass and tableware, and there were two banks. But there was nothg swish about the Castro. The ma street ran off to quiet streets of two-story and three-story whe-shgled ho; the ma haberdashery, the All-Amerin Boy, sold cloth that were nservative, tradnal. In fact, the neighborhood was like other neighborhoods except that on Saturdays and Sundays you uld walk for blocks and see only young men drsed, as were, for a hikg expedn. Also, the bookstore was a gay bookstore, the health club a gay health club; there was a gay real-tate brokerage, a gay lawyer’s office, and the office of a gay psychiatrist. The bars were, wh one exceptn, gay bars, and one of them—the Tw Peaks, at the rner of Castro and Market Street—was, so Armistead told me, the first gay bar the untry to have picture wdows on the street.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Armistead and his iends liked to take visors to the Castro and pot out landmarks like the Tw Peaks. But fact the only remarkable-lookg thg on the street was the crowd of young men themselv. Even at lunchtime on a weekday, there would be dozens of good-lookg young men stg at the fé tabl, hangg out at the bars, leang agast doorways, or walkg down the streets wh their arms around each other. The sexual tensn was palpable. “I’d never live here,” Armistead said. “Far too tense. You n’t go to the lndromat at 10 <em class="small">A.M.</em> whout the right pair of jeans on.” The Castro was the place to which most of the young gay men me. Perhaps fifty to a hundred thoand me as tourists each summer, and thoands of the cid to settle, leavg Topeka and Omaha for good. New York and Los Angel had their gay areas, but the Castro was unique: was the first settlement built by gay liberatn.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="b6mf"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="zq71vi"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The nizens of the Castro were overwhelmgly male, but ocsnally a crowd of men on the street you would see two or three young women drsed jeans or jumpsus. A few gay women lived the Castro—they nsired safe—and close by were a few small lbian settlements, Haight-Ashbury, Duboce Triangle, and the Missn district. But the settlements were so nspicuo that you uldn’t fd them unls you knew where to look. On one quiet street, there was a fortable neighborhood bar wh a jebox and a pool table; on the walls were amed photographs of a softball team that s regulars anized each summer. This was Md’s Study, and the bartenr and all the ctomers were women. But there were only five or six lbian bars the entire cy. There were many more women’s anizatns—theatre groups, social-service centers, and so on—but there was no female equivalent of the Castro. In Berkeley and northern Oakland, across the bay, young polil women had taken over some of the big, slightly n-down shgled ho and started a newspaper, a crafts öperative, a rerdg pany, and var other enterpris. And there were a number of lbian farm mun up the ast Northern California. But nowhere did gay women ngregate the way gay men did. In the cy, feelg themselv vulnerable, they took on protective lorg and melted to the landspe. No one ever knew how many of them there were San Francis, for no rearch money was ever allotted to fdg out. They appeared large numbers only on Gay Freedom Day.</p><p class="paywall">The ont of the para had long ago reached s term, Cy Hall, when our tck pulled to the Civic Center Plaza. San Francis Cy Hall—a rotunda buildg like the Uned Stat Capol—looked large and imposg, onted, as was, by tree-led malls and a reflectg pool. At the same time, recently cleaned and bright whe agast a bright-blue sky, looked like an enormo weddg ke, of the sort displayed old-fashned Italian bakeri. Harvey Milk was standg next to the dais, wh a lei of purple orchids around his neck and a bunch of daisi one hand, givg terviews to a small group of rad and televisn reporters. He had already ma his speech—a strong one, I was told—nouncg the so lled Briggs Iniative, a proposn on the November ballot that would have driven all openly gay teachers and all discsn of gay rights out of the public schools. He was now llg for a natnal gay march on Washgton the followg year. Nearby, a woman a gypsy stume was swgg her child around through the air; a man a tuxedo wh makp on and long red nails strolled past her hummg to himself.</p><p class="paywall">In ont of the dais, a large crowd had assembled—a very large crowd. Ined, seemed to me when I looked at om the top of the Cy Hall steps that I mt be lookg at all the twenty-to-thirty-year-olds Northern California. The young people ont were followg the proceedgs on the dais enthiastilly. Some were wavg banners; others were standg wh lked arms, chantg and cheerg. Behd them, groups of people were lyg on the grass, their heads pillowed on backpacks, talkg and rollg jots, while other groups of young people drifted around them. From the ont, the crowd looked like an early anti-war monstratn; om the back, looked like the Woodstock natn. Both seemed to be crowds of the sixti returned—only now both of them were gay.</p><p class="paywall">The next day, June 26, 1978, the San Francis <em>Chronicle</em> reported that two hundred and forty thoand people had turned out for the annual Gay Freedom Day Para. It quoted the police timate rather than the Chamber of Commerce timate of three hundred thoand, ma later the day, or the figure of three hundred and seventy-five thoand which appeared the Los Angel <em>Tim</em>. Even the send figure would make the turnout one of the largt San Francis’s history, and would equal nearly half the adult populatn of the cy. The lol prs tend to avoid figur leadg to such arhmetic. It did not like to advertise that San Francis had bee the gay pal of the untry, and perhaps of the world.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Jt why so many gay people me to San Francis was a qutn that few non-gay San Francisns asked themselv the summer of 1978. But after the ath of Harvey Milk, November of that year, lol journalists would be lled upon to expla the Castro every time events focsed natnal attentn on San Francis. The boosterish explanatn they evolved had to do wh the Gold Rh, and wh the thought that San Francis had always been a wi- open cy tolerant of “diverse life styl” and unnventnal behavr. The cy, was te, did grow up as a wi-open mers’ town, and long after the Gold Rh was over ntued to attract a raffish crowd of fortune seekers and adventurers—not for tradn’s sake but bee beme a port cy, the largt on the Wt Coast, and the ma jumpg-off place for the Amerin outback. Durg the Spanish-Amerin War and aga durg the Send World War, was a center for Amerin naval operatns the Pacific. Like most port ci, had a big, rnchy wateront, which expand mightily durg wartime. But by the end of the neteenth century was also a manufacturg cy, wh a solid cizenry of blue-llar workers and prospero, civic-md entreprenrs. In peacetime, s cizenry would wage strenuo and often succsful mpaigns agast vice and s on the wateront: s preachers mounted a succsful effort after 1906 by claimg that the earthquake was dive terventn agast the new Sodom and Gomorrah; the cy ernment cracked down the twenti, the thirti, and then aga the fifti and early sixti. Durg that last perd, the police champned bourgeois moraly to the extent of nfistg pi of Allen Gsberg’s “Howl” om the Cy Lights bookstore and closg most of the gay bars. But then, as had happened so often the past, a new wave of vars me to dispt the orr so refully rtored. In other words, San Francis’s tolerance for unnventnal behavr seemed to be cyclil.</p><p class="paywall">What was certaly te about the booster versn of San Francis history was that among the immigrants to San Francis, and to California general, were a great many people who were lookg for personal eedom and wanted to break wh the past. Such was Henry Hay, the founr of the Mattache Society, which was the first homosexual-rights anizatn the Uned Stat. Not much was known about Hay until the mid-neteen-seventi, when the gay historian John D’E terviewed him, for Hay and his first two associat, Chuck Rowland and Bob Hull, had Communist Party backgrounds. Well-ted and highly cultivated men—Hull was a classil mician—all three of them were immigrants to California. They had worked as anizers on Communist Party cultural mte and affiliat the forti. Hay, who was then married, met Rowland and Hull Los Angel 1950 and asked them to jo him creatg an anizatn whose aim would be to raise the nscns of homosexuals and take polil actn on behalf of what he fed as an opprsed cultural mory. Hay found a society along l faiar to them: s membership was secret and s stcture cell-like and hierarchil. The need for secrecy seemed evint, for the Hoe Un-Amerin Activi Commtee and other agenci, operatg California, had already begun a hunt for Communists, and for homosexuals wh secury clearanc. In 1955, Hay was lled up before <em class="small">HUAC</em> for his Communist associatns, but, perhaps bee of the secury system he had stuted, <em class="small">HUAC</em> never disvered his nnectn wh the Mattache Society. The mtee members th missed the chance to substantiate their this that Communists and homosexuals were almost the same thg. In fact, Hay had qu the Party, and was now engaged the most all-Amerin of enavors—a civil-rights stggle and the pursu of happs.</p><p class="paywall">The Mattache Society was enormoly succsful California; so popular were Hay’s nscns-raisg ssns that grew to several hundred members the first few years. The new members, however, sisted that have a mocratic stcture, and as secrecy uld no longer be assured, Hay, Hull, and Rowland had to rign their learship rol, fearg that their former associatns might bee a liabily to . The learship then passed to the hands of people who were fensively anti-Communist, and who did their bt to erase all memory of the founrs. The headquarters moved om Los Angel to San Francis, and 1955 two other San Francisns, Del Mart and Phyllis Lyon, found a sister anizatn they lled the Dghters of Bilis.</p><p class="paywall">The two “homophile” anizatns, as they were known, did not, of urse, create the homosexual populatn San Francis; rather, the reverse was te. Acrdg to stunts of gay history, the cy had homosexual baths and meetg plac as far back as the eighteen-neti. (Acrdg to gay mythology, the fashn for wearg lored bandannas to signify sexual preferenc me om the Gold Rh—om the mers’ practice of g bandannas to dite “female” partners their all-male square danc.) Though gay history remas largely anecdotal until the neteen-fifti, is clear that the homosexual populatn creased after the Send World War, when homosexual soldiers and sailors mobilized the cy took a look at the wateront and cid not to return to Kansas Cy and Duluth. In any se, there were some thirty homosexual bars the cy the early sixti, when the new crackdown occurred.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-4 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">The proximate e of this crackdown was a charge ma 1959 by a mayoral ndidate that the cumbent mayor had allowed “sex viat” to tablish their natnal headquarters the cy. The ndidate was, of urse, referrg to the members of the Mattache Society and the Dghters of Bilis. There was a good al of irony this, for at the time two groups of more nservative and rpectable people uld hardly have been found. Durg the wch hunts of the fifti, the Mattache Society had rejected the Marxist-style program of nscns-raisg and direct polil actn; ed, was rejected so pletely that most of s members never knew had existed at all. The emphasis both societi was now on improvg the “image” of homosexuals through tnal programs and through appeals to clergymen, psychologists, and sex rearchers. So eager were the members to monstrate their rpectabily that they would have nothg whatever to do wh the people who went to the bars. As a rult, their numbers were extremely small, and had remaed so to the sixti.</p><p class="paywall">For most of the sixti, and even to the early seventi, San Francis was not a pletely tolerant cy as far as homosexuals were ncerned. Police harassment was often feroc: the crackdown of the early sixti, most of the bars were closed (some temporarily, some permanently), and hundreds of gay men and women were picked up each year, often simply for dancg together or holdg hands. In 1961, José Sarr, a drag entertaer at a bar lled the Black Cat, ran for supervisor prott agast this harassment. He won more than six thoand vot and me seventh the race, but two years later the state liquor thory closed the Black Cat for good. In 1965, the police even broke up a dance held by a group of lol clergymen to raise money for a new mtee they had formed—the Council on Relign and the Homosexual. Unr the circumstanc, the homophile anizatns ma ltle headway, and after 1961 the center of gravy the Mattache Society shifted to New York. In 1964, a new anizatn, the Society for Individual Rights, known as <em class="small">SIR</em>, was created San Francis to provi a meetg ground for gay men that was safer than the much-bieged bars. <em class="small">SIR</em> differed om the homophile groups that addrsed the needs of gay men, and not what the larger muny thought about homosexualy. Though was maly a social anizatn, had mte to al wh legal and polil issu and to offer social servic. And bee alt wh the world of the bars attracted a great many more members than the Mattache Society: some twelve hundred at s peak. But was not until the early seventi that gay anizatns gaed the strength to challenge cy polici, and by that time two almost seismic chang had taken place. One of them was an enomic transformatn of the cy. The other was gay liberatn.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Our tck was idlg at an tersectn durg the para when Larry Glover emerged om the crowd and me up to say hello. He was wearg only shorts and hikg boots; wh a backpack slung over his tanned shoulrs, he looked like an advertisement for a wilrns trip or natural foods. I had met Glover on my first trip through gay night town. That was on a Saturday—Sunday morng, actually—and the Black and Blue, the Folsom district, was packed so tight that had taken me and a journalist iend fifteen mut to work our way across the room. The crowd was not of the yieldg variety. There were no other women, and all the men were drsed heavy leather, Hell’s Angels style: leather boots, studd leather belts, motorcycle jackets. They were big men, many of them, wh a lot of mcle and shoulr, and they had tough-guy exprsns. My lleague, though gay, had never been to a bar like this before, and he, too, was feelg distctly out of place. All of a sudn, he disappeared to the crowd, and a mute later he was back, sg, wh one of the more imposg figur there—a tall man wh cht mcl bulgg beneath an unrshirt. “Old iend of me!” he shouted at me over the d. “College together . . . Ann Arbor . . . S.D.S.!”</p><p class="paywall">I thought that I had heard wrong. But no. Glover left the bar wh and, volunteerg to act as our gui, took to several other Folsom Street bars and after-hours clubs. A few days later, I went to see him his apartment. It was a pla apartment, but the livg room had a lot of hangg plants and a Victorian sofa vered wh ancient, hairls Teddy bears. Glover was, turned out, a gentle soul; he had a job he didn’t much like and was studyg to be an actor. Over whe we, he told me about his days at the Universy of Michigan. He had gone to Ann Arbor the late sixti, and though he me om a nservative blue-llar fay, he had joed the anti-war movement and bee a member of Stunts for a Democratic Society. He heard about the gay-liberatn movement soon after began, 1969, and, feelg that was closer to his own ncerns than the peace movement, started a chapter Ann Arbor. From then on, he voted himself entirely to , anizg tnal programs and gay danc. The perd was, he said, an exhilaratg one for him. But was also a sad time, bee his lover, who was nng for Congrs on a peace ticket, cid that Glover was too radil, and left him. Then his bt iend, a lbian, beme a separatist and would not speak to him aga. Glover was sombre that day, and he seemed a ltle lonely. But on the street, the midst of the para, he looked much happier. “I’m a good space,” he said. “I’m joggg now as well as dog weights. Then, we’ve got two plays rehearsal, and I’m really gettg to Brecht.” He sed and waved as our tck pulled away.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="gcmjm9"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The 1978 Gay Freedom Day Para marked the nth anniversary of gay liberatn. The event heraldg s birth had been a rt on Christopher Street, Greenwich Village. On June 27, 1969, the New York Cy police raid the Stonewall Inn, a bar that tered to effemate young street people and drag queens, among others. Instead of acquicg, the ctomers and a crowd that gathered on the street fought back wh beer bottl and pavg ston. The scene was inic, and as the rtg ntued for a send night graffi announcg the birth of a revolutnary movement appeared on walls and siwalks. Extraordarily, a movement me to beg that summer, and was immediately succsful. In the first year, spread across the mp—om Columbia to Berkeley and Ann Arbor, to lleg across the natn.</p><p class="paywall">As John D’E has shown, gay liberatn did owe somethg to the olr, homophile anizatns. The gay liberatnists, however, were largely llege stunts, a generatn younger than most of the members of the Mattache Society, and a large proportn of them were volved wh the other radil movements of the sixti rather than wh the homophile groups. For them, gay liberatn was simply a logil extensn of the New Left, the unterculture, black power, and the femist movement. Whereas the homophile groups had retaed a morate, reformist character long after other social movements passed to a radil phase, the gay liberatnists adopted ant, nontatnal tactics. The rhetoric of opprsn, nscns, and revolutn me naturally to them, and they had, as well, a sense of impendg apolyptic change. They were not out to persua and te; they were out to shock the society to a sudn “change of nscns.” Abandong the old works, they ed the platforms provid by the other radil sixti movements. Gay-rights ntgents rried banners at anti-war monstratns; lbian groups ran workshops at femist nferenc; gay speakers addrsed New Left and black-power ralli; and gay stunts did guerrilla theatre on the mp. While the olr groups had unselled self-acceptance, the gay liberatnists lled upon homosexuals to make an open avowal of their sexual inty. Comg out symbolized the sheddg of self-hatred, but was also a polil act, directed toward the society. In San Francis, Leo Lrence, a thirty-six-year-old rad journalist, returned om the 1968 Democratic Conventn “radilized,” to wre for the <em>Berkeley Barb</em> and for <em>Vector</em>, the publitn of <em class="small">SIR</em>. He wrote of the “homosexual revolutn” and lled upon homosexuals to “e out om behd a double-life.” He and his lover posed semi-naked for a photograph the <em>Barb</em>, and he lambasted homophile activists and lled them timid, bigoted, and “a bunch of middle-class, uptight, bchy old queens.” This was gay liberatn speakg.</p><p class="paywall">The movement ught on as the homophile movement never had. The stunts, of urse, had ls to lose than their elrs, and when they were lled upon to do so they me out, and went out to the streets to monstrate. In jt a few years, the movement did “change the nscns” of young gay men and women across the untry: not jt the lleg but the high schools; not jt the ci but the small towns; and among those who otherwise red nothg for radil polics. This change, turn, set off the wave of migratns. In the seventi, thoands upon thoands of young gay men and women left their small towns and went to the ci. They went not only to San Francis but also to New York and Los Angel, to Chigo, Boston, Washgton, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Hoton. Roughly speakg, they went om the terr of the untry to the smopolan ci of the asts. There were no reliable statistics, but the movement was clearly natnal, and many ci was on a sle to be of some signifince to cy planners and policians.</p><p class="paywall">In the early seventi, San Francis seemed to be a logil place for movement activists to settle; not only was there a large and fairly open homosexual muny but San Francis was the place where gay liberatn had s longt and probably s strongt roots. In the neteen-fifti, the poets Allen Gsberg, Lawrence Ferlghetti, and Kenh Rexroth had created, wh others, a small lerary muny the North Beach district and lnched a bohemian prott agast lerary nventns and also agast the social and polil nformy of the perd. A number of them, cludg Gsberg, Robert Dunn, and Jack Spicer, were homosexuals, and proclaimed —Gsberg rly and joyoly. Unlike the homophile groups of the perd, Gsberg and his lerary iends were not purveyors of good taste; ed, they thought of good taste as the enemy. Gsberg’s first major epic, “Howl,” created a sndal on many unts, one of them s celebratn of homosexual sex, and was on that unt that the San Francis police nfisted pi of om Ferlghetti’s Cy Lights bookstore. The Beats, as Gsberg and his group me to be known, ptured the attentn of the prs, and before long North Beach was undated by young drifters, hipsters, and dropouts, enchanted wh the notn of rebelln agast, or simply pe om, social and parental thory. Before long, a number of the wrers who had given North Beach s bohemian chet moved to quieter quarters, Haight-Ashbury, and, predictably, the young people followed them there.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="4st1ht"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="p3ygy"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The young who moved to the Haight the sixti were the ont ranks of a generatn so large that seemed to have no parents and no memory. In the Haight, the taste was for dgs rather than drk, metaphysics rather than poetry; and stead of spair at the ndn of the world there was the arrogant optimism of youth. But the Haight was some sense a fulfillment of the North Beach prophecy, for the hippi were pacifists an age of war, crics of nsumerism an age of plenty, and the enemi of all nventn. They believed that love—love or an altered state of nscns—had the power to sweep away all reprsive social stutns. Articulatn was not their forte, and that was reasonable, sce their whole enavor was to disarticulate the society and the tellectual am they had grown up . Their long hair and loose cloth blurred the shape of the fay and the sexual exclivy that went wh . If people over thirty were not to be tsted, people unr thirty were to be tsted implicly: they were brothers and sisters, and everyone had a right to do his own thg. If they were gay, that was their thg, and had to be rpected.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-5 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">As the Haight was the succsor to North Beach, so the Castro was the direct scennt of the Haight. It grew out of s si, geographilly speakg, for s ma street, Castro, was only a few blocks away om the Haight settlement. When the first wave of gay settlers arrived there, around 1972, what they found was a yg Irish neighborhood wh two gay bars terg to hippi om the Haight. And the first settlers fted right . One of them, Harvey Milk, had been lookg for a place to drop out. He had worked for years as a fancial analyst New York, but then the sixti had h him, and at the age of forty-three he had long hair and iends the avant-gar theatre. The Castro, wh s cheap hog and good weather, sued him, and he bought a mera store wh his lover. Milk, as happened, was not a man flight. He had lived most of his life que openly as a gay man. Many of the others who moved there the first wave, however, were lookg for the shelter of bohemia orr to bee gay; ed, they equated gay and hip. For example, Frank Robson, a science-fictn wrer, had been an edor of <em>Playboy</em>, Chigo, and ep the closet until he picked up a sign at a gay-rights monstratn one day. Harry Brt, a Methodist mister om Texas, had been volved the civil-rights movement, and had been married. He qu the church and got a divorce 1968; three years later, he me to San Francis, went to the human-potential movement, and fally realized that he was a homosexual. He took a job as a mailman the Castro and began to thk out his life anew.</p><p class="paywall">The unterculture helped to brg the young men of the post-Stonewall generatn to San Francis. For them, however, there were other attractns as well. There was cheap hog nice parts of the cy; there were jobs available, too, and bee most of the younger men were not dropouts—far om —this was important to them. In addn, the cy was now well known for s tolerance of unnventnal behavr and “diverse life styl.” In fact, all the thgs were que new, and all were related to the fundamental transformatn of the cy’s enomy which occurred durg the sixti—a transformatn that changed the populatn of the cy and s polics.</p><p class="paywall">In 1960, San Francis was a mercial and dtrial cy, wh a wi variety of manufacturg enterpris. Its populatn was heavily blue-llar, and though the cy was racially and ethnilly diverse, was not tly tegrated. It was low-lyg and centralized: a cy of neighborhoods, each wh s own ma street, s own shops and rtrants. It was a cy of villag—Irish, Italian, black, Hispanic, Che. And, much as most San Francisns rented beg told so, was que provcial. Its Wasp tablishment was more than a ltle stuffy, and s policemen and policians, largely Irish or Italian Catholics, had no rpect whatever for “diverse life styl.” Durg the sixti, however, the enomic base of the cy erod. Manufacturg cled as factori moved out to cheaper quarters, across the bay; the port lost much of s shippg to Oakland. New York (among other ci) was gog through the same kd of cle that perd, but sce San Francis was a much smaller cy— was like Manhattan wh s Brooklyn and Queens as separate ci across the bay—the cle was sharper and more thoroughgog s effects. The flight of manufacturg emptied the factori and wareho south of Market Street. The nsequent flight of blue-llar workers emptied the ethnic neighborhoods, among them Haight-Ashbury and the Castro. It emptied the Irish and Italian neighborhoods, and also thned the black populatn the Fillmore district and the Hispanic populatn the Missn district. Great tracts of the Fillmore were razed and never rebuilt; the other neighborhoods offered good, cheap hog, but no jobs. This was ial for the trib of sixti children who me to live on the g of the enomy.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="u2tqly"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">In the neteen-sixti, the cy fathers sought to pensate for the loss by buildg up the already strong fancial sector, attractg rporate headquarters, and makg the cy a major tourist and nventn center. In the late sixti, Mayor Joseph Alto cleared the path for real-tate velopers, and new hotels and office buildgs went up downtown. Corporate executiv arrived and tourists arrived, and the cy soon had a mand for whe-llar office workers, profsnal people, and service-dtry personnel. What need was young people wh llege tns, and sce the were the most mobile people the populatn, they me quickly.</p><p class="paywall">Mayor Alto, an Italian Catholic, was a big-cy Democrat of the old school. He led the cy tocratilly and part through the old works—the ward boss, the unns, and the nstctn firms. He changed the cy, and at the same time swept away his own power base. As the manufacturg left, so did his supporters. By the mid-seventi, only one of the cy’s eleven votg districts had a majory of nservative blue-llar Democrats. And, ironilly, those for whom he had rema the cy tted him and his polics. By the early seventi, the cy was electg liberals to the Board of Supervisors and to the state legislature and Congrs—liberals who believed that ernment should be more mocratic, more open to racial mori, and more tolerant of diversy. Even before the new wave of gay immigratn began, a number of the liberals were attendg ndidat’ nights anized by the homophile groups. Dianne Feste went to them 1969, when, as a thirty-five-year-old hoewife om Pacific Heights, she took more vot than any other ndidate her first n for the Board of Supervisors. The same year, Willie Brown, the flamboyant state assemblyman, who later beme the speaker of the California State Assembly, ma his first attempt to repeal state statut proscribg var forms of nsensual sex. (In 1975, he and Gee Mosne, then the majory lear of the State Senate, engeered the passage of the legislatn.) In 1971, Richard Hongisto, a civil-rights and anti-war activist, who was the San Francis Police Department, was elected sheriff of San Francis County; on takg office, he gave a great al of attentn to improvg relatns between the gay populatn and the police. It was unr the stewardship of the liberals that San Francis polics gaed s reputatn for tolerance.</p><p class="paywall">How many gay immigrants me to San Francis durg the neteen-seventi is difficult to say exactly, for they me a flood of other young immigrants, most of them whe, most of them sgle, themselv shaken loose om their home towns by the natnwi shift om an dtrial to a postdtrial enomy. The 1980 cens showed that while the populatn of the cy had cled by five per cent sce 1970, the number of people between twenty-five and thirty-four had a crease of more than twenty-five per cent.</p><p class="paywall">A great many of the gay immigrants moved to the Castro and the neighborhoods around . Begng 1973, the price of rintial property climbed sharply; the boom was cywi, but greater the Castro than anywhere else. A feral survey of one small neighborhood near the Castro showed that real-tate transactns creased by seven hundred per cent the 1968-78. In 1977, Harvey Milk timated through precct unts that om twenty-five thoand to thirty thoand gay people had moved to the Castro. That year, the annual Castro Street Fair attracted seventy thoand gay tourists and immigrants, most of them men.</p><p class="paywall">It was Armistead Mp who troduced me to what he and his iends lled alternately “the ghetto” and “the liberated zone.” Lerally, this was the Castro, but, figuratively speakg, was the world of gay immigrants their twenti and thirti throughout the cy. At the time, Armistead did not live the Castro. He had an apartment a small woon hoe on Telegraph Hill overlookg the Filbert Steps. A number of his iends, cludg Ken Maley, Daniel Detorie, and Steve Beery, lived wh shoutg distance; their ho and apartments, backed up agast the precipo hillsi, had clear views across San Francis Bay. It was like the pueblo of some cliff-dwellg tribe. How many young men lived there I never really knew, for the iends seemed so much alike. Blond, pleasant, llegiate-lookg, they wore khakis and Brooks Brothers shirts and went about groups, often wh other young men of the same general scriptn. In the urse of a year, there would be substute—a Greg for a Bob, a Steve for another Steve—and sce they troduced themselv, California style, by their first nam alone, the substutns uld easily be missed. They were full of high spirs. On weekends, they would often hang out someone’s apartment for hours, smokg a ltle dope and talkg, talkg. Then they would sudnly burst off down the hill to some adventure, lghg at some private joke. Their group was much like a llege aterny—the one they had never belonged to. At the bottom of the Filbert Steps, a garn bench had a plaque on that read “I Have a Feelg We’re Not Kansas Anymore.” The plaque, wh s “Wizard of Oz” scriptn, had been put up by Armistead for Ken, who me om Kansas, and om a fundamentalist fay to boot.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-6 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Through Armistead and also through Maley, who was workg as a P.R. man for gay anizatns, I met a number of young men then active the e of gay liberatn. At a party that Maley had at his hoe after the gay para, I met, among others, Randy Shilts, then a rrponnt for the lol public-televisn statn, KQED, and the only openly gay major-media journalist town; Peter Adair, a documentary filmmaker, whose latt film, “Word Is Out,” explored the liv of twenty-six gay men and women om several generatns; Toby Marotta, a Harvard-traed social scientist, who was dog a study of gay htlers for a policy rearch stute and wrg a history of gay liberatn New York; and Jim Rivaldo, a polil nsultant, who wh his partner, Dick Pabich, had worked on the Harvey Milk mpaigns. Through them, turn, I met a number of other gay activists. Both personally and polilly, was an excg time for the men. They were too young to have suffered any overt way for their homosexualy, but, havg regnized school or llege that they were homosexual, they had expected a life of sufferg. They had equated homosexualy, as Toby Marotta wrote, wh “a world of eccentric bachelors and effemate characters, of unsavory public sex scen and dgy bars and steam baths”—a shadowy world of directn and nflict, guilt and tragedy. They had been isolated even llege. “I ed to thk that all gay people were hairdrsers,” Rivaldo said. “It took g here to fd that there were gay lawyers, gay bsmen—a lot of people like me.” For the young men, g out was a profound experience. It was, Ken Maley said, somethg like the evangelil experience of beg born aga: lifted a huge burn and gave them a h start. Jt the possibily of leadg a normal life was heady, and on top of that was the fact that, historilly, they were an avant-gar. “We’re the first generatn to live openly as homosexuals,” Randy Shilts said. “We have no role mols. We have to fd new ways to live.”</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="2rb4vk"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="o037pa"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">In San Francis, the young men had not only changed their liv but also found a muny, a e, and an tellectual enavor, all one. The homophile lears had been engaged a civil-rights stggle, but gay liberatn had wined the task, for, like femism, offered a new perspective on the whole culture. The taboo agast homosexualy went, after all, to the heart of ; to ny the taboo was to throw to qutn the tradnal fay stcture, tradnal sex rol, and sexual mor. Homosexuals had always been margal to the culture, anomali wh ; th, liberated homosexuals—gay men and women—had, as they saw , a privileged posn om which to observe . In changg their own liv, they would provi a mol for other gay men and women, the generatns to e; breakg sex taboos, they would change the whole society. Gay liberatn was, of urse, a natnal movement, and s theorists lived largely New York, but what was a matter of theory elsewhere seemed a matter of imment realizatn here. The Castro was, after all, the first gay settlement, the first te gay muny, and as such was a laboratory for the movement. It served as a refuge for gay men and a place where they uld remake their liv; now was to bee a mol for the new society—a “gay Israel.”</p><p class="paywall">As happened, by the summer of 1978 the new society of the Castro had already taken shape; ed, om the perspective of some years later, that summer marked a high pot s velopment. Given the homogeney of s habants, had que quickly and spontaneoly evolved a new kd of polics, a new style of drs and behavr, new forms of uple relatnships, and new sexual mor. It had an iology rather different om that of gay groups on the East Coast, and had what the soclogists ll stutnal pletens. It was somethg new unr the sun.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">The polics of the Castro were sentially the polics of Harvey Milk—the hip polics that the forty-three-year-old nvert to bohemia vised the ont room of his mera store. They were difficult to fe whout reference to the man himself. Randy Shilts, who later wrote Milk’s bgraphy, “The Mayor of Castro Street,” traced Milk’s cisn to n for cy supervisor a few months after he settled the Castro to three cints: first, a ntretemps that Milk had wh a state official over a hundred-dollar pos agast sal tax; send, his disvery that the lol public school uld not afford to buy enough sli projectors (a teacher had to borrow one om him); and, third, his dignatn at former Attorney General John Mchell’s performance at the Senate Watergate heargs. This was typil Milk polics. The man had no received polil opns when he cid to n for office. He had once profsed right-wg Republinism, but recently he had turned to an anti-war monstrator. Abstractns didn’t tert him; his own immediate experience did. Energetic, sociable, gty of temperament, he had a great pacy for sympathy and an even greater one for outrage. In many ways, he was the perfect reprentative for the Castro, a muny g out of the unterculture and tryg somethg new.</p><p class="paywall">Up to then, Milk had drifted, though rpectably. Born Woodmere, Long Island, to a middle-class Jewish fay, he had attend teachers’ llege upstate New York and then gone to the Navy and quickly bee an officer. He had spent nearly four years statned the Pacific. He later claimed to have been dishonorably discharged, as many homosexuals were, but this was not te; rtive unr the disciple, he simply left the Navy after four years. He returned to Long Island and tght high-school history and math for a few years; then he left, gog to Dallas, wh a lover, for no better reason than to get out of the ld weather. He soon moved back to New York. He took a job as an actuarial statistician for an surance pany, then one as a rearcher for a Wall Street vtment firm. Both jobs bored him eventually—as did nng a mera store the Castro. He seemed to be a hippie who had taken a long time to disver that he was one. He was, fact, a born polician, and at the age of forty-three he had fally found his votn.</p><p class="paywall">Otherwise, Milk’s first mpaign for supervisor ma no sense at all. In the first place, the Castro was still a workg-class neighborhood 1973; largely Irish, was known to s habants as the parish of the Most Holy Reemer Church. In the send place, Milk had no money, no staff, and no roots San Francis. And he prented himself que openly as gay. This did not help him on any sre, sce the gay muny San Francis already had well-entrenched polil lears—people who had stood up to be unted durg the sixti and had recently taken the e of gay rights a giant step forward. In the mid-sixti, the homophile lears had of necsy remaed largely anonymo to the outsi world; by the end of the , however, a number of well-ted profsnal people were workg openly for the e. Del Mart and Phyllis Lyon beme well known the cy. Jim Foster, a sal reprentative and a founr of <em class="small">SIR</em>, took over the polil mtee at <em class="small">SIR</em> and ma an effective polil anizatn. Wh him at <em class="small">SIR</em> was Larry Ltlejohn, a public-health worker; Rick Stok, a Texas-born lawyer; and, later, David Goodste, a fancier om New York. Many of the people had been victimized bee of their homosexualy. Foster had received a dishonorable discharge om the Army; Goodste had been fired as vice-print of a bank; Stok had been mted to a mental stutn and given electroshock therapy (and had later studied law orr to fight for gay rights). In 1971, Foster turned his polil mtee to a Democratic club—the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club—and put to work for Gee McGovern, the Printial ndidate that year wh the strongt stand on gay rights. At the Democratic Conventn, Foster, at the vatn of the California McGovern mtee, ma a major speech on gay rights. His speech marked a turng pot for the movement natnally, bee permted homosexuals to claim that, for the first time, a mastream polil party regnized homosexuals as a mory wh legimate grievanc and claims to equaly before the law.</p><p class="paywall">In 1972, therefore, Foster, Stok, and their lleagu had the bt of crentials to reprent “the gay vote.” In alliance wh the new liberal Democratic policians the cy—Feste, Brown, Mosne, and Reprentative Phillip Burton—they had changed cy polics. Electorally, they had proved that they did not need the lol New Left anizatn, Bay Area Gay Liberatn. (<em class="small">BAGL</em> had few members San Francis proper, and the seemed preoccupied wh iologil hairspltg.) And now, as far as they uld see, they did not need an agg hippie who had jt arrived town and was nng a mera store the Castro. Yet Milk, nng for supervisor cywi electns 1973, me tenth a field of thirty-two ndidat, and proved to be the top vote-getter the heavily gay preccts around Polk Street and the Castro. In 1975, he ran aga for supervisor, and fished seventh, behd the six cumbents who were nng that year. In 1976, he ran for the State Assembly and was narrowly feated by a liberal, Art Agnos, who was backed not only by all the important liberal policians the cy but by the gay lears as well. In 1977, after a referendum that changed the electoral laws so that ndidat for supervisor ran their own districts, and not cywi, Milk ran for supervisor om the Castro and won.</p><p class="paywall">Harvey Milk loved mpaigng; that was the real secret of his succs. For months out of every year, he would let his bs drift to further disarray orr to get up at five the morng and shake hands at b stops, to vis people the neighborhood, to speak at every meetg that he was ved to. He anized a Castro Village bs associatn and the annual Castro Street Fair; he persuad gay bars across the cy to boytt Coors beer aid of a unn mpaign. He beme a figure the neighborhood, and, eventually, one who uld get thgs done. At the same time, he knew how to attract prs attentn. Wty and outspoken, he attacked Foster and Stok as the Uncle Toms of the gay movement, and after Mosne was elected mayor he lambasted “the Mache.” His early supporters clud a Eureka Valley hoewife; the head of the Teamsters lol; José Sarr, the drag-queen entertaer; and a young lbian, Anne Kronenberg, who wore black leather jackets and ro a motorcycle. After his first feat, he cut his hair—a sign of the tim—and took to wearg sendhand three-piece sus. As an outsir nng agast liberals, he beme at once a fisl nservative and a populist: he was for “the ltle people” the neighborhoods agast the downtown terts and the landlords; he was for mass trans, better schools, better cy servic for the elrly; to pay for the thgs, he said, he would end waste ernment and tax the rporatns and the muters om Mar County. Along the way, he gaed support om the Teamsters, the Firefighters Unn, the Buildg and Constctn Tras Council lols, and small bsmen, but the end his ma supporters were the thoands upon thoands of young gay men settlg the Castro.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="q1k3qm"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">In many rpects, of urse, the young men did not differ very much om the olr generatn of gay immigrants makg up Foster and Stok’ nstuency. Most of them were whe, most me om middle-class fai, and most had llege gre. Those who went to work for Milk were liberal Democrats rather than New Leftists; their dispute wh Foster and Stok was largely a fight over turf—a stggle of the newers to make a place for themselv cy polics. On the other hand, the newers were virtually all their twenti or early thirti. As members of the baby-boom generatn, they were ed to llective self-assertn, and ed to gettg their way. They had grown up wh gay liberatn, and they were still young enough to take risks. Furthermore, their very ncentratn the Castro nstuted a kd of cril mass. On June 7, 1977, the night the born-aga sger Ana Bryant proclaimed victory her mpaign to repeal a gay-rights ordance Da County, Florida, three thoand people gathered on Castro Street to shout their protts. The police, fearg a rt, lled on Harvey Milk to help, and to fe the tensn he led the crowd on a five-e march through the cy. At midnight, he rallied the marchers Unn Square and, takg up a bullhorn, told them, “This is the power of the gay muny. Ana’s gog to create a natnal gay force.” Ten days later, when Vice-Print Walter Mondale me to Goln Gate Park to addrs a rally on the subject of human rights, Milk and a number of his supporters picketed the rally and heckled Mondale for not speakg about gay rights. This was how the Castro exprsed self—not by allianc and persuasn but by monstratns and non-negotiable mands.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-7 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Harvey Milk’s victory the 1977 electn was a victory for the Castro and a proof of s new polil power. At the same time, signified a much more general triumph for gay liberatn the cy. The homophile anizatns had long been fotten, and <em class="small">SIR</em> had llapsed. Foster and Stok—whatever Milk said of them—had long ago accepted the basic tes of gay lib, and wh the help of the liberals they had already ma such chang the cy that Milk had a relatively short agenda of gay-rights ems to take to Cy Hall. Then, too, embolned by the Castro, important lol bsmen and lawyers were g out of the closet to jo the e. Between them, the olr and the younger immigrants were troducg the ncepts of gay liberatn to fields far more ristant to change than cy polics.</p><p class="paywall">In the early seventi, John Schmidt, a San Francis surance broker, left the big pany he had been workg for to start his own firm. In his former job, he had learned that most surance pani penalized sgle people and gay upl by the stcture of their premiums. His new firm equalized the premium stcture, and attracted a good al of bs the gay muny. A few years later, he found a savgs-and-loan associatn, on the siar premise that loan officers banks often discrimated—nscly or unnscly—agast gay and sgle people. Established the pths of the savgs-and-Ioan prsn of 1980 on two ln dollars scraped together om sixteen hundred shareholrs, the Atlas Savgs & Loan Associatn ma an annual prof of a ln dollars three years later.</p><p class="paywall">Durg the seventi, a great many gay bsmen and women followed much the same pattern, startg travel agenci, hotels, fancial servic, and so on, that were tailored to a gay clientele. Gay profsnals, too, veloped specialized gay practic. Lawyers, for example, beme expert not only discrimatn s but also s volvg child ctody and herance. Some gay doctors specialized the diseas mon to the gay populatn, while others me out far enough to assure their gay patients that they found the gay way of life que normal. The same went for gay psychotherapists. In 1978, Don Clark, a clil psychologist, told me that when he me to San Francis, 1970, he knew only a uple of openly gay therapists, and they lacked crentials. Now, eight years later, he knew almost fifty, and he had worked wh several of them rethkg all the qutns volved treatg gay patients. In Clark’s view, gay therapists were almost always better qualified than others to treat gay patients, bee “they knew about gay life styl and uld love and celebrate homosexual sir.”</p><p class="paywall">A number of liberal Prottant clergymen San Francis, head by the Reverend Cecil Williams, the pastor of the Gli Memorial Methodist Church, had been active the gay civil-rights stggle of the neteen-sixti. They had veloped gay fellowships their own church, which now weled the gay immigrants. Other church, however, were not so acmodatg, and bee this was te all over the untry many gay people had simply lost their fah, or had lost tert anized relign. Others had led double liv. Now, however, the spir of gay liberatn, a number of the unrtook to create church where they uld worship as gay men and women. For example, Bernard Pechter, a playwright and a stockbroker, had found a gay synagogue. When I asked about , he told me that he had gone regularly to a Conservative synagogue until eleven years earlier. At that pot, had occurred to him that, however acceptg of homosexuals the rabbi seemed to be, the synagogue was fay-oriented, and th exclud him. He uld not go back. Then, some years later, a iend told him about a gay synagogue New York, and after visg he beme, as he put , “a born-aga Jew.” He then formed a ngregatn San Francis; had no rabbi—a learned layman had wrten the lurgy, and the ngregants took turns performg the servic—but now had two hundred and fifty members, most of whom, Pechter said, had e back to Judaism only bee of .</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="narcj"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="3cr04"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The gay Catholics San Francis had done much the same thg. Bee the Catholic Church still viewed homosexual sex—along wh all forms of extramaral sex—as a s, gay Catholics had found a separate ngregatn; they had found a prit to perform the servic, but outsi the church sanctuary. Prottants, too, now had an entirely gay church—the Metropolan Communy Church, a member of a nonnomatnal associatn found by the Reverend Troy Perry, Los Angel. The pastors would perform gay marriag, and were rather more acceptg of the far-out g of the gay muny than most other Prottant clergymen the cy. In 1978, for example, the church took donatns om drag balls held for chary and had a bike club scribed on s posters as an “outreach to the Wtern leather muny.” Gay women as well as gay men went to the separatist church, but a number of radil femists were the procs of velopg a whole relign of their own. Havg abandoned the Juo-Christian tradn as sentially and unalterably sexist, they were rearchg other tradns and disverg a host of female spirs and i.</p><p class="paywall">To a great gree, gay men—and, to a lser gree, gay women—were buildg themselv a world apart om the rt of the cy. Gay men uld spend days, or an entire week, gog to their offic, to the cleaner, to the bank and the health club, dg rtrants, attendg polil meetgs, and gog to church whout seeg anyone who was not gay. Some, such as Bob Ross, the head of the gay Tavern Guild, said that they actually did jt that on ocsn. Others normally lived all but their workg liv wh gay society. While the nsy of gay stutns gave them a good al of power and fluence the cy, also, paradoxilly, had the effect of separatg them om . The gay muny, evolvg acrdg to s own logic, beme more and more articulated and distct. It now had not only s own polil lears but also s own habs and ctoms and s own holidays—Gay Freedom Day, Halloween—and the Castro Street Fair. As for the Castro, was a great hive where everyone knew everythg that happened every day. To an outsir, seemed self-preoccupied and clstrophobic. Gay activists might argue among themselv, but they prented a uned ont to the outsi world; gay men the Castro even prented a uniform appearance.</p><p class="paywall">Lookg back, Randy Shilts felt that 1978 was the year when the Castro-clone style reached what was almost a Platonic perfectn. Six years before, the look had been unisex hippie: green fatigu and pea jackets snatched om ary-surpl stor and add, willy-nilly, to ems found on the racks at the Salvatn Army. Now the Castroids, as they sometim lled themselv, were drsg wh the re of Edwardian dandi, except that the look was wboy or bh pilot: tight bluejeans, preferably Levi’s wh button fli; plaid shirts; leather vts or bomber jackets; and boots. Accsori clud reflectg sunglass, and keys danglg om leather belts; the hot weather, there were mcle shirts. The look was male to the pot of what the psychologist C. A. Tripp lled “genr-eccentricy.” Short hair was now the style—very short hair, cut far above the ears. Mtach were clipped, and there wasn’t a beard or a ponytail to be seen anywhere. And the new gear was cut to show off bulgg ltoids, slim hips, and washboard stomachs. The mcl seemed to belong to the uniform, and so did the attu. Men would swagger slightly, walkg down the street, and watch each other om unr lowered lids; there was a slightly hostile air about them. Bellied up to a bar, they would look around them wh a studied sualns and, wh one foot on the rail, munite wh their neighbor gnts. The look, Shilts wrote later, was super-macho. “Tell ’em they’re femmy queers who need wrist splts and lisp lsons and they’ll end up lookg like a bunch of wboys, loggers, and M.P.s. Whaddaya thk of that?”</p><p class="paywall">Shilts, Mp, Adair, and their iends had—personally—no tert the clone style. I knew Armistead worked out only bee he once gave a party for <em>Ie tout</em> San Francis a Market Street health club (he floated garnias the Jacuzzis). Randy Shilts drsed nservatively, and Peter Adair, tall and beard, wore baggy troers and oversize checked ats om the time they were hip to the time they were New Wave. They saw the Castro style as a riture; all the same, they saw as an important step forward. “The culture proceeds by ntradictns,”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-8 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Shilts told me. “The days, the style is straight but sensive, gay but macho. There’s some pensatn volved. Gay men ed to be expected to play women, so now they’re playg superstud.” What the change meant particular, he felt, was that the Judy Garland style was really ad: there would be no more hostile mimicry of women, no more bchs, no exaggerated sense of vulnerabily, and no self-stctivens. “Younger people n’t relate to that kd of thg anymore,” he said. “Life is so much easier for now. It’s the juggernt effect of openns.” Gone, too, so my iends said, was gay mimicry of heterosexual marriag, wh the “male” and “female” role-playg had volved. “In the Castro, there are all kds of experiments gog on wh munal arrangements and open relatnships,” Adair said. “You have a roommate, or perhaps several of them. Or you have a lover but not an exclive one. How people live together is a matter of negotiatn.” It was the sphere of relatnships, my iends felt, that gay men were leadg the way for the rt of the society—there and the sphere of sexual eedom.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="ojg7s"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">By 1978, the Castro had bee the most active cisg strip the cy, and perhaps the untry. Even the daytime, there were hundreds of young men out cisg the bars, the bookshops, the rtrants, the stor—even the vast supermarket some distance down Market Street. At night, the bars were jammed—there were l out on the siwalks—and rs had trouble gettg through the crowds of men. The scene was md-bogglg to newers: the openns of and the sheer turnover. “It was crazy,” one gay activist told me, speakg of his first vis to the Castro. “I belonged to the Yippi at home, and I’d been through a smash monogamy perd, but, you know, we were still very sexually opprsed. I me out here wh my lover, and we uldn’t believe . Everyone seemed to be livg out his fantasi om day to day. We had dat at breakfast, lunch, and dner. It was like openg up a treasure cht and mmagg through some hysteril way.” The gay activists had had a polil visn, but few of them had imaged what a sexually liberated society might be like; few, certaly, had imaged the sexual rnival of the Castro the late seventi. That year, two Ksey Instute rearchers, Alan P. Bell and Mart S. Weberg, published the rults of a survey they had done of gay men and women the San Francis area 1970, and the remaed the only statistics available. Even then, over forty per cent of the whe mal terviewed (and a third of the black mal) said that they had had at least five hundred sexual partners; twenty-eight per cent said that they had had over a thoand.</p><p class="paywall">The extent of the sexual ee-for-all the Castro surprised gay women as much as anyone else. A before, gay liberatnists had generally supposed that gay men and gay women had a great al mon; the society, after all, assigned them to virtually the same tegory. But as gay liberatn revealed them—and as their social worlds veloped—they provid stead a study ntrasts. Acrdg to the Ksey Instute rearchers, for example, over half of the gay whe femal they terviewed said they had had ls than ten sexual partners; most of the gay women they talked to rarely cised and rarely had sual sex; they tend to be monogamo, serially. Acrdg to gay therapists I spoke wh, a major problem for gay men often lay velopg timate relatnships; gay women often had the reverse of that problem their relatnships were generally so close and so emotnally tense that even the unhappit of upl would have difficulty separatg. If gay-male society seemed many ways impersonal and atomistic, lbian society often seemed to be private and timate to the pot of suffotn. While gay men flocked to bars and bathho, gay women nted at home or gathered small groups. The female -chair of the 1978 gay para told me that after the para the women anizers were gog to a retreat the untrysi. “It’s a lovely place,” she said. “It has Jacuzzis and steam baths. When we go there, we ually dch our cloth and do a lot of chantg. It’s very sensual, but there’s not much sex.” While gay men built bs, gay women built mun, both lerally and figuratively speakg; that is, while gay-male anizatns tend to be ratnalized and, the se of bs, hierarchil, women’s anizatns were stctured for öperatn and the meldg of dividuals to the llective enterprise. The most bslike of lbian anizatns would build enunter-group techniqu as a management strategy; the emotns, they unrstood, always had to be nsired. Liberated gay women, other words, turned out to be archetypilly women, and gay men the Castro archetypilly men—as if somehow each genr had been squared by isolatn om the other.</p><p class="paywall">In a sense, the odst thg about gay liberatn general and the Castro particular was that neher gay men nor gay women had any agreed upon explanatn for homosexualy. The gay men I knew said that they had known they were homosexuals so early their liv that they felt mt be a matter of chemistry or blogy. They felt this tuively, but, lackg evince to prove , did not sist upon . Perhaps was nurture rather than nature, they said, but, if so, the psychologists had no very nvcg explanatn. Until 1973, the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn listed homosexualy as a mental illns. In that year, s board of tste voted to take off the list, but did so as a rult of polil prsure om gay activists and om the gay uc wh the Associatn. Though this was an advance, my iends felt, the procre was hardly scientific. What gay activists generally believed was that, whatever the genis of homosexualy, there was always—for reasons unknown—a fixed proportn of homosexuals the populatn; ten per cent was their timate. The figure rived om the Ksey report of 1948. In that survey, Ksey rearchers had found that four per cent of Amerin men were exclively homosexual, and that ten per cent of the male populatn was almost exclively so. (A later survey showed that om one to three per cent of sgle women the Uned Stat were exclively homosexual.) Changg attus toward sex would have changed the figur somewhat, the activists thought, but a figure of ten per cent would be roughly rrect. Beyond that, they were rolute agnostics—different or actually hostile to any further attempts at explanatn.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="15k6ev"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="zdvytm"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">As happened, Warll Pomeroy, one of the origal members of the Ksey rearch team, was now amic an of the Instute for Advanced Study of Human Sexualy, San Francis. Pomeroy told me that he thought the 1948 figur were still approximately rrect, but that he did not see them as permanent—as an attribute of nature. Pomeroy believed, wh Frd, that man was nately bisexual. After all, he said, anthropologists had found that many societi—cludg that of ancient Greece—homosexualy was ubiquo. “The real qutn,” he said, “is not why anyone is homosexual but why everyone is not.” His own theory was that if cultural nstrats were set asi, the spectm of sexual behavr the Uned Stat would be que different. Perhaps half of the male populatn would ntue to be exclively heterosexual and four per cent would be exclively homosexual—but the rt would be bisexual to one gree or another. As was, he said, the culture phed most people to the exclively heterosexual end of the spectm by nmng homosexual sir as sick or sful. Therefore, his view, the major thst of the gay movement was rrect, and homosexuals who were willg to stand up and be unted as such had a liberatg effect on the whole society.</p><p class="paywall">Pomeroy’s theoretil spectm was a unterculture ia, that assumed—if only for purpos of argument—that cultural nstrats uld be put asi. While anthropologists would have rejected tegorilly, on the ground that cultur will variably ndn sexual exprsn, served to pot up the dilemmas volved gay liberatn and the particular society of the Castro. Gay liberatnists were, of urse, reactg to a culture that unrstood homosexuals as a distct tegory of people and endowed them wh all kds of special attribut, om effemacy to mental illns. But though they rejected the attribut, they accepted the tegory; that is, they viewed homosexuals as a distct group of people, who had to une and fight their opprsn. In the view of many European gay tellectuals, this might be a mistake. The philosopher and historian Michel Fouult utned the gay movement the Uned Stat agast acceptg the terms of s enemi—and not jt s enemi but everyone’s. The real task, as he saw , was to subvert all such distctns, sce the isolatn of any sexual tegory uld lead only to further opprsn—or, at bt, to further margalizatn of the group.</p><p class="paywall">By 1978, many gay liberatnists New York had discsed the Fouult argument and rejected on the ground that was polilly feasible: gay men and gay women had to une to break the taboo—there was no other possible strategy. In San Francis, the argument was hardly discsed at all, and yet the dilemma was nowhere more apparent than the Castro: by ung, homosexuals were harng the tegory. In the Castro, a gay society was g to beg, and, along wh , a “gay inty,” which, though still superficial, tend to divi gay men om others. In 1978, that society was still fg self. It was pullg further and further away om s origs the unterculture. It was dog so part for reasons that had ltle to do wh homosexualy and a great al to do wh the fact that s habants were well-ted young whe men. It had bee a male prerve, and a society that more or ls ignored gay women; was now beg a class prerve as well. For most young gay activists the Castro, this was the tensn, and this was the real issue.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">By 1978, Harvey Milk had succeed reprentg the Castro and all that stood for the cy. But, ironilly, the Castro was no longer the place he had pictured his mpaigns. It had ceased to be a poor neighborhood. The Irish workg-class fai had largely gone, but so had most of the hippi. On Castro Street, there was an expensive home-furnishgs shop, a we-and-quiche fé, a rd-and-gift shop, and two expensive men’s-clothg stor, and boutiqu were movg . The neighborg streets looked equally prospero, for gay men had bought up the old ho, stripped them of their alumum sidg, pated them, and renovated their terrs. By 1976, the old ho were fetchg five tim their value 1973. In 1977, the rent on Milk’s mera store tripled. Milk nounced the landlord and all landlordism, but to no avail, for the rents up and down the street were now doublg every six months. He moved his store to a cubbyhole on Market Street, and the space he vated was quickly occupied by a boutique sellg Waterford crystal.</p><p class="paywall">The Castro was no longer poor, and a sense was no longer a neighborhood. Milk had railed agast the cy’s spendg money on makg San Francis a tourist center, but now the Castro had bee a mec (as journalists put ) for gay tourists. The air shuttle between Los Angel and San Francis was now nicknamed the Gay Exprs, for every Friday night was filled wh gay Angelenos g to town for the weekend. New Yorkers, Chigoans, and others would spend their vatns San Francis, stayg at gay hotels, gog to gay rtrants, and shoppg at gay stor. In the summertime, you uld hear the accents of New York and Hoton on the streets of the Castro, and also of London, Paris, and Sydney. Then, too, wh many of those who me as tourists returng to settle, the Castro was beg the hub of a vast revelopment project. Gay men—and some gay women—were movg to Noe Valley and the Missn district; they were movg to the Haight-Fillmore district and settlg the back slop of Pacific Heights, patg and refurbishg as they went. In some of the poort neighborhoods the cy, Victorian faças blossomed wh rator pat.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-9 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Harvey Milk, the populist, spoke of gay people as an opprsed mory and promised to make mon e wh the racial-mory groups the cy and wh the poor. But the gay immigrants were now llg this alliance qutn. They might be refuge om opprsn, but they were also, by and large, young whe men who had arrived town at the very moment for begng their reers. In practice, they were takg profsnal and managerial jobs, or they were staffg the numero new service dtri, or they were startg bs of their own. In many ways, they were provg a boon to the cy. By pneerg the dilapidated neighborhoods, they were helpg to reverse the whe and middle-class flight to the suburbs, th creasg the tax base both directly and directly. Sce they had no children, they ma no mands on the schools, and they had more e than the average fay man or woman to spend both on entertament and on hog. They were supportg the opera, the ballet, and other cultural stutns of the cy. But settlg the poor neighborhoods they were phg real-tate pric up and phg black and Hispanic fai out.</p><p class="paywall">This was not, of urse, their aim. Jim Rivaldo was one of the early settlers of the Haight-Fillmore, and when he arrived there, 1972, the ma street was a bat zone of alholics, dg alers, and thugs. He set up a neighborhood associatn to make the area livable for black and whe rints. Unr his learship, the associatn brought the police, mand efficient cy servic, and began to reverse the procs of y and relictn the area. Many black rints appld his efforts, but, as one black social worker poted out, the alholics and the dg alers were the people who had been keepg the rents down. The safer the streets were, the more attractive they beme to whe settlers and real-tate velopers, and the larger the number of black fai that were phed out—cludg the poort fai, wh nowhere else to go. The logic was pable. Rivaldo unrstood ; he was fensive on that sre. What he wanted was what Harvey Milk had wanted some years before the Castro—to mata an tegrated neighborhood. But he uld not sure any better than Milk had, and for many gay settlers was simply not a prry. And while Milk worried about gentrifitn, he predicted wh some relish that an alliance of gay and Asian immigrants would ntrol the cy a few years. It was, Shilts wrote, a time of gay manift sty.</p><p class="paywall">The new Castro and all that stood for set off a bate wh the gay muny—a bate whose terms were qutsentially Californian. One si of that bate was reprented by the fancier David Goodste, who was now the publisher of the <em>Advote</em>, a biweekly newspaper and the bt-sellg gay publitn the untry. Published out of plh offic San Mateo, the <em>Advote</em> bed polil and cultural journalism wh photographs of betiful semi-naked men and ads for gay baths, sk flicks, and htlers. It was a kd of <em>Playboy</em> for the gay muny, and Goodste, short, plump, and forty-five, had Hugh Hefner views, except that he was nsirably to the right of Hefner on enomic issu. “I’m a libertarian,” he said when I went to see him. “I believe that eedom is divisible—polil and enomic eedom are the same thg. I thk that people have the right to Laetrile if they want . I’m for the crimalizatn of marijuana and prostutn. And I’m pro-abortn.” Goodste was also strongly favor of the new Castro. “Our ci are very bad trouble, as the groups movg to them are generally whout skills, tn, or affluence,” he said. “The gay immigrants have the thgs, and they have a real tert the ci.” Of urse, he said, people were upset by the rise rents, so gay landlords had to be tactful, and reful to tablish munitn wh their muni.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="1uy76i"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">It was on the ground of dividual eedom that Goodste fend the sexually explic, if perhaps not pornographic, advertisements the send sectn of the <em>Advote</em>. “Sexualy is a private matter,” he said. “You should be able to regulate street signs but not censor books. Every expert I’ve talked to believ that pornography is good for sex. We support all forms of human sexualy that are eely nsensual, not medilly harmful, and not offensive to bystanrs—so that l out sex public, anythg to do wh children, and extreme forms of s. and m. There’s nothg wrong wh ads for male prostut. For people who e prostut, ’s much better to fd them a magaze than to have to look for them on the streets.”</p><p class="paywall">Goodste was a iend of Werner Erhard’s, and that year he was puttg together a natnal anizatn to nduct t-type semars for homosexuals, lled the Advote Experience. On this subject, Goodste, a man known to his staff as a hard-head bsman and polil broker, talked like a relig visnary. “I believe the human-potential movement is more important for humany than anythg else that has ever happened,” he told me. “Est is jt one aspect of . What we’re all aimg for is transformatn.”</p><p class="paywall">He seemed que surprised to be asked, “Transformatn to what?”</p><p class="paywall">“Transformatn means the all-rightns of people,” he replied. “Health, happs, love, and fun exprsn.”</p><p class="paywall">On the other si of the bate were young gay activists om the left wg of the movement. Bill Hartman and others om Bay Area Gay Liberatn put the se most vehemently. They believed the Castro as a liberated zone—a place of refuge for gay men. At the same time, they plored what was happeng to . Gay men were beg “fodr for Wall Street Wt;” they were beg “spegoated” for drivg out ethnic mori when what was really happeng was that the real-tate speculators and other forc for gentrifitn were seeg to that only young whe profsnals or paraprofsnals uld settle San Francis. A number of gay bars, Hartman said, now discrimated agast blacks, women, and effemate gay men. The new Castro was the sign and symbol of this tenncy. And the <em>Advote</em>, which ran only photographs of betiful whe men, was enuragg “ageism, sexism, and bety snobbery.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-10 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">This analysis went far beyond the nventnal Marxist analysis of polil and enomic factors, to the domas of psychology and athetics. The left-wgers were, other words, jog Goodste om the other si of the polil spectm to sist on the importance of social and psychologil creria. What they were sayg, Goodste to the ntrary, was that the <em>Advote</em> ma a lot of people feel bad. Jt how far they uld take this radil egalarianism remaed to be seen, but Bill Hartman told me that iends of his were now sug a popular gay bathhoe on the ground that discrimated agast olr and more effemate men. He fed the ligatn as “a class-actn su on behalf of sissi.”</p><p class="paywall">Armistead Mp, Randy Shilts, and Ken Maley did not fully sympathize wh eher si of this bate. The three of them had gone through the Advote Experience by vatn om Goodste and e out profoundly unmoved. Goodste had taken up his role as facilator by dramatilly unveilg a blackboard wh the word “Toilet” wrten on , and their view thgs had gone—athetilly speakg—downhill om there. The facilator had the end asked them to ntribute to var anizatns, cludg a polil-actn fund, that he himself had set up, and, as they saw , he was tryg to transform himself to Chief and them to Indians. They were havg none of . On the other hand, they tend to take a more philosophil view of the new Castro than did Hartman et al. Gay irony, after all, had that everyone, cludg the p-striped banker and the long-haired tck driver, was drag. Still, they believed that the Ntil-mache look was only a phase, and that Castro rints would eventually grow up and e to look like normal human begs, whout any distctive style to speak of. When discsg the subject ad earnt, they said that the Castro was a stage gay velopment, and that the end “the ghetto” would no longer be necsary to gay men.</p><p class="paywall">Right now, however, the Castro flourished. And stead of returng to normal, whatever that might be, gay styl were proliferatg, beg more and more var. That is, while the Castro prented a fairly uniform look to outsirs, s rints uld pot out a huge number of speci and subspeci, as distct om each other as those of warblers. There was the clone style proper: short hair, clipped mtache, bluejeans, and bomber jacket. There was the preppie-athletic look: Laste or gby shirt and well-shed loafers. There was the wboy look, the logger look, the bodybuilr look, and so on. Randy Shilts—observer that he was—ed to speak of the Folsom-district leather bars as somethg alien to the Castro. But fact black leather had already ma s début on the street. What was surprisg was not that the varieti of drs existed but, rather, that their wearers did not seem to mix any more than did warbler speci. If the limp wrist had been a sign of aterny between one homosexual man and another, the number of signs had now multiplied to the pot where they required the terpretative assistance of a Jacqu Derrida. Some of the ems of apparel—the bandannas, the keys—were precisely end for sexual preference. Other signs, however, belonged to the realm of athetics rather than to that of the sex manual. And the were so precisely and exquisely articulated as to nfound those who fought such grosser forms of discrimatn as ageism and sexism. They were a type of “bety snobbery,” all right, but what was a Bill Hartman to do about them?</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="32g8"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="f215d"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The mute forms of discrimatn ttified, of urse, to the sheer numbers of young men the Castro and the extraordarily high volume of sexual activy. Figuratively speakg, was as if a small general store wh staple ems had been replaced by a vast supermarket where anyone uld fd virtually anythg at any hour of the day. New choic were available, and so new distctns had to be ma. Bars beme more specialized, and so did sex clubs; fact, gay entreprenrs were now creatg the sexual equivalent of supermarkets, specialty markets, and boutiqu. Some of the—high volume, quick turnover—were the equivalent of fast-food shops. In the South of Market Club, for example, a dark warehoe filled wh plywood cubicl, a ctomer uld take a cubicle and have sex through a hole the partn whout even the lay ocsned by eye ntact. The entrance fee was only three dollars. There were eight of the “glory hole” tablishments the cy now, and ne bathho. In the distant past, bathho had been squalid plac where men ep the closet had secret, guilty liaisons; now, however, they were well-appoted clubs—some wh Jacuzzis and vio screens—where young men went for fun or a change of scene. They had private rooms, loung, public rooms for i, and specialty rooms. At least one of them had a room full of s.-and-m. machery—racks, pulleys, and the like.</p><p class="paywall">In addn to the crease the volume of sexual activy, there was an crease experimentatn wh new techniqu. There was a vogue for var extremist practic, some of which were medilly harmful. Sadomasochism, once nfed to a ty mory and nsired perverse, was now risg to the surface of acceptabily. “Why get hung up wh higher pric when all you want is a place to hang your handcuffs?” one Folsom district hotel brochure asked jntily. Gay boosters—when they did not ny that existed—would expla that s. and m. was only theatre, volvg fantasi, not bodily harm. Theatre was certaly the ia behd , but, perhaps bee of the number of amatrs volved, vlence did occur. In 1981, the San Francis medil examer, Dr. Boyd Stephens, warned that he was seeg an “alarmg crease juri and ath om s.-and-m. sex.”</p><p class="paywall">Most San Francisns did not really know what went on the Castro and Folsom districts at night. They avoid the two areas, and they avoid knowg about what went on if they uld. But the sexual exuberance tend to spill over to the rt of the cy. People who lived near the Castro or Buena Vista Park, the Haight, sometim uld not help seeg gay men havg sex wh each other public and broad daylight. Such sights were not unknown other parts of the cy, eher—particularly on gay holidays, such as Halloween and Gay Freedom Day. And, wh the growg fad for s.-and-m. garb, men wh spiked llars on their necks and Nazi signia on their ps would appear on downtown streets. Dianne Feste, now her third term as print of the Board of Supervisors, spoke to this issue an terview wh the <em>Bay Area Reporter</em>, a large-circulatn gay weekly distributed the bars. “I know of no cy the Uned Stat where gay people live and work and create as nstctively as they do San Francis,” she said. “What I see happeng San Francis— the bar scene, the street scene, the s.-and-m. scene—is an imposn of life style on those who do not wish to participate that life style. I’ve tried to talk to var lears the gay muny to say that the muny needs to set some standards. I was not able to get a mment. I am very ncerned that unls some standards are set . . . many people will want to see a crackdown.” Feste said much the same thg on one other ocsn that year.</p><p class="paywall">The Castro reacted to such exprsns of ncern wh ridicule or outrage. How dare she say such a thg! Feste was a p—that was Ken Maley’s view. Her “tert the gay leather scene borred on an obssn”—that was Randy Shilts’s. “What if she told blacks their behavr was offensive?” someone asked dignantly at a gay-polil-club meetg. To report that the sight of gay men Nazi ps or gay men havg sex public did offend other San Francisns—that Feste was not makg up—was to ll forth a storm of objectns om gay activists. The very same people would argue that public sex did not exist, that those who proclaimed themselv offend were closet s or voyrs, and that everyone had better jt get ed to . The fact that an outsir had asked the gay muny to “set some standards” was seen as a challenge to the movement and a threat to the civil rights of all gay men. An edorial the issue of the <em>B.A.R</em>. which the Feste terview appeared said, “What Feste nnot or will not face is that the Gay movement is much more than a civil-rights affair. . . . It is a revolutn. To digt that the Gay movement has to do wh the reëvaluatn of sexualy . . . is more than she n handle. Her solutn is tolerance—not to be nfed wh acceptance. To Feste a gay prence is possible, gay domance a disaster.” This was ed a time of gay manift sty.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="ry86at"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">That the whole bar-and-sex culture of the Castro might be harmful to the gay men themselv was not at the time given any ser nsiratn the gay muny, and yet was clearly unhealthy many rpects. “In the seventi, you ed to go to someone’s reigerator and see no food, only dgs,” one gay activist told me years later. The bar scene volved a great al of alhol and var sorts of dgs, cludg amyl nre, which puts strs on the heart. Alholism was prevalent, and so were a good many sexually transmted diseas. Syphilis and gonorrhea were epimic the Castro. Acrdg to Bell and Weberg, two-thirds of the gay men they terviewed had had a venereal disease at least once, and acrdg to public-health thori homosexuals acunted for between fifty and fifty-five per cent of all syphilis and gonorrhea s across the untry. In 1978, the San Francis Health Department announced that over the past three years there had been a dramatic crease hepatis and ttal fectns among mal their twenti and thirti. In 1979, there were seven hundred and forty-four s of hepatis and two hundred and twenty s of amoebic dysentery the cy; a year later, health officials found that om sixty to seventy per cent of the gay men San Francis had the vis for hepatis B. Some gay lears, cludg some of the bar owners, worried about the sualti om alholism—to the extent, at least, of raisg money for treatment centers and outdoor activi. No one worried about the sexually transmted diseas, bee they were curable. “Clap was a big joke,” Shilts told me years later. “Gog to the cy clic was part of the route. There would be all this mararie, and people would tell each other how many tim they’d been there.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-11 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">The ia that the sexual ee-for-all might be athetilly unpleasg, emotnally unrewardg, or morally troublg s disregard for the dividual was generally rejected by the Castro generatn. Olr men, however, exprsed ncern. Zohn Artman, at the time the head of public relatns for the rock imprar Bill Graham, and a rpected figure the cy, said, “They’re meat palac. Gra A, Gra B, Choice, U.S.D.A.-approved. I worry a lot about the young right now. They thk they are ee, but they are gettg locked behd their genalia. So much of life seems ncentrated there. It worri me that they don’t have more of a sense of self.”</p><p class="paywall">Dianne Feste had warned of a backlash agast gays San Francis. There was no evince of this now, but another kd of backlash had already taken shape outsi the cy. In the mid-seventi, nservative church across the untry experienced a revival, and fundamentalist preachers drew huge new dienc on rad and televisn. Now preachers such as Jerry Falwell and polil strategists such as Richard Viguerie were translatg fundamentalists’ ncerns to polics, revivg the right wg of the Republin Party. The New Right, as was lled, ma the Panama Canal treaty s first major foreign-policy issue and gay rights s first major domtic issue. In fundamentalist doctre, homosexualy was simply a choice—a sexual preference, as were—except that was a sful choice, the same general tegory as adultery or rape. For fundamentalists, the very notn of gay rights was an abomatn, and at the same time ma no sense at all. (Falwell and others, however, adopted the general parlance and spoke of “homosexuals,” thereby implyg that homosexualy was not a choice, but the logil problem was generally overlooked.) In 1978, the year after Ana Bryant won her mpaign agast the Da County gay-rights ordance, siar ordanc were feated by voters St. Pl, Mnota; Wicha, Kansas; and Eugene, Oregon. In Oklahoma, a law was passed permtg public schools to fire homosexual teachers. On the strength of the victori, California State Senator John Briggs gathered enough signatur om fundamentalist nstuenci around the state 1978 to put a proposn on the November ballot mandatg the dismissal of any schoolteacher who advoted or enuraged homosexualy. The wordg of what me to be known as the Briggs Iniative was vague enough to threaten the job of any teacher who as much as discsed gay rights class. Briggs put out a seri of pamphlets associatg all homosexuals wh child moltatn and pornography. The “moral y this untry,” he said, was “a greater danger than Communism.”</p><p class="paywall">Sce the sprg, a number of gay anizatns San Francis and Los Angel had been preparg a riposte to the Briggs Iniative and the fundamentalist csa general. Harvey Milk had spearhead a voter-registratn drive through his own polil anizatn, the San Francis Gay Democratic Club. In the Castro, leaflets had been distributed, monstratns held, and mte formed. Counterg the iative was the major polil theme of the Gay Freedom Day Para. In the gay muny, there was a good al of nsternatn about the backlash: many thought that the Briggs Iniative would pass, and that that would be only the begng. Leaflets and plards announced that Ana Bryant—or Falwell or Briggs—wanted to put all gay people ncentratn mps. In his speech at the gay para, Harvey Milk said:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>I want to rec you for the fight to prerve your mocracy om the John Briggs and the Ana Bryants who are tryg to nstutnalize bigotry. We are not gog to allow that to happen. We are not gog to s back silence as three hundred thoand of our gay brothers and sisters did Nazi Germany. We are not gog to allow our rights to be taken away and then march wh bowed heads to the gas chambers.</p></div></blockquote></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="jltofs"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="fi1ft5"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">There was among gay activists, jt as among fundamentalists, a general propensy to seek out signs of impendg doom and to image the worst. Milk had this visn, but at the same time he was lighted wh the opportuny the iative prented. Judgg that the proposn would not pass, he saw as a means of raisg the issue of gay rights plac where had not been raised before. As for Briggs, a born-aga Christian wh ambns for the ernorship, he virtually acknowledged that the issue was an attentn-gettg vice for himself. When Milk challenged him to a seri of bat towns and ci across the state, he accepted wh alacry, and the two went on the road together, jokg wh each other airports and lambastg each other ont of dienc. At one pot, Briggs brought up the Bell and Weberg statistic on the percentage of gay men wh over five hundred sexual partners. “I wish,” Milk replied, lghg.</p><p class="paywall">Milk uld afford to lgh, for five years of mpaigng he had bee a powerful speaker—articulate, wty, and pable of pullg out the full range of rhetoril stops. On the rostm, Briggs was no ntt for him, and November Milk’s polil judgment turned out to be rrect. The teachers’ associatns viewed the Briggs Iniative as threateng to teachers and to the e of civil liberti general, and mpaigned vigoroly agast . The liberal policians the state me out agast , but so, too, did former Governor Ronald Reagan. Print Carter me out agast the iative, as did former Print Ford. On Electn Day, Californians voted two to one agast .</p><p class="paywall">The feat of the Briggs Iniative was a personal triumph for Milk. In San Francis, the mpaign agast had brought a number of wealthy nservativ out of the closet and had focsed the attentn of the Castro on polics. The attentn went to Milk. In addn, the mpaign brought him statewi, and even natnal, verage. In a movement that had no well-known natnal lears, Milk began to stand out as the most effective spokman for gay rights. Polician that he was, Milk unrstood this very well. When, his speech at the para, he had lled for a natnal gay march on Washgton for the followg year, he knew his assistance would be required for mountg such an effort, and he was lookg forward to . Then, too, he was thkg (as most cy supervisors do) of nng for mayor one day. The ia was not wholly unreasonable.</p><p class="paywall">In the ten months sce his guratn, Milk had proved an effective member of the Board of Supervisors. His lleagu, who had seen him as a sgle-issue ndidate, found him hardworkg and ncerned wh all issu, om the cy transportatn system to social servic for the elrly. He worked for his own district like a good ward boss, seeg to that more street lights were put , that the streets were cleaned regularly, and that the lol branch of the public library had aquate funds. At meetgs of the Board of Supervisors, he was sometim abrasive—gleefully so—and his talent for attractg the spotlight was hardly llegial, but he was an engagg man, wh a talent for disarmg opponents. He ma iends. And, on a board that often spl six to five, he voted nsistently wh the liberal mory support of the mayor, Gee Mosne. His own bill forbiddg discrimatn agast gays hog and employment passed by a majory of ten to one. When I went to see him that summer, he spoke enthiastilly about new projects, cludg the revampg of the Civil Service Commissn and a pooper-soper bill he himself had troduced. He said that the directn of the board was changg: the old guard was losg ground, the liberals and mory reprentativ were gag power. Self-nfint and outspoken, he seemed very much at home Cy Hall.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">On November 27, 1978, jt three weeks after the electn and the feat of the Briggs Iniative, Harvey Milk and Gee Mosne were shot and killed. They were shot down their Cy Hall offic by Dan Whe, a former member of the Board of Supervisors. Dianne Feste was the first to see Milk’s body; later, she announced the news to the prs a horror-stricken voice amid a lg crowd of people at the head of the stairs at Cy Hall. It was jt eight days after the news of the Jontown suicis reached the cy, where Jim Jon had been a proment mister. San Francis lay shock. That night, forty thoand people walked om the Castro to Cy Hall rryg ndl, sgg, and weepg.</p><p class="paywall">Some months later, May of 1979, Dan Whe was tried for murr. He was charged wh two unts of first gree murr—murr mted wh premedatn, liberatn, and malice—and was generally assumed that the prosecutor would make the se for liberatn on circumstantial evince. The qutn was why Whe shot his two lleagu; the answer was not obv. Whe, thirty-two years old at the time of the trial, had been elected to his first term on the Board of Supervisors district electns the year before. A former policeman, he reprented District Eight, the last of the nservative blue-llar districts the cy, and the only one that had voted support of the Briggs Iniative. His mpaign photographs showed a good-lookg young man wh siburns, well groomed and neatly drsed a three-piece su. Whe had served only eight months on the board. He had rigned early November, explag that his supervisor’s salary, nety-six hundred dollars a year, was not enough to support him, his wife, and their new baby. The Mayor accepted his rignatn. Four days later, however, Whe asked for his job back, givg no clear reason for his change of md. Mosne was cled to reappot Whe, but Milk went to see him and argued that he now had the opportuny to change the majory on the board and get his programs through. Milk then told the prs what he had told the Mayor.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-12 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Whe heard of the Mayor’s cisn om a rad journalist the eveng before was to be announced. He stayed up all night long. The next morng, he took out his load .38 Smh & Wson police revolver, put ten extra dumdum bullets a handkerchief, and put the handkerchief his pocket. His ai picked him up and drove him to Cy Hall. After she dropped him off, he went to Cy Hall through a wdow below the ground floor, th avoidg a metal tector at the door. He walked to the Mayor’s office, asked the secretary to announce him, and talked wh her until the Mayor hered him . Shortly after Mosne told Whe of his cisn, Whe pulled out his revolver and shot him once the right arm and once the body. As Mosne slumped to the floor, Whe walked over to him and, bendg over, shot him twice the head at very close range. He then reload and ran to Harvey Milk’s office. Fdg Milk there, he asked if he uld see him his own former office, now empty, which was across the hall. Havg hered Milk to the office ahead of him, he closed the door, and, after some words passed between the two, he shot Milk five tim—three tim the body and twice the head. He then ran out of Cy Hall, lled his wife om a pay phone, and asked her to meet him at St. Mary’s Cathedral. When she arrived, he went wh her to a nearby police statn, where he had once worked, gave himself up, and nfsed to the killgs.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="qk74a"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The trial lasted three weeks, and at the end of the jurors returned a verdict of voluntary manslghter. San Francisns were shocked. District Attorney Joseph Freas said he didn’t thk jtice had been rried out. The judge the se, who later gave Whe the maximum sentence—seven years and eight months—said he thought the punishment “appropriate.” Dianne Feste, now mayor, lled a prs nference upon hearg the verdict. She had been her Cy Hall office when the killgs occurred; she had heard the shootg, she said, and had been the first to sh to Whe’s office. She had seen her lleague on the floor a pool of blood and felt for his pulse. She said she had no doubt what the verdict should have been. “As far as I’m ncerned, the were two murrs,” she said.</p><p class="paywall">How the jury had reached s verdict was not entirely clear. The fense unsel, Douglas Schmidt, had plead temporary sany (or “dimished pacy,” as California law had ) for his client, and he had ma a good se, given what he had to go on. He nstcted a picture of Dan Whe that looked like this: Whe was a good person om a fe background. A native of San Francis, he went to school the cy and was a noted high-school athlete. He served the Army Vietnam and thereafter joed the San Francis Police Department. “A brief hiat veloped” (so said Schmidt); then he rejoed the police force and later transferred to the Fire Department. As a fireman, he was rated for savg a woman and a child om a burng buildg. He was an ialistic young man who believed strongly tradnal Amerin valu; he was “supremely trated wh crime and the polics of the cy and saw the cy terratg as a place for the average and cent people to live.” He was moral—almost rigidly moral—but he was a fair man and “perhaps too fair for the polics of San Francis.” He had sought to beiend Harvey Milk, though the man reprented “a vastly different life style” and different valu om his own. He had worked hard over issu only to fd that the policians had no tert their mers. What no one knew until after “those tragedi” occurred was that Whe had a history of “manic prsn.” That fall, he had been prsed and unr great stra his job.</p><p class="paywall">To fill this picture, Schmidt troduced a battery of psychiatrists to ttify to Whe’s prsn. Acrdg to one of them, Whe, when prsed, would nsume ordate quanti of junk food: Cok, Twki, cholate bars, and the like. Junk food, acrdg to the psychiatrist, pecially that wh a high sugar ntent, was thought to exacerbate anti-social behavr. Schmidt’s sistence on Whe’s junk-food hab beme known as “the Twkie fense.” Signifint help for the fense se me om a tape rerdg of the nfsn that Whe had given to Homici Inspector Frank Falzon. On the tape, Whe sobbed out a story of the great strs he had been unr and how he had heard somethg like a roarg his ears after Mosne told him that he would not reappot him to the board. Whe, the fense unsel nclud, was not his right md when he went to Cy Hall; wh his background of mental illns, his high nsumptn of junk food, and unr the stra of havg to al wh v policians, he had snapped. It had to be that, he said, bee “good people, fe people wh fe backgrounds, simply don’t kill people ld blood.”</p><p class="paywall">On the face of , the problem wh this story was that Whe had no clil history of mental illns; he had been prsed—that was all that the psychiatrists knew for sure. Then, too, if he had had a lapse of sany, he had never, on returng to sany, exprsed any remorse public for what he had done. His nfsn was full of self-py. It was a story about how he had worked hard and tried to be hont, and how Milk and Mosne had ceived and mocked him. (He said that the end Milk had “smirked” at him, as if to say “Too bad.”) He had given this nfsn to a homici spector whom he had worked wh and whom he had known sce grammar school. Falzon, as was clear om the tape, had not prsed him about his tentns when he went to Cy Hall, but had allowed him to narrate his own versn of events, which strs played such a big role.</p><p class="paywall">To the journalists followg the trial, seemed that at least some of the rponsibily for this “misrriage of jtice,” as Freas later lled , lay wh the jury. The fense unsel had elimated all prospective jurors who belonged to racial mori or who acknowledged that they supported gay rights. The prosecutn had not qutned Schmidt’s choic, and, as a rult, the jury was ma up largely of whe workg-class people, most of them Catholics. A number of them lived or around Whe’s old district. Long after the trial, a few of the jurors me forward to say that they had agonized over the cisn. They had liberated for thirty-six hours and dismissed premedatn early on, but some had voted for send-gree murr; eventually, however, they had e to the ncln that, given the trial rerd, they had no choice but voluntary manslghter. In their view, the rponsibily for the verdict lay squarely wh the prosecutn.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="6e9d3e"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="5ken9a"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Whether or not the jurors were jtified their verdict, the fact was that the prosecutor, Thomas F. Norman, had ma a very poor se. He took only three days to make , and seemed to rely on a bare prentatn of the facts to tablish premedatn. In addn, he ma a number of blunrs. First, he apparently did not anticipate that the jurors might react sympathetilly to Whe’s tearful nfsn. Send, he did not rake Falzon over the als for failg to terrogate his iend aggrsively; stead, he let the homici spector ttify to Whe’s good character and to his imprsn that Whe was a broken dividual after the killgs, and not at all the man he had known. Third, cross-examg the psychiatrists lled by the fense unsel, he failed to make them differentiate clearly between signs of “dimished pacy” and the agatn that any normal person might feel before shootg two men ld blood. Fally, and most important, he failed to addrs the qutn of motive aquately. He had to prove malice, and he merely poted to the fact that Mosne and Milk had blocked Whe’s reappotment to the board. To the jury, this did not seem an aquate reason for any wholly sane man to kill two of his lleagu.</p><p class="paywall">But what was the motive—if there was a motive? What uld have been? The qutn hnted San Francis journalists. After the trial, a number of them me up wh a good al more rmatn about Dan Whe and the polil circumstanc surroundg the killgs than had ever been prented to the jury—though they did not satisfactorily rolve the qutn, eher. Still, om what they found out, was possible to put together a rather different picture of Dan Whe om the one prented by Schmidt. Also, they disvered that there were people the cy, and particularly the Police Department, who were not at all sorry to see Harvey Milk and Gee Mosne ad.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-13 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Durg his mpaign for supervisor, Dan Whe had been a spokman for nservative social valu—for the importance of the fay and the neighborhood. When he was terviewed on televisn, he had sound ncerned, civic-md, and morate, but some of his nstuents had noticed signs of a mean streak him. It was said that he packed other ndidat’ meetgs wh gangs of young hecklers; at one jot meetg, four hecklers had shown up wh Whe buttons on—and wh Nazi signia. Whe had refed all requts to ask them to leave. One of his mpaign leaflets read, “I am not gog to be forced out of San Francis by splter groups of radils, social viat, and rrigibl.”</p><p class="paywall">When he joed the Board of Supervisors, January, the board members, who knew nothg of the cints, found him a nice young man, if a b naïve. Dianne Feste unrtook to te him the ways of cy ernment, and Harvey Milk, who saw him as a potential ally on neighborhood issu, ma an effort to cultivate him. As the fense attorney suggted, the two had a rdial relatnship for some time. Whe voted for Milk’s gay-rights bill mtee after makg a long statement about how as a paratrooper Vietnam he had found “a lot of thgs that I had read about—that had been attributed to certa people: blacks, Che, gays, wh—jt didn’t hold up unr fire, lerally unr fire,” and how he had learned that “the sooner we leave discrimatn any form behd, the better off we’ll all be.” As time went on, however, beme clear that the two would never be alli. Whe drifted to the pro-big-bs, anti-neighborhood si of the board; he voted for bills favored by the real-tate velopers, and one veloper arranged to get him the lease for a baked-potato stand on one of the piers renovated for the tourist tra. Also, he beme the voice of the nservative Police Officers’ Associatn, champng every requt ma. Milk lost his ial tert Whe, but so, another way, did the more nservative members of the board. After workg wh him for a while, Feste found him neher very bright nor very reliable; he hated to lose, and would ept to a fury of temper if he uld not make his pot. After Joseph Molari, one of the board members who had beiend him, voted for a trivial traffic measure that Whe was opposg on behalf of the Police Department, he would not speak to Molari for days. For a time, Whe seemed to have haled a whiff of higher polil ambn. When he was asked whether he might n for mayor, he answered, diplomatilly, “Not yet.” To his lleagu, however, beme clear that he was not cut out to be a polician. He seemed unable to promise, and unable to “disagree whout beg disagreeable,” as the Irish polil credo has . Mel Wax, Mayor Mosne’s imperturbable ai, felt that there was an extraordary tensn him. Playg softball wh cy officials, he would play “as though this were the World Seri,” Wax said, while the other players swapped stori and drank beer the sun.</p><p class="paywall">Durg the sprg, a fd had broken out between Dan Whe and Harvey Milk. From the begng, Whe had attached great importance to the feat of a bill that would put a psychiatric-outpatient clic for teen-agers his district. Milk ially told Whe that he would probably vote agast the bill, but then, after examg the needs of the patients, he changed his md and voted for the bill. After the bill passed, Whe refed to speak to Milk. He st the only vote agast Milk’s gay-rights bill when me to the floor, and opposed every requt that Milk ma on behalf of the gay muny. The fd beme public, but neher the fense unsel nor the prosecutor gave any weight at the trial. In early November, Milk told iends and ais that he thought Whe was “a closet se” and “dangero;” he did not expla why he thought so, but he repeated the remark several tim.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="778m1v"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">When Whe tenred his rignatn om the board, he spoke of fancial prsur, and the were real. The salary of a supervisor was not enough to support a fay, as he had said, and he, unlike most of his lleagu, had no outsi source of e. The baked-potato stand only add to his worri, bee his wife had to leave her baby to go out and tend , and still looked as if might fail. Molari, who sympathized wh Whe, thought he had ma the right cisn rigng, and thought he looked relieved and happy bee of —as though a great weight had been lifted om him. But four days later, after meetg wh the lears of the Police Officers’ Associatn and reprentativ om the Board of Realtors, Whe asked to have his job back. He never really explaed why.</p><p class="paywall">Harvey Milk had cheered when Whe rigned and, on hearg that the Mayor was cled to reappot him, went to Mosne and poted out that Whe’s vote had been ccial to the feat of a number of the Mayor’s projects. He also poted out that if Mosne reappoted the only anti-gay spokman on the board he would lose every gay vote the cy the next electn. Milk was not kiddg, and he gave the Mayor to unrstand that. “You won’t get elected dogtcher,” he said.</p><p class="paywall">At the trial, both the fense and the prosecutn generally avoid the whole subject of cy polics, but sce Whe had the swg vote on the board, there were real polil issu at stake his reappotment. There were also real polil tensns the cy. Harvey Milk took the qutn of Whe’s reappotment serly, but so did the Police Officers’ Associatn. The old-le policemen had a number of problems wh the Mayor. In the first place, they disliked Charl R. Ga, the police chief Mosne had appoted two years before. Ga was an outsir—he had not e up through the ranks—and he was not one whose valu they rpected. Acrdg to Frank Falzon, the trouble had begun on Ga’s arrival, when he removed the Amerin flag om his office and replaced wh plants. In their view, the gture symbolized the man. The disaffectn grew when Ga had the police rs pated powr blue, and when he backed the Mayor on mory hirg. For some months, Mosne had been phg the board to settle a discrimatn su brought by the few black officers the Police Department—a settlement that would have required the police to take affirmative actn to hire and promote members of racial mori. The Police Officers’ Associatn had e out agast , and th far the board had blocked , six to five. What was more, Mosne and Ga were promisg to hire openly gay policemen, and Mosne had said he would put an acknowledged homosexual on the Police Commissn. It had been ls than ten years sce the police were asked to raid gay bars and lock up gay men as perverts—and this was too much for them. The year before, there had been loose talk the partment about killg the police chief. Now there was loose talk about gettg rid of the Mayor.</p><p class="paywall">Invtigatg the police nnectn durg the trial, Warren Hckle, of the <em>Chronicle</em>, found an unrsheriff who had wnsed Whe’s arraignment and his first eveng jail. Whe, he said, had not shown any signs of “dimished pacy,” nor had he seemed at all sorry for what he had done. And why should he? The police were lghg and jokg wh him and givg him iendly pats. The unrsheriff worried about this. It wasn’t that he spected a police nspiracy the killgs; rather, he thought that if there were any police approval of the assassatns, the prosecutor should have brought this out at the trial.</p><p class="paywall">Later, journalists reëxamg the se vtigated the possibily that there might have been a police nspiracy. They found no evince for one, though they did fd nsirable animosy toward the former Mayor among nservative policemen (and some officers wore “F<em class="small">ree</em> D<em class="small">an</em> W<em class="small">he</em>” T-shirts after the killgs). From a factual standpot, the better hypothis seemed to be that Whe had acted penntly for the purpose of makg himself a hero their ey. Yet this didn’t make sense, eher. On the board, Whe had been of great service to the Police Officers’ Associatn—the proof beg that the officers wanted him back on . But if he wanted their approbatn why had he rigned? Then, too, if he had killed Mosne and Milk simply bee he knew—or thought he knew—that the police wanted them out of the way, his act would not have been that of a totally sane man. Yet the journalists refed to believe that Whe was sane—even temporarily sane. The killgs had been too liberate. Whe, after all, had sat up all night after he heard of the Mayor’s cisn; then he had acted methodilly. His former ai ttified that he had seemed agated that morng, but the Mayor’s secretary had noticed nothg unual about him. He had killed the two men like an executner; then he had lled his wife, gone to the police statn where he had worked, and nfsed—not to murr but to voluntary manslghter. He had seemed que himself the police lockup. When he went to the state prison to serve his term, psychiatrists had examed him and had cid agast prcribg therapy; he had “no apparent signs” of mental disorr, they said. He served his term whout cint, and was back out on parole 1984.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="amgn8o"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="qaswrw"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">But there was a workable hypothis. There was a story that the prosecutor might have told about Dan Whe if he had wished to nstct a plsible motive for murr. The story went like this: Dan Whe had rigned om the Board of Supervisors for purely personal reasons. He had fancial problems, and he worried that his wife and child were sufferg bee of him. Bis, the job did not su him: he was too tense—too ntrolled and too ntrollg a man to get along the rough-and-tumble world of polics. Bee of all this, he had fallen to a prsn—a prsn that had been alleviated by his cisn to rign. But he had also qu bee he was a quter. In a televisn terview after the trial, Frank Falzon said that Whe had fally left the Police Department for good bee he objected to the treatment of a prisoner handcuffs and uld not get his way. “He had a tenncy to n ocsnally om suatns,” Falzon said his ttimony durg the trial. Whe did not lack physil urage—that was not the pot. Rather, he lacked the psychologil flexibily to al wh the everyday polics of any anizatn.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-14 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Beg polilly naïve, Whe did not realize the polil nsequenc of his private cisn to qu the board until the real-tate men and the police me to him. What kd of prsure was put on him remas unknown, but the prsure was certaly great enough to make him put himself the huiatg posn of askg the Mayor to give him his job back after only four days. The velopers meant nothg to him—that was polics. But the police—well, they were his buddi. He hung around wh them even while he was on the board. And if you have been a policeman or a fireman, and if you have been a trooper on the le Vietnam, you know that your honor and your life pend on your not lettg your buddi down. Whe (as someone may have remd him) had let his buddi down—had let them down by qutg, the way he always did.</p><p class="paywall">For a time, Whe thought he uld get his job back. “I’ve got a real surprise for the gay muny,” he told a reporter om a gay newspaper a day or so after he heard that Harvey Milk had opposed his reappotment. He had hope, but then he learned that the Mayor had cid agast him. That eveng, after the rad reporter lled him, the realizatn h: he had sold out his buddi for his fay life and a baked-potato stand. He wrtled wh his guilt all night long; then, the morng, he ma his plan. He rried out, and afterward his nscience was clear; he had done the right thg; he had sacrificed himself for his buddi.</p><p class="paywall">Of urse, no one knew, or uld know, what went through Dan Whe’s md the day he shot Gee Mosne and Harvey Milk. But a plsible scenar was what a prosecutor would have need to tablish premedatn and nvict him. For a prosecutor, however, the difficulty was that to nstct a plsible motive for Whe was necsarily to brg cy polics to the urtroom. Such a prosecutor would have had to brg wns to ttify to the nflict between the Mayor and the old-le policemen. He would have had to talk about the police opposn to the anti-discrimatn su brought by the black officers, and about the hostily that many of the rank-and-file felt toward their own police chief. Further, he would have had to expose the repugnance the police felt for what went on every night the Castro and Folsom districts. He would have had to reveal the ve of anger agast the gay muny which lay below the surface of cy polics and public disurse—the anger that Dianne Feste had warned the gay muny about. He would have had to show that San Francis was not the perfectly tolerant cy that seemed to be. But Thomas Norman did not do this, and so the nflict broke out to the open. ♦</p><p class="paywall">(<em>This is the first part of a two-part article.</em>)</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="eo4dwo"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS kLQIUk grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV 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SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">The Talk of the Town</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/1970/07/11/para" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Para</div></a><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi hYsZi summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Anthony Hiss</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hlYhBH summary-em summary-em--article summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm fvDIAb" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/2002/05/13/public-nuisance" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Larry Kramer, Public Nuisance" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl ldWYvC summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Profil</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/2002/05/13/public-nuisance" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Larry Kramer, Public Nuisance</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/2002/05/13/public-nuisance" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Larry Kramer, Public Nuisance" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">The man who warned Ameri about AIDS n’t stop fightg hard—and loudly.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi hYsZi summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Michael Specter</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hlYhBH summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm fvDIAb" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Country Mic’s Culture Wars and the Remakg of Nashville" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl ldWYvC summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Amerin Chronicl</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Country Mic’s Culture Wars and the Remakg of Nashville</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Country Mic’s Culture Wars and the Remakg of Nashville" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">Tennsee’s ernment has turned hard red, but a new set of outlaw songwrers is challengg Mic Cy’s nservative ways—and lg bro-untry sound.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi hYsZi summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Ey Nsbm</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hlYhBH summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm fvDIAb" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="The Novelist Whose Inventns Went Too Far" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl ldWYvC summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Life and Letters</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">The Novelist Whose Inventns Went Too Far</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="The Novelist Whose Inventns Went Too Far" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">After the Ao-Cuban wrer H. G. Carrillo died, his hband learned that almost everythg the wrer had shared about his life was ma up—cludg his Cuban inty.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi hYsZi summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>D. T. Max</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm fvDIAb ad ad--read-more"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--read-more" data-no-id="go64l"></div></div></div><div class="SummaryCollectnGridToActnWrapper-gnReGN eGayfk"></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="TaboolaWrapper-hMVdpE iYfBhy"><div class="TaboolaWidgetWrapper-egPIjc hkSrgt TaboolaWidget-eUSdED hQCCRa" data-ttid="TaboolaWidgetWrapper"><div class="TaboolaWidgetContent-iBEQTO eXroXG TABOOLA" id="taboola-below-article-thumbnails---f" data-ttid="TaboolaWidgetContent"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--footer should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--footer" data-no-id="27k3qs"></div></div></div></div></div></ma><div class="BasePageMaFooterFiller-hTlZph jSriYf page__ma-footer-filler"></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div 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