How Gay Is Gay? (April 23, 1979) | A History of Gay Rights Through TIME Covers |

Contents:

• A HISTORY OF GAY RIGHTS THROUGH TIME COVERS
• GAY HISTORY – APRIL 15, 1979: SAN FRANCIS’S SISTERS OF PERPETUAL INDULGENCE FOUND
• LA’S GAY PAST: THIS IS LGBT HISTORY, TOLD SIX LANDMARKS

A HISTORY OF GAY RIGHTS THROUGH TIME COVERS

As the gay-rights movement fed ahead the U. Through the 1970s, there were still many qutns Amerins’ mds about homosexualy.

TIME’s ver story, “How Gay Is Gay? ” — published jt six months after the assassatn of Harvey Milk, the San Francis cy supervisor who helped enact sweepg gay-rights reforms — foced on gay populatns across the U.

The mal are also far more visible than the femal performg one of the most fascatg rol of the gay rights movement: fluencg straight culture. Male homosexuals have long been particularly active the world of the arts, where they often n work openly wh no fear of losg their livelihood if they have the talent; Novelist Tman Capote and Playwright Tennsee Williams are two notable exampl. But the new fluence of homosexuals is somethg que different: their drs, tast and speech are beg adopted by many straights who would be stunned if they knew the origs of the latt fashns or fads.

GAY HISTORY – APRIL 15, 1979: SAN FRANCIS’S SISTERS OF PERPETUAL INDULGENCE FOUND

The Early Gay Rights Movement In 1924, Henry Gerber, a German immigrant, found Chigo the Society for Human Rights, the first documented gay rights anizatn the Uned Stat. Army service World War I, Gerber was spired to create his anizatn by the Scientific-Humanarian Commtee, a “homosexual emancipatn” group Germany.Gerber’s small group published a few issu of s newsletter “Friendship and Freedom,” the untry’s first gay-tert newsletter.

LA’S GAY PAST: THIS IS LGBT HISTORY, TOLD SIX LANDMARKS

Ernment signated Gerber’s Chigo hoe a Natnal Historic Landmark.The Pk TriangleCorbis/Getty ImagHomosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, 1938.The gay rights movement stagnated for the next few s, though LGBT dividuals around the world did e to the spotlight a few tim.For example, English poet and thor Radclyffe Hall stirred up ntroversy 1928 when she published her lbian-themed novel, The Well of Lonels.

And durg World War II, the Nazis held homosexual men ncentratn mps, brandg them wh the famo pk triangle badge, which was also given to sexual predators.Addnally, 1948, his book Sexual Behavr the Human Male, Aled Ksey proposed that male sexual orientatn li on a ntuum between exclively homosexual to exclively heterosexual.The Homophile Years In 1950, Harry Hay found the Mattache Foundatn, one of the natn’s first gay rights group. The Los Angel anizatn ed the term “homophile,” which was nsired ls clil and foced on sexual activy than “homosexual.”Though started off small, the foundatn, which sought to improve the liv of gay men through discsn groups and related activi, expand after foundg member Dale Jenngs was arrted 1952 for solicatn and then later set ee due to a adlocked jury.At the end of the year, Jenngs formed another anizatn lled One, Inc., which weled women and published ONE, the untry’s first pro-gay magaze. Post Office, which 1954 clared the magaze “obscene” and refed to liver .The Mattache Society Mattache Foundatn members rtctured the anizatn to form the Mattache Society, which had lol chapters other parts of the untry and 1955 began publishg the untry’s send gay publitn, The Mattache Review.

That same year, four lbian upl San Francis found an anizatn lled the Dghters of Bilis, which soon began publishg a newsletter lled The Ladr, the first lbian publitn of any kd.The early years of the movement also faced some notable setbacks: the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn listed homosexualy as a form of mental disorr 1952.The followg year, Print Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an executive orr that banned gay people—or, more specifilly, people guilty of “sexual perversn”—om feral jobs.