The American LGBTQ Rights Movement An Introduction Chapter 3 GAY LIBERATION

I ION PRESS we were knew they knew knew they knew It . The game was AND BEE BAR was outside the San Antonio , Texas , city limits and harder to regulate for the police , sheriff , military police , and liquor control boards . Therefore , we could dance there . It not that we were doing anything illegal . In 1963 , we ourselves were illegal . If we got caught dancing with someone of the

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same sex , that would mean we were homosexual , and since it was against the law to be homosexual , we were subject to arrest . would leave the bar and come stand in the doorway between the bar in front and dance floor in back . If her red bandana was sticking out of her front pocket instead of tied around her neck , this wasThe Sign . Police coming . Police here . We would be dancing , men with men and women with women , and in the time it took to say Bossa Nova Twist , we switched partners in , and seconds before the police appeared in the doorway , were dancing in female couples .

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The police slowly circled the room , peering for a man touching another man hand under the table , a woman knee pressed against another woman . They circled the room twice . They knew we were gay . We knew they knew it . They knew we knew they knew it . The game was on . When they caught someone being illegal , that is , being themselves , off that person went to jail . When they could catch a bunch of us dancing , they get a big catch for their paddy wagon . This time , we won the game , and they left grudgingly . They would be back . But for tonight , we turned the jukebox back on and commenced dancing . Carolyn Weathers 39

40 DURING THE 19605 , POLICE departments across the nation forced state bans on serving alcohol to people by raiding bars suspected of serving patrons . So when New York City police entered the Stonewall Inn in the early hours of une 28 , 1969 , they expected the typical routine of shutting down the bar and arresting selected patrons . But when arrested patrons resisted and a threatening crowd gathered , police retreated back into the bar for protection . By the time that police reinforcements arrived , a riot had erupted in the streets that would continue for nights to follow . The moment would come to symbolize the beginning of the gay liberation movement . The next year , commemorative marches and were organized in San Francisco , New York , Chicago , and Los Angeles to coincide with the anniversary of the riot . New York march , which started small with tens of people , grew to hundreds then to thousands as it entered Central Park . A Los Angeles contingent enlisted the help of the American Civil Liberties Union to acquire a city permit it became the first march sanctioned by a city government . These marches developed into an annual event , grew in size and participation , and soon spread across the nation and the world in cities small and large as a reminder and celebration of the Stonewall Riots of 1969 . JACK BAKER IN 1970 , RESIDENTS Jack Baker and Mike became the first national media celebrities of the rights movement when they held a press conference to announce their plication for a marriage license . Not only were they denied the license , but the University of Minnesota withdrew job offer . er and sued on both accounts . The Minnesota Supreme Court , in the ST state ruling of its kind , denied Baker and the right to marry , and a federal appeals court upheld the University of Minnesota right to deny a job due to his homosexuality .

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THE MONTH AFTER THE 1969 Stonewall Riots , in New York City formed the Gay POLITICS Front ( The group capitalized on a newly energized community to introduce a radical activism into the gay rights movement . At its height , had over 50 chapters across the United States , each initiating boycotts and protests against the discriminatory policies of local police , universities , businesses , and city governments . Although its unstructured and goals would ly doom the group , forever changed the movement . members were sponsible for launching gay pride marches , Reverend Troy Perry ( in black ) with partner Steve Jordan and Perry mother ( front seat ) at the first gay pride parade in Los Angeles . community service centers , and many of the era leading activist organizations . The Gay Activists Alliance , a splinter group from the in New York , introduced zaps , a , protest in which activists directly and publicly confronted politicians , and businesses . These protests forced their targets to address the issues of the community or risk continued public attacks . As more activist organizations adopted these in creasing aggressive tactics , some elected and candidates for office at the local , state , and federal level began to publicly address the topic of gay and lesbian rights for the first time . In San Francisco in 1971 , Jim Foster founded the Alice Memorial Democratic Club , the first registered political club in the nation . Soon political organizations could be found in most major United States cities , forcing politicians to address the community in local , state , and national elections . In 1977 , the Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles ( became the first openly political action committee in the nation . Although initially founded to city politics , fundraising power expanded its into state and 41

42 Midge with glasses ) arranged this first meeting of gay and lesbian leaders at the White House . Named the National Gay Task Force White House Conference , the meeting included Troy Perry ( far left ) Myra Riddel ( third from right ) Charlotte ( second from right ) and George Raya ( far right ) fa ?

national politics . The organization quickly came the most powerful political group of its time . With increasing political clout , gay and bian politicians and delegates began vying for political positions and offices . The 1972 Dem Convention boasted the first openly gay and lesbian delegates . Two of the delegates , Jim Foster and Madeline Davis , spoke at the um , the first people to do so at a ma political function . By the 1980 ic Convention , the gay and lesbian contingent had grown to delegates . At that convention , the Democratic Party officially its ever gay rights plank . In 1974 , Kathy became the first openly person elected to a government office when she won a seat on the Ann Arbor City Council in Michigan . Elaine Noble won a seat in the Massachusetts state legislature later , her lover left her , she lost her job as an advertising executive , her tires were slashed , and she got obscene phone calls . So what did she do ?

She ran for a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives . Winning 59 of the vote , she was the first openly person elected to state office . Not only that , she was reelected two years later . In this photograph , she talks with future United States Congressman Barney Frank , who came out himself in 1987 .

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One gay , one lesbian , and one straight couple turned themselves in at the Los Angeles Police Department for transgressing the state sodomy law . The police refused to arrest the activists . 1945 MELVIN BOOZER WAS A SOCIOLOGY PROFESSOR at the of Maryland and president of Washington Gay Activists Alliance . He was little known outside of Washington , when he approached the podium to deliver one of the most powerful speeches of the 1980 Democratic Convention . Would you ask me how I dare to compare the civil rights struggle with the struggle for gay and lesbian rights ?

I can compare them and I do compare them , because I know what it means to be called a nigger and I know what it means to be called a faggot , and I understand the difference , in the marrow of my bones . And I can sum up that difference in one word 43 44 in the year , becoming the first openly state representative . Minnesota State Senator lan Spear came out as gay at the end of 1974 and then won his bid in 1976 , becoming the first openly gay man to be elected to ment office . In 1977 , the National Gay Task Force ( collaborated with Midge , Assistant to the President for Public Liaison , on a meeting of gay and lesbian activist leaders at Gay delegates at me 1980 the White House . President Carter had not been Democratic informed of the meeting , and leaders would not meet with a sitting president until 1993 . However , the event implied federal recognition of the gay rights movement and opened the door for future meetings with federal government agencies . By 1977 , gay and lesbian activists had begun meeting with representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union and various women rights groups to discuss common strategy . However , prejudice against people still trumped the promise of a broader collaboration the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights rejected application for membership . IN 1966 , IVY BECAME A FOUNDING member of the Organization for Women ( NOW ) and soon after , the New York chapter second president . When she divorced her husband in 1968 and news of her being a lesbian became public knowledge , some NOW members spoke out against her , using the term lavender ace to describe the danger of lesbians in the women movement . left NOW and relocated to Los Angeles , where she became a leader in the gay and lesbian rights movement . She helped lead the No on Briggs Proposition campaign ( the proposition intended to fire gay and lesbian educators from public schools ) the Stonewall Club , and the Los Angeles Police Department first Gay and Lesbian Police Task Force . She responded to the crisis of the by founding the Los Angeles AIDS Network and becoming a founding member of Project Los Angeles .

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DISCRIMINATION SODOMY LAWS HAVE BEEN active in the United States since colonial times and have been used to prosecute all types of creative sexual activity . Although state sodomy laws often spell out no distinction between het and homosexual acts , in War II America , the laws were disproportion used to harass and arrest gay men . Because same seX sexual activity was fundamentally not The demonstration against State Steamship procreative , sodomy laws made presumptive in was the my to protest criminals of all gay and lesbian people and employment discrimination in the private the denial of their civil rights . Illinois decriminalized sodomy in 1961 . By 1975 , only six more states had followed suit , and in 1976 , the United States Supreme Court rebuffed a challenge to sodomy laws . However , the growing political clout of the gay rights movement forced increasingly rapid change in the second half of the decade . By 1979 , twenty one states had criminalized sodomy , with another fourteen reducing the charge to a misdemeanor . By the end of the decade , 90 of the population lived under substantially decriminalized sodomy laws . Although states resisted legislation for people , activists at the local and federal level had more success . In 1972 , San Francisco , East Lansing , and Ann Arbor , Michigan , enact ed local measures to protect gay and lesbian people in employment and housing . By 1977 , more than forty cities and counties had implemented rights protections . In 1975 , lawsuits such as . Mary forced the United States Civil Service Commission to drop its policy against the hiring of gay and lesbian people ( except in the FBI and intelligence agencies ) In 1980 , the United States of Personnel Management banned discrimination against gay and lesbian people in all federal service jobs .

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THE STUDENT LEAGUE , under the ship Martin , emerged at Columbia University in 1967 as the first student group . student groups gradually took root at New York University , Cornell , Stanford , and the University of Minnesota , but after the 1969 Stonewall riots , student groups spread more idly . By 1971 , student groups had been recognized at sixty universities , while numerous others existed without recognition . student groups often had to overcome opposition by university administrators for the right to be recognized . The Gay Students Organization ( at the University of New shire , scored the first victory in court in 1973 when judges ruled that the university could not deny the rights that it provided to other student groups . Throughout the , student groups fought challenges to their funding , use of facilities , and university recognition . Not until state and United States Supreme Court rulings in the and would student groups overcome the last challenges to their constitutional rights of free speech and assembly . BARBARA COMING OUT IN A PICKET LINE in 1965 was downright revolutionary . We were at the start of cracking that cocoon of ty . Born in 1932 , Barbara was a young college student when she decided to learn erything she could about homosexuality . The dearth of information made her haunt ies , and the lack of community made her form her own . A claimed joiner and instigator , she began the New York chapter of the first lesbian organization in the United States , the Daughters of , and later edited its national magazine The Ladder . in the , risking physical harm and loss of employment , she and a small band of protesters picketed Independence Hall in her hometown of , and continued to do so every Fourth of July for five years . After Stonewall emboldened my people , she with other activists to lobby the American Psychiatric Association to scind its definition of homosexuality as a mental disorder . An advocate for literature , she founded the American Library Gay Task Force , the first professional organization . She died in 2007 , survived by her partner of 46 years , Kay . 2007

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PRESS THE ADVOCATE , LADDER , AM ( a , DRUM , AND VE ( TOR an increasingly strident demand for gay and lesbian rights in the 19605 . This trend exploded in the period lowing the 1969 Stonewall Riots , unleashing a tidal wave of unapologetic . GAY in New York , Gay in San Francisco , Gay Liberator in Detroit , Ki er in Chicago , and Blade in Washington , were just a few of the 150 publications being produced by 1972 with an aggregate circulation surpassing . The publications and a Gay Sunshine was indicative of the bold community with their frank language , press of the era , outrage over discrimination , and of and open sexuality . IN 1966 , JEANNE ENTERED THE Heart of Mary convent in Santa Barbara , California , but began questioning her sexual orientation and the church stance . She lett the convent and committed herself to the Los Angeles gay rights and movements , She became president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Daughters of , founded the publication The Lesbian Tide , and became a columnist and human rights editor for the Los Angeles Free Press . In 1973 , she was a key organizer of what came the largest lesbian conference of the time , and in 1981 , founded the Community Yellow Pages , the nation largest and most directory .

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In 1967 , Craig opened the first bookstore , The Oscar Wilde Bookshop in New York , to promote the rich and heritage culture and identities . The bookstore soon became an alternative to the bar as a center for gatherings and for the exchange of . New York first gay pride march in 1970 was organized out of bookstore . An literary movement blossomed in the . Among the great books of the era , than Ned Gay American published in 1976 led to a cavalcade of historical texts . Although the bookstore was often the only place to find literature , a few lesbian and gay books crossed over to mainstream booksellers . Patricia Nell Warren , Rita Mae Brown , Elle City , and Andrew Dancer the Dance proved that gay and lesbian literature could have success with mainstream audiences . POET LORDE WAS A PIONEER of . She on recognition of herself as black , feminist , and lesbian . After completing a degree in library science , Lorde went on to lecture at several universities , write volumes of poetry , and the feminist Kitchen Table Woman of Color Press . From 1991 until her death , she was New York State Poet Laureate . From her essay The Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master House Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society definition of acceptable en those of us who have been forged in the of difference those of us who are poor , who are lesbians , who are Black , who are older know that survival is not an academic skill . It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths .

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SINCE THE OF psychology as a discipline in the late , psychologists have debated whether to view homosexuality MEDICINE and gender nonconformity as mental illnesses . In 1952 , the American Psychiatric Association ( APA ) listed homosexuality in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , giving official sanction to efforts among many mental health professionals to find a cure . In 1957 , psychologist Hooker published The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual which postulated that homosexuality was not an illness but a variant in pattern well within the normal range of human behavior . Activist Frank ignited the movement to remove the APA listing of homosexuality as a mental illness in the . By the late , radical activists had taken up the and were coordinating zaps and protests at APA meetings and against prominent psychiatrists and psychologists across the United States . The combination of these protests with negotiations , in the landmark 1973 removal of homosexuality as a mental illness from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders . The community long history of mistreatment at the hands of medical and mental health establishments led to the development of health service providers . The Community Health Services Center in Boston opened in 1971 as the first legally incorporated , medical group to cater to people . The Los Angeles Gay Community Services Center opened later in the year , providing social programs as well as medical and mental health services . As the community center template spread , over 130 vices institutions emerged across the nation . The centers provide a variety of local services , including legal , social , cultural , and educational services with programs for homeless people , youth , families , and seniors . 49