From Grey Flannel Suits to Bell-bottoms and Beads: Social Movement Theory and the Transformation of the Gay Rights Movement in the

United States, 1951 to 1972

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By: Bryan Charles SchwartzAdvised by: Dr. David Goldfrank and Dr. Joseph McCartin

Submitted: 5/5/2014

To Dr. Robert Schwartz and Mr. Herluf Kanstrup, for the love, support, and fireside chats.

And for paving the way.

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“In the millions who are silent and submerged, I see a potential,a reservoir of protest, a hope for a portion of mankind. And inmy knowledge that our number is legion, I raise my head high and

proclaim that we, the voiceless millions, are human beings,entitled to breathe the fresh air and enjoy, with all humanity,

the pleasures of life and love on God's green Earth.” --Donald Webster Cory (The Homosexual in America, 1951, p. 91)

“Now, times are a changin’...Grumbling could be heard among thelimp wristed set. Predominantly, the theme was, 'this shit has go

to stop!'” –Ronnie Di Brienza (The East Village Other, July 9th 1969, p. 2)

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Table of Contents

PREFACE: THE HAIRPIN DROP HEARD ‘ROUND THE WORLDThe Stonewall narrative

INTRODUCTION: OUT OF THE CLOSETS AND INTO THE STREETSHistoriographic trends and the construction of a structural framework

SECTION ONE: GREY FLANNEL SUITSThe Mattachine Society and the East Coast Homophile Organizations Conferences (1951-1965)

SECTION TWO: BELL-BOTTOMS AND BEADSThe North American Conference of Homophile Organizations, the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations, and gay liberation (1966-1972)

CONCLUSION: ABEYANCE ACROSS THE PONDThe transnational/international turn in the contemporary historiography and final thoughts

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The Hairpin Drop Heard ‘Round the World

At one o'clock in the morning on June 28th 1969,

approximately two hundred gay men and women were drinking and

dancing inside the Stonewall Inn on 53 Christopher Street in New

York City's Greenwich Village. Established in 1967 by members of

the Genovese crime family, the Stonewall Inn was a popular gay

bar that drew profits of nearly $11,000 on an average weekend.1

Although the bar’s Mafia-affiliated owners managed to avoid

police raids by utilizing a well lubricated system of bribery,

the unsavory management brought with it a number of

disadvantages. In an effort to limit operating costs and maximize

their profits, the bar’s owners frequently and flagrantly

violated city health and safety codes. The worst of these

violations stemmed from a lack of running water behind the bar.

When glasses were returned, they were “washed” in small basins of

recycled water and quickly refilled for the next customer. In

addition to their clear disregard for public health, the owners

engaged in a tidy “side business,” which involved the blackmail

and/or extortion of their wealthier patrons. After an

1 David Eisenbach, Gay Power: An American Revolution (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2006): p. 85.

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investigation unearthed this criminal enterprise during the 1969

mayoral elections, the New York Police Department dispatched

Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine, Detective Charles Smyth, and six

officers from the “Morals Squad” to investigate allegations that

the Stonewall Inn was “operating without a liquor license.”2

Smyth, Pine, and the small contingent of male and female officers

arrived in plainclothes in front of the Stonewall Inn at 1:20AM.

Shortly thereafter, the team entered through the double doors at

the front of the building whereupon Inspector Pine

melodramatically announced “Police! We're taking the place!”3

During the postwar period in the United States, raids of

this nature were an accepted part of life for those men and women

who frequented the country’s gay bars, but on June 28th the

police encountered unprecedented resistance.4 Accounts of the

raid tend to diverge chronologically after the appearance of the

2 This justification appeared in the official police report, in an effort to conceal the scope of the ongoing extortion investigation. Activist Richard Leitsch and the New York Post as quoted in David Carter, “An Analytical Collation of Accounts and Documents Recorded in the Year 1969 Concerning the Stonewall Riots” http://www.davidcarterauthor.com, accessed 03/20/14 pp. 7-8.

3 David Carter, Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2004): p. 137.

4 Police reports and interviews with Seymour Pine as quoted in Carter, “An Analytical Collation” p. 12

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police, but the events remain the same. Following a common

practice in incidents of cross-dressing, two female officers led

a group of men dressed in drag to the bar’s bathrooms where they

attempted to ascertain the physical gender of their charges.5

Rather than submit to this theatrical humiliation as they often

had before, the men resisted. At the same time, other officers

confiscated the bar’s stores of liquor and ejected patrons from

the premises, arresting a number of individuals on charges

ranging from harassment to resisting arrest and disorderly

conduct.6 Much to the chagrin of Smyth and Pine, a communication

breakdown with their 6th Precinct headquarters delayed the

dispatch of patrol wagons that were required to transport their

prisoners. With nowhere else to turn, the officers and their

handcuffed charges waited for the patrol wagons outside on

Christopher Street.7

5 According to Detective Pine, “men dressed in drag who had undergone a sex change operation could be let go, but men dressed in drag who had not undergone a sex change operation were subject to arrest.” Pine, however, ignored this odd provision of the New York state penal code and released many of the individuals who were taken into the bathrooms. Pine as quoted in Carter, “An Analytical Collation”, p. 25.

6 New York Times as quoted in Carter, “An Analytical Collation”, pp. 9, 13, 26-27.

7 Carter, Stonewall, p. 142.7

By the time the first wagon arrived on the scene, a sizable

crowd of some four hundred men and women had formed on the street

outside the bar.8 The onlookers had assembled quietly, but the

tension was palpable. As the crowd swelled, and the police

attempted to load their resisting prisoners into the arriving

wagons, an unidentified bystander is said to have shouted, "Gay

power!” and a chorus of “We Shall Overcome” rose above the

growing din.9 Although the exact point of ignition remains the

focus of some debate among historians, the crowd soon transformed

into a fiery mob.10 With the situation rapidly deteriorating,

Pine ordered three squad cars and two loaded patrol wagons to

return to headquarters and “hurry back.” As the vehicles broke

through and escaped the mob, a hail of bottles, pennies, and

rocks fell on the remaining officers. Outnumbered, Pine directed

his men to retreat into the bar whereupon they barricaded the

doors and windows.11 Emboldened by the retreat of their enemy,

the crowd surged forward, smashed the Inn's windows, and

8 New York Times and New York Post as quoted in Carter, “An Analytical Collation”,p. 11.

9 Carter, Stonewall, pp. 147-148.10 Martin B. Duberman, Stonewall (New York City: Dutton, 1993): p. 196;

Interviews quoted in Carter, “An Analytic Collation” p. 14 see fn 37. 11 Richard Leitsch and Village Voice reporter Smith as quoted in Carter, “An

Analytic Collation” pp. 15, 17, 19.8

attempted to batter the door with uprooted parking meters.

Inside, Inspector Pine ordered his panicked men to check their

service revolvers while another officer yelled to the crowd,

“We’ll shoot the first motherfucker that comes through the

door!”12 As the chaos on the street unfolded, some individuals in

the crowd attempted to light the building on fire to “roast the

pigs.”13 A “small, scrawny, hoody-looking cat” approached one of

the bar’s broken windows, doused the ground inside with lighter

fluid, and threw in a match. The fluid ignited. Using a small

hose, several officers succeeded in extinguishing the small fire,

but not before Pine had leveled his service revolver at the

would-be arsonist and prepared to fire.14 At this crucial moment,

Pine and his men heard a wail of sirens that signaled the

approach of reinforcements.

By the time order was finally restored to the Village in the

early morning hours, the rioting had left the Stonewall Inn in

shambles and led to thirteen arrests. The morning after the raid,

the Village Voice, New York Daily News, New York Post, and New York Times

12 Smith as quoted in Carter, “An Analytic Collation” pp. 21-22.13 Carter, “An Analytic Collation”, p. 2314 Smith, Leitsch, and the New York Times as quoted in Carter, “An Analytic

Collation,” pp. 22-23.9

covered the story with detailed articles.15 The intense and

largely unprecedented media coverage of a militant act of gay

resistance spread quickly and soon coverage of the the riots

appeared in newspapers across the country. Galvanized by this

attention from the national media, the “Stonewall Boys” in

Greenwich Village continued to confront the police over the next

seven days.16

Among the gay population, interpretations of Stonewall were

hardly consistent. Reactions were charged with a range of

emotions, from anger and despair to excitement and elation. The

gay author Edmund White summarized this uncertainty: “Dreary

middle-class East-Side queens stand around disapproving, but

fascinated, unable to go home, as though torn between their class

loyalties, their desires to be respectable, and their longing for

freedom.”17 Members of the Mattachine Society of New York, a

homophile organization founded in the early 1950s, left a message

on one of the Stonewall Inn’s boarded windows in an effort to

defuse the growing radicalism. Their message read: “We

15 Donn Teal, The Gay Militants (St. Martin's Press, 1971): p. 4.16 Carter, “An Analytic Collation” pp. 35-36.17 Author Edmund White as quoted by Carter, “An Analytic Collation” p. 34.

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homosexuals plead with our people to please help maintain

peaceful and quiet conduct on the streets of the Village.”18 Next

to this plea, an untidy scrawl announced a series of meetings to

“discuss solutions to your complaints.”19 Although the Mattachine

Society limped on for several years after the Riots, its

comparatively conservative principles had fallen out of fashion,

subsumed by the confrontational tactics of the emerging “gay

liberationists”. Capitalizing on the public’s growing fascination

with homosexuality, the development of new tactics of organized

resistance, and the galvanizing symbol of the Stonewall Riots, a

number of men and women founded the “Gay Liberation Front” (or

GLF) in the weeks after Stonewall. For the next four years, the

GLF fought for its namesake by developing a set of principles and

tactical strategies that were inspired by the Black Panthers and

other ’68 organizations.20 In contrast to the GLF, the Gay

Activists Alliance (or GAA)—founded on December 21, 1969—built

upon the activism of the homophile movement and advocated solely

18 See Appendix, Image 1 19 In addition to these meetings, MSNY and the Homophile Youth League

distributed leaflets explaining what had occurred at Stonewall and “what todo if you are arrested”. The Ladder (a lesbian periodical) as quoted in Carter, “An Analytic Collation”, p. 32.

20 Carter, Stonewall, pp. 202, 218-219.11

for gay rights by organizing precision strikes (e.g. protests,

sit-ins, and pickets) against established authorities (e.g. the

government, the media, and corporations). The GAA achieved a

number of political successes, grew steadily, and persisted into

the 1980s.

The day after the Stonewall Inn was raided by Pine and his

contingent of officers, The New York Mattachine Newsletter ran with the

clever headline “The Hairpin Drop Heard 'Round the World.” The

Newsletter emphasized the growing radicalism in the gay rights

movement and foreshadowed, perhaps unintentionally, the demise of

the earlier “homophile movement” when it boldly declared the dawn

of a new era.21 Like the event that inspired the article’s title,

however the gay rights movement in the United States did not

spring fully-formed from the double doors of the Stonewall Inn.

Rather, like the American Revolution, the seeds of change had

been planted decades earlier. Like the watershed events at

Lexington and Concord, the hairpin drop may have energized the

gay rights movement and captured the attention of gay and

straight men and women across the country, but it was not the

21 Carter, Stonewall, pp. 210, 215.12

first example of gay unrest or political organization. To forget

important events like the ECHO (East Coast Homophile

Organizations) conferences of 1964 through 1966, the formation of

NACHO (North American Conference of Homophile Organizations) in

1967, and homophile organizations like the Mattachine Society and

the Daughters of Bilitis is to obscure a crucial developmental

and transitional period that eased an ambitious movement on its

first steps out of the closet and into the streets.

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Out of the Closets and Into the Streets

The popular narrative of the gay rights movement in the

United States has often unfairly emphasized the importance of the

Stonewall Riots.22 At his second inaugural address in January of

2013, President Barack Obama reinforced the primacy of Stonewall

by associating it with other milestone events in the ongoing

struggle for social equality. As he stated:

"We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths—that all of us are created equal—is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall. ...Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law...”23

Although the Riots were a significant moment in the history

of the movement, the emphasis placed upon them obscures a more

nuanced transition between the conservative principles and

tactics employed by the homophiles in the 1950s and 60s and the

outspoken and confrontational activism of the gay liberationists

who appeared in the 1970s. Before we can examine this issue more

22 In a recent article for The New Republic, historian Michael Kazin acknowledgedthis prevailing trend. Michael Kazin, “Stonewall Was Not The First Gay Rights Battle,” The New Republic, April 2, 2013; A number of recent newspaper articles have hailed Stonewall as “the beginning of the gay rights movement”. See, for example, John Harwood “A Sea Change in Less Than 50 Years as Gay Rights Gained Momentum,” New York Times, March 25, 2013.

23 Liz Halloran, “Stonewall? Explaining Obama's Historic Gay-Rights Reference”National Public Radio, January 22, 2013.

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closely, however, it is necessary to briefly turn our attention

to the existing historiography of the gay rights movement. Though

diverse, this body of literature can be thematically and

chronologically organized.

Although some scholars explore a number of themes in the

course of their historical analysis, the majority focus on two in

particular: sociocultural and political. Given their mass appeal

and accessibility, sociocultural topics are intensely popular

inside and outside of the academy and it is through the

examination of such topics that scholars have engaged with a wide

variety of material ranging from gay literature to theater and

film.24 Authors who focus on sociocultural topics often attempt,

with varying degrees of success, to identify and/or explain the

existence of a “gay community” that possesses characteristics

24 It would be impractical to list here every scholarly monograph that has addressed a sociocultural topic related to the gay rights movement, but several titles tend to appear in bibliographies with more frequency than others. For literature see, David Bergman, Gaiety Transfigured: Gay Self-Representation in American Literature (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991)and Claude J Summers, Gay Fictions: Wilde to Stonewall: Studies in a Male Homosexual Literary Tradition (New York: Continuum, 1990); For cinema see Vito Russo, The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies (New York: Harper & Row, 1987); For theater see,Alan Sinfield, Out On Stage: Lesbian and Gay Theater in the Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999); And for “bar culture” see Will Fellows and Helen P. Branson, Gay Bar: The Fabulous, True Story of a Daring Woman and Her Boys in the 1950s (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010).

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similar to those of an ethnic minority.25 With its groundbreaking

primary research and its focus on the gay community of New York

in the 1920s, George Chauncey’s Gay New York remains one of the

best examples of this kind of monograph.26 It is in this oft-

cited text that Chauncey proposes a revised periodization for the

history of (homo)sexuality in America. According to Chauncey,

this history is one characterized not by linearity, leading from

oppression to freedom, but rather a constantly fluctuating cycle

of tolerance and repression. With his detailed narrative,

Chauncey went on to prove that “gay life was less tolerated, less

visible to outsiders, and more rigidly segregated in the second

third of the century than in the first.”27 Chauncey’s text was

warmly received by both academics and the general public for its

focused research and readability as well as its revision of the

traditional linear periodization.

More recently, Christopher Bram published an historical

survey of gay writers titled Eminent Outlaws.28 Clearly intended for

25 Including, generally, those of a common language and “culture”.26 George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Makings of the Gay Male World,

1890-1940 (New York: Basic Books, 1994).27 Chauncey, p. 9.28 Christopher Bram, Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America (New York:

Twelve, 2012).16

a more general audience, Bram’s text nonetheless suggests that

the thematic focus on sociocultural topics continues to capture

the interest of scholars today. Like Chauncey, Bram offered

support for a “nonlinear” periodization of the gay rights

movement. By composing a series of biographical vignettes focused

on a few of the most popular gay writers of the 20th century,

Bram emphasized the existence of a prewar period of general

tolerance, followed by a postwar period of renewed silence and/or

open repression.29 In the course of his “large scale cultural

narrative,” Bram examined the collected works of Gore Vidal,

Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, James Baldwin, and Christopher

Isherwood, all while exploring their interactions with one

another and a larger “gay community.”30 Although Eminent Outlaws is

based almost exclusively on the published works of these authors

and selected secondary criticism, the lack of new source material

does not hinder Bram's ability to convincingly support his claim

that the emergence of gay literature fostered a sense of

29 Bram, pp. 4, 10-11.30 Bram, p. x; For some of the relevant works by these gay authors see James

Baldwin, Giovanni's Room (New York: Dial Press, 1956); Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other Rooms (New York: Random House, 1948). Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001); Gore Vidal, The City and the Pillar (New York: Random House, 1995); Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie (New York: New Directions, 1999).

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“community” among gay men. Though some of these path-breaking

works of literature received harsh receptions when finally

published, Bram explains how these works showed gay men and women

around the country that they were “part of something larger.”31

In an effort to transcend the primacy of the Stonewall

narrative, this paper borrows the periodization advanced by

Chauncey and supported by Bram and applies it to the

organizational history of the gay rights movement. More

specifically, this paper focuses on the transitional period that

came between the foundation of the homophile movement’s largest

organizational body in 1951 and the birth of the gay liberation

movement represented by the foundation of the GLF and GAA in

1969. A rough periodization thus established, we may turn our

attention to the second thematic focus that dominates this

historiography.

In the final lines of his monograph, Christopher Bram

loosely tied his sociocultural investigations to political issues

by arguing that in the case of the gay rights movement “art laid

the groundwork for social change.”32 As one might expect, authors

31 Bram, p. ix. 32 Bram, pp. x, 304.

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who focus on political topics place greater emphasis on activism

and public policy. While hardly an ironclad rule, such texts are

often intended for academic audiences and, as such, they utilize

a wide array of primary source material. Although the thematic

focus on politics may be traced back to some of the earliest

monographs within this historiography, David Johnson’s The Lavender

Scare is the most recent and scholarly rigorous example. Like

those pieces that address sociocultural subjects, political

monographs tend to follow a similar chronology that includes a

pre-World War II period characterized by apathetic exclusion or

toleration of homosexuality, a postwar period defined by active

oppression, and a modern/postmodern period characterized by

increasing civil and social equality. Focusing on political

repression over the longue duree, monographs of this type often

address the creation of, and reaction to, repressive government

policies and legal discrimination.

While at times concerned with the gay subculture in the

District of Columbia, David Johnson focused primarily on the

federal government’s postwar persecution of gay men. According to

Johnson, the “Lavender Scare” caused pervasive fear throughout

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the 1950s; it was generally thought that homosexuals posed a

threat to national security and needed to be systematically

removed from the federal government.33 He explained that this

form of persecution originated as a “partisan weapon in the halls

of Congress,” but soon spread to the general population, where it

fueled the creation of conspiracy theories and fear of “sexual

perversion.”34 Johnson made many important points in the course

of his relatively short monograph on this political issue, but

one stands out among the rest for the frequency with which it has

been addressed by other scholars. Like so many scholars before

and since, Johnson emphasized the importance of information in

the history of the gay rights movement. He argued that lexical

ambiguity and a general ignorance of homosexuality contributed to

this system of persecution.35 Related to this confusion, Johnson

explained that communism was often erroneously connected to

homosexuality and vice versa. Officials within the federal

government, “informed” by false information and encouraged by

stereotypes of the “loose lipped” and “easily blackmailed”

33 David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004): p. 9.

34 Johnson, p. 9. 35 Johnson, p.7.

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homosexual, irrationally feared the existence of a “homintern”

that could undermine the American political system.36

Terminology has always posed a unique problem for scholars

working with the history of the gay rights movement. Terms and

definitions used to denote same-sex attraction, and the political

organization of such individuals, differ widely across both space

and time.37 For the sake of clarity, it seems appropriate to

briefly define some of the terms frequently found within this

historiography. First, and perhaps most importantly, the term

homophile was used to refer to both men and women who were active

participants in the “homophile movement” and its constituent

organizations. Often, homophiles engaged in sexual activities

with members of the same sex.38 So defined, use of the word 36 Johnson, pp. 33-35. 37 Harry Hay offers a perfect example of the lexical chaos characteristic of

the 1950s, by referring to men who are attracted to members of their own sex as androgynes, homophiles, homosexuals, faeries, and gays. Harry Hay and Will Roscoe, Radically Gay: Gay Liberation in the Words of its Founder. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996): p. 62; In queer theory and sexuality studies, terminology continues to be the focus of protracted debate. For the major works of queer theory that confront issues associated with terminology see Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick,Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) specifically pp. 1-63; Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction (New York: Vintage Books, 1990) specifically pp. 100-102; David Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality and other essays on Greek Love (New York: Routledge, 1990).

38 The term was first explained by the homophile activist Donald Webster Cory,The Homosexual in America: A Subjective Approach (New York: Arno Press, 1951): pp. 4-6; A brochure given out to attendees at the 1965 ECHO conference explained that the term allowed for the inclusion of heterosexual allies, “The word

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homophile was limited to a specific historical period from roughly

the 1950s to the 1970s. After Stonewall, a number of

organizations and individuals dismissed homophile as a euphemism,

choosing instead to use the word gay to refer to men who engaged

in sexual activities with other men.39 For women who engaged in

sexual activities with other women, use of the term lesbian

started to appear in literature during the 20th century and,

since then, it has stood the test of time and sensitivity.40 The

term homosexual was used by both homophiles and the post-Stonewall

militant liberationists. Unless otherwise noted, this paper—in order

to avoid confusion and anachronism—uses the term homosexual to

refer to men and women who preferred to engage in sexual

is not synonymous with homosexual, but conforms to the following formal definition: Homophile: adj: pertaining to the social movement devoted to the improvement of the status of the homosexual, and to groups, activities,and literature associated with the movement; as, homophile organizations, homophile conferences, homophile publications.” ECHO Brochure, September 24-26, 1965

39 George Chauncey explained that use of the word gay to refer to men who had sex with other men actually originated in the “gay argot” of the 1920s before it fell briefly out of fashion. Chauncey, pp. 13-21 particularly 20-21.

40 The word lesbian is derived from the Greek island of Lesbos where the poet Sappho lived in 600 BCE. Many of Sappho's poems referred explicitly to samesex attraction between women. Historian Lillian Faderman explained that while the word was used to describe women who had sex with other women in the early 19th century, it is unclear when and where the term was first used. Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991): pp. 4-5, 48-54.

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activities with members of the same sex.41 Finally, we may return

briefly to the issue of periodization where the phrase “gay

rights movement” has been used to refer, for the sake of

convenience, to both the “homophile movement” and the “gay

liberation movement” as an historical process. Individually, the

precise definition and nature of these movements constitutes the

bulk of this paper’s analysis.

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The forty-five years since Stonewall have witnessed a

dramatic increase in the number of historical monographs that

focus on the sociocultural and political history of the gay

rights movement in the United States. As time has passed and

activists have aged, former participants in the movement have

started to donate their personal papers and organizational

records to museums, libraries, and educational institutions.42

This increased access to primary documents has allowed historians

to revisit the gay rights movement and many of the debates

41 The term was popularized by Richard von Krafft-Ebing, trans. Franklin S. Klaf. Psychopathia Sexualis (New York, NY: Arcade Publishing, 2011); Cory, p. xiv; Some gay liberationists considered “homosexual” a pejorative term associated with psychiatric diagnoses of abnormality.

42 The present piece utilizes the archival collections of the Mattachine Society of New York (or MSNY) housed by the New York Public Library.

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sparked by literature that were published in the 1970s. Today,

reflecting on the literature that has been published in this

relatively short period, we can identify a chronological

development in this historiography.

This literature may be sorted into three chronological

groups. The first of these consists of the “initial reporters,”

Dennis Altman, Don Teal, and Arthur Bell. Due, in part, to the

sympathies of their authors and the time in which they were

published, the books produced by this group focus almost

exclusively on the activities of the gay liberationists and their

organizations. In the 1990s, Judith Butler, David Halperin, and

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick expanded upon the pioneering work of Michel

Foucault with a number of monographs that dealt with human

sexuality. These men and women established some of the guiding

principles of what would become “queer theory.”43 Although a

discipline of its own, the popularity of queer theory inspired a

new generation of gay rights historians to expand their

periodizations and reexamine some of the theories advanced by the

initial reporters. These “revisionists”—chief among them John

43 See fn 36 and 74. 24

D'Emilio and Lillian Faderman—published several monographs that

focused the historical lens on the homophile movement, its member

organizations, and those individuals who participated in it. In

the early 2000s, a number of new historians, including Justin

Spring, Martin Meeker, and David Eisenbach, borrowed from the

collected literature of the first two groups and analyzed the

history of the gay rights movement using a variety of new sources

and methodological angles.

Following the formation of the GLF and GAA in the early

1970s, Dennis Altman, Don Teal, and Arthur Bell published books

that sought to explain the ideology of the gay liberationists and

the political goals of their movement. Since all three authors

were active liberationists, their books were influenced by their

own experiences and sympathies. Though scholarly works, these

books also served as manifestos, providing their readers with on-

the-ground images of the gay rights movement as well as

ideological support.

According to historian Jeffery Weeks, Denis Altman’s 1971

Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation was the first monograph to examine

the theories and history of gay liberation. In the course of his

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informative study, Altman developed three theories that

historians of the gay rights movement returned to frequently over

the next forty-five years.44 These theories were based on gay

identity, the concept of community, and, Altman’s most

controversial claim, the “end of the homosexual.”

Altman began his path-breaking piece with a bold

pronouncement:

“Over the past few years I have come to realize that my homosexuality is an integral part of my self-identity, and that to hide it can only make my life, if less precarious, more difficult and unsatisfying...Like most gay people, I know myself to be part of a minority feared, disliked, and persecuted by the majority and this gives my life a complexity and an extra dimension unknown to straights.”45

Inspired by liberationist theories in which he explained

that homosexuality was an important part of one's identity that

could not, and should not, be repressed, Altman proudly self-

identified as a gay man and viewed himself as part of a minority

population. His allegiance to liberationist thought was further

emphasized in his discussion of definitions wherein he explained

44 Dennis Altman, Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation (New York: Outerbridge & Dienstfrey, 1971): p. 5.

45 Emphasis mine. Altman, pp. 20-21. Interestingly enough, this statement is quite similar to an earlier one made by the homophile activist Donald Webster Cory years before the homophile movement turned towards “assimilationism”. Cory, pp. 6-10.

26

that “homosexuality” is more than simply a “behavioral act; it is

also a matter of emotion.”46 Attached to this discussion of

terms, he rejected the idea of a “gay community,” favoring

instead the theory that gay men and women constituted a social

movement that developed in reaction to the repressive policies

held in place by the heterosexual majority. He noted that: “Far

from a genuine community, providing a full and satisfying sense

of identity for homosexuals, [the gay world] consists

predominantly of a number of places which facilitate contacts

with other homosexuals. At best the gay world can be seen as a

pseudo community, held together largely by sexual barter.”47

Connected to all of these points, Altman explained that

“Homosexuality is an historical and social invention, formed in

specific historical conditions, and likely to disappear as

conditions change.”48 According to Altman, by working through the

“process of gay liberation,” humanity could move beyond all forms

of sexual repression and realize the Marcusian dream of a

“multidimensional” man.49 “Full liberation is a product of both 46 Altman, p. 21.47 Altman, pp. 48-49.48 Altman, p. 46 see also, p. 15049 Altman, pp. 103-110. Altman frequently referenced Herbert Marcuse's Eros and

Civilization wherein it is theorized that sexuality is by nature 27

individual and social change,” he wrote. “Gay liberation will

have achieved its full potential when it is no longer needed,

when we see each other neither as men and women, gay and

straight, but purely as people with varied possibilities.”50

Although Altman later admitted that recent scientific research

has cast some doubt on this theory, support for sexual fluidity

and malleable sexual identities can still be found in academia.

Conceived as a piece of ideological analysis, Homosexual: Oppression

and Liberation became a piece of history and it remains one of the

most comprehensive maps of the gay liberation movement's

ideological landscape.

Equally concerned with the political victories and defeats

of gay liberation as with its ideology and culture, Don Teal's

The Gay Militants is a narrative compendium of primary documents that

focuses on the early history of the gay liberation movement.

Following his contemporaries, Teal began his monograph with an

account of the Stonewall Riots composed by the Village Voice

journalist Lucian Truscott.51 Deviating from the traditional “polymorphously perverse” thereby justifying a broad spectrum of sexualities. See Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud(Boston: Beacon Press, 1966).

50 Altman, p. 162.51 Teal, pp. 17-23.

28

Stonewall periodization, however, Teal offered a rudimentary

investigation of the relationship between the homophile “old

guard” and the ascendant gay liberationists. Dividing his

monograph into chapters focused on the activities of the GLF and

the GAA, he also offered brief accounts of the NACHO meetings to

show a growing division between the homophile and the gay

liberation movements.52

In a particularly representative chapter, Teal focused on

the GAA's decision to interrupt a speech given by New York City

Mayor John Lindsey. Teal constructed a narrative based on the

experiences of those present at the scene and those who wrote

about “zaps” afterward, which told the story of organized

political action that, in its tactics, departed from the

conservative approached favored by the homophile movement.

Mounting the stage in front of the press and numerous spectators,

members of the GAA verbally accosted Mayor Lindsey, demanding an

“immediate end to police harassment.”53 Lindsey did his best to

ignore these requests, but the GAA continued its agitation into 52 For an account of the formation of the GLF see Teal, pp. 34-60; For an

account of the formation of the GAA see Teal, pp. 126-153; For a brief summary discussion of ECHO, ERCHO (when ECHO became a regional affiliate ofNACHO), and NACHO, see Teal, pp. 86-91.

53 Teal, pp. 243-249.29

the election year of 1970 by urging mayoral candidates to address

the issue of discrimination. Eventually, these efforts were

successful in prompting legal and institutional reform. Although

this is but one example of the many instances of activism

featured in The Gay Militants, Teal's close reading of primary

sources provided the historiography with a relatively objective

chronicle of events that included both lesbians and gay

organizations across the country.

Far from an objective work of scholarship, Arthur Bell's

memoir, Dancing the Gay Lib Blues, serves as a kind of personal

supplement to Altman's intellectual analysis and Teal's

compendium of primary documents.54 In his short text, Bell

focused on his year spent with the GAA, the organization he

helped found after the Stonewall Riots in 1969. Couched between

his detailed descriptions of 1960s youth culture and his personal

relationships, Bell offered an inside look at his organization by

54 Dancing the Gay Lib Blues deserves particular attention as it appears to be the only autobiographical piece composed by an active liberationist during the 1970s. Martin Duberman and Edmund White wrote autobiographical works that focused on gay liberation, but these pieces were published recently and influenced by several decades of hindsight. See Martin B. Duberman, Midlife Queer: Autobiography of a Decade, 1971-1981 (New York: Scribner, 1996); Edmund White, City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s and '70s, (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009).

30

describing its unique principles and tactical repertoire.55 While

this paper will address the structure and policies of the GAA

more closely in section two, Bell explained that the group formed

in reaction to the chaos that characterized the Gay Liberation

Front.56 Bell echoed Altman's theories on a number of occasions,

noting the GAA's focus on identity and self-identification and

the idea that gay liberation could free society from repressive

and inflexible sexual and gender roles. This close similarity to

Altman is particularly noticeable in Bell’s description of the

GAA splinter group “Beyond”:

“[The Beyonds] react like a miracle family; the vibes are toward tenderness and unity. We're into homosexual liberation first, gay power second. ...Sweet Beyond juices, emanating self-respect and self-pride, those little things we want from gay liberation, which ultimately come from ourselves. What a wrap up, if it happens. A wrap up, I feel, that will be another beginning in a never-ending process toward self-liberation.”57

Ultimately, Bell spoke quite highly of the liberationists

and their role in the gay rights movement, but refused to place

his activities in the movement at the center of his personal

identity: “Being a gay activist has shaken my psyche, yes,

55 Arthur Bell, Dancing the Gay Lib Blues: A Year in the Homosexual Liberation Movement (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971).

56 Bell, pp. 17-18.57 Emphasis mine. Bell, pp. 190-191.

31

rearranged it, yes, but changed it completely, never. I can't

dance away history and experience.”58 Bell’s story emphasized the

importance of identity and political action, but explained that

such actions were only the beginning. Only with the passage of

time could the gay liberation movement be successful.

A decade after Altman, Teal, and Bell published their

invaluable contributions to the historiography, several

historians—both men and women—turned toward an examination of the

gay rights movement in the United States.59 The pieces that

emerged from this group of historians focused again on

sociocultural and political issues, all while building upon the

more abstract theories advanced by the initial reporters. As a

result, many of the monographs published by these men and women

engage, on some level, with the contentious concepts of identity

and community. While many monographs added to this historiography

during the 1980s and early 1990s, John D'Emilio's Sexual Politics,

Sexual Communities and Lillian Faderman's Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers are

two of the most frequently cited examples from this period.

58 Bell, p. 11. 59 With the possible exception being Jonathan Katz's collection of primary

documents published in 1976. See Jonathan Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay men in the U.S.A. (New York: Crowell, 1976).

32

When John D’Emilio published the first edition of Sexual

Politics, Sexual Communities in 1983, his analysis was affected—like the

work of Altman and Bell—by his participation in the gay

liberation movement.60 Still, in Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities,

D’Emilio was one of the first scholars to focus his attention on

the often neglected homophile organizations that were active in

the decade preceding the Stonewall Riots.61 D'Emilio's personal

connections to members of the Mattachine Society and the

Daughters of Bilitis provided him with access to a wide range of

primary sources including several personal archives. These

opportunities allowed him to revise and expand the existing

narrative that had been established a decade earlier by Altman,

Bell, and Teal. In addition, D'Emilio's thorough engagement with

secondary sources in sexuality and gender studies, and early

queer theory, make his relatively short text one of the most

important stepping stones in the development of this

historiography.62

60 John D’Emilio, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983): p. vii.

61 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 2.62 D’Emilio clearly recognized the influence of queer theory on his own

research. D’Emilio, Sexual Politics, pp. 11 fn 4, 255.33

Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities is, however, not without its

faults. In the preface to the 1998 edition, D’Emilio acknowledged

that his sympathies rested with the early “militants.”63 This

bias is, perhaps, most visible in his dismissive discussion of

assimilationism. Although he addressed the rationale behind this

position, the focus of his book rested firmly on the more

militant individuals within the homophile movement including

Harry Hay, Frank Kameny, and Jose Sarria. However, this

relatively minor lapse in objectivity does not discredit his

historical contribution; rather, it illustrates the legacy of

liberationist thought and the protracted debates that

characterized the transitional period between the homophile

movement and gay liberation. The more compelling issue with this

piece comes from its methodological approach. Perhaps out of

necessity, given his source material, D’Emilio focused the bulk

of his narrative on individuals who held leadership positions

within the homophile movement. While he explained that individual

members often disagreed with those in leadership roles, he failed

63 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, pp. vii, 261-262.34

to elaborate the content and nature of these disagreements in the

course of his analysis.

These issues aside, D’Emilio’s monograph engaged the

theories of identity and community that dominate contributions to

this historiography. The narrative is framed using the two major

concepts found in the book’s title: “sexual politics” and “sexual

communities.” The first of these conceptual topics, “sexual

politics”, is addressed in the monograph's opening chapter

wherein D’Emilio defined politics as “collective action for the

purpose of changing institutions, power relationships, beliefs,

and social practices at the national level and at the level of

family relationships, schools and neighborhoods.”64 According to

D’Emilio, the homophiles came to the conclusion that the only way

to provoke political change was to alter the public's perception

of homosexuality.65 To realize the ultimate goal of equality,

they broke away from the cultural minority theories advanced by

their early leaders to focus on “assimilationism.”66 After

64 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. ix.65 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, pp. 79-84.66 Although this debate is explained more comprehensively in section one,

“militant homophiles” believed that gay men and women constituted a minority community with inherent identifying characteristics. The “assimilationists” (the group that ultimately achieved a leadership role inthe movement) argued that gay men and women were fundamentally similar to

35

describing this fundamental shift in the movement's “sexual

politics,” D’Emilio turned his attention toward the theory of

community and concluded that the gay population not only

reflected characteristics similar to those of other minority

groups, but also interacted with other minorities to advance

their political goals. In a particularly revolutionary chapter

focused on the city of San Francisco, D’Emilio described the

formation and unexpected success of the Council on Religion and

the Homosexual in 1964.67 The CRH brought homophile activists

together with ministers from Methodist, Episcopal, Lutheran, and

Unitarian churches in an effort to educate the religious

community on homosexuality.68 By establishing a dialogue with a

larger and more respected minority group, conference organizers

hoped that the gay community might be afforded a degree of

the rest of the population and, therefore, capable of assimilation. D’Emilio considered this debate only in the context of the homophile movement in the United States, but it appeared in other countries as well. In Wiemar Germany, the activist Adolf Brand argued that homosexuality was an “ingrained cultural phenomenon” while the sexologist Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld explained that homosexuality was a natural sexual variation. Brand supported a community of “others”, while Hirschfeld believed that gaymen and women should be afforded a place in society no different from that of heterosexuals. See James D. Steakley, The Homosexual Emancipation Movement in Germany (New York: Arno Press, 1975); For a detailed consideration of a similar debate in Britain during the 20th century see Jeffery Weeks, Coming Out (London: Quartet Books, 1977).

67 D’Emilio, Sexual Politics, pp. 194-200.68 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, pp. 199-200.

36

protection and legitimacy by association. The results of the CRH

were relatively minor when compared to the actions of the

religious community in cooperation with the civil rights

movement, but D’Emilio’s focus on such efforts both echoed and

critiqued some of Altman's statements on identity and community.

It was through this investigation of the gay community that

D'Emilio supported the theory that “gay identity is socially

constructed.”69 In his afterword he explained that this theory,

initially advanced by Altman, became the subject of a polemical

debate in the 1990s. On one side of this discussion stood the

“essentialists” who argued, “Whether or not a society has a word

to describe homosexuality, individuals who are primarily

attracted to members of the same sex are to be found in every

society, every culture, every era of human history.”70 The

“social constructionists” stood on the other side, arguing, “Only

in some societies and eras do desires coalesce into a social

role, or identity, that gets labeled homosexual, or gay, or

lesbian, and that corresponds to how individuals organize their

69 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, pp. 254-256.70 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 254.

37

emotional, intimate and erotic lives.”71 As time went on, and

queer theory emerged as an academic discipline, the social

constructionists seemed to win out. At least, in academia. Thanks

to the work of Michel Foucault—who emphasized the importance of

sexuality discourse and the “repression hypothesis”—and Judith

Butler—who argued that gender was “performative” and malleable—

the dominant view of scholars today is that gender and sexuality,

indeed all forms of identity, are socially constructed.72 As

D'Emilio carefully explained, however, the legacy of essentialism

can be found today in the history of the gay rights movement. 71 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 254.72 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 255; Foucault showed that, far from repressing

their sexuality between the 17th and 20th centuries, Western society actuallyengaged in detailed scientific discourse on sex and sexuality. “We must... abandon the hypothesis that modern industrial societies ushered in an age of increased sexual repression. We have not only witnessed a visible explosion of unorthodox sexualities; but –and this is the important point–adeployment quite different from the law, even if it is locally dependent onprocedures of prohibition, has ensured, through a network of interconnecting mechanisms, the proliferation of specific pleasures and themultiplication of disparate sexualities.” Foucault, p. 49; Equally influential within the field of queer studies, Judith Butler explained thatgender and sexuality were performative constructs, “There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender... identity is performatively constituted by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its results. Whatthey imitate is a phantasmic ideal of heterosexual identity...gay identities work neither to copy nor emulate heterosexuality, but rather, toexpose heterosexuality as an incessant and panicked imitation of its own naturalized idealization.” Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge): p. 25; A number of scholars followed Foucault and Butler, for a general overview of the history of queer theory see Annamarie Jagose, Queer Theory: An Introduction, Reprint (New York: New York Univ. Press, 2010); and Riki Wilchins, Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer (Los Angeles: Riverdale Avenue Books, 2014).

38

Such histories are often framed in such a way that they, for the

sake of clarity, illustrate the struggle of a minority community

to achieve social and/or political equality.73 As the first

example of an historical text that examined the gay rights

movement while remaining conscious of the theories advanced by

the initial reporters, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities provided a

solid intellectual and historiographic foundation for the

literature that emerged after 1983.

Before we turn to some of the more recent contributions to

this historiography, one particularly large and persistent

oversight deserves attention. Among the monographs examined thus

far, the topic of lesbianism was addressed within them only

tangentially, with authors often confining the experience of

lesbians to discreet chapters.74 D'Emilio admitted that mapping

73 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 255. Many historical surveys (both sociocultural and political) published within the last three years, group gay men and women together as an identifiable minority. See Joey L. Mogul, Andrea J. Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock, Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT people in the United States (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011); Michael Bronski. A Queer History of the United States (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011). Histories that focus on gay men inurban environments, like Chauncey's Gay New York tend to follow a similar, ifoften unintentionally essentialist framework, see Nan Alamilla Boyd, Wide-Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965 (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 2003); St. Sukie Croix, Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago before Stonewall (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2012); and David Higgs, Queer Sites: Gay Urban Histories since 1600 (London: Routledge, 1999).

74 Don Teal prefaced his chapter on lesbianism by suggesting, “The events and developments of gay liberation/gay militancy that have to do exclusively

39

the involvement of lesbians in the gay rights movement was

comparatively difficult since homophile organizations were often

unofficially segregated by gender. Lesbians tended to form their

own organizations—such as the Daughters of Bilitis—which had

their own goals similar to, but ultimately different from, those

of male centric organizations like the Mattachine Society.75 More

generally, lesbians possessed their own art, literature, and bar

culture.76 A few years after D'Emilio published Sexual Politics, Sexual

Communities, Lillian Faderman turned the historical lens to the

often neglected subject of lesbianism and later published Odd Girls

and Twilight Lovers. Faderman began her book by endorsing the social

constructivist arguments advanced by Altman and D'Emilio. As she

explained: “[Before the 19th century] the concept [of love

between two women] barely existed...There was no such thing as a

with the lesbian, especially those which involve women's liberation, can bemost intelligently detailed only by the gay female. The following chapter is the work of several lesbians who are active in gay and women's liberation” The identities of these contributors are never revealed. Teal, pp. 179-222; D'Emilio confined his discussion of lesbianism to two chapterssee D’Emilio, Sexual Politics, pp. 92-125.

75 It should be noted that a small number of lesbians participated in traditionally male organizations like the Mattachine Society and some even served in leadership roles. Madolin Rieger was one of the first to propose the shift towards “assimilationism” in the Mattachine Society and Lilli Vincenz was an invaluable member of the Mattachine Society in Washington DC. D’Emilio, Sexual Politics, pp. 76-81; The Daughters of Bilitis took their name from Sappho’s lover. See fn 42; D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, pp. 92-93.

76 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, pp. 96-100.40

“lesbian” as the 20th century recognizes the term; there was only

the rare woman who behaved immorally, who was thought to live

outside the pale of decent womanhood.”77 The emergence of a

lesbian identity and lesbian activism, was attributable “at least

partly to those sexologists who attempted to separate off women

who continued to love other women from the rest of human kind.”78

Eventually, lesbians who self-identified as such began to alter

the definitions developed by sexologists to serve their own

needs. It was from these alterations that an “accompanying

lifestyle, ideology, subculture, and institutions were

created.”79 Borrowing from both history and queer theory, Odd Girls

and Twilight Lovers explored the “metamorphoses and diversity of

lesbians as they related individually and/or collectively to

changing eras in American life.”80 Faderman based her broad

narrative on a titanic number of personal interviews and

unprecedented archival research.81 The result was one of the

77 Faderman explicitly notes that her research led her to support the social constructivists. Faderman, pp. 2, 8.

78 Faderman, p. 4.79 Faderman, p. 4. 80 Faderman, p. 7.81 Faderman interviewed 186 lesbians of varying ages and ethnic backgrounds

from “one who milks cows for a living in central California to another who is the primary heir of her grandfather, one of the richest oil men in West Texas.” Faderman, p. 7.

41

first pieces of serious scholarship that focused on the

experience of lesbians and their role in the gay rights

movement.82

Following in the footsteps of D’Emilio, Faderman, and the

initial reporters, the most recent group of historians to study

the gay rights movement emerged in the mid-1990s. Since their

debut, these men and women have filled gaps in the historiography

by examining (or reexamining) a variety of sociocultural and

political subjects related to homosexuality including the content

of homophile publications and the Stonewall Riots. In addition,

several authors produced biographical works that focused on the

lives of individual gay men. John D'Emilio's Lost Prophet, Justin

Spring's Secret Historian, Martin Meeker's Contacts Desired, and David

Eisenbach's Gay Power serve as representative examples of some of

the works in this expansive new group.

82 Faderman's monograph was closely followed by an equally impressive study ofworking class lesbians in Chicago. See Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community (New York: Routledge, 1993); It should be noted here that the present study, for brevity and clarity, focuses its attention on the experience of gay men. Although gay men and lesbians often cooperated with one another, their subcultural differences and the divergent trajectory of their early organizations precludes direct and detailed attention in this piece.

42

The recent impulse toward biographical accounts in this

historiography has added a great deal of depth and complexity to

the existing narrative. Written by John D'Emilio, Lost Prophet is

centered on the life and tireless activism of Bayard Rustin. As a

pacifist, an African American, and a gay man living through the

20th century, Rustin was the focus of public animosity and an

agent of activism for much of his long and storied life. While

focused primarily on Rustin’s role and experiences in the

pacifist and African-American civil rights movements, Lost Prophet

provided D’Emilio with a new lens through which he reexamined

some of the historiographic debates he had commented upon decades

earlier in Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities. In Lost Prophet, D’Emilio

noted again the interconnected issues of identity and community,

and the ongoing debate between essentialists and social

constructionists.

Considering Rustin’s often conflicted relationship with his

identity, D'Emilio often returned to the subject of sexuality to

showcase the multifaceted persecution that haunted his engagement

with the pacifist and civil rights movements.83 Over the course

83 John D’Emilio, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin (New York: Free Press, 2003): pp. 64, 88.

43

of his life, Rustin was often exiled from these social movements

when publicity surrounding his homosexuality threatened to either

discredit the leadership or the “legitimacy” of a particular

social movement.84 After wrestling with the adverse consequences

that came with his identification as a gay man, Rustin did his

best to temper, conceal, or otherwise sublimate his sexual

desires in order to participate in other social movements.85

Although he worked tirelessly with the gay rights movement in New

York City in his twilight years, Rustin believed—and often

explained in interviews—that sexuality was a private matter.86

In contrast to Rustin's often conflicted relationship with

his sexual identity, the professor, tattoo artist, and writer

Samuel Steward never sublimated his desires even when they placed

84 In spite of Martin Luther King Jr.’s own sexual indiscretions Rustin’s were regarded as “more severe” by many leaders in the civil rights movement. D’Emilio, Lost Prophet, p. 372-373; Slightly more sympathetic, that pacifist leader AJ Muste reflected that Rustin’s promiscuity was more damaging than his homosexuality, “We don’t have a problem of whether it’s agood idea in general to cut off people’s right hands. The problem is: ‘if thy right hand offends thee, cut it off.” D’Emilio, Lost Prophet, p. 115.

85 Although Rustin did not engage with the homophile movement, Richard Leitsch(the president of the New York Mattachine Society) stated that he admired his work. Leitsch sent a letter to Rustin's colleague Tom Kahn inviting himspeak at the 1965 ECHO conference. Kahn declined the invitation stating that he was “simply too busy at this time”. Richard Leitsch to Tom Kahn, July 7th, 1965.

86 D’Emilio, Lost Prophet, pp. 490-491.44

his life in jeopardy.87 Since he was relatively unknown during

his lifetime, it was easier for Steward to flout the sexual mores

of American society. With this in mind, Rustin and Steward had

radically different experiences living as gay men in the 20th

century. After acquiring relatively lucrative faculty positions

at Carroll College and later at Washington State University in

Pullman, Steward was able to spend time in Paris. While abroad,

he established invaluable connections with the Parisian

intellectual circle that formed around Gertrude Stein and Alice

Toklas.88 Steward's friendships, particularly with Stein,

allowed him to access a vibrant sociocultural community that

included individuals with a wide variety of sexual identities.89

The radical professor's international life as a “neo-decadent”—

modeled carefully after Joris-Karl Huysmans' Des Esseintes—

provided the historiography with a direct foil to the life of

87 Steward's many casual sexual liaisons led to life threatening medical conditions and, on more than one occasion, to violent beatings. Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward: Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010): pp. 87-88, 132-141.

88 Spring, pp. 42-55, 119-127.89 In 1958, Steward was contacted by Rudolf Burckhardt, the literary editor of

the Swiss homophile publication Der Kreis. After their meeting, Steward began to regularly publish a variety of articles on sociology, fiction, and poetry until the periodical stopped printing in 1967. Spring, pp. 263-266

45

Bayard Rustin who devoted himself to political activism and

public agitation of the status quo.90

The biographies of Rustin and Steward provide divergent

microhistorical accounts of gay life in the 20th century, but

they share at least one similarity that has since served as the

subject of a monograph by the historian Martin Meeker. Many gay

men who grew up in the first half of the 20th century explained

that they were introduced to the concept of homosexuality through

the accidental or conscious discovery of related literature. For

Steward, sexual awakening came in the form of Havelock Ellis's

Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume II: Sexual Inversion.91 A precocious

youth, Steward quickly read Ellis' difficult medical text and

special-ordered other titles on sexuality written by Sigmund

Freud.92 This kind of personal research helped Steward, like

other gay men and women around the country, to throw off the 90 Steward frequently noted the influence of Huysmans's writings, particularly

Against the Grain (often translated as “Against Nature”), on his life and literary endeavors. “[Against the Grain's] sensuality and erudition fascinated me, enchanted me, for it described the life of the senses in terms of mystical philosophy; and the exploits of its hero, Des Esseintes, seemed torange from the ecstasies of a Medieval saint to the confessions of a modernsinner.” Spring, p. 25. In his later years, Steward withdrew from society into a kind of self-imposed exile modeled on Des Esseintes own seclusion. Spring, p. 371.

91 Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 Sexual Inversion (Online: ProjectGutenberg, 2004).

92 Spring, pp. 10-13.46

often crippling feelings of loneliness and isolation that came

with self-identification.93 Similarly, Bayard Rustin's first

boyfriend, Davis Platt, noted that he procured a copy of Richard

von Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis.94 Steward's fortunate

acquisition of an accepting monograph was, unfortunately, not

shared by Platt, who said after reading Krafft-Ebing, “It was

very hard to see how you could have integrity and be gay.”95

Considering the large number of homophiles and gay activists who

traced their awareness of homosexuality back to early texts

written by Havelock Ellis, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Edward

Carpenter, and Radclyffe Hall, the influence of literature and

other printed materials in the construction of a gay identity and

community cannot be underestimated.96

In the course of his detailed survey of early gay

literature, homophile journals, mass market magazine articles,

93 Martin Meeker, Contacts Desired: Gay and Lesbian Communications and Community, 1940s-1970s (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006): pp. 28-29.

94 Richard von Krafft-Ebing; D'Emilio, p. 69.95 Platt was particularly concerned with living a “double life” since he was

forced to hide his sexual identity from his conservative parents. D'Emilio,Lost Prophet, pp. 69-70. The term “closeted” had not yet permeated the gay argot. See Sedgwick, p.

96 Meeker emphasized the importance of sexology texts like Edward Carpenter'sThe Intermediate Sex, literature like Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness, and pulp novels like Lou Rand's The Gay Detective. Meeker, pp. 16-18, 26-27.

47

and a series of self-published travel guides, Martin Meeker

explained how these texts created national communication networks

that shaped gay male and lesbian identity, established a sense of

community, and contributed to the development of political

action.97 By readdressing common historiographic discussions from

a new perspective, Meeker provided a nuanced narrative of gay

life in the 20th century that departed from the Stonewall centric

models so often employed by the initial reporters. As Meeker

explained, “Contacts Desired examines sexual communication networks

as historical, changing entities that have gone through a radical

transformation over the course of the 20th century.” More

specifically, the book charted the transformation of gay identity

and community “from an era in which connecting was dominated by

networks that generally were hidden, coded, unstable, and small-

scale to another era when regular and important innovations in

networks introduced new means through which connections happened,

to an era in which new networks were public, candid, stable, and

large-scale.”98 At first glance, it may be assumed that such a

periodization would support the traditionally linear narrative

97 Meeker, pp. 10-13. 98 Meeker, p. 9.

48

established by the early historiography. Meeker, however,

clarified his position by explaining that “progress” was the

wrong word to characterize the history of the gay rights

movement, since it did not necessarily result in a more

fulfilling way of life for the people involved. Rather, the

increased visibility and connectivity that came with “liberation”

often damaged the close connections created by the smaller early

networks. This kind of reassessment of the linear periodization

from oppression to liberation, which began in the 1980s with

D'Emilio's revision of Altman, continues to define the

historiography today.

Equally concerned with revising the periodization, though

focused more on the political transformation of the gay rights

movement, historian David Eisenbach published a reexamination of

Stonewall and gay liberation in the same year that Meeker

published Contacts Desired.99 Eisenbach's monograph used numerous

interviews with former activists to map the history of the gay

rights movement from gay liberation, through the AIDS crisis, to

the present day. By framing his study around the development of

99 Eisenbach, pp. 103, 107.49

activist tactics like “zaps,” “raps,”, and “consciousness

raising,” Eisenbach effectively illuminated the often contentious

relationship between gay liberation organizations and other 1960s

groups like the Black Panthers and the Yippies. Finally, and

perhaps most importantly, Eisenbach's extended periodization

beyond the 1970s provided the historiography with crucial

research on the understudied links between gay liberation and the

present form of the gay rights movement.100 Although the goals of

the movement have recently turned to focus on marriage, Eisenbach

explained that the gay liberationists pioneered the tactical

repertoire that is still used today.101 Finally, Eisenbach echoed

parts of Altman's “end of the homosexual” theory when he stated,

“The gay rights movement...transformed America into a country

where most homosexuals could confidently abandon the closet and

identify themselves proudly as gay men to their families, friends

and co-workers. ...All Americans have benefited from the gay power

100 In his comprehensive study of the AIDs crisis and his biographical portrait of the openly gay politician Harvey Milk, the journalist Randy Shilts used a similar “extended” periodization of gay liberation which carried his narratives into the 1980s when both books were published. See Randy Shilts, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982); Randy Shilts, And The Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987).

101 Particularly the use of television and print media. Eisenbach, pp. 308-309.

50

revolution...”102 By tracing the development of the gay rights

movement from the 1950s through to the present, Eisenbach used

previously untapped sources to position Stonewall more

appropriately within the historical narrative, placing it between

the equally important early work of the homophiles in the 1950s

and 60s and the gay liberationists in the 1970s.103

The works that emerged from this collection of monographs

reexamined the theories developed by Dennis Altman and the

initial reporters in the 1970s. The biographies of Bayard Rustin

and Samuel Steward, among others, serve as microhistorical

portraits of men who struggled with their gay identities in

vastly different ways. Martin Meeker's detailed study of gay

literature engaged again with issues of identity and community by

arguing that communication networks helped to establish, at the

very least, a rudimentary sense of community among gay men as

early as the 1950s. Finally, David Eisenbach discarded the linear

periodization of the gay rights movement often found within the

work of the initial reporters and turned instead to the nuanced 102 Eisenbach, p. 309.103 Eisenbach's research revealed a lesser known effort by the NYPD and the

FBI to break up an elaborate extortion ring. The owners of the Stonewall Inn were under investigation for their participation in this ring when the police raided the bar on June 28th. Eisenbach, pp. 86-87.

51

and protracted periodizations emphasized by George Chauncey and

John D'Emilio. By following the historiography of the gay rights

movement in its rejection of Stonewall as the epicenter of

political action, and with the knowledge that gay activists

viewed themselves as part of an developing “social movement,” the

transformation of the gay rights movement from the 1950s to the

early 1970s can be constructed around a new framework that

borrows from the discipline of sociology.

------------------------

At the same time as the historiography of the gay rights

movement was developing, historians and sociologists, by

participating in a protracted interdisciplinary dialogue, sought

to explain how and why social movements appear and what, if

anything, they have in common with one another. In the last ten

years, social movement theory (SMT) has been used as a framework

to analyze and interpret a variety of popular movements, from the

French Revolution of 1789 to the more recent political upheavals

of the “Arab Spring.” To the uninitiated, the vast temporal range

covered by this body of literature may appear impenetrably

daunting, but after some time spent studying the bibliographies

52

of SMT texts one may begin to construct a short list of

foundational authors. Among the individuals who make up this

intellectual base, the sociologists Sidney Tarrow, Charles Tilly,

and Lesley Wood provide some of the best conceptual

introductions.

In his informative text Power in Movement, Sidney Tarrow began

with a concise discussion of “contentious politics,” of which

social movements are an important part. Contentious political

action, according to Tarrow, occurs when “collective actors join

forces in confrontation with elites, authorities, and opponents

around their claims or the claims of those they claim to

represent.”104 Although this may seem like a relatively obvious

definition, the concept of contentious politics provided a

framework that Tarrow used to prove seven related hypotheses. He

concluded that: 1. The interaction of multiple actors (from

activists to authorities) creates a climate favorable to the

emergence of social movements. The nature of this interaction

affects the nature of the social movement. 2. Under certain

conditions, temporary groups can have explosive effects on

104 Tarrow, Sidney G., Power in Movement Social Movements and Contentious Politics. 3rd ed(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011): p. 4.

53

powerful states and authorities. 3. Political opportunities and

threats create conditions for contentious politics. 4. One must

examine the context (historical, cultural, political, etc.) in

order to understand a particular social movement. 5. “Modular

performances and repertoires of collective action” (e.g. the

collective march and pamphleteering) spread internationally. 6.

Transnational networking and mobilization have had an

increasingly dramatic effect on social movements in the last

decade. 7. Social movements can occur everywhere.105 Sharpening

the focus of his structural lens, Tarrow offered a definition of

social movements by explaining that they “mount collective

challenges (by establishing a language of dissent through, for

example, their choice of clothing, slogans, and/or symbols), draw

on social networks, common purposes, and cultural frameworks, and

build social solidarity through connective structures and

collective identities to sustain collective action.”106 In an

effort to better understand the structure of these social

movements and their relationship to contentious politics, we may

105 Tarrow, paraphrased pp. 5-6.106 Tarrow, pp. 8-12.

54

turn our attention to Charles Tilly and Lesley Wood’s seminal

text Social Movements 1768-2008.

At the beginning of their book, Tilly and Wood clearly

explain that social movements are a distinctive form of

contentious politics. They state that social movements are

“contentious” because such movements make claims that, if

realized, would conflict with the interests of others; they are

“political” in so much that the government is often involved in

some capacity.107 Like Tarrow, both Tilly and Wood emphasized the

importance of the historical method to explain how, why, and to

what extent social movements incorporated certain features that

differentiate them from other forms of contentious politics. More

significantly, Tilly and Wood define a social movement as “a

particular, connected, evolving, historical set of political

interactions and practices. Social movements entail the

distinctive combination of campaign, repertoire, and WUNC

displays.”108 The first of these elements, “campaigns,” refers to

an organized and sustained public effort that makes collective

107 Charles Tilly and Lesley J. Wood, Social Movements, 1768-2008. 2nd ed (Boulder:Paradigm Publishers, 2009): p. 3.

108 Tilly, p. 4.55

claims on target authorities. The second element, “repertoire”,

refers to the employment of various forms of political action

including the creation of associations and coalitions, public

meetings, processions, rallies, demonstrations, and

pamphleteering. Finally, social movements engage in public

representations of WUNC, an acronym for “worthiness” (a sober

demeanor, conservative clothing, the presence of dignitaries),

“unity” (badges, banners, songs), “numbers” (headcounts,

signatures on petitions, messages from constituents), and

“commitment” (resistance to repression, sacrifice, subscription)

on the part of themselves and/or their constituents.109 Tilly and

Wood’s concise definition of a social movement, applied to

various movements within their own text, provides a tidy model

for the evaluation and analysis of movements across space and

time. However, as with any model that seeks to explain the

complexity of human behavior, social movement theory is not

applicable in all cases and it is hardly immune to criticism.

In 1989, the sociologist Verta Taylor criticized social

movement theorists for “neglecting sources of continuity between

109 Tilly, p. 4. 56

cycles of movement activity.”110 Taylor explained that scholars

who used SMT often preferred an “immaculate conception”

interpretation, which failed to account for the existence of

certain holding periods that often appeared within a given

movement’s historical narrative.111 Taylor referred to the social

movement organizations that persisted between periods of activity

as “abeyance structures” and explained how they sustained the

efforts of activists through periods not favorable to political

action. Taylor framed her arguments with resource mobilization

and organization theory, which claim that political opportunities

and an organizational base are major factors in the rise and

decline of movements.112 Borrowing from the work of Ephraim

Mizruchi—the sociologist who first observed the emergence of

abeyance structures—Taylor theorized that social movement

organizations which existed during hostile periods provided “a

measure of continuity for challenging groups” and themselves

contributed to social change.113 In the course of applying this

theory to the women’s movement in the United States, Taylor 110 Verta Taylor, "Social Movement Continuity: The Women's Movement in

Abeyance" American Sociological Review 54, 5 (1989): p. 762.111 Taylor, p. 761.112 Ibid.113 Taylor, p. 762.

57

identified a number of external and internal factors crucial to

the construction of an abeyance structure.

Externally, changes in “opportunity structures” (that

constrain and support the movement) and an absence of “status

vacancies” (to absorb dissident and excluded groups) contributed

to the construction of abeyance organizations. Internally, these

organizations were defined by temporality (a protracted existence

as a part of the movement), commitment, exclusivity,

centralization (power usually being invested in one or several

leaders), and a unique culture (this might refer to the

principles and tactical repertoire adopted by the

organization).114 Finally, Taylor explained that by “promoting the

survival of activist networks, sustaining a repertoire of goals

and tactics, and promoting a collective identity” abeyance

structures offered their participants a sense of “mission and

moral purpose” that persisted over time.115

When Verta Taylor published her piece she suggested the

possibility of adapting her theory to explain the early history

of the gay rights movement. I will demonstrate, however, that the

114 Ibid.115 Ibid.

58

gay rights movement is not, as Taylor claims, so firmly

applicable to her abeyance model. By definition, abeyance implies

the existence of a periodization that begins with political

mobilization, moves into a “holding pattern,” and reemerges only

when the time is right for “white hot mobilization.”116 The gay

rights movement roughly follows this pattern, but deviates from

Taylor’s model in several ways to forge a unique developmental

path.

This piece contributes to the existing historiography in

three ways. First, it uses Social Movement Theory to examine the

historical narrative of the gay rights movement using a new

methodological lens. By focusing this lens on the actions of the

Mattachine Society and, more generally, on the east coast

homophile organizations, we can identify a protracted development

from mobilization in the early 1950s, through “assimilationism,”

and eventually to “liberation” in the early 1970s. In the course

of this reexamination of the historical narrative, this piece

uses primary and secondary documents to focus on several often

ignored events that clearly illustrate a transition in the

116 Taylor, p. 76159

principles and tactical repertoire of the gay rights movement. By

adding the ECHO conferences, NACHO conventions, and ERCHO

meetings to the historical narrative this piece helps to discard

the primacy of Stonewall so often found in the early

historiography of the gay rights movement. Finally, and perhaps

more abstractly, this piece returns to the common historiographic

issues of gay identity and community. The organizations and

individuals studied in this piece wrestled constantly with the

idea and/or nature of “gay community” and the role of their

homosexuality in the construction of their personal identity.

60

Section One: Grey Flannel Suits-----------------------------------------------

The Birth of the Mattachine

In 1948, after attending a political rally for Henry

Wallace, the Progressive Party’s presidential candidate, Harry

Hay drafted a proposal that would become the founding document of

the Mattachine Society.117 Though no copy of this original

proposal exists, Hay composed a second proposal on July 9, 1950.

This document reads:

We, the androgynes of the world, have formed this responsible corporate body to demonstrate by our efforts that our physiological and psychological handicaps need be no deterrent in integrating 10% of the world's population towards the constructive social progress of mankind. ...We declare our aims to be to effect socially, economically, politically, and morally, the integration of the best interests of the androgynous minority with the common good of the community in which we live.118

117 It is important to note that the Mattachine Society was not the first gay organization in the United States. In the 1920s, the Society for Human Rights was formed in Chicago where members met and discussed issues relatedto their homosexuality. Unfortunately, the Society came to an abrupt end following a raid by the Chicago Police Department. Barry Adam, The Rise of a Gayand Lesbian Movement (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995): p. 46. Hay's original proposal referred to the group as “Bachelor's for Wallace”. Later,he devised the name “Mattachine” from a collection of words used in Europe that referred to a kind of jester who danced and often cross dressed. At the time, the name was a clever way to mask the society's purpose. See Hay,pp. 47-50; Stuart Timmons, The Trouble with Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement (Boston: Alyson, 1990): pp. 135-137.

118 Hay, pp. 64-65; Hay's use of the 10% figure was informed by the sex and sexuality studies published in the 1940s by Dr. Alfred Kinsey and his team of researchers. See Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell Baxter Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1998); Timmons, p. 134.

61

Hay continued his proposal by outlining several ways the

proposed “corporate body” could realize its mission of “minority

integration” while simultaneously protecting the anonymity of its

members and its collective identity.119 Although Hay's use of

certain words and phrases such as “physiological and

psychological handicaps,” “androgynous minority,” and

“integration” were later revised and in some cases rejected, the

basic tenants contained in this founding document lay beneath the

homophile movement for the duration of its existence. As one of

the largest homophile organizations in the country active in some

capacity from the 1950s to the 1970s, the Mattachine Society was

a microcosm of the homophile movement that reflected the

principles and tactical repertoire of the larger movement.

The most revolutionary part of Hay’s proposal was his use of

the term minority. Found within the mission statements of many

homophile organizations in the early 1950s, minoritization was an

essential organizing tactic for the homophile movement.120 By

119 After enumerating a complicated hierarchical structure of ranks and privileges in paragraph 8, Hay explained that “Membership lists shall be planned with the optimal anonymity in mind...” Hay, p. 74.

120 Hay, p. 5.62

arguing that they shared a “psychological makeup” and a

“colloquial language,” Hay claimed that gay men constituted “an

oppressed cultural minority.”121 While the cultural elements of

this vaguely essentialist theory would lose favor in the

contemporary discourse on (homo)sexuality, the assertion that gay

men constituted a kind of cultural minority population was a

radical idea that persisted into the 1960s and was even partially

resurrected in the 1970s. As late as 1983, Hay supported his

theory by explaining “We are a separate people with, in several

measurable respects...a different consciousness which may be

triggered into being by our lovely sexuality.”122 The idea that a

minority could seek integration with—but simultaneous distinction

from—a majority population allowed the early Mattachine Society

to link its efforts to the struggles of women and African

Americans.123 Drawing inspiration from Hay’s theory, the

Mattachine Society defined its organizational purpose in a

simplified form in 1951. The new proposal stated: “The purpose of

121 Hay, p. 52.122 Hay, p. 6.123 Hay, p. 43; Craig M. Loftin, Letters to ONE: Gay and Lesbian Voices from the 1950s and

1960s (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012): pp. 5-6; Steve Valocchi, “Individual Identities, Collective Identities, and OrganizationalStructure: The Relationship of the Political Left and Gay Liberation in theUnited States” Sociological Perspectives, 44:4 (2001): pp. 451-455.

63

the society...[is] to unify isolated homosexuals, educate

homosexuals to see themselves as an oppressed minority, and lead

them in a struggle for their own emancipation.”124 While the

people’s will unify would decline over the next three years,

integration and emancipation would drive the homophile movement

throughout the 1950s and 60s.

In an effort to encourage commitment from its members,

while simultaneously avoiding threats posed by a hostile majority

and pressing forward in its goals of unification, integration,

and emancipation, the Mattachine Society established an exclusive

and centralized organizational structure. The format of weekly

meetings, outlined in the society’s founding documents, was

inspired by Alcoholics Anonymous.125 Although self-affirmation of

gay identity was rare at the time, the small group of Society

members met regularly in an apartment or other private space to

discuss issues related to homosexuality often prompted by

questions composed in advance by the leadership.126 Looking back

on these early meetings, Hay remembered, “Nobody in our group

124 Hay, p. 43.125 Hay, p. 65.126 One of the first discussion groups opened with the question “Should we be

considered individuals or be considered a group?” Hay, p. 83. 64

ever seemed to know gay people in California, let alone LA...It

was always somebody else, not present, who'd had this homosexual

experience or who knew someone somewhereelse who had.”127 To

encourage these reluctant members and protect them from

persecution and/or arrest, these “discussion groups” were often

deliberately kept small.

Further reflecting this penchant for exclusivity and

secrecy, the early Society was constructed within a cover

organization known as the Mattachine Foundation.128 The Foundation

provided the Society with an easy way to assess the honesty and

earnestness of potential members without jeopardizing the safety

of its discussion groups. After completing a vetting process

administered by the Foundation, applicants were invited to join

the “closed” meetings of the Society.129 Over the next three

years, however, this exclusivity of the Society gradually slipped

away. By 1953, the Mattachine Society had grown beyond the city

limits of Los Angeles to include more than 100 affiliated

127 Hay, p. 77.128 Although a number of scholars have discussed this relationship between the

Foundation and the Society, the FBI's reports offer more detailed accounts of the Society's early organizational structure. See Report, SAC San Francisco to Director of FBI, “The Mattachine Foundation aka The MattachineSociety,” 7/14/1953, 100-403320-obscured.

129 Ibid.65

discussion groups in Southern California alone. By the end of the

decade, the Society had established chapters across the country

in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Denver,

Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, and the District of Columbia.130

In the 1960s, as persecution of its members waned, the

exclusivity of the Mattachine Society disappeared.131

As the Society expanded across state lines, its centralized

power structure encountered sharp criticism from its members.

Inspired by the Communist party, the leadership had been

organized according to a “pyramid of five 'orders' of membership,

with increasing levels of responsibility as one ascended the

structure and with each order having one or two representatives

from a higher order.”132 The “fifth order” of this pyramid,

responsible for the direction of policy, consisted of Hay and the

society’s founding members including the fashion designer Rudi

Gernreich, Dale Jennings, Bob Hull, Chuck Rowland, James Gruber,

130 The rapid expansion was attributed to the success of the Dale Jennings trial. One of the original Mattachine members, Jennings was the victim of police entrapment and successfully acquitted in July of 1952 with legal assistance provided by Society. The publicity of the trial led to increasedinquiries into the society by both the media and the general public. Adam, p. 68; D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, pp. 71, 79.

131 Simon Hall, “The American Gay Rights Movement and Patriotic Protest,” Journal of the History of Sexuality, 19:3 (September 2010): p. 540.

132 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 64; Hay, pp. 70-75.66

and Konrad Stevens.133 In 1953, Hay and the Fifth Order came under

attack for their past (and, in some cases, present) association

with the Communist Party of the United States of America.134

Although Hay had severed his ties with the CPUSA in 1951 to

protect the Society from precisely such charges of conspiracy,

pressure from individuals both inside and outside the

organization forced Hay and many Fifth Order members to

relinquish their positions.135 As James Gruber explained, “We were

aware that Communism had become such a burning issue. We all

felt, especially Harry, that the organization and its growth was

more important than any of the founding fathers...We had to turn

it over to other people.”136 At the Society’s annual conference in

1953, new leaders filled the spaces left in the Society's Fifth 133 See photograph134 FBI files from this period contain reports of numerous investigations into

the potential ties between Mattachine and the CPUSA. Ultimately, the Bureaufound no evidence of “communist infiltration” and closed its investigation of the Mattachine Society at the end of 1953. Memo, SAC Los Angeles to Director of FBI, “The Mattachine Society,” 12/31/53, 100-403326-7; Accusations of this kind were not uncommon. Indeed, gay men had a long history of associating themselves with the often more sympathetic left wing. Gert Hekma, Harry Oosterhuis, and James Steakley, “Leftist Sexual Politics and Homosexuality,” Journal of Homosexuality, 29:2-3 (1995): pp. 1-40.

135 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, pp. 69, 75-76; Timmons, p. 174-180; The FBI's investigation of the Society and its influence on the leadership change hasbeen covered in detail by Douglas M. Charles, “From Subversion to Obscenity: The FBI's Investigations of the Early Homophile Movement in the United States, 1953-1958,” Journal of the History of Sexuality, 19:2 (2010): pp. 262-287.

136 Gruber as quoted in D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 80.67

Order. While it bore the same name, the Mattachine Society that

emerged from the 1953 conference was decidedly different from the

organization that Hay had founded three years earlier.

At the same conference that ushered in new leadership,

members of the Society began to question some of the theories

that appeared in Hay's founding proposal. Los Angeles Mattachine

members Kenneth Burns and Marilyn Reiger, together with Hal Call—

a member from San Francisco—used the organization's perceived

connections to communism to propose a new constitution that

distanced the Society even further from its founding fathers. At

a constitutional convention held later in May of 1953, Reiger

critiqued Hay's concept of cultural minoritization, stating, “We

know we are the same...no different than anyone else. Our only

difference is an unimportant one to the heterosexual society,

unless we make it important.”137 Reiger explained that true

equality could be achieved only “by declaring ourselves, by

integrating...not as homosexuals, but as people, as men and women

whose homosexuality is irrelevant to our ideals, our principles,

our hopes and aspirations.”138 Reiger's comments were vehemently

137 Reiger as quoted in D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 79138 Ibid.

68

supported by Hal Call and other delegates at the May convention.

One man said, “Never in our existence as individuals or as a

group should we admit to being a minority. For to admit being a

minority we request of other human beings that we so desire to be

persecuted.”139 This differed markedly from Hay's theory. While

both the original proposal and the position of the new leadership

emphasized “integration,” the form of that integration was

fundamentally different. Hay had envisioned minority integration

that maintained a gay collective identity, while Reiger and her

colleagues proposed complete assimilation.140

With wide support for their new platform, Burns, Reiger, and

Call turned their attention to the “communistic” structure of the

139 Anonymous delegate as quoted in D'Emilio, p. 79 fn 11140 A recent article published by Martin Meeker investigated why the

Mattachine Society willingly accepted this new ideological platform. He proposed that the shift allowed the Society to present a “respectable” public face while maintaining its political activism. This theory would be consistent with the abeyance structure model. Martin Meeker, “Behind the Mask of Respectability: Reconsidering the Mattachine Society and Male Homophile Practice, 1950s and 1960s,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 10:1 (2001):pp. 79-82; D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, pp 75-91; Chuck Rowland, reflecting ruefully on the shift towards assimilation explained, “[The new leadership]wanted a gay organization but they didn't want to be hurt. They didn't wantto be secret, but they also didn't want to be open. It was a ridiculous contradiction.” Rowland as quoted in Timmons, pp. 179-180; This turn towards “respectability” can be identified within the pages of the homophile publications that existed at the time. In an advertisement for TheMattachine Review that appeared in an issue of ONE Magazine. The ad billed the review as a periodical “...for thinking adults. Will NOT appeal to readers seeking sensationalities.” See ONE, 5:4 (April 1957): p. 24.

69

Society and ultimately determined to abandon it altogether.

Structurally, the post-1953 Society discarded its centralized

structure in favor of loosely managed local chapters headed by an

elected Coordinating Council. This council exercised limited

authority over organizational policy while regional branches

known as “area councils” were established to elect representative

officers to the Coordinating Council.141 Unsurprising, given their

popularity, Burns, Reiger, and Call were all elected to positions

on the new coordinating council.142

The goals, principles, and tactics of the organization also

witnessed great changes. The new leadership explained, “The sex

variant is no different from anyone else except in the object of

his sexual expression.”143 Adopting the promotion of this theory

as their new raison d'être, the Society embarked on an extended

campaign to persuade “experts” to endorse the homophile movement.

To accomplish, the Society encouraged its members to engage with

the general public and “aid established and recognized

scientists, clinics, research organizations, and

141 D'Emilio, p. 80. 142 Ibid.143 Note here the medicalization of terminology from “minority” to “sex

variant”. D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 81; Adam, p. 69.70

institutions...studying sex variation problems.”144 As one

pamphlet—published shortly after the 1953 conference—emphasized,

“Homosexuals are not seeking to overthrow or destroy any of

society's existing institutions, laws or mores, but to be

assimilated as constructive, valuable, and responsible

citizens.”145 After three years of fighting for unity,

integration, and political mobilization as a “distinct cultural

minority” that possessed its own collective identity, the

Mattachine Society repositioned itself as an organization focused

on public education and assimilation whose members deserved

neither special treatment nor discrimination.

The activists who had joined the early Society were, at

best, discouraged by this new direction and over the next three

years, membership declined. While one hundred delegates had

attended the annual conference in 1953, representing discussion 144 Kenneth Burns as quoted in D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 81. Building upon

these new goals, the homophile organization ONE Inc., established in 1952 by former members of the Mattachine Society, set up an “institute of homophile studies” in 1956 that focused its attention on public education. It operated continuously into the early 1990s offering classes in “homophile studies” taught by credentialed scholars from the fields of history, philosophy, psychology, biology, anthropology, sociology, and religion. The syllabi and research produced by the institute and its graduates has been preserved in a volume edited by the institute's directorDorr Legg. See W. Dorr Legg, Homophile Studies: In Theory and Practice (San Francisco: ONE Institute Press, 1994): pp. 317-326

145 Pamphlet as quoted in D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 84.71

groups from around the country, the conference held in May of

1954 brought in only forty-two delegates. In 1955, that number

had fallen even further.146 During the next ten years, this

decline was arrested and reversed as the Mattachine Society began

to transform into a more active organization, developing both new

principles and tactics.

The early Mattachine Society, organized by Harry Hay and his

friends, expressed many of the characteristics of an abeyance

structure. Emerging as it did during the particularly hostile

period of the “Lavender Scare,” the Society adopted a centralized

leadership structure that drew its strength and security from an

exclusive and committed membership. Although the idea of a gay

“cultural minority” was ultimately discarded, the common mission

and moral purpose of homosexual equality bound together the

Society's early discussion groups. As time went on, the

Mattachine Society (and the movement more generally) would change

its tactical repertoire but the underlying mission of equality

would remain unchanged.

-----------------------------------------------

146 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 86-87.72

The Dissolution of the National Organization

In 1954, the clinical psychologist Sam Morford met Evelyn

Hooker at a psychiatric convention. At the convention, the pair

discussed Hooker’s theory that homosexuality was not

developmentally inferior to heterosexuality; rather it was a

natural sexual variation.147 In the course of their conversation,

Hooker explained that much of her revolutionary research was

based on data that she had collected with the help of the

Mattachine Society.148 It was with this conversation in mind that

Morford traveled to San Francisco in May of 1955 to meet with Hal

147 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 90; Sharon Valente, “Evelyn Gentry Hooker (1907-1996)” in Vern L. Bullough, Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2002): pp. 344-350.

148 Evelyn Hooker was one of a number of medical professionals who used the Mattachine Society's reliance on experts to collect data for their researchprojects, but Hooker was far more sympathetic to the homophile movement than many of her colleagues. Perhaps the worst offenders in the field of psychology were Drs. Irving Bieber and Charles Socarides who both theorizedthat homosexuality was an illness that could be cured. See Irving Bieber, Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study (New York: Basic Books, 1962) and Charles W. Socarides, The Overt Homosexual (New York: Grune & Stratton, 1968);Both Bieber and Socarides remained opposed to the removal of homosexuality from the DSM in 1973 for the duration of their lives. In Bieber's obituary,Dr. Judd Marmor explained that, “It was one of Dr. Bieber's characteristicsthat he found it very hard to admit his mistakes. I think he made only one major error --his insistence that homosexuality was an illness, and for that he took a lot of abuse in his later years, which I'm sure was very painful for him. But he never backed down.” Steven Lee Myers, “Irving Bieber, 80, a Psychoanalyst Who Studied Homosexuality, Dies” The New York Times, August 28, 1991. For a general overview of the medical research into homosexuality and its transformation over the last few decades see Simon LeVay, Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homosexuality (Cambridge, Mass.:MIT Press, 1996).

73

Call and Don Lucas about the possibility of forming a chapter of

the Mattachine Society in New York. The pair agreed and, together

with Tony Segura and several other friends, Morford founded the

New York Chapter of the Mattachine Society in December of 1955.149

The New York Chapter was popular and relatively successful in its

efforts to educate the public and assist “experts” with important

psychological and medical research. In 1956, the Mattachine

Society's Coordinating Council recognized the accomplishments of

its newest New York chapter by granting it an area council

charter, which gave it loose administrative control over

discussion group activities in the east. Two years later,

according to the San Francisco Area Council's Board of Directors,

it hosted “the most successful Convention from an educational and

prestige point of view that the Society has ever had.”150 By the

1960s, the New York chapter was the second largest in the country

and maintained a membership roughly half the size of the San

Francisco chapter.151

149 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 89-90. 150 David L. Daniels, “Homophile Diaspora,” ONE Magazine, 9:6 (June, 1961): p.

9.151 Ibid.

74

Unfortunately, the Mattachine Society's expansion brought

new difficulties and, in 1961, the Coordinating Council voted

unilaterally to “divorce itself from its area chapters.”152

Although members of the New York Area Council were frequently at

odds with the national leadership of the Mattachine Society over

the dispersal of membership dues and the direction of policy,

they were, nonetheless, shocked by the announcement.153

Ultimately, the decision was endorsed by the San Francisco and

the Denver Area Councils with the Boston and Chicago area

councils “indicating their technical assent.” When asked by ONE

Magazine to comment on what appeared to be the official

dissolution of the Mattachine Society after ten years of

operation, the New York Area Council issued the following

statement:

This revocation of all Area Council Charters came as a complete shock to all members. This now leaves the members

152 Daniels, p. 5.153 Daniels, p. 9; Individual members had been writing in to MSNY to register

their concern with MSNY's relationship to the national organization for at least a year prior to 1961. As early as 1960, Albert de Dion, Chairman of the New York Chapter explained that it was the domineering leadership on the west coast that was the primary problem, “Believe me when I say that all we in New York want to do is to be able to cooperate more closely in everything we do for the Society. But when it seems that one man [Hal Call]runs an organization it is certainly disheartening. In fact it is because of this fact that many persons in New York do not wish to remain associatedwith the Society.” Albert de Dion to Dale Lane, July 26, 1960.

75

without the right of voting in their organization. We therefore feel that the purpose for breaking up the Mattachine Society be left to the Board to explain. At present it is not apparent to us in New York as to the real purpose of this action. The New York Area Council has therefore decided to continue our work as an independent organization as recommended by the Board of Directors. And we will continue to be called the Mattachine Society, Inc. of New York. The continuation of this name was deliberate. Each member still feels that the original aims and purposes of the Mattachine Society are valid. Despite this separation of local organizations from the National Office the name rightfully belongs to all those who helped to make it as successful as it is today. Furthermore the Mattachine Society, Inc. of New York is a respectable organization in the eyes of manylay and professional groups to change our name at this time would have greatly hindered our work.Besides planning for the usual goals that derive from our aims and purposes we will also add that of achieving some sort offederation between the various groups. The Mattachine Society, Inc. of New York is on record favoring such a formation.154

The Coordinating Council in San Francisco responded to

ONE's request for information regarding the dissolution of the

national organization with a lengthy statement justifying their

decision. They explained that, on March 13th 1961, the Mattachine

Society had a running debt of $3,500 left over from Convention

expenses in September of 1960.155 This debt could not be balanced

by the roughly $3000 the Society received from its collection of

154 Emphasis mine. Albert de Dion as quoted in Daniels, p. 6. 155 Daniels, pp. 7-8.

76

$10 annual dues from its roughly 300 members.156 Concerned they

would be required to provide more of their own money to keep the

Society out of bankruptcy, the Coordinating Council decided that

their only course of action was to disband the national

organization: “It was simply this: the expense of trying to

maintain an organization on a national scale without the funds to

do so [was untenable]. The solution was also readily apparent—to

revoke the Area Council Charters, but at the same time to

encourage them to maintain an active but independent

existence.”157 The Council went on to emphasize, “There was no

schism here. It was simply seen that it is better to stay

together in spirit than in name.”158 By providing seven

justifications for its course of action, however, the statement

revealed that there were a number of underlying issues with the

national Mattachine Society beyond merely financial woes.

The Council members explained that dissolution “minimized

the legal liability of the Mattachine Society;” the National

Office was tired of being held responsible for the needs and

156 Daniels, p. 8.157 Ibid.158 Emphasis theirs. Ibid.

77

actions of chapters across the country. “With its limited

resources, distance involved, and communication problems, the

board felt the area councils must become their own independent

units, shouldering their own responsibilities.” Second, the

Council members felt that dissolution would “minimize the threat

of involvement with criminal elements.” By breaking into smaller

groups, chapters could guard against “unscrupulous or criminal

elements” that solicited funds for or claimed to represent the

Society without its endorsement. Third, dissolution facilitated

the incorporation of more homophile groups. The Council explained

that national policy was, “at best difficult to formulate and

implement” while “strict control was downright impossible.”

Independent groups could work with the Mattachine Society toward

the same goals while simultaneously satisfying the needs of their

local gay populations. Fourth, by breaking into a number of

independent groups, the Society could dispel accusations that any

one city was the “national headquarters of sex deviates.” Fifth,

the Council believed that smaller independent groups could better

monitor their own finances. The Council cited inconsistency in

financial record keeping as one of the major problems of national

78

administration. Sixth, smaller groups allowed for the localized

dispersal of group funds. Finally, by dissolving the national

organization, the Mattachine Society could reorganize itself as

“a tax exempt foundation” that would be eligible for grants in

aid.159

Despite these relatively sensible justifications, the New

York Chapter contested the dissolution of the national

organization and, disregarding vehement protests from the

Council, it continued to call itself The Mattachine Society of

New York (or MSNY).160 Although in its initial response to the

dissolution letter MSNY had pledged to continue its mission of

public education and collaboration with experts, the power vacuum

created by the dissolution of the national organization left MSNY

in the unique position to organize its proposed “federation” of

east coast homophile organizations. Over the next five years,

MSNY helped to lead The Mattachine Society of Washington (or

MSW), The Janus Society (formerly the Mattachine Society of

Philadelphia), and The Daughters of Bilitis (or DOB) away from

the assimilationist principles and tactics that had been

159 Daniels, pp. 10-11. 160 Daniels, p. 11.

79

developed in 1953 and back towards the kind of political

organization that Harry Hay had envisioned in his founding

proposal.161

Following the dissolution of the national organization, MSNY

adopted a new constitution on March 14th 1962. In spite of MSNY's

new position of power on the east coast, the structure,

principles, and tactics of the organization remained the same on

paper. The preamble of the organization's new constitution

emphasized the importance of assimilationism: “That all mankind

may live without fear and prejudice regardless of their sexual

orientation; that all may respect the integrity of the

individual; that all may become cognizant of themselves, their

place as an integral part of the community, and be provided with

the means of social adjustment; that all may live, act, and work

together in a spirit of brotherhood, equality, mutual

understanding and self-respect; we do therefore declare and

establish...the Mattachine Society of New York.”162 The document

161The Mattachine Society Area Councils in Denver, Detroit, and Boston dissolved due largely to internal disputes and ineffective leadership. Mattachine Midwest (based in Chicago) continued to operate for several years following the dissolution of the national organization and played a role in MSNY's federation.

162 Emphasis mine. The Constitution and By-Laws of the Mattachine Society Inc,of New York, March 14, 1962, p. 1

80

went on to summarize the organization's goals and tactics more

substantively by drawing heavily from the national organization.

The purpose of the Mattachine Society is to promote educational research projects in all phases of sexual deviation; to aid sexual deviants against discrimination andhelp them in their adjustments to society; to educate the general and professional members of the public concerning the problems of the sexual deviant.163

The new constitution also laid out several provisions that

established a centralized leadership structure and expected

“purposive commitment” from its members through the payment of

annual $10 membership dues.164 Leadership of the organization was

consolidated in the authority of executive officers including an

elected president, a president-elect, a secretary, and a

treasurer. The president-elect, secretary, and treasurer were

elected annually so that the “president-elect” became the

Society's serving president one year after his official election.

In addition to these roles, the constitution called for the

creation of a “Board of Directors.” This Board consisted of the

immediate past-president, the president, the president-elect, the

secretary, the treasurer, and four directors who were elected by

163 Ibid. p. 1.164 Ibid. p. 2.

81

the organization's general membership at an annual meeting. A

tight-knit group of men (and women), the board made

“recommendations of any nature which would further the purpose of

the Society to the membership,” reviewed all actions of the

executive officers between meetings, and performed “all other

duties as required by law.”165 Put another way, the board

determined when and where the Society would hold its meetings, it

set the agenda of said meetings, and it had significant powers of

oversight.166 When MSNY was not planning and holding its regular

meetings, it was far from idle. The organization maintained an

office that fielded daily calls from individuals around the

country, published a newsletter that featured articles on the

homophile movement, and sponsored lectures for both its

membership and the general public.167

165 Ibid. pp. 2-3.166 Ibid. p. 4.167 The call logs from MSNY's office serve are a practical snapshot of the

myriad services provided by the organization. Many callers (some from Canada) requested referrals to medical and legal professionals, help for ongoing research projects, the date of the next meeting, and the location of other homophile organizations. A number of calls are simply annotated, “Wanted to speak with another homosexual.” A particularly representative log from August 2nd 1965 between 6:45pm and 7:45pm included annotations for four phone calls and two walk ins. One walk-in requested a legal referral while the other was a “Man who was entrapped [and] came in to tell of his dismissal”. The phone calls included the annotations, “Requested care package (information on the Mattachine Society); Requested medical advice. Referred him to medical doctors. Wanted to know about ingesting semen;

82

Although MSNY was one of the largest Mattachine chapters on

the east coast and thus wielded a considerable amount of

authority in the homophile movement into the 1970s, the

foundation of the Mattachine Society of Washington, DC (or MSW)

in 1961 by Franklin Kameny Jr. helped to set in motion a

protracted, but concerted, shift away from the goals and tactics

of assimilationism.168 Due in part to Kameny's own background—he

was fired from the US Navy's Map Service in 1957 when his

superiors uncovered his homosexuality—MSW focused on public

policy and political activism from its inception.169 The

constitution of MSW was adopted on August 27th 1963, just one

year after MSNY's own constitution, and it clearly outlined the

organization's unique focus:

It is the purpose of this organization to act by any lawful means:1. To secure for homosexuals the right to life, liberty, andthe pursuit of happiness, as proclaimed for all men by the Declaration of Independence, and to secure for homosexuals

Wanted to know about West Side discussion group tonight; Wanted to get someone to share his apartment, Said we couldn't help.” The Mattachine Society of New York, Call Logs, August 1965 through December 4, 1965.

168 MSNY claimed a membership of 412 with over 1000 subscribers to its newsletter by 1965. J. Hudson Snow to Mattachine Society of New York, August 16, 1965; New York Mattachine Society to The Pig in the Poke, March 1, 1964.

169 Kameny's story has been reproduced in a number of texts. For a general summary see, David Johnson, “Franklin E. Kameny (1925-)” in Vern L. Bullough, Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context (New York:Harrington Park Press, 2002): pp. 209-218.

83

the basic rights and liberties established by the word and the spirit of the Constitution of the United States of America; 2. To equalize the status and position of the homosexual with the status and position of the heterosexual by achieving equality under the law, equality of opportunity, and equality in the society of his fellow men, and by eliminating adverse prejudice, both private and official; 3. To secure for the homosexual the right, as a human being, to develop and achieve his full potential and dignity, and the right, as a citizen, to make his maximum contribution to the society in which he lives; 4. to inform and enlighten the public about homosexuals and homosexuality; and, 5. To assist, protect, and counsel the homosexual in need.170

MSW's constitution may have reflected certain elements of

assimilationism (particularly in its commitment to “enlighten the

public”) and adopted a roughly similar organizational structure

to MSNY, but its principles clearly rested in a new kind of

political advocacy guided by a more militant (“by any lawful

means”) tactical repertoire.171 Presumably to protect the

identities of its members given its radicalism, MSW's

constitution also dictated the destruction of membership

applications following induction into the Society and provisions

for the use of pseudonyms in correspondence and at meetings.172

170 Emphasis mine. The Constitution of the Mattachine Society of Washington, (August 27, 1963): p. 1

171 The organizational structure followed MSNY's presidential system and the MSW constitution also included an article that authorized the collection of$10 annual membership dues. Ibid., pp. 5-6

172 The constitution stated that, “no last names shall be reported in the 84

One of the smallest homophile organizations on the east coast

with more than 25 members, MSW's exclusivity and strong

leadership, vested in Dr. Frank Kameny Jr., allowed it to

successfully target the federal government's discriminatory

policies. In the mid 1960s, these actions combined with the

superior numbers of MSNY, to lead the homophile movement on a

quest for social change and political reform.

Focusing on the histories of MSNY and MSW may seem limiting

when one considers the many homophile groups that operated around

the country during the 1950s and 60s. However, focusing on the

east coast allows one to more clearly analyze the homophile

movement throughout the next decade, particularly its shift away

from assimilationism and abeyance and toward radicalism and a

full-fledged social movement.173 Breaking away from abeyance,

however, proved difficult, and the constitutions of MSNY and MSW

reflect a certain amount of continuity with the earlier

Mattachine Society. Centralized leadership, while sacrificed at

the national level in the early 1960s, remained at the local Minutes nor used in any meeting by any person.” Ibid., p. 2.

173 In 1964, the Mattachine Review composed a relatively lengthy article that summarized the activities of homophile organizations around the country. “Other Organizations and Their Work” The Mattachine Review, 10:4-9 (April, 1964).

85

level in the form of powerful presidents and directing boards.

Members of both organizations remained committed (by evidence of

their payment of dues and participation in regular meetings) to

the principles of the Mattachine Society. At least in theory,

MSNY and MSW maintained a relatively exclusive membership

insulated from the meddling of outsiders. Although the seeds of

change were being planted by both MSNY and MSW, the general

message of assimilation remained the guiding “cultural” principle

and constant refrain of many homophile organizations into the

1960s. Few events served as a better example of this slow change

from abeyance to a full-fledged social movement than the ECHO

conferences of the 1960s.

-----------------------------------------------

The ECHO Conferences

On January 26, 1962, representatives from four of the major

homophile organizations on the east coast met in Philadelphia to

organize a loose affiliation known as the East Coast Homophile

Organizations, or “ECHO.”174 At this organizational meeting,

174 D’Emilio stated that ECHO was founded in January of 1963, but the histories of ECHO that were distributed at the 1965 conference state that the affiliation was actually organized in 1962. Joan Frazer, “A History of ECHO” ECHO Conference Brochure, (1965): p. 6; D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 161.

86

delegates from the Mattachine Society of New York, the Mattachine

Society of Washington, the Janus Society, and the Daughters of

Bilitis decided to sponsor yearly conferences at which their

members and the general public could meet and discuss issues and

subjects related to the homophile movement. The ECHO conferences,

held annually from 1963 through 1965, brought delegates from

several states together in an effort to establish a public

discourse on the subject of homosexuality and standardize the

homophile movement's principles and tactics. With their fusion of

assimilationist rhetoric and increasingly vocal political

activism, the ECHO conferences are some of the clearest examples

of the transition from abeyance to a consolidated social

movement.175

Initially, ECHO was based on a series of largely unofficial

agreements between its affiliate organizations. At a monthly

planning meeting held on November 6, 1965, riding on the success

175 These conferences have been marginalized in the existing historiography and appear only sporadically in D’Emilio’s seminal text and other monographs that address the homophile movement. D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 161; Eisenbach, p. 35, 40; In his otherwise comprehensive global history ofthe gay rights movement from 1869 to the present, historian Neil Miller does not include any reference to the ECHO conferences. See Neil Miller, Out Of The Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present (New York: Vintage Books,1995).

87

of their first two conferences, the affiliate organizations

convened to codify the process of ECHO membership and conference

organization.176 The report produced by this meeting explained

that ECHO’s purpose was to help its affiliates “improve the

(condition, position, status—word not decided upon) of the

homosexual in America.”177 To do this, it sought to “establish a

formal mode of effective communication among affiliated

organizations and other interested participants,” “engage in

promoting the establishment and development (and assistance to)

[of] other homophile organizations,” “develop suitable means of

communication and contact with the public,” and “promote a

unified front of action.”178 Following this mission statement, the

report outlined qualifications for the affiliation of new

organizations. It explained that applicants had to be based in

New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland,

Delaware, the District of Columbia, West Virginia, and Virginia.

“In the absence of a closer regional grouping” organizations east

176 Nancy Clark, Report of ECHO Meeting (November 6, 1965): pp. 1-2.177 Ibid., p. 1. The uncertainty in terminology here reflects the careful

grooming of the homophile movement's principles and political goals. 178 Ibid. These guidelines were laid out earlier in brochures provided to

conference participants. Joan Frazer, “A History of ECHO,” ECHO Conference Brochure (1964): p. 3.

88

of the Mississippi could apply for a special membership.”179 In an

effort to foster cooperation between homophile organizations

outside of its official geographic coverage, ECHO clearly noted

that “qualified non-member organizations were allowed to

participate in ECHO programming.”180 Finally, meetings of ECHO

affiliates were to be held monthly rotating between the home

cities of its affiliates so as not to favor any one organization

over another.

The inaugural general conference, based on the vague theme

“Homosexuality: Time for Reappraisal,” was held on August 31 and

September 1, 1963 at the Drake Hotel in Philadelphia.181 The

conference represented many firsts for both the affiliation and

the larger homophile movement. Although the west coast homophile

organization ONE Inc. sponsored educational conferences beginning

as early as 1955, ONE admitted that the 1963 ECHO conference was

the “first time in the history of the homophile movement [that]

four independent, autonomous homophile organizations combined

179 Ibid. p. 1.180 Organizations needed to possess a constitution and bylaws, have a total

membership of ten or more, hold periodic elections of officers by members, and provide its members with the ability to initiate action. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, organizations needed to hold as their primary goal “improvement of the status of the homosexual” Ibid.

181 See photo appendix.89

their funds, personnel, and talent to set up a conference

program.”182 The New York Times even carried an advertisement for the

conference, allegedly “the first time...in which the word

'homosexuality' prominently appeared” within its pages.183 But the

1963 conference was not without controversy. As the Drake Hotel

started to receive inquiring telephone calls, the management

attempted to back out of the reservation stating, rather

amusingly, that “We can't have sex discussed at this hotel.”184

Only the threat of legal action, and ECHO's full payment for all

related expenses in advance, ensured that the conference could

continue on schedule.185 Drawing heavily from the Mattachine

Society's reliance on respected professionals, the conference

182 Donald Webster Cory and John P. LeRoy “The ECHO of a Growing Movement” ONE, 12:1 (January 1964): p. 25; For detailed accounts of ONE's annual “Midwinter” educational conferences see Legg, pp. 18, 19, 29, 33, 36, 38, 40,42, 46-49; Dorr Legg, “One Midwinter Institute: A Report by W.Dorr Legg”ONE, 9:4 (April 1961): p. 5.

183 Cory, The ECHO, p. 25; “Advertisement,” New York Times (September 23, 1963):p. 26; In spite of the NYT's announcement, media attention was minimal at the inaugural conference. A press gathering scheduled for the night before the conference was attended by only one freelance journalist. Radio coverage was slightly better. Albert Ellis, Wainwright Chuchill (both conference presenters), Jaye Bell (from DOB) and Robert King (from MSW) alldiscussed the conference on various radio programs. Jody Shotwell, “ECHO Convention '63,” The Ladder, 8:3 (December 1, 1963): 8.

184 Cory, The ECHO, p. 25. 185 Ibid.

90

centered around a number of speeches delivered by psychologists,

academics, and religious officials.

The first day of the conference commenced with a morning

session that included presentations by the popular author Donald

Webster Cory, the sexologist and 1960s renegade R.E.L. Masters,

and Reverend Edward Lee of the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church.186

In the space of just thirty minutes, Cory covered the “Emergence

of the American Homophile Movement” and summarized some of the

greatest difficulties it had encountered. According to Cory, the

movement was often hindered by a lack of consistent national

leadership, “deep-going emotional problems faced by homosexuals,”

a belief in media attention “regardless of the image being

conveyed”, the hasty acceptance of experts “posing as authorities

[on homosexuality],” and goals that were either “too trivial and

short-range, or utopian and long range.”187 Cory explained that

such difficulties made it nearly impossible to maintain a high

level of interest over a long period of time. On the other hand,

he noted that the movement had placed homosexuality on the public

radar as a “legitimate social protest.” Moreover, homophile

186 Ibid.187 Cory, The ECHO, pp. 25-26.

91

organizations were being taken seriously by medical professionals

and academics and the movement had started to receive legal

assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union.188 Put another

way, Cory offered an image of homophile organizations still

firmly confined to the role of abeyance structures. R.E.L.

Masters, who could not attend the actual conference, had his

address read to the audience in which he noted the importance of

establishing a community for all homosexuals, rather than only

those individuals who could easily assimilate with the rest of

society. Masters criticized the homophile movement's obsession

with public image and emphasized the need for a strong and

unified “community” that accepted “effeminate homosexuals,”

transvestites, and transsexuals.189 Masters seemed to support

Hay's 1951 theory of cultural minoritization. During the lunch

hour, Reverend Lee discussed the relationship between the church

and homosexuality, but the content of his address has been lost

in the pages of history.190

188 Cory, The ECHO, p. 25.189 Ibid. 190 Cory, The ECHO, p. 26; Shotwell, p. 8. Neither Cory nor Shotwell examined

Lee's address beyond its title and the 1963 conference proceedings were notrecorded.

92

In the afternoon, the focus of the conference turned to

homosexuality as a “research taboo” with a panel moderated by Dr.

Wardell Pomeroy, a psychologist who worked in close collaboration

with Dr. Alfred Kinsey. In addition to Dr. Pomeroy, the panel

included several experts from the fields of psychiatry and

psychology, including the psychoanalyst Dr. Harold Greenwald, the

clinical psychologist Dr. Robert Harper and the prison

psychologist Dr. Irving Jacks.191 Unfortunately, as with Reverend

Lee's speech, the content of this panel was not recorded. Despite

this absence, however, the great number of psychologists and the

presence of religious officials allows us to reasonably conclude

that the reliance on respected experts was alive and well on the

east coast.

At the evening banquet, Dr. Albert Ellis gave the final

address. Ellis, “one of the best-known figures in the field of

sex research and widely known for his liberal views,” adopted in

his speech what was, in the 1960s, a standard “defense” of

homosexuality. As he stated, “The homosexual is wrong: he is

191 Cory, The ECHO, p. 26; Although only the panel's moderator, Pomeroy found himself answering most of the questions directed at the panel by the audience. Shotwell, p. 9.

93

neurotic (if not borderline psychotic), fixated unrealistically

on self-defeating behavior, a short-range hedonist, and is unable

to come to grips with reality in the most self-fulfilling manner,

but he still has an inherent right to pursue this self-defeating

course in life without calumny and punishment by his fellow

men.”192 As they had so often before in their history, the largely

homosexual audience sat in strained silence and listened to Dr.

Ellis describe the nature of their psychological illness and the

possibility of treatment. At the end of what Jody Shotwell

described as an “hour of castigation,” however, one member of the

audience rose and shouted, “Any homosexual who would come to you

for treatment, Dr. Ellis, would have to be a psychopath.” This

justifiable criticism received a round of applause.193

On the second and final day of the conference, the lesbian

writer Artemis Smith, though scheduled to present on “The

Homosexual in Heterosexual Literature,” instead read a section of

her forthcoming novel that contained homosexual themes. MSW's

president, Frank Kameny Jr., who ONE Magazine proudly billed as “a

scientist who holds a doctorate from Harvard,” explained the

192 Ibid.193 Shotwell, pp. 9-10.

94

contentious relationship between the federal government and the

homosexual.194 After a brief question and answer period, the local

Philadelphia attorney Charles Roisman described the kind of

discrimination homosexuals faced from police and other law

enforcement agencies. Finally, the 1963 conference closed with an

address by Wainwright Churchill, another psychoanalyst, who

explained the need for an “objective appraisal of

homosexuality.”195 With the possible exception of Ms. Smith, the

speeches during this second day seem to have partially inspired

the theme for ECHO's second conference held in 1964.

The delegates who attended the Philadelphia conference were,

on the whole, encouraged by the results and started to organize a

second conference to be held in the District of Columbia on

October 10th and 11th 1964. From its inception, the second ECHO

conference encountered considerable opposition and animosity due,

at least in part, to lingering suspicion leftover from the

“Lavender Scare” that had gripped the federal government and the

District during the 1950s and early 60s.196 The Washington Post, ONE

194 Cory, The ECHO, pp. 26-27.195 Ibid.196 Johnson, pp. 182-190.

95

Magazine, and The Ladder each reported on the difficulties ECHO

members encountered when they attempted to book a hotel for the

conference.197 In an early report composed by the affiliation’s

organizational committee, delegates explained that the

International Inn refused outright to admit the conference.

Discouraged, but unwilling to admit defeat, they drew up a

contract with the Gramercy Inn, which was subsequently canceled

in August when the purpose of the conference was made clear to

the hotel management by ECHO representatives.198 At this point,

ECHO hired a lawyer to dispute the cancellation and sue for

compensation.199 A second contract was secured in September with

197 Jean White, “Homophile Groups Argue Civil Liberties,” The Washington Post (October 11, 1964): p. B10; “East Coast Homophile Organizations Discuss Civil Rights,” ONE 12:11 (November, 1964): p. 26. Warren Adkins, Kay Tobin,and Barbara Gittings, “Report ECHO '64: Parts 1-3” The Ladder 9:4 (January 1965): p. 5; Warren Adkins, Kay Tobin, and Barbara Gittings, “Report ECHO '64: Part 4” The Ladder 9:5/6 (February/March 1965): pp. 13-17; The irony that ECHO faced discrimination for attempting to hold a conference on civilliberties and social rights was not lost on Robert King, the coordinator ofthe event, who noted, “The banquet halls of the International Inn, the Gramercy Inn, and the Manger Hamilton Hotel refused to serve us because there might be some homosexuals present. The Washington Daily News, the Evening Star, even the liberal Post refused to advertise this conference because it pertained to homosexuality. If this is not discrimination, then what is?!” Robert King, “Keynote Address,” 1965 ECHO Conference Proceedings (1965): p. 3

198 Gramercy Inn later withdrew its cancellation; “East Coast Homophile Organizations Preconference Report” in "Resources for Research on Regional Organizations in the 1960s ," The Rainbow History Project. http://www.rainbowhistory.org/pdf/echo1964.pdf (accessed March 17, 2014).

199 Ibid; The ECHO treasury report submitted after the conference indicates a total of $1000 for legal representation, but also lists a “Manger-Hamilton settlement (in the hands of attorney)”. The amount of that settlement was

96

the Manger-Hamilton Hotel, but this too was canceled less than

three weeks before the conference was scheduled to begin.

Finally, the Sheraton-Park Hotel, the largest hotel in the

District, promised that it had a “liberal policy” and agreed to

accommodate the conference.200 With reservations finally

confirmed, one hundred delegates from all four affiliated

organizations converged on the capital dressed in their trademark

suits and pencil skirts.201

Taking as its theme “Homosexuality: Civil Liberties and

Social Rights,” the 1964 conference played into the hands of

Frank Kameny and the growing political consciousness of the

homophile movement. The conference opened on Saturday October

10th with a keynote address by the conference's coordinator who

spoke under the pseudonym “Robert King.”202 King set the tone for

the next two days with a moving speech in which he demanded not disclosed. Frank Kameny, East Coast Homophile Organizations Treasurer'sReport (April 3, 1965).

200 Preconference Report. 201 See photo appendix.202 King explained, “I could not dare to talk to you today under any other

name but Robert King, because this is not my real name. Were I to use my real name, tomorrow I would probably not have a job...I stand here, even so, in the fear that someone I know from the world of the heterosexual may walk in that door and I will be discovered. You say that as a spokesman forthe homosexual, as a member of the homophile movement, I should not hide behind a pseudonym. I say that when the day comes that I don't have to hidebehind a pseudonym our job will be done.” King, p. 5.

97

social and civil rights for homosexuals. He began with a simple

reiteration of the purpose of ECHO conferences: “What we say and

do is, for the most part, fresh and new, no matter how old the

problems may be. What we are meeting for today is to make people

aware that what we are seeking is the right to live our lives as

decent, respectable human beings.”203 He continued by offering

some of his personal history as a “criminal and a liar.”204 King

explained how he had been forced, like so many before and after

him, to perjure himself in order to serve in the armed forces. He

said that the homophile movement “Made me realize that I should

not have to settle for a second-class citizenship. It focused my

attention on the fact that the defeatist attitude of 'what will

be, will be' need not be.”205 Finally, and perhaps most

importantly, King defined the homophile movement and placed ECHO

within it: “The homophile movement is a world-wide social

phenomenon in which individuals and groups working through the

media of mass communication and private endeavor are seeking to

change the archaic public and private attitudes currently held on

203 King, p. 1204 Ibid.205 King, pp. 3-4.

98

the subject of homosexuality—in short, working to improve the

status of the homosexual in his society. ECHO is one of the

leaders in this movement.”206 After noting the absurdity of the

government's discriminatory policies regarding its homosexual

employees, King offered an ominous and prescient warning of

future radicalism:

We want reasonably and sanely to confer with the powers thatbe to set right these wrongs. We will bend over backward to meet them on their ground. But, if we are not heard, we willfight. Our demands are not unreasonable. We are not asking for favors or special treatment, just the rights, and all the rights, afforded the heterosexual. We are still in the asking stage. We will soon reach the demanding stage.207

Finally, King turned his attention to the tactics of the

homophile movement: “We try to strengthen ourselves so that our

cries and pleas will be a little louder. As individuals, we join

groups. The groups try to enlarge their membership and to

increase the circulation of their publications. They try to

collect funds to finance their work. Then the groups themselves

get together and form affiliations such as ECHO...Our work has

206 King, p. 2. The international elements of this movement will be explored briefly in the concluding sections of this paper.

207 King, p. 4.99

just begun.”208 For King, expanding the scope of this mobilization

was the first step toward creating a larger social movement.

Following these rather incredible opening remarks, Julian

Hodges addressed the audience urging its members to political

action. He explained that supporting sympathetic political

candidates in existing parties was the easiest way to prompt

social and political change: “The failure of the homophile

movement in the past has been the failure to recognize political

facts in this country—the failure to recognize that successful

political activity can be achieved only through work with an

established political organization.”209 To combat the pessimistic

view that an alliance with existing political institutions was

impossible, Hodges used the African American civil rights

movement as an example and noted that grass roots organization

was the only way for a minority to achieve meaningful political

change. “I suggest to all of you, Democrat or Republican, that

you go back to your community, that you go back to your own

precinct, that you go back to the established political club of

208 King, p. 5.209 Julian Hodges, “Politics is Everybody's Business,” 1965 ECHO Conference

Proceedings (1965): p. 12.100

your choice and joint it.”210 Following Hodges, Monroe H.

Freedman, an associate professor of law at George Washington

University, briefly summarized the political circus that had

developed around the Charitable Solicitations Act (a DC area law

that would have required individuals and groups who sought to

raise funds to register with the local government) and

Congressman John Dowdy's numerous, but ultimately unsuccessful,

attempts to crush the Mattachine Society of Washington.211 After

Freedman concluded his presentation, the conference broke for

lunch.

At lunch, a telegram was read that extended warm wishes from

Donald Webster Cory and praised conference attendees' efforts to

encourage unity and cooperation among homophile organizations.212

Over the lunch hour, Hal Witt--a local lawyer and a member of the

210 Ibid., p. 13. 211 “Congressman Dowdy's avowed purpose was to change the act in such a way as

to make it impossible for the Mattachine Society of Washington to collect funds in order to carry out its civic activities...” Later, he concluded, “It is just not that big a deal for the Congress of the United States to beconcerned with. What other motive [Dowdy] might have about it I don't know.But it is simply incredible to me.” Monroe H. Freedman, “Official Discrimination Against the Homosexual: The Broader Context,“ 1965 ECHO Conference Proceedings (1965): pp. 15-21. John Dowdy represented Texas' seventhdistrict in the House of Representatives as a democrat from 1953 to 1967. His motives for attacking the Mattachine Society of Washington are still unclear.

212 “East Coast Homophile Organizations Discuss Civil Rights,” p. 27. 101

National Capital ACLU's executive board--delivered an address in

which he commented more generally on sexuality and the law,

noting that “sexual behavior which takes place in private between

consenting adults” should not concern the federal government.213

Witt explained that the British Wolfenden Report had arrived at a

similar conclusion, as evidenced by the statement: “Moral

conviction or instinctive feeling however strong is not a valid

basis for overriding the individual's privacy and for bringing

within the ambit of the criminal law private sexual behavior of

this kind.”214

The conference concluded its first day with an afternoon

session featuring short speeches by the lawyers S.S. Sachs, J.W.

Karr, and G.R. Graves. All three men focused on legal intricacies

and the smaller ways in which the homophile movement could combat

discrimination in employment and defeat anti-sodomy laws. 213 Hal Witt, “Luncheon Address,” 1965 ECHO Conference Proceedings (1965): p.

23.214 Witt, p. 33-34; Witt concluded his address with a call to action that,

perhaps inadvertently, resurrected Hay's minority theory, “It seems to me that your willingness to come together and raise these questions is an important first step...Your recognition of your situation as a minority group with a grievance and a right to be heard is another important step. For you do have a right to air your grievances, and not merely to ask for favors or for charity.”; Witt's relatively radical statements were includedin both The Ladder and ONE Magazine. Adkins, “Report ECHO '64: Parts 1-3,” p. 8; ONE remarked, “this is not a new idea but one seldom hears it presented so clearly and so forcefully as it was by Mr. Witt.” East Coast, p. 27.

102

Following these speeches, Frank Kameny moderated a legal panel,

comprised of Sachs, Karr, and Graves, as well as Hal Witt and

David Carliner (the chairman of the National Capital Area ACLU).

During the panel session, Hal Witt encouraged the movement to

adopt more direct tactics, “Homosexuals,” he declared, “ought to

stand up to be counted.”215 He hoped that homophile organizations

would consider engaging in more public media activities so that

American society could see them for the “responsible citizens”

that they were. A cocktail hour and dinner followed this final

panel, with David Carliner delivering a concluding address that

summarized much of what had been discussed during the day.216

On Sunday, a “rather expensive brunch” was followed by a

panel on “religion and the homosexual” that included the minister

from River Road Unitarian Church, an instructor in Moral Theology

from DeSalles Hall, the director of the Washington Counseling

Service at Foundry Methodist Church, the Rabbi of Temple Sinai,

the minister from the Church of the Holy City, and the minister

from the Davies Memorial Unitarian Church.217 This panel discussed

215 East Coast, p. 28. 216 David Carliner, “The Government Regulation of Sex,” 1965 ECHO Conference

Proceedings (1965): pp. 55-58; 217 East Coast, p. 28; Adkins, “Report ECHO '64: Parts 1-3,” pp. 17-18.

103

and debated, in a fair bit of detail, the contentious

relationship between religious institutions and homosexuals.218

The Methodist and Unitarian ministers were accepting and

encouraged audience members to join their congregations while the

minister from the Church of the Holy City explained that he had

not yet taken a position on the issue and required more

information before he could make a proper decision. The Catholic

instructor in Moral Theology and the Jewish Rabbi were generally

dismissive, respectively advocating either celibacy or

conversion. Rabbi Lipman was particularly intransigent in his

condemnation, and echoed Dr. Ellis' address at the 1963

conference when he noted that homosexuality was inferior to

heterosexuality.219 Lipman's comments on the utility of conversion

therapy particularly enraged Frank Kameny, and he protested

vehemently from the audience,

“Rabbi Lipman made the statement that he, in dealing with homosexuals, has an aim: it is not a happy homosexual but a conversion to heterosexuality. Implicit in this is the idea that the homosexual state is somehow inferior to the heterosexual. This is the view which the homosexual

218 Adkins, “ Report ECHO '64: Parts 1-3,” pp. 18-19.219 Joan Fraser, “Alienation of the Homosexual From the Religious Community: A

Panel Discussion,” 1965 ECHO Conference Proceedings (1965): pp. 61-62, 66; Adkins, “Report ECHO '64: Parts 1-3,” p. 19; East Coast, pp. 28-29.

104

community is not prepared to accept any more than you would be prepared to be converted to Christianity.”220

The crowd responded with loud applause.221 Closing out the

second ECHO conference, Dr. Kurt Konietzko and Frank Kameny

engaged in a short debate on the homophile movement's tactical

repertoire. Konietzko argued that public education had the

potential to solve the larger underlying problems of sexual

repression while Kameny drew inspiration from the civil rights

movement and noted, “The Negro tried the education/information

approach for 90 years and got almost nowhere. In the next ten

years, by a vigorous social-protest, social-action, civil-

liberties type of program, he achieved in essence everything for

which we have been fighting.”222 While this debate seemed to

illustrate again the shift towards direct political action and

away from Mattachine assimiliationism, Kameny and Konietzko

ultimately agreed that both an educational and a legislative

approach were necessary to combat discrimination.223

220 Fraser, “Alienation,” p. 70. 221 Adkins, “Report ECHO '64: Parts 1-3,” p. 19. 222 Adkins, “ECHO '64: Part 4,” p. 14; The importance of this debate was not

lost on the editors of The Ladder who included both a lengthy summary in their official report on the conference.

223 Dr. Kurt Konietzko and Dr. Frank Kameny, “Debate Homosexuality: Legislation vs. Education” 1965 ECHO Conference Proceedings (1965): pp. 73-82; Adkins, “ECHO '64: Part 4,” pp. 13-17;East Coast, p. 29.

105

The third, and final, ECHO conference was held on September

24 through September 26 1965 at the Barbizon-Plaza Hotel in New

York City.224 In an effort to avoid the kind of conflict with

hotels that had occurred in the past, Dick Leitsch, conference

coordinator and president of the Mattachine Society of New York,

personally wrote letters to each hotel under consideration that

clearly indicated the purpose of ECHO. He explained, “Before you

even consider accepting the Conference, we would like to make it

clear that homosexuality will be the topic under discussion and,

in addition to lawyers, psychologists, ministers, and legislators

present, there will also be some homosexuals.” He concluded the

letter with a glib remark aimed at the District of Columbia: “We

are quite confident that New York does not share Washington's

provinciality, but we can afford to take no chances on a last-

minute cancellation as these conferences are heavily

advertised.”225 It appears as though at least one hotel refused

take ECHO's reservation, Leitsch managed to secure the Barbizon-

Plaza Hotel early enough to devote more time to finding potential

speakers and advertising the event. Unlike the conferences in

224 See photo appendix.225 Dick Leitsch to Mr. Bradley, Hotel New Yorker (March 5, 1965).

106

1963 and 1964, advertisements were accepted by The Village Voice and

The New Republic in addition to various homophile publications.226

However, as with everything else about the conference,

advertisement requests grated against American sexual mores and

were often rejected. The National Review wrote back “Inasmuch as

National Review is a family type magazine we very much regret that

we are unable to accept your ad.”227

Jody Shotwell, an ECHO coordinator, noted that media

coverage of the event was unprecedented in spite of some minor

setbacks. As press coverage of the conference spread, however, an

unknown source leveled a threat against the conference, resolving

to “break up that queer convention.”228 Fortunately, if

unbelievably, two NYPD officers were dispatched to protect the

226 East Coast Homophile Organizations, “Minutes of the First Meeting,” (February, 6th 1965). p.1; Glenn Raymond to Classified Advertising Department, The New Republic, (March 12, 1965); Dick Leitsch to Sam Overton, The Village Voice, (March 11, 1965).

227 Howard W. Long, Jr., Advertising Director, National Review to Glenn Raymond, Advertising Director, East Coast Homophile Organizations (March 26, 1965).

228 Press release, “The 1965 Conference of the East Coast Homophile Organizations”, undated. This was not the first time that an ECHO conference had been threatened. The 1964 conference had been disrupted briefly by a Neo-Nazi who attempted to deliver a box of Vaseline marked “Queer Convention” to Rabbi Lipman. Fortunately, an undercover policeman (possibly an FBI agent) who had been sent to monitor the conference broke his cover and arrested the man. Adkins, “Report ECHO '64: Parts 1-3,” pp. 20-22.

107

proceedings. Whoever made the threat, however, did not deliver on

his promise and the “queer convention” continued on schedule

without incident. On Friday evening, members of the media were

invited to attend a press conference, but few arrived due to a

newspaper strike.229 On Saturday, CBS Television arrived during

the afternoon and evening sessions to film a lecture, the

cocktail party, and the banquet. On Sunday, some of the

proceedings were filmed by ABC-TV, and the New York Herald Tribune

sent a reporter to interview Richard Leitsch.230 Conference

attendance was the highest yet with 150 delegates from homophile

groups as far away as San Francisco. Officers from the Mattachine

Society of Florida, Mattachine Midwest (a Chicago group), the

Society for Individual Rights in San Francisco, the Demophile

Society of Boston, in addition to the ECHO affiliates were all

present.231 The conference was also the longest so far, covering

three days with cocktail receptions, dinners, and presentations

229 In spite of the strike, Shotwell noted that “The press conference on the Friday evening preceding the ECHO conference was well attended. Although none of the major news media was represented on that occasion, there were reporters from various other periodicals, college publications and minor newspapers.” Jody Shotwell, “East Coast Homophile Organizations Discuss theGreat Society,” Tangents, 1:2 (November 1965): p. 10

230 Ibid.; Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, “The Homosexual Citizen in the Great Society” Ladder, 10:4 (January 1966): p. 9.

231 Shotwell, “East Coast” p. 10; Lyon, p. 10. 108

from a variety of “experts” including authors, editors,

educators, clinicians, and psychologists. The theme of the 1965

conference, reflecting the persistence of assimilationism, was

“The Homosexual Citizen in the Great Society”.

As they had at previous conferences, presenters emphasized

the evils of discrimination, the importance of legal reform, and

recent medical research on homosexuality. Following opening

remarks by Dick Leitsch, the first day began with an address by

Dr. Isador Rubin, the editor of Sexology Magazine, who condemned the

sexually repressive nature of society by noting its damaging

impact on psychosexual development. Rubin explained,

The damage done by the present social and legal setup is that, far from preventing the rise of homosexuality, it gives rise to the homosexual as a separate creature. A youngman faced with homosexual impulses, feels anxiety, and later—especially if these are realized—increased guilt, leading to self-ostracism. He no longer feels “good enough” to associate with “normal” people. From this attitude it is only one step to choosing, if he can find it, a society of those who share his “vice” and whose members are too often united in self-contempt and shame… But our laws are not specifically anti-homosexual. They spring, rather, from an entire antisexual bias.232

232 I. MacA, “Highlights from East Coast Homophile Organizations Conference Speeches,” Tangents, 1:2 (November 1965): p. 12.

109

Author James Collier echoed Rubin in his criticism of American

society and its sexual repression noting specifically that only

frank discussion of sex and sexuality could help homosexuals and

the American public in their quest to construct Johnson's “Great

Society.” Dr. Hendrik Ruitenbeek was the last to present before

the lunch break with an address entitled “The Homosexual's Search

for Identity.”233

When presentations resumed in the afternoon, Gilbert Cantor,

an attorney with the ACLU and CORE, again connected the homophile

movement to the African American civil rights movement. “I see a

clear parallel between the Negro and the homosexual in the area

of civil rights. The homosexual faces less discrimination in

education, housing and employment, but at the cost of concealment

—which is impossible for the Negro. The homosexual, however, in

another sense has fewer rights— it is no crime to be a Negro.”234

Cantor, drawing from both Rubin and Collier, believed that both

systems of persecution stemmed from an underlying “spectre of sex

fear” that seemed to permeate American society.235 Dr. Clarence

233 Ibid.234 Ibid.235 Lyon, p. 11

110

Tripp, Dr. Ernest van den Haag, and Dr. Frank Kameny, finished

the conference's first day with speeches that covered a wide

variety of topics and perspectives. Tripp provided, for the first

time at an ECHO conference, practical “marital” and relationship

advice for homosexual couples.236 Both Van den Haag, a professor

at NYU, and Kameny discussed the tactics of the homophile

movement, but disagreed fundamentally on what form activism

should take. As Van den Haag explained, “Picketing will do no

good. With the Negro groups these demonstrations were to protest

non-institution of the rights given them by law. But the rights

and laws came first. The homosexual must fight first for law

reform.”237 Kameny, though partially sympathetic, ultimately

disagreed and explained that picketing, when other methods

failed, could draw the attention of the government and the

American public, but he admitted, “We did not enter into

picketing easily and continue to use it as a last resort.”238 The

author and antiwar activist Paul Goodman closed the day by

explaining that a Great Society was impossible without first

236 Lyon, pp. 11-12.237 Shotwell, “East Coast”, p. 12; Lyon, p. 11. 238 Shotwell, “East Coast”, p. 12; Kameny received shouts of “bravo!” and a

standing ovation for his advocacy of more direct action. Lyon, p. 9.111

establishing a “decent society.” As he said, “I submit that in a

decent society, which we do not now have, there would be

one...And what would the moral attitude of a decent society be? I

would like to think it would be something like mine: Let be! If

neurosis springs, as Freud and I seem to have concluded, from

what you can't do, then I would say, by all means Do!”239

Foreshadowing the coming arguments of the gay liberationists,

Goodman explained that alliances with other liberal causes would

help to push the homophile movement into the limelight.240

The final day of the conference began with a popular and

largely unprecedented speech by Dr. George Weinberg, a

psychotherapist and former professor at NYU.241 A noted authority

in his field, Weinberg lambasted the “bias against homosexuality”

in psychoanalysis and concluded his presentation with several

firmly worded rules to psychotherapists who worked with

homosexual patients. He explained:

1. If you feel repugnance for homosexual activity, it might be well to look at yourself, consider if you are the proper analyst for this patient. 2. Analysis should try to change

239 Shotwell, “East Coast,” p. 12. 240 Lyon, p. 11. 241 The Ladder reported that, like Kameny, Weinberg received a standing ovation

at the conclusion of his address. Lyon, p. 9. 112

the patient least, not most. The purpose is to make it possible for the patient to lead his own life, not to make him into someone else. 3. Guilt must be diminished, not accentuated. 4. The analyst must help the patient build a value system with a humanistic orientation, allowing him to realize his full potential in society…242

Although framed partially in assimilationist rhetoric, Weinberg's

speech reflected a clear shift from the remarks of psychologists

at the 1963 conference. Finally, the 1965 conference ended with

presentations by Dr. Ralph Grundlach, Gregory Battcock, and Dr.

Margaret Lewis. Grundlach, who reported his research on

lesbianism, found that masculine characteristics were present in

just two percent of his sample. Battcock briefly addressed

homosexuality in the arts and Margaret Lewis presented her

research into state legislative attitudes toward the reformation

of sex laws. “Progress,” she explained, “is slow where it exists

at all.”243

Following the last presentation by Dr. Lewis, Dick Leitsch

took to the podium again and delivered some closing statements.244

Leitsch explained that the unprecedented media coverage was

particularly important “as a means for us to reach the public

242 Shotwell, “East Coast,” p. 12.243 Shotwell, “East Coast,” p. 12; Lyon, p. 11-12. 244 Richard Leitsch, Handwritten Concluding Remarks, p. 1.

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with the message delivered here: The Homosexual Citizen has a

place in every good society, whether it’s called the Great

Society, the decent Society or the New Frontier.”245 Leitsch

thanked the conference organizers and concluded with some remarks

on the goals of ECHO: “The greatest result of this conference has

been the fulfillment of one of ECHO's earliest aims: to achieve

closer cooperation among the various individual homophile

organizations, the ECHO affiliation is a close one, MSNY,

Philadelphia, and Washington work closely together in a spirit of

cooperation, mutual respect and a lack of selfishness.”246

Although sometimes entangled in the principles and tactical

repertoire of assimilationism, the ECHO conferences revealed a

rapidly developing radicalism. Over the course of only three

years, conference presentations had moved from basic toleration

and discussions of “cures” to advocating direct political action

and criticizing all aspects of sexual repression.

Before he closed the 1965 conference, Leitsch foreshadowed

an important development when he stated, “Last night, at a

meeting of a few representatives of the organizations present

245 Ibid.246 Ibid.

114

here this weekend, we voted to hold a meeting this spring in

Kansas City to discuss closer cooperation among all the

organizations in the country.”247 Placed haphazardly within MSNY's

files on the ECHO conferences is a solitary card inscribed with

the home address of a man named Foster Gunnison.248 The card

humbly requests a copy of the 1965 conference program for his

personal edification. Gunnison, still new to the homophile

movement in 1965, was inspired by what he saw at the New York

conference and, in the years that followed, would become a major

figure in the effort towards the national mobilization and

consolidation of the homophile movement.

247 Ibid.248 Foster Gunnison Jr., Annotated business card (1965)

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Section Two: Bell-Bottoms and Beads

-----------------------------------------------

The North American Conference of Homophile Organizations

Inspired by the success of the 1965 ECHO conference, which

included representatives from San Francisco and Canada, the

homophile organizations on the east coast sought to bring their

goals of unity and cooperation to the national stage.249 On

February 18th 1966, forty representatives from fifteen homophile

organizations—including the Mattachine Society of Washington, the

Daughters of Bilitis, the Janus Society, Mattachine Midwest

(based in Chicago), the Mattachine Society of Florida (based in

Miami), the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (based in San

Francisco), ONE Inc. (based in Los Angeles), and the Society for

Individual Rights (based in San Francisco)—met in Kansas City,

Missouri to discuss the possibility of forming a national

organization.250 The delegates who attended this landmark

249 Representatives from SIR and the Canadian Council on Religion and the Homosexual were present for the '65 conference. See Julian Hodges to Garfield Nichol (August 10, 1965); Richard Leitsch to Robert Koch (July 28,1965); The Daughters of Bilitis was the only national homophile organization in the early 1960s, but its membership had declined. D'Emilio,Sexual Politics, p. 197. Faderman, pp.188-197.

250 J. Louis Campbell, Jack Nichols, Gay Pioneer: "Have You Heard My Message?" (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2007): pp. xx-xxi; Peter Bart, “War Role Sought for Homosexuals”, The New York Times, April 17, 1966: p. 12.

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convention called their meeting the “National Planning Conference

of Homosexual Organizations,” (or NPCHO, for short). Although the

idea of a national umbrella organization was ultimately dismissed

over the course of the convention, the assembled delegates agreed

to hold annual conferences each summer to help foster

interorganizational cooperation and coordinate the principles and

tactics of the larger movement. While shadowed by minor

disagreements, the Kansas City convention marked the first time

homophile groups had coordinated around the country since the

dissolution of the Mattachine Society's national organization in

1961.251

The first NPCHO meeting opened with brief speeches

highlighting the local accomplishments and contributions of each

homophile organization represented at the convention. As one

might expect, these speeches were guilty of no small amount of

self-aggrandizement. Phyllis Lyon, from the Daughters of Bilitis,

emphasized the role of DOB as the sole lesbian organization in

the movement, while Bill Beardemphl, from the Society for

Individual Rights, noted his organization's use of social

251 Bart, p. 12.117

activities to encourage political mobilization. Chuck Thompson,

from ONE Inc, explained the importance of his organization's

“educational and research programs,” while Mark Forrester framed

his Council on Religion and the Homosexual as a “bridge between

homosexuals and heterosexuals.” Frank Kameny adopted his now

familiar refrain and emphasized the importance of political

mobilization.252 From the beginning, strong personalities,

divergent principles, and myriad tactical approaches to social

and political change made national cooperation difficult, if not

impossible. Many of the organizations represented in Kansas City—

such as ONE Inc and the CRH—had adopted the principles and

tactical repertoire of the Mattachine Society, but the seeds of

change—represented by Kameny and Beardemphl tendency towards

political action—were beginning to sprout.

The tensions that characterized the inaugural NPCHO

convention are best represented by the efforts of Clark Polak,

252 Duberman, Stonewall, p. 147; In his footnotes, Duberman explains that his account of the NACHO conferences was drawn from a number of documents culled from the personal archives of Foster Gunnison Jr. and William B. Kelley, the conference's recording secretary. Although portions of the Gunnison archive have since been opened to researchers at the University ofConnecticut, Duberman is the only scholar, to date, who has worked extensively with the Kelley papers. As such, this piece draws heavily from Duberman's account. fn. 2, p. 292.

118

the president of the Janus Society, to pass an official statement

which declared that homosexuality “be considered as neither a

sickness, disturbance, [nor] neurosis.”253 As was the fate of so

many other issues discussed at the convention, the delegates were

divided. Some stuck to the assimilationist reliance on

professionals and explained that such a statement was best “left

to experts in mental health,” while others objected, “A more

definite assertion of the non-pathological nature of

homosexuality should be made.”254 Ultimately, Polak's resolution

failed, but the convention did issue a statement which noted

“objective research projects undertaken thus far have indicated

that findings of homosexual undesirability are based on opinion,

value judgments, or emotional reaction rather than on scientific

evidence or fact.”255 Other proposals were more successful and, by

the end of the conference, representatives agreed to establish a

national legal fund, hold a nationwide day of protest against the

military's exclusion of homosexuals, “exchange ideas and

information among homophile groups” and meet again in San

253 Duberman, Stonewall, pp. 147-148.254 Duberman, Stonewall, p. 148.255 Ibid.

119

Francisco in August.256 Although its accomplishments were

relatively modest and its official statements often vague, the

1966 Kansas City convention, merely by virtue of its existence,

represented a significant step towards the national consolidation

and unprecedented expansion of the homophile movement.

When the Kansas City delegates reconvened in San Francisco

just seven months later, they attracted an even larger and more

diverse group of representatives. This time, the convention

included more than eighty delegates from 24 organizations.257 The

conference agenda, also more varied than Kansas City's, included

a panel discussion with California legislators who focused

specifically on law reform, a “theatrical presentation,” and a

picnic that allegedly drew a crowd of over six hundred people.258

It was at this San Francisco convention that Foster Gunnison was

finally given the opportunity to speak to an audience of his

fellow homophiles.

256 Bart, p. 12, D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 194; The vague goal of “exchanging ideas” eventually manifest in a National Clearinghouse that distributed homophile literature and publications to organizations around the country. Stephen Donaldson to Foster Gunnison Jr. (March 29, 1967); Barbara Gittingsto “Friends” (January 1970) The Rainbow History Project http://www.rainbowhistory.org/pdf/erchoinvitation.pdf.

257 Duberman, Stonewall, p. 150. 258 Ibid.

120

Over forty years old, with a penchant for suits, and rarely

without his trademark cigar, Foster Gunnison Jr. held two

master's degrees (in philosophy and psychology) from Trinity

College and was, thanks to the sizable fortune he had inherited

from his father, independently wealthy.259 Gunnison had discovered

the Mattachine Society of New York in the early 1960s after he

had read about the organization in Donald Webster Cory's The

Homosexual in America.260 In 1964, he formally joined the

organization as a dues paying member. Shortly thereafter, he

attended the 1965 ECHO conference where he met Jack Nichols

(Kameny's MSW co-founder) and Richard Inman, the founder of the

Mattachine Society of Florida.261 Over the next few months, he

contributed to the efforts of all three organizations from his

home in Hartford, Connecticut. Gunnison may have looked the part

of the assimilationist, but he managed to tread a narrow line

259 See photo appendix. Stephen Donaldson, in a letter to Gunnison, joked, “Grant told me that everyone at his party thought you were a police detective, since you were so avidly (apparently) writing down little notes and were so well dressed.” Stephen Donaldson to Foster Gunnison Jr., April 11, 1967

260 Duberman, Stonewall, pp. 54-57, 102-103; Eisenbach, pp. 48-49.261 Eisenbach, pp. 48-49.

121

between the principles and tactics of the “old guard” and the

political activism of MSW and MSNY.262

When he addressed the San Francisco convention, Gunnison

argued that the “homophile movement had reached a point where

only a national organization could advance it to the next

stage.”263 He continued: “When homosexuality finally hits the No.

1 topic of the day—and I think the day may be approaching fast,

it would be well to be prepared...If we don't define ourselves—

they will. If we don't state our aims—they will.”264 Gunnison

urged the convention's representatives to abandon secrecy and

exclusivity, but reasserted the utility of assimilationist

tactics by calling for continued public education programs and

cooperation with experts. He carefully rejected radicalism. “It

won't be necessary, to trot down to city square, climb up on the

statue of General Sheridan, and wave a banner.”265 For all this 262 Gunnison's radicalism is, perhaps, most evident in the pieces that he

composed for the Mattachine Society of Washington's regular publication The Homosexual Citizen. In these pieces, Gunnison advocated a more direct approach in keeping with MSW's focus on political activism once stating that “socialacceptance of homosexuality will [come] when homosexuals finally [kick] themselves out of bed, [rip] off their masks, and diligently [fight] for their rights...moral arguments will fall, ex post facto, neatly into place.” Foster Gunnison Jr. “Logic and the Ethics of Sex,” The Homosexual Citizen, 1:12 (December 1966) pp. 13-17.

263 Duberman, Stonewall, p. 152.264 Duberman, Stonewall, p. 152.265 Ibid.

122

careful balancing between assimilationism and political activism,

however, Gunnison also clearly supported a developing

“liberationist” impulse when he advocated the importance of

public displays of affection between gay men and women. He felt

that such displays would “demonstrate to the public, as in no

other manner, the futility of its laws and perhaps its

attitude.”266 Gunnison's speech was well received and, at the

conclusion of the San Francisco convention, representatives voted

to form a loose confederation of homophile organizations

unofficially referred to as the “North American Conference of

Homophile Organizations,” or NACHO (pronounced ny-ko). Gunnison

was duly appointed to lead positions on several organizing

committees including a relatively powerful “Credentials

Committee” charged with supervising the admission of new groups

to the confederation. Administrative duties concluded, the next

266 Duberman, Stonewall, p. 153. Gunnison often explained that homosexuality was as much about love as it was about sex. He believed, perhaps correctly,that “nothing is more vital to the eventual public acceptance (not to mention dignity) of homosexuals than their confrontation with the world as they are—loving human beings giving expression to their love under the samerules that apply to everyone else.” Foster Gunnison Jr., “The Hidden Bias: The Homophile Movement and Law Reform” The Homosexual Citizen 2:3 (March 1967): pp. 11-12.

123

NACHO conference was scheduled for the summer of 1967 in

Washington, DC.267

Around the same time that a national organization was taking

shape, a new generation of homophiles was emerging. In the wake

of the 1966 conference, Gunnison began to correspond with other

appointed members of the Credentials Committee, including Bob

Martin (née Stephen Donaldson). An extroverted and openly gay

disciple of the 1960s counterculture, Martin had already caused a

media frenzy when he founded the Student Homophile League at

Columbia University in October of 1966.268 Originally conceived as

a chapter of the Mattachine Society, Martin was dismissed by ECHO

affiliates, particularly MSNY, who feared the kind of unshackled

radicalism of a student led organization.269 Nonetheless, Martin

267 Duberman, Stonewall, p. 153.268 Murray Schumach, “Columbia Charters Homosexual Group,” New York Times (May

3, 1967); According to Martin, the news spread quickly and internationally.“...[the days after the NYT article was published] were frantic as media which had all ignored the press release suddenly wanted the information I had already given them. The story spread abroad: incoming mail told us of an article in Paris' Le Monde, various London papers and newspapers in Australia, Japan, and other distant points.” Eisenbach, pp. 58-60.

269 Influenced by the image of the radical student that was beginning to emerge in the media around this time, Leitsch characterized Martin as an “irresponsible extremist” who endangered the movement. He admitted, “The Negro movement is dead because it is so fragmented; the peace movement is ineffectual because there are more 'leaders' than followers. I want our movement to avoid this pitfall, and to unify—preferably around MSNY.” He went on to explain that students should join MSNY rather than form their own groups. Leitsch as quoted in Eisenbach, p. 71.

124

managed to secure the support of several straight students and

Columbia's administration begrudgingly agreed to officially

recognize the formation of the SHL. Emboldened, Martin soon

extended his participation in the homophile movement beyond the

halls of Columbia to the heady world of NACHO.270

Throughout the next few months, Foster Gunnison, Bob Martin,

and members of the “Credentials Committee” corresponded via a

series of lengthy letters that outlined standards for national

membership, the structure of the national organization, and the

voting procedure at national meetings.271 The debates between

Foster Gunnison and Bob Martin, in particular, reveal a certain

amount of contention between the assimilationist homophiles and

the emerging radicals. Separated by a twenty year age gap, Martin

and Gunnison often clashed over issues of authority and voting

rights. Martin advocated for representative leadership that was

democratically elected at the biannual conventions while Gunnison

supported a certain measure of “authoritarianism” noting that a

national organization required a strong leader capable of pulling

270 Eisenbach, pp. 54-79.271 Foster Gunnison, National Planning Conference of Homophile Organizations,

Credentials Planning Program, “Discussion Bulletin #4,” (March 6, 1967).125

affiliated organizations together.272 Diverging further from

Gunnison’s proposals, Martin supported a system that provided an

equal number of votes for each group, rather than a system that

provided a number of votes commensurate with an organization’s

influence and accomplishments.273 Martin further justified his

proposal by noting that determining a group's “effectiveness” and

“success” was “vague and difficult to objectively verify”.

Standards for admission to the confederation encountered a

similarly fierce debate. As they drew closer to the second annual

meeting, Gunnison lamented that little consensus had emerged.274

Despite the best efforts of Gunnison, Martin, and the

Credentials Committee to draft a set of organizational guidelines

for the national confederation that could be approved at the 1967

convention, the representatives who convened in the nation's

272 Foster Gunnison Jr. to Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin (February 7, 1967): p. 2. Foster justified this authoritarianism by clearly differentiating it from the “more specific, technical, type—a socio/psychological syndrome clearly defined in Adorno et. al.--which entails bigotry, hatreds prejudice...” Gunnison explained that he supported “The general exercise ofauthority in any business organization, or project in order to get things done.” He explained further, “Progress in any movement depends on organization and organization depends on the exercise of authority, order, system, and procedure as well as discipline.”

273 Gunnison, Discussion Bulletin #4, p. 15. This naturally favored established groups over the smaller and emerging student groups like Martin's Student Homophile League.

274 Foster Gunnison Jr. to Stephan Donaldson (March 21, 1967). 126

capital chose to approve only a general statement of purpose. The

delegates pledged to “improve the status of the homosexual,” and

encourage “intergroup projects and cooperation,” but the national

confederation was carefully described as “consultative in nature

and function.”275 A far cry from the pages of proposals Gunnison

had drafted in the months leading up to the conference, the

representatives did declare their continued commitment to form a

“legitimate homophile movement on a national scale.”276 To further

this mission, a number of conference delegates including

Gunnison, Martin, Barbara Gittings, and Frank Kameny, formed a

“Committee on Unity”.277

The Committee on Unity used the lengthy debates of the

Credentials Committee to formulate a proposed set of by-laws and

resolutions to be submitted at the 1968 conference for

approval.278 The Committee acknowledged that compromise, while

difficult, had been ultimately successful: “[The by-laws are] as

fair and workable as the combined heads of your committee,

representing all general philosophies in the movement, could make275 Duberman, Stonewall, p. 160.276 Duberman, Stonewall, p. 160.277 Stephen Donaldson, Recommended NAHC By-Laws (August 13, 1966). 278 Stephen Donaldson, Comments on the By-Laws Proposed by the Unity Committee

(August 13, 1966).127

it. It represents almost two full days and evening of work and

detailed consideration by your committee.”279 Through protracted

debate, the Committee managed to compose a series of

organizational articles that laid the groundwork for an

unprecedented “association of independent homophile organizations

in North America.”280 Within the resulting by-laws, the purposes

of the “North American Conference of Homophile Organizations”

were clearly articulated. There were seven:

A. To formulate, plan, discuss, co-ordinate, and implement strategy, tactics, ideologies, philosophies, and methodologies for the improvement of the status of the homosexual as a homosexual. B. To provide for the expression of contributions that may be made by individuals and organizations whose activities are, though not primarily involved with the problems of the homosexual, relevant to the crucial problems that face the homosexual community. C. To stimulate and encourage the formation of new homophileorganizations. D. To encourage inter-group projects and co-operation on allpossible levels.E. To work to expose the “sexual sickness” that pervades oursociety and offer meaningful answers to the wide range of problems forced on homosexuals.F. To speak as and to represent the collective voice of the homophile movement in North America in matters which have been previously debated and formulated by the Convention or the Council.

279 Ibid.280 Stephen Donaldson, Recommended NAHC By-Laws, p. 1

128

G. To meet the needs of the homosexual community in those areas of North America not represented by any bona fide homophile organization.281

Although the general mission of unity and cooperation was

articulated years earlier by ECHO, the assertion of national

(really, continental) cooperation represented an unprecedented

expansion of the homophile movement. Even more importantly, the

NACHO by-laws returned partially to Harry Hay's radical cultural

minority theory by noting the existence of a “homosexual

community.” Finally, statement E revealed that NACHO would

actively confront ignorance and distance itself from the image of

the polite homophile who endured the condemnatory speeches of

psychologists like Albert Ellis. Unfortunately, the difference

between discourse and practice, particularly on the national and

continental level, was clear. Organized as a loose confederation,

NACHO had little authority and power.

Following the 1967 meeting, NACHO delegates convened again

in Chicago for a five-day conference in early August of 1968.

Results were mixed and the accomplishments of the convention were

tempered by significant setbacks.282 Under the chairmanship of the

281 Ibid.282 Unfortunately, the successes of the 1968 conference were balanced by a

number of serious issues. At the close of 1968, the Daughters of Bilitis 129

heterosexual Reverend Robert Warren Cromey, vicar of St. Aidan's

Episcopal Church in San Francisco, delegates officially adopted

the name NACHO to replace the myriad unofficial titles used by

representatives and standing committees.283 More substantively,

delegates approved the establishment of an “Executive Committee”

that could carry out business between convention meetings and a

“Committee on Legal Affairs” with the purpose of “evaluating,

recommending, and acting upon ideas, suggestions, proposals, and

resolutions in the field of legal action.”284 The Legal Affairs

Committee was also tasked with organizing legal actions which the

confederation could undertake in order to protest and combat

discrimination.285 Turning its attention to the media, the

convention passed and then disseminated a “Homosexual Bill of

Rights.”286 The “Bill of Rights,” though largely focused on

pulled out of the organization citing a disagreement over the confederation's tactical repertoire and principle. Del Martin, “No To NACHO: Why DOB Cannot Belong Legally,” The Ladder 13:11/12 (August 1969): p. 2; SIR, the largest homophile organization in the United States at the time, was disturbed that “no action program had been discussed and threatened to leave the organization, and MSNY, the second largest organization chose not to attend. Duberman, Stonewall, p. 222.

283 “Homosexuals Ask Candidates' Ideas: Seek Views on Penalties--'Bill of Rights' Urged,” New York Times, August 19, 1968.

284 Committee on Unity, “Resolutions Recommended to the Conference for Adoption,” (August 14, 1968).

285 Ibid.286 “Homosexuals Ask Candidates”

130

equality for homosexuals, included some provisions that suggested

the importance of the movement for the majority of Americans. It

supported “private sex acts between consenting persons over the

age of consent,” and condemned the entrapment strategies used by

local and national police forces. It emphasized the message

advanced by Frank Kameny and noted that an individual's sexual

orientation should “not be a factor in the granting of Federal

security clearance, visas or citizenship.” It also noted that

service in and discharge from the arm services shall be without

reference to homosexuality and that a person's sexual orientation

or practice should not affect his eligibility for employment.”287

Finally, reflective of the dignity and pride beginning to emerge

alongside growing political activism, the 1967 Chicago convention

adopted the official slogan “Gay is good.”288

The NACHO conventions and the effort to organize them,

particularly through the interaction of Foster Gunnison and Bob

287 Ibid.288 Kameny was inspired by the African American slogan “Black is beautiful”

and noted that “many individual homosexuals, like many members of other minority groups, are in need of psychological sustenance and bolstering to support a positive and affirmative attitude toward themselves and their homosexuality, and to have installed into them a confident sense of the positive good and value of themselves and of their condition.” Frank Kameny, “Gay Is Good” Resolution Adopted Unanimously by the NACHO,” (August1968) The Rainbow History Project http://www.rainbowhistory.org/html/echo.htm.

131

Martin, illustrated the development of new principles and a

tactical repertoire that deviated from that of the “old guard”

homophile groups. Gunnison's efforts to create a national

organization borrowed some of the characteristics of an abeyance

structure. The organization he envisioned possessed a

consolidated “authoritarian” leadership and an exclusive

membership that was required to demonstrate the extent of its

commitment in order to receive voting rights. In contrast, Bob

Martin hoped to establish a democratic national organization that

was flexible and welcoming to smaller organizations, such as his

Student Homophile League. By virtue of his own experience, Martin

pressed for the inclusion of radical groups that were beginning

to participate in concerted campaigns against figures of

authority using a tactical repertoire that borrowed from, but

dramatically altered, the efforts of the homophile movement.

-----------------------------------------------

ERCHO and Homophile Activism

The official formation of NACHO in 1968 established three

regional branches that were composed of homophile organizations

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in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.289 The largest and most

active of these branches was the Eastern Regional Conference of

Homophile Organizations. Despite having a similar name and

organizational structure to that of the earlier ECHO affiliation,

ERCHO was decidedly different in terms of its membership, its

principles, and, particularly, its tactical repertoire. Although

it included the former ECHO affiliates MSW and DOB, MSNY

distanced itself from both NACHO and ERCHO, citing its desire to

focus on local issues.290 “Accredited organizations,” with the

power to vote and serve on the executive committee, included the

Council on Equality for Homosexuals (represented by Foster

Gunnison), the New York Chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis

(represented by Martha Shelley), the Homosexual Youth Movement in

Neighborhoods (or HYMN, represented by Craig Rodwell), the

289 The “Far West Conference” included, at least in theory, homophile groups operating in Mexico. The Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations included the Montreal group “International Sex Equality Anonymous” Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations Address List (Not For Public), October 27, 1968.

290 The Janus Society seems to have disappeared at this point, but the Homosexual Action League and the Homosexual Law Reform Society, both located in Philadelphia, were included as “other organizations” in an unreleased list of ERCHO affiliates. Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations Address List (Not For Public) (October 27, 1968); MSNY dispatched a representative delegate to attend ERCHO meetings on rare occasions. Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations, “Report of the New York Cooperation Committee,” (July 26, 1968).

133

Institute for Social Ethics (represented by either Barbara

Gittings), the Mattachine Society of Washington (represented by

either John Marshall or Frank Kameny), the Student Homophile

Leagues from Columbia University and Cornell (represented by Bob

Martin), and the West Side Discussion Group (with unknown

representation).291 The inclusion of so many student groups,

particularly Martin's Homophile Leagues and Rodwell's HYMN,

brought more radical voices to the homophile movement than every

before. While ERCHO was ultimately disbanded thanks to the

actions of these radicals, the conferences it held and the

actions it participated in illustrated the development and

implementation of a new tactical repertoire that often used WUNC

displays in its campaigns against various authorities.

During the inaugural ERCHO conference held at Columbia

University on January 13 and 14 1968, delegates reached consensus

on a number of issues, including a drafted constitution and set

of by-laws. Unlike its more conservative predecessor, ERCHO was

uncompromising in its political stance and, perhaps the most

important result of the Columbia conference, were a series of

291 Ibid.134

policy resolutions that were passed by those organizations

present at the meeting. These decisions reflected a political

consciousness that went beyond the comparatively vague positions

adopted by earlier national and regional gatherings, including

those organized by ECHO and NACHO. ERCHO “recogniz[ed] the

necessity for political action to seek the elimination of

discrimination against the homosexual American citizen by his

national, state, and local governments.” To accomplish this

unprecedented mission, it promised to distribute questionnaires

to politicians in order to determine their position on issues

related to homosexuality and “oppose or support candidates based

on their support or rejection of [ERCHO] policies.292 More

specifically, the regional affiliation opposed the denial of

security clearances to homosexuals, discrimination in federal

employment, discrimination in naturalization and immigration

laws, the exclusion of homosexuals from military service, the

existence of state anti-sodomy laws, and Ronald Reagan's

presidential candidacy on a platform of social conservatism.293

292 Eastern Regional Homophile Conference, Press Release, “Homophile Groups Convene in New York Decide to Promote Political Action by Homosexuals Oppose Reagan Candidacy,” (January, 1968).

293 Ibid. p. 2.135

The conference called for greater “organization of homosexuals

into voting blocs” and the reexamination of religious groups'

“traditional attitudes towards homosexuality.”294 While deeply

critical of American society, the affiliation was not entirely

condemnatory and even went so far as to commend the City of New

York for its stand on equal employment and the ACLU for its

statements in support of legal reform.295 At the conclusion of the

final day of the Columbia conference the assembled delegates

agreed to reconvene again in the spring with biannual meetings

following every fall and spring thereafter. ERCHO would meet just

two more times before it was “temporarily disbanded” in November

1969.

At their first meeting on April 13, 1968, ERCHO's Executive

Committee convened with Frank Kameny presiding and Bob Martin

acting as secretary. Representatives from all of ERCHO's

affiliates were present and voted to adopt the constitution and

by-laws that had been drafted at Columbia.296 The constitution

294 Ibid. p. 2.295 Ibid. p. 3.296 Stephen Donaldson, Minutes of the First Meeting of the Executive Committee

of the Eastern Regional Homophile Conference (April 13, 1968).136

and by-laws began with a clearly articulated purpose inspired by

ECHO and connected to NACHO,

To formulate, plan, discuss, coordinate, and implement strategy, tactics, ideologies, philosophies, and methodologies for the improvement of the status of the homosexual as a homosexual. b. To discuss, plan for, implement, and coordinate the decisions and operations of the NACHO on a regional basis. c. to speak as and to represent the collective voice of the homophile movement in the eastern regions. d. to stimulate the formation of, encourage, and provide assistance to new homophile organizations within the eastern region e. to meet the needsof and to represent the homosexual community in those areas within the eastern region not represented by an accredited homophile organization.297

Again, as an affiliated regional branch of NACHO, ERCHO

explicitly identified the presence of a “gay community” and its

efforts to bring homophile organizations together to unify their

principles and tactical repertoire.

The constitution adopted in 1968 also provided for the

establishment of a Credentials Committee similar to the one

headed by Foster Gunnison in NACHO. As with ECHO, the criteria

for ERCHO accreditation included a geographical component that

excluded organizations outside of the vaguely defined “Eastern

Region.” More importantly, aspiring organizations also needed to

297 Bylaws of The Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations, p. 1.

137

be at least three months old, subscribe to the “National

Clearinghouse” (a group that disseminated literature between

homophile organizations), and have “aims and purposes” directed

toward “the improvement of the status in society of homosexuals

as a group.”298 ERCHO specified that applicant organizations

needed to engage in

Activities directed toward the unqualified acceptance by society of homosexuality as a mode of self-expression no less valued than heterosexuality; Activities directed towardthe establishment in society of the homosexual as a first-class human being and a first-class citizen; The promotion of education, research, dialog, or public discussion toward a fuller, sympathetic, understanding of the homosexual; The providing of counseling or assistance on a non-exploitative basis for the homosexual in need and the sponsoring of constructive social or recreational activities for homosexuals.

Finally, applicant organizations could not be involved in issues

“clearly extraneous and deleterious to the movement,” they needed

to be currently active (by demonstrating their past

accomplishments, current activities, publications, an active

office, or the extent of their membership), and they needed to be

in good financial standing.299 While clearly still engaged in

298 Stephen Donaldson, “Article 16 of ERCHO By-Laws (Credentials Program),” (February 1, 1970) p. 1; For more on the National Clearinghouse see fn. 256.

299 Donaldson, “Article 16 of ERCHO By-Laws (Credentials Program),” p. 2. 138

assimilationist activities such as “education, research, and

public discussion,” ERCHO members were also expected to engage in

activities that advanced the underlying mission of the homophile

movement that sought equality for homosexuals.

ERCHO's policy statements and standards of accreditation,

while undoubtedly new and important steps for the homophile

movement, were simply discourse if they were not supported by

action. To that end, Frank Kameny opened the ERCHO meeting held

on April 27th and 28th of 1968 with a motion to formally sponsor

the protest that was held every year at Independence Hall in

Philadelphia on the Fourth of July to remind the public of the

continued discrimination of homosexuals. Kameny explained that

ERCHO's endorsement would “make it a regional enterprise and give

it more weight.”300 Initially organized by MSW in 1965, “The

Annual Reminder” was later co-sponsored by MSNY and other

homophile organizations on the east coast. As Kameny had often

articulated at earlier ECHO conferences, reliance on public

education programs and social services alone was ineffective. He

reasoned that such actions, while important, only treated

300 Barbara Gittings, “Minutes of Eastern Regional Homophile Conference,” The Rainbow History Project. http://www.rainbowhistory.org/pdf/echo1964.pdf.

139

immediate problems while public protest and agitation brought

about lasting long-term results. To make their voices heard,

Kameny and the MSW turned to picketing.

In 1965 ECHO approved the protest at Independence Hall,

along with a series of demonstrations that took place at the

Civil Services Commission, the State Department, the Pentagon,

and the White House.301 The Mattachine Society of Washington, in

cooperation with its fellow ECHO affiliates and Mattachine

Midwest, organized the demonstrations to officially “petition the

federal government to cease and desist its discriminatory

policies regarding the employment of homosexuals.”302 In the

interorganizational fliers that announced these protests, MSNY

and MSW explained:

To gain acceptance, ideas must be clothed in familiar garb. Therefore, good order, good appearance, and dignity are necessary in the presentation of a new, an unusual or an unpopular idea. Consequently, demonstrations favoring such ideas must be well-organized, well-conducted and well-behaved. For these reasons, the following rules must be

301 The Mattachine Society of Washington, Press Release: “Why Are Homosexuals Picking the U.S. Civil Service Commission?” (1965): pp. 1-3; The MattachineSociety of Washington, News Release: Homosexuals to Picket Pentagon (July 29, 1965); The Mattachine Society of Washington, Information Bulletin (State Department) (August, 1965).

302 The Mattachine Society Inc, of New York to The Members and Friends of MSNY(1965).

140

enforced in any demonstration in which the name Mattachine is connected.303

The fliers then listed three rules that muted their radical

tactics:

1. Dress and appearance will be conservative and conventional. Men must wear clean white shirts, ties and jackets; women must wear dresses or skirts and blouses...Demonstrators must be well groomed. 2. Signs will be supplied by the sponsoring organizations. 3. ...A spokesman will be designated. He, and he alone, will have authority to speak for the group. Conversation between the demonstrators should be kept to a minimum.304

On October 23, 1965 approximately 45 members of MSW and MSNY

convened in front of the White House to protest discrimination

against homosexuals.305 Both public and internal opinions of the

event were mixed, and, in a report for The Ladder, Kay Tobin

recorded some of the comments she heard from onlookers. The

comments ranged from criticism and disgust to support,

Elderly man: I give them credit for what they're doing.Mother of Five: You should all be married and have a family.High school student: They look so normal.Policeman: Hey, that's a good-looking group. I'm surprised.

303 Ibid. 304 Ibid. 305 MSW had drafted a much longer political statement that criticized the

government's discriminatory policies by employing portions of the Declaration of Independence for its protest at Independence Hall. Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations, 4th Annual Reminder Day Flyer (1968); Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations, 5th Annual Reminder Day Flyer (1969).

141

Tobin carefully noted that some homosexuals (not present at the

protest) had registered their objections: “'Dirty, unwashed

rabble are thought to do that kind of thing!' 'It's best to work

quietly on an individual basis.' 'We're not ready for it yet.'”

Finally, she turned her attention to the protestors themselves,

who expressed a mixture of pride, obligation, and desperation:

“'Today I lost the last bit of fear.' 'This was the proudest day

of my life!' 'I don't like to picket. But we have to, just HAVE

to.'”306 Because these protests did not end discrimination against

homosexuals, it is difficult to assess their success;

nevertheless such efforts were revolutionary and indicative of

the changing tactical repertoire of the homophile movement.

The development of a tactical repertoire that included

direct action was not confined to a specific city, organization,

or even, for that matter, to those groups affiliated with ERCHO.

The Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier, founded in

306 Kay Tobin, “Picketing: The Impact & The Issues,” The Ladder, 9:12 (1965): pp. 4-5; The local papers also covered the 1965 protests with small, matterof fact, articles. Associated Press, “Pickets Demand Fair Treatment for Homosexuals,” The Sunday Star (May 30, 1965); United Press International, “Pickets Call Nation Unfair to Deviates,” The Washington Post (May 30, 1965). In spite of its title, the UPI article was relatively sympathetic and even complimented the “orderly” protest.

142

Buffalo in early 1970, picketed the Buffalo City Hall to protest

“the second raid on [their] premises in three months by local

police.” The protest was successful in attracting new members to

the group (which eventually consisted of 175 people—“a third of

whom are female”) and received “an unexpected and welcome

response from the local media.” A local television station even

offered to interview members of the Society about their views.307

On April 21, 1966, to protest the State Liquor Authority's vague

discriminatory policy against serving alcohol to homosexuals,

Dick Leitsch, John Timmons, and Craig Rodwell organized a “sip-

in.”308 Accompanied by reporters, the three men visited three

bars, including two gay bars, and before requesting service, they

announced that they were homosexuals. The first two bars,

disregarding the SLA's policy, served the men anyway, but when

the group tried to order drinks at Julius, they were refused.

MSNY promptly filed suit against the SLA for discrimination with

the support of the Commission on Human Rights. The “sip-in” was

covered by both The New York Times and The Village Voice and the lawsuit

307 Bruce Greenberg (Corresponding Secretary of MSNF) to Richard Leitsch (April 11, 1970).

308 Mattachine Society of New York, Newsletter Draft (1966): p. 2143

was ultimately successful.309 During April and May of 1965, Clark

Polak and the Janus Society organized a series of sit-ins at a

local restaurant in Philadelphia after the restaurant's manager

refused to serve several men and women whom he suspected “on the

basis of their appearance,” of being gay. Several of the

participants in the action were arrested, including Polak, but

coverage by the media and the distribution of fliers publicizing

the event drew crowds of more than four hundred people to the

Janus Society's sponsored lectures.310

It was with this recent history in mind that Kameny's motion

passed at the 1968 conference and ERCHO sponsored the fifth

Annual Reminder with little incident. Although this was not the

first time homophile organizations had added direct action to

their tactical repertoire, it was the first time that such an

action was backed by a regional branch of a national

confederation and it set the stage for one of the first visible

confrontations between the homophiles and the radical “gay

liberationists.”

309 Ibid.; Scott Simon, Interview with Dick Leitsch “Remembering a 1966 'Sip-In' for Gay Rights” NPR, June 28, 2008.

310 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, p. 174.144

The July 4, 1969 Annual Reminder adopted the same basic

rules that Kameny had first employed in his 1965 demonstrations

by ordering a strictly enforced dress code that emphasized “a

neat, well-groomed, good-looking, conservative appearance.” ERCHO

even formed a three person committee to “pass upon the appearance

of persons marching on the picket line and to rule off the line

those not meeting standards.”311 The fifth annual reminder was

not, however, the same as those that had proceeded it. Occurring

just weeks after the Stonewall Riots, the protestors who arrived

in Philadelphia from New York were emboldened by a week's worth

of headlines, violent clashes with police, and the stirrings of

radicalism. A 19 year old activist and future member of the Gay

Liberation Front described the resulting clash between the

homophiles and the new “liberationists”: “The New York people

311 Frank Kameny, Chairman, Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations to Eastern Homophile Organizations and Others Interested (1969); Due, at least in part to its strict enforcement of a “dress code” Richard Leitsch formally protested the 1969 annual reminder and requested that MSNY's name not appear on any of the fliers. He explained that, “We cannot support a demonstration that pretends to reflect the feelings of allhomosexuals while excluding many homosexuals from participating...Since ourmembership covers all the spectrum of gay life, we encompass drag queens, leather queens, and many, many groovy men and women whose wardrobe consistsof bell-bottoms, vests and miles of gilt chains. Rather than risk the embarrassment and insult of having some of our people rejected, we choose neither to participate nor support the demonstration...” Dick Leitsch to Barbara Gittings, June 24, 1969.

145

were much more militant than anyone else. Two of the lesbians

started to hold hands and Kameny went over and slapped their

hands. And he said, 'You can't do that! You can't do that!'312

Following Kameny's outburst, the radicals took control of the

protest: “The New York people sort of caucused and freaked out,

and I wrote on my sign—which said something like 'Equality for

Homosexuals'--'Smash Sexual Fascism'...You could feel the

militancy.”313 After several more hours of liberated protest, the

participants returned home and 1969 marked the end of the “Annual

Reminder”, the first of many events wherein the homophile

movement was visibly antiquated and criticized by the bell-bottom

clad gay liberationists.

The small victories made by ERCHO and the “militant

homophiles” like Kameny, Leitsch, and Polak were ultimately

overshadowed by the activities and advances of the gay

liberationists. But it is important to note that these first

steps often moved beyond abeyance to reflect the characteristics

of a full-fledged social movement. The Annual Reminder, in

particular, was a clear example of a sustained campaign that

312 Teal, pp. 30-31313 Ibid.

146

displayed the kind of characteristics outlined by Tilly and Wood.

“Worthiness” was clearly articulated in the conservative attire

worn by participants; “unity” was visible in the standardized

signs that were carried by protesters; “numbers,” though small,

were, nonetheless, important to conference organizers;314 and,

finally, the “commitment” of those who participated was clear.

Despite potential backlash that often resulted from self-

identifying as homosexual, participants nevertheless boldly

presented themselves as gay men and women.

-----------------------------------------------

The Dissolution of ERCHO and NACHO and the Rise of the Liberationists

By the late 1960s, minority groups were radicalizing around

the country and around the world. Students, African Americans,

and women were responding to the clarion calls of activists like

Herbert Marcuse, Stokely Carmichael, and Shulamith Firestone.315

In 1969, when the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn, the homophile

314 Press releases often boasted that “approximately 100 people participated” when, more often than not, the actual attendance was lower. Annual ReminderDay Committee, Press Release (June 30, 1966).

315 For general overviews of the activities of the New Left in the 1960s, bothat home and abroad, and the development of new forms of activism. See Martin Klimke, The Other Alliance: Student Protest in West Germany and the United States in the Global Sixties (Princeton: Princeton University Press,2010); Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and The Rise of Detente (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003).

147

movement had reached its own tipping point. Their principles and

tactical repertoire, long supported, were being called into

question by “militant homophiles” who were no longer content with

mere “assimilation” and maintaining the status quo. Fresh from

the forges of this sociopolitical malcontent, students

radicalized the gay rights movement the way they had the antiwar,

civil rights, and women's liberation movements. By the end of the

decade, the homophile movement was a shadow of its former self,

with many of its members joining the ranks of the radical gay

liberationists in the construction of a “full-fledged” social

movement. Held in November, the 1969 ERCHO meeting was, according

to Foster Gunnison, an unmitigated disaster that featured a

disruption organized by members of the GLF.316 One year later, in

1970, the annual NACHO meeting ended with a similar disruption by

a radical caucus. The era of abeyance structures was over.

On July 16, 1969, just days after the Annual Reminder had

been disturbed by members of the GLF, a meeting of the Mattachine

Society of New York encountered opposition from its newly formed

“Action Committee.” Held at the St. John's Episcopal Church in

316 Eisenbach, pp. 134-136.148

Greenwich Village (not far from the Stonewall Inn), fliers for

the meeting announced:

Homosexuals are no longer going to sit back and be apatheticpawns for every politician who comes along... It is time that the law and order crowd put a halt to the vigilante groups who would destroy the country...to preserve their delusions of virility. Whatever means we use to express our objection to the way this society deprives gay people of theRights and Liberties guaranteed to all Americans in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, we need yourhelp and ideas to make gay power a reality.317

From the beginning, the meeting's organizers seemed to welcome a

confrontation between the “old guard” homophiles and the emerging

liberationists—and they received one. Since the media had

recently been attracted to the issue of homosexuality by the

Stonewall Riots, the historic meeting was covered in Esquire

Magazine by Tom Burke.

Dick Leitsch, in a staid brown suit, strides to the front...with professional aplomb...Police brutality and heterosexual indifference must be protested, he asserts; at the same time, the gay world must retain the favor of the Establishment, especially those who make and change the laws. Homosexual acceptance will come slowly, by educating the straight community, with grace and good humor and...” Leitsch was interrupted by “a tense boy with leonine hair” who shouted “We don't want acceptance, goddamn it! We want respect! Demand it! We're through hiding in dark bars behindMafia doormen. We're going to go where straights go and do anything with each other they do and if they don't like it,

317 Teal, p. 34.149

well, FUCK THEM! Straights don't have to be ashamed of anything sexy they happen to feel like doing in public, and neither do we! We're through cringing and begging like a lotof nervous old nellies at Cherry Grove!318

In an attempt to placate this growing unrest, Madolin Cervantes

(MSNY's heterosexual treasurer) suggested that MSNY organize a

“gay vigil” that was “firm, but amicable and sweet.”319 This time,

James Fouratt, a long-haired New Left radical and friend of Abbie

Hoffman, sprang to his feet and shouted to Cervantes:

Bullshit! ...We have to radicalize, man! Why? Because as long as we accept getting fired from jobs because we are gay, or not being hired at all, or being treated like second-class citizens, we're going to remain neurotic and screwed up...Be proud of what you are, man! And if it takes riots or even guns to show them what we are, well, that's the only language that the pigs understand!320

Fouratt's speech received raucous cheers, and Leitsch tried to

regain control of the proceedings. Again, he was shouted down by

Fouratt, but this time, the crowd remained standing, shouting,

and cheering. Burke leaves his readers with an enduring image of

the homophiles overwhelmed by the cacophonous applause of the

liberationists. “Again and again, Dick Leitsch tugs...at his

318 Tom Burke, “The New Homosexuality,” Esquire (December 1969): p. 316.319 Ibid.320 Ibid.

150

clean white tie, shouting for the floor, screaming for order and

he is firmly ignored.”321

In the days following the disastrous MSNY meeting, leaflets

appeared around Greenwich Village that read “Do You Think

Homosexuals Are Revolting? You Bet Your Sweet Ass We Are! We're

going to make a place for ourselves in the revolutionary

movement. We challenge the myths that are screwing up this

society. Meeting: Thursday, July 24, 6:30pm at Alternate U – 69

West 14th Street at Sixth Avenue.”322 While little occurred at this

first meeting, a second was held on July 31 where the group

articulated its goals as such, “To examine how we are oppressed

and how we oppress ourselves. To fight for gay control of gay

businesses. To publish our own newspaper. To these and other

radical ends...”323 Drawing inspiration from the Algerian and

321 Later, in the January 6th 1970 issue of the Advocate, Madolin Cervantes composed a scathing article that lambasted the “gay militants” for damagingthe public's image of homosexuals. “Now the militant gays have come along, and by their wholly unacceptable appearance and behavior, are doing much todestroy that acceptance.” p. 7 Madolin Cervantes, “Whither The Militants?,”The Advocate 4:? (January, 1970); Curiously, MSNY rejected her piece publicly in a press release noting that “We automatically reject such statements as divisive and destructive of the common cause of all homosexuals—be they moderate, radical, or conservative.” Mattachine Society of New York (MichalKotis, President), “MSNY Rejects Its Treasurer's Views of Militants,” (1970).

322 Teal, p. 36. 323 Teal. p. 37.

151

Vietnamese National Liberation Fronts, and rejecting the coded

titles of the “Mattachine Society” and the “Daughters of

Bilitis”, this mixed gender group of radicals (some of whom were

former members of the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of

Bilitis) became the Gay Liberation Front.324

The principles and tactical repertoire of the GLF diverged

from, but were ultimately constructed upon, the structural base

of the homophile movement. One journalist explained that the GLF

was based on three particularly crucial elements. The first was

the homophile movement: with its organization of “homosexual

ideas and literature” it provided the philosophical roots” of the

new group. No less important, the African American civil rights

movement provided the new group with its tactical repertoire. The

GLF borrowed from the civil rights movement its “concept of

minority oppression,” the idea of a “group consciousness,” and

“self-pride.” Finally, the counterculture provided the GLF with

its own unique style that moved beyond the gray flannel suits and

pencil skirts of the homophiles. “The hippie movement and hip

life style. Freedom in dress codes, drugs, long hair and colorful

324 Teal, pp. 38, 45.152

clothing for males, rock music and a generally liberated outlook

toward life.”325

The earliest meetings of the GLF, influenced as they were by

the free-flowing (often inebriated) egalitarianism of the

counterculture, were frequently bogged down in seemingly endless

debate. At times, however, order was maintained long enough to

organize meaningful events like dances and demonstrations. Early

on, a successful demonstration was held outside The Village Voice to

protest the periodical's refusal to publish advertisements that

used the word “gay” equating it with a “four-letter obscenity.”

After being targeted by the GLF, The Village Voice relented and began

to print the word “gay within its pages. The confrontational wing

of the GLF, known as the “Gay Commandos,” frequently engaged in

direct action tactics that involved the public confrontation of

political figures in the presence of media representatives. Led

by Jim Owles, the Gay Commandos successfully protested a campaign

rally for the conservative Mayoral candidate Mario Procaccino.326

Often rowdy, disorganized, and lacking unity, the campaigns

325 Marcus Overseth, “Inside Look at Where We Stand,” San Francisco Free Press 1:9 (1969); Teal. pp. 49-50.

326 Leo Louis Martello, “Gay Liberators Confront N.Y. Mayoral Candidates,” Advocate 3:11 (December 1969) p. 3; Eisenbach, p. 129.

153

organized by the GLF hardly adhered to the characteristics of a

WUNC display. In an abstract way, however, these actions were,

nonetheless, indicative of a developing social movement. Given

the real possibility of negative backlash, both at the event and

to their lives afterwards, the many GLFers who participated in

these actions expressed clear “purposive commitment” to their

cause, even if the definition of that cause was relatively ill-

defined.

It was only in May 1970, months after its inaugural meeting,

two hundred GLFers met to frame the official platform for their

organization. The resulting “constitution” differed markedly from

those produced by the homophile movement. The document began with

a vague commitment to self-identification and personal

development: “Each member of GLF is committed to the full

development of her or himself, as an individual human being, and

to develop in her- or him-self pride as a Gay person in a sexist

oriented society, supporting at the same time every other

person's right to develop.”327 It went on to explain that:

GLF is committed to working for increased communication and understanding, wherever possible, between Gays and

327 Teal, pp. 154-155.154

Straights, between women and men, across racial, class and political divisions, so that all persons may relate to and be responsible to each other as human beings, and every other human being may have the right to love any other humanbeing she or he chooses, openly and without fear.328

Punctuating its platform, the GLF emphasized its connection

to other 1960s social movements, when it stated that the “GLF is

committed to liberation to all by way of a social revolution,

changing all people's heads and hearts until everyone attains the

freedom to stay out of all limiting roles and boxes and function

as a Human Being.”329 The principles and tactical repertoire

expressed here were a far cry from those used by the homophile

abeyance structures. In contrast, the GLF possessed a

decentralized leadership structure, an inclusive and open

membership, and--by directing their attention towards a “social

revolution”--a concerted campaign against targeted authorities.

Although the homophiles had been dealt a devastating public

blow by the radicals at the MSNY meeting in July, the August 28

NACHO conference in Kansas City went ahead as planned. Halfway

through the conference, however, a film was shown that depicted

the radical demonstrations and repressive tactics of the police

328 Ibid. 329 Teal, pp. 155-156.

155

at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Subsequently, members

of the “Committee on Youth,” a group chaired by the young radical

Bob Martin, were inspired to compose “A Radical Manifesto.” This

manifesto, presented to NACHO for approval, was organized into

twelve points that borrowed from the GLF's, as yet uncodified,

principles of liberationism. The first two points of the Radical

Manifesto linked the homophile movement to the struggles of other

minority groups including “the black, the feminist, the Spanish-

American, the Indian, the hippie, the young, the student, the

worker, and other victims of oppression and prejudice.”330 In the

predictable rhetoric of the 1960s, it went on to condemn “the

repressive governmental system”, “heterosexual standards of

morality”, “organized religion, business, and medicine” before

declaring that “homosexuals, as individuals and members of the

greater community, must develop homosexual ethics and esthetics

independent of, and without reference to, the mores imposed upon

heterosexuality.” To accomplish this mission reminiscent of Hay's

cultural minority theory, the Committee on Youth demanded the

“removal of all restrictions on sex between consenting persons of

330 Teal, pp. 54-55.156

any sex, of any orientation, of any age, anywhere, whether for

money or not.”331 Following this new statement of purpose, the

document briefly criticized the homophiles for patently

disregarding the movement's youth while it tried “to promote a

mythical, non-existent 'good public image.'”332 In its conclusion,

the document returned to the issue of solidarity and called for

an end to the war in Vietnam and the “continuous political

struggle” of minorities “on all fronts.”333 By framing displays of

“power and force” as the only way to affect change, the Manifesto

represented a significant departure from the message of the

assimilationists. While the difference between this new message

and the mission of the “militant homophiles” was slightly less

intense, the condemnation of building a “good public image” was,

nonetheless, untenable. In the end, the Radical Manifesto was

overwhelmingly defeated by NACHO's conservative leadership, but

Dick Leitsch, Foster Gunnison, and the homophiles faced yet

another confrontation with the radicalized liberationists just

four months later at the annual ERCHO conference.

331 Ibid.332 Ibid.333 Ibid.

157

At its annual meeting in Philadelphia on November 1 and 2 of

1969 at its annual meeting in Philadelphia, ERCHO collapsed.

Despite reservations on the part of the conservative homophile

delegates, members from the GLF were allowed to participate along

with the Student Homophile Leagues from Columbia, Cornell, and

NYU.334 After a great deal of angry debate and hostility was

exchanged by either side over the role of heterosexuals in the

organization and the position of radical publications, ERCHO

adopted a set of new organizational amendments deeply influenced

by the Gay Liberation Front:335

Resolved, that the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations considers these inalienable human rights aboveand beyond legislation: 1. Dominion over one's own body (through freedom without regard to sexual orientation, the use of birth control and abortion, and the ingestion of drugs of one's choice) 2. Freedom from society's attempts todefine and limit human sexuality, which are inherently manifested in economic, educational, religious, social, personal and legal discrimination. 3. Freedom from politicaland social persecution of all minority groups (including freedoms from unequal tax structure and judicial system, self-determination for all minority groups.336

The amendments looked similar to the Radical Manifesto that had

been proposed at the earlier NACHO meeting, but this time the

334 Teal, p. 87.335 Teal, pp. 86-87.336 Teal, p. 87.

158

liberationists were successful in passing their agenda.

Immediately following its adoption, however, ERCHO

representatives voted to “suspend the organization for one year”

in the hope that the radicals might disappear with time.337 Foster

Gunnison, present at the meeting with his now radicalized

colleague Bob Martin, was deeply disconcerted. He explained that,

while he saw utility in the militant activities of the GLF, “I

favor virtually across the board all kinds of confrontation

tactics, street demonstrations, including violence where called

for. I was thrilled with the Christopher Street uprising of

1969.”338 he was deeply concerned about the damage they might

cause to the public's perception of homosexuality and the

distraction that came from focusing on too many disparate

causes.339 This later point, in particular, would become the focus

of an internal debate in the GLF over the next few months as some

of its members sought to donate group funds in support of the

Black Panther Party.

337 Eisenbach, pp. 135-136.338 Teal, p. 89.339 Teal, pp. 89-90.

159

The homophile movement, though largely discredited and

forgotten by the Gay Liberation Front was partially preserved in

the more tempered organization known as the “Gay Activists

Alliance.” On December 21, 1969, a number of former GLF members,

disillusioned with the GLF's chaotic lack of structure and its

blind cooperation with other, often unkind, social movements,

formed the Gay Activists Alliance.340 In contrast to the GLF, the

GAA focused its attention solely on the issue of homosexual

liberation. Although still far more radical than the ERCHO/NACHO

affiliates in the homophile movement, the GAA earned the support

of many “old guard” homophiles.341 Outlining the purpose of their

organization, a pamphlet composed by the founders of the GAA

explained that the group was “a militant (though nonviolent)

homosexual civil rights organization” with membership “open to

all persons—male or female, young or old, homosexual or

heterosexual—who agree with the purposes of the organization and

who are prepared to devote time to their implementation.”342 To

340 The GAA was so concerned with distancing itself—both publicly and internally—from the GLF that it guarded against “infiltration” by the rivalgroup and drafted a clear set of organizational rules and policies that differed markedly from the haphazard structure of the GLF. Bell, pp. 17-19; Eisenbach. pp. 144-145.

341 Eisenbach, pp. 128-129.342 Eisenbach, pp. 127-128.

160

avoid the chaos and infighting that so often characterized the

GLF, the GAA was a “one-issue organization” structured around

officers and committees, but with policy decisions left to the

organization's membership. While it deviated from the often

political homophile organizations by organizing social events

such as dances, it noted that the purpose of such activities was

to “raise the political consciousness of the gay community and to

contribute to social solidarity.”343 Tactically, the GAA also

differed from the earlier homophiles through its reliance on

“confrontation politics” including public protests, disruption of

political rallies, sit-ins, and “zaps.” Although the GLF

criticized the GAA for its “authoritarian” structure, the growth

of the GAA far outpaced that of the GLF.344

In a letter dated March 2, 1970, Richard Leitsch remarked,

“I'm sick to death of ERCHO, and very impatient with NACHO. All

ERCHO seems to want to do is argue, fight, and play dirty

politics.”345 Leitsch continued his diatribe by explaining, “MSNY

is planning to start, not necessarily a counter-ERCHO, but an 343 Ibid. Laud Humphreys, Out of the Closets: The Sociology of Homosexual Liberation

(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972): pp. 124-126.344 Humphreys, p. 125. 345 Richard Leitsch to Jack Campbell (Mattachine of Cleveland) (March 2,

1970). 161

association, and affiliation, of like-minded groups who can work

together in harmony. This will include...MSNY, MSNF, DOB, a new

group in Brunswick, the student groups at Cornell, Rutgers,

Harvard, and Boston University.”346 Leitsch carefully explained

that he intended to “hand-pick” the new organization's affiliates

to avoid “fights over radicalism vs. conservatism, approaches,

personal politicking, and the like.”347 He hoped to focus the

attention of this group on “a heavy legal campaign.” He finished

his letter with more criticism of ERCHO. “I'm more than a little

irritated at all of the game playing on the Eastern and even

national level. ...There is too much fighting and jockeying for

power, and too much backstabbing. Some of us are too mature and

too serious for that crap, and we ought to get together and get

some work done, while the others fight among themselves, kill one

another, or whatever they choose to do.”348 Given the defeats that

MSNY had suffered in the last two years at the hands of the

liberationists, it is hard to say how or why Leitsch thought that

MSNY would be more successful than ERCHO in organizing a

346 Ibid.347 p. 2.348 p. 3.

162

confederation of homophile groups. Judging by this letter and

several others that he wrote around the same time, it is clear

that, through blind hope or shear will, Leitsch thought that it

still possible in 1970 to unite “mature” homophile organizations

in a concentrated legal campaign. By the end of the year,

however, that idea was finally abandoned along with the last

vestiges of the homophile movement.

Unlike its eastern regional branch, NACHO limped on for one

more year before it ultimately succumbed to the militants at its

August 26 convention in San Francisco in 1970. On Friday morning,

the GLF arrived at the meeting in force. Jim Kepner, a journalist

for the Advocate, described the resulting clash:

Under black and red flags, the GLF marched in shouting, and drove out most delegates [there had been a report that one radical had brandished a gun]. Some delegates threatened to call the police—the unpardonable sin! SIR spokesmen insistedthat the hall was rented to NACHO only and that non-delegates must behave or leave—but were welcome to meet in another room.349

After a protracted and hostile exchange, the GLF representatives

left and the conference reconvened. After the NACHO conference

had adjourned for the day, the militants returned and, together

349 Teal, p. 310; Humphreys, pp. 106-115.163

with a few conference delegates, they “passed” several “wordy

partisan resolutions, supporting the Panthers, demanding an

investigation of homosexuals killed at Dachau, and so forth...”350

According to Jim Rankin, another journalist who covered the event

for Gay Sunshine,

“This was the battle that ended the homophile movement. It began twenty or more years ago, it produced men and women ofgreat stature, it had its martyrs, it made possible to a large degree everything that a new movement is going to do. It was a noble thing. We respect it. We love those who were a part of it. They were brave and strong when it was difficult. We fear having to match their stature in our own situations. But it is now time to move on, and the ground rules and basic assumptions of that movement are no longer acceptable or effective.”351

Rankin, perhaps more than many at the time, recognized the

importance of the homophile movement and the debt that the

liberationists owed to their ancestors. Any yet, the GLF, though

clearly rejecting the principle of “worthiness”, had engaged in a

“UNC” display against its elders. In an organized group of

committed individuals unified, literally and figuratively, under

a common banner, the GLF ushered in a new era. The times had

changed; the era of the homophile abeyance structures was coming

to a close and the era of gay liberation had just begun

350 Teal, p. 310; Humphreys, p. 108.351 Teal, p. 311.

164

The transition between these periods was, on the whole,

protracted and unexpected. As the “homophile militants” in ERCHO

gradually incorporated more direct action into the tactical

repertoire of their movement, it must have seemed possible that

mobilization would continue gradually over the coming decades.

The Stonewall Riots, while clearly emphasized too within the

historical narrative, were nonetheless an important signal that

the time was right for “white hot mobilization.” Seizing upon

this call to action, the GLF and the GAA organized a new movement

that engaged in concerted campaigns against target authorities

using more militant tactics and WUNC displays.

165

Abeyance Across the Pond-----------------------

The Transnational TurnReturning briefly to where we began, the historiography of

the gay rights movement has expanded recently to explore

homophile organizations outside of the United States.352 This

unprecedented research has revealed the existence of

international homophile abeyance structures that often

communicated with their American counterparts. Like the

Mattachine Society, these foreign abeyance structures were also

criticized and ultimately rejected by emerging liberationists and

pushed into obscurity.

352 Judith Schuyf and Andre Krouwel published on the first annual International Congress for Sexual Equality that was held in Amsterdam in 1951. Judith Schuyf and Andre Krouwel, “The Dutch Lesbian and Gay Movement:The Politics of Accommodation” in The Global Emergence of Gay and Lesbian Politics: National Imprints of a Worldwide Movement, ed. Barry D. Adam (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999): 162; A more detailed study of the ICSE was subsequently produced by Leila J. Rupp, "The Persistence of Transnational Organizing: The Case of the Homophile Movement," The American Historical Review 116: 4 (2011): 1014-1039; In his study of homosexuality and gay rights in Germany, Clayton Whisnant noted the existence of small homophile groups in the 1950s and 60s. Clayton J., Whisnant, Male Homosexuality in West Germany: Between Persecution and Freedom,1945-69 (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): specifically pp. 64-111; The presence of similar Italian groups has been briefly examined by Peter M. Nardi, “The Globalization of the Gay and Lesbian Socio-Political Movement: Some Observations about Europe with a Focus on Italy” Sociological Perspectives, 41:3 (1998): 567-586; Finally, Weeks' text on the Wolfenden Report and legal reform in Britain, referenced earlier, remains one of the most authoritative texts on the British experience.

166

One of the most detailed monographs that has emerged from

this transnational turn is Julian Jackson's study of the French

homophile group, Association Arcadie. The brainchild of an ex-

seminarian and school teacher, Arcadie was founded by Andre

Baudry in 1954 after the inaugural publication of its eponymous

journal Arcadie. In the years before he founded the homophile

organization, Baudry had participated in, and was clearly

inspired by, the operations of an even earlier Swiss homophile

group known as Der Kreis (or 'The Circle').353 In the early 1950s,

Baudry composed and published a number of pieces for the group's

multilingual publication and advised its staff on homosexual life

in France.354 In May 1952, Baudry proposed a meeting for Parisian

subscribers of Der Kreis to discuss their common position and the

possibility of a native French movement.355 Although the first

meeting of Baudry's group drew in only a few individuals,

353 Julian Jackson, Living in Arcadia: Homosexuality, Politics, and Morality in France from the Liberation to AIDS. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009): pp. 65-67.

354 Der Kreis emerged in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War by drawing on the pioneering research of the sexologist and activist, Magnus Hirschfeld. According to one of Der Kreis' editors, Baudry was a “pillar” of the society in the early 1950s. Jackson, p. 67.

355 Ibid.; Adam, p. 71.167

membership grew over the course of several months and—by 1953—the

still unnamed group boasted some 200 members.356

As his organization grew, Baudry withdrew from Der Kreis,

citing its lackluster French content; in 1953 he circulated a

memo that detailed his organizational vision and the necessity of

purposive commitment. The memo stated: “France is entering

alongside other European nations, into a struggle for true

EQUALITY...We are here, ready to serve our cause with courage,

prudence, discretion, and dignity, and without pointless

provocation.” The piece went on to demand the reader's immediate

subscription to a forthcoming “French Review.” “To subscribe is a

DUTY for everyone in this Great Community that has existed

throughout the centuries and throughout all nations. To refuse to

subscribe is to refuse to serve our minority, which contains

those who suffer and those who feel abandoned, but which could be

the strongest in the world if we only dared and knew how to

unite.”357 As Harry Hay had done several years earlier and

thousands of miles away, Baudry minoritized France's homosexual

population and articulated the idea of a “community” not confined

356 Jackson, pp. 67, 72.357 Jackson, p. 73.

168

by national borders. Reflecting on this transnationalism, Jackson

noted, “Arcadie was part of a shared moment in the history of

homosexuality in which many organizations throughout the west

defended a common vision of homosexuality.”358 Though compelling,

Jackson's assertion of a “common vision” may be a bit extreme.359

Although Arcadie shared some basic principles and structural

elements with its Mattachine cousins, the tactical repertoire

that it adopted was directed inward, toward social solidarity,

rather than outward, like the assimilationists' policies of

public education and the homophile militants' political actions.

Like the early Mattachine Society, Arcadie possessed a

centralized power structure that allowed it to endure over a

particularly long period of time. According to Baudry's close

associate Michel Duchein, “From the start and right until the

end, the personality of Baudry dominated, completely,

absolutely...Arcadie was created by Baudry, run by Baudry, and

dissolved by Baudry.”360 This authoritarianism had a clear impact

358 Jackson, p. 12. 359 David Churchill contested that Dorr Legg, the founding editor of ONE Inc,

found “little open evidence of public goals” when he visited Arcadie in thelate 1950s. David S. Churchill, “Transnationalism and Homophile Political Culture in the Postwar Decades,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 15:1 (2009): p. 42.

360 Jackson, p. 58.169

on Arcadie's goals. Forever influenced by his seminarian past,

Baudry often railed against the perceived lechery of France's

early gay subculture and sought to change it through “dignified”

social events.361 In 1952 he explained, “I am profoundly convinced

that there is more and more of a degradation in this life...Far

from me to want a holy homosexuality, free of carnality, out of

time and space, but how I would like not to be sullied by the

herd, or sullied when I meet these boys who have nothing of boys

about them.”362 Like its American counterparts, the Association

Arcadie benefited—at least in part—from its strong leadership and

continued to operate into the 1980s under Baudry’s watchful, if

slightly moralistic, eye.

Since homosexuality was not explicitly criminalized in

France during the 1950s, there was less need for the kind of

institutionalized secrecy practiced by the Mattachine Society.363

361 Jackson, p. 61.362 Jackson, p. 67. 363 Jackson pp. 48-50, 99-100; Though legal measures were not in place that

specifically criminalized homosexuality, Baudry often had to defend Arcadie against the conservatism of the general public and the legal system. Defending his publication from state censorship in 1956, Baudry hired the famous lawyer Paul Baudet who argued that articles in Arcadie displayed a “high moral and literary tone” and that the organization was “not a kind offreemasonry” but a group that discussed issues shared by like-minded people. Jackson, p. 85.

170

Although articles published in Arcadie were often written under

pseudonyms364 to protect the author from persecution by the

general public, Baudry encouraged the open discussion of

homosexuality free from the constraints of anonymity. Commenting

on the importance of open meetings, he even noted the importance

of occasional public education:

Manifesting oneself in public...is sometimes necessary. It seems to be useful to inform, to teach, to present homosexuality, above all without accompanying it with biblical or sociological condemnations while not of course covering it in flowers either...it exists. That is all. It has its place in life. It has the right to be respected and to be studied...I do not admit this idea of silence, of prudishness, of lies, of fear.365

If not by design, Arcadian “culture” was relatively exclusive in

practice. As Jackson noted, “To join the Arcadian 'family', one

first had to find it. The greatest obstacle at the beginning was

invisibility.”366 Since its early meetings took place wherever

Baudry could find space, Arcadie could be illusive to aspiring

members. In April 1957, however, the organization made its first

steps out of the proverbial closet when it acquired its first

364 In the first issue of Arcadie, half of the contributors wrote under pseudonyms. Jackson, p. 74-75.

365 Jackson, p. 71. 366 Jackson, p. 135.

171

permanent club on the Rue Beranger to be used for lectures,

films, exhibitions, theatrical events and, perhaps more

popularly, for dancing.367 Still—even in possession of this

dedicated social space and the relatively minimal legal

restrictions against homosexuality in France—Baudry managed the

finances of the group's new club through a shell company

(bizarrely titled “Literary and Scientific Club of the Latin

Countries”) in order to avoid persecution by the general

public.368

Throughout its history, the American homophile movement was

aware of Arcadie's existence. The back cover of the homophile

publication ONE included contact information for major European

homophile publications including Arcadie, which was billed as a

“literary and scientific monthly with infrequent photos and

drawings.”369 The Rue Beranger address and contact information for

Acradie was listed, along with other European groups, in the 1965

ECHO program.370 And, at times, Baudry even contributed to

American homophile publications.371 More generally, in September 367 Jackson, pp. 151, 154.368 Jackson, pp. 91-92. 369 See, for example, ONE, 4:8, December 1956: pp. 39-40. 370 East Coast Homophile Organizations, 1965 Conference Program (1965): p. 10.371 Baudry, Andre, “The Homosexual in France,” ONE 3:2 (February, 1955) p.

172

1953, ONE's business manager William Lambert noted in a letter

that his magazine had subscribers in France as well as a number

of other countries.372

Eventually, however, Arcadie also fell victim to militant

youth. According to Jackson, the “Stonewall of French

homosexuality” occurred on March 1971, when a panel of experts

(which Baudry was a part of) was gathered to debate the “painful

problem” of homosexuality. During the debate, activists seized

the opportunity and disrupted the proceedings by demanding

“liberty” and yelling “Fight!” Shortly thereafter these militants

formed the more radical group known as the Homosexual

Revolutionary Action Front. As was the case in the United States,

former members of the Association Arcadie joined the new radicals

in their efforts to press for civil and social equality.373

By adopting the characteristics of an abeyance structure,

the Association Arcadie offers additional support for Taylor's

theory. The initial call to action, issued by the centralized

leadership structure manifest in Andre Baudry, demanded a

21-23.372 Report. SAC Los Angeles to Director of FBI. “Changed The Mattachine

Society; ONE Inc.” 12/31/53. 100-403326-7. 373 Jackson, pp. 183-184.

173

purposive commitment from potential members. In exchange, the

organization provided solidarity in a national subculture

centered on the publication of the “academic” Arcadie journal. As

time goes on and more monographs are added to the historiography

of the gay rights movement, homophile organizations may yet be

remembered not only as important features of the American

experience, but also as an essential component of a transnational

movement.

-------------------------------------Closing Comments

In 1970, Bayard Rustin delivered a commencement address at

the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. In this speech, Rustin

theorized that, “History is a dialectical process. It consists of

alternating periods of movement and stagnation, of action and

reaction, of tremendous hope and enthusiasm…followed by a

descent.”374 When viewed through the lens of social movement

theory, the history of the gay rights movement supports this

theory.

When Harry Hay founded the Mattachine Society in 1951, he

had ambitious political goals and grand theories of cultural

374 D'Emilio, Lost Prophet, p. 477.174

minoritization. Over the next three years, the organization he

developed brought hope to hundreds of gay men and women inside

and outside the United States. In 1953, the “Lavender Scare”

forced the Mattachine Society to reorganize and ease itself into

the “reactionary” role of an abeyance structure. Dressed in their

iconic grey flannel suits and pencil skirts, the men and women of

the post-1953 Society sponsored public education programs and

cooperated with academics on medical and psychiatric research

with the hope that they could cultivate a more accepting future.

Impatient with the “slow progress” of the assimilationists,

homophile organizations on the east coast (including the

Mattachine Society of New York, the Mattachine Society of

Washington, and the Janus Society) added direct action to the

tactical repertoire of their movement. The actions of these

“homophile militants” over the course of the 1960s and their

formation of regional and national networks of communication

(like ECHO, NACHO, and ERCHO) laid the groundwork for a more

radical movement. It was within the tumultuous sociopolitical

climate of the 1960s that the Stonewall Riots occurred. From 1969

to 1971, the transformation from abeyance to full-fledged social

175

movement was finally completed. The new liberation movement, led

by radicals within the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists

Alliance fought, not for integration or assimilation, but for

power and liberation.

Had this new generation of activists looked more closely at

their recent history, they might have appreciated how far they

had come in the space of just a few decades. To paraphrase the

sociologist Verta Taylor, the gay liberation movement did not

develop spontaneously within a vacuum; rather, it built upon the

principles and tactical repertoire developed by the generation

that preceded it. Far from standing meekly on the sidelines, the

homophiles of the 1950s dared to speak and act in concerted

campaigns despite repressive laws and social pressure to conform.

It was through these lines of communication and cooperation that

the Mattachine Society of Washington (and its fellow ERCHO

affiliates) was able to draw homophiles from several states

together for its fifth Annual Reminder. Such direct actions were

“perfected” later by the gay liberationists in their use of

marches, pickets, and “zaps,” but these tactics began with the

homophile movement. Beyond their organizational roots, the men

176

and women who participated in the new “gay liberation” movement

often possessed personal histories of activism that stretched

back to the 1950s. Although both MSW and MSNY ultimately

dissolved in the 1970s, Frank Kameny, Dick Leitsch, Foster

Gunnison Jr., and Bob Martin continued to fight for civil and

social equality as members or supporters of the new liberation

organizations.

For good reason, historians often study subjects that they

are not personally connected to in order to maintain their

professional “objectivity.” I am not one of those historians. I

have a vested interest in my subject; every day, I live my life

influenced by the actions of the individuals whom I study. When I

came out of the closet six years ago today (5/5/2014), I was not

rejected by my parents, my relatives, or my classmates. I was

accepted for who I am. Today, I am able to submit a master’s

thesis that, just fifty years ago, might have been labeled

“inappropriate” or “obscene” merely for discussing what Oscar

Wilde called “the love that dare not speak its name.”

More generally, gay men and lesbians are now free to marry

in seventeen of the fifty United States, “curative” therapies and

177

associated psychiatric quackery has been thoroughly discredited

by the American Psychological Association, and discrimination

based on sexual orientation in the work place has been curtailed.

Even religious institutions have tempered slightly since the

1950s, with a number of denominations opening their doors to gay

men and women. We owe these advances to the homophiles and the

liberationists who fought for the rights that were denied to them

by institutions that claimed to support their interests. In the

sixty-three years since Harry Hay founded the Mattachine Society,

we have come a long way and learned a great deal, but there is

still much to be done.

Within and outside the gay community, knowledge of our

history is minimal. The generation of gay men and women that grew

up in the wake of the AIDs crisis were left with even fewer

living ancestors than the generation before. General history

textbooks, notoriously slow to adopt additions to their

narratives, often exclude the efforts of the Mattachine Society

and the Gay Liberation Front. Outside of the academy, homophobia

provides the gay community with a persistent enemy that claims

the lives of men and women every year. Globally, and of even more

178

pressing importance, gay men and women are still subject to the

death penalty in ten countries.

But this too can change. If we have learned anything from

the history of the gay rights movement it is that by cooperating

with one another and confronting injustice we can guide social

and political action. In time, the global community will put

pressure on those governments that institutionalize hatred and

bigotry and homophobia in the United States and abroad will

gradually dissipate. Finally, students, educators, and scholars

will add to this historiography and the gay rights movement will

find its rightful place in the narrative of American history.

179

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Primary Sources-------------------------------------

MSNY Archive Documents

Author's Note: Documents listed in this section were drawn from the MattachineSociety of New York's records available on microfilm through the Library of Congress (“The Gay Rights Movement--Mattachine Society of New York, Inc.,” Microfilm 2011/160). A portion of the author's record of “reel numbers” was, unfortunately, lost before the assembly of this bibliography. Where possible, the reel number has been listed, but some are missing. Multiple entries from the same author have been organized chronologically.

Annnual Reminder Day Committee. “Press Release.” June 30, 1966. (Reel 9)

Clark, Nancy. Report of ECHO Meeting. November 6, 1965 (Reel 9).

Committee on Unity. “Resolutions Recommended to the Conference for Adoption.” August 14, 1968 (Reel 8).

de Dion, Albert to Dale Lane. July 26, 1960.

Donaldson, Stephen. Recommended NAHC By-Laws. August 13, 1966. (Reel 8)

Donaldson Stephen. Comments on the By-Laws Proposed by the Unity Committee. August 13, 1966. (Reel 8)

Donaldson, Stephen to Foster Gunnison Jr. March 29, 1967.

Donaldson, Stephen to Foster Gunnison Jr., April 11, 1967.

Donaldson, Stephen. “Minutes of the First Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Eastern Regional Homophile Conference.” April 13, 1968.

Donaldson, Stephen. “Article 16 of ERCHO By-Laws (Credentials Program).” February 1, 1970.

East Coast Homophile Organizations. “Minutes of the First Meeting.” February, 6th 1965.

East Coast Homophile Organizations. Brochure. September 24-26, 1965.

East Coast Homophile Organizations. “The 1965 Conference of the East Coast Homophile Organizations.” Undated (Reel 9).

Eastern Regional Homophile Conference. “Homophile Groups Convene in New York Decide to Promote Political Action by Homosexuals--Oppose Reagan Candidacy.” January, 1968.

186

Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations. “Report of the New York Cooperation Committee.” July 26, 1968.

Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations. “Address List (Not ForPublic).” October 27, 1968.

Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations. 4th Annual Reminder Day Flyer. 1968.

Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations. 5th Annual Reminder Day Flyer. 1969.

Frazer, Joan. “A History of ECHO.” ECHO Conference Brochure. 1964 (Reel 9).

Frazer, Joan. “A History of ECHO.” ECHO Conference Brochure. 1965 (Reel 9).

Greenberg, Bruce (Corresponding Secretary of MSNF) to Richard Leitsch. April 11, 1970.

Gunnison Jr., Foster. Annotated business card. 1965 (Reel 9).

Gunnison Jr., Foster to Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin. February 7, 1967.

Gunnison Jr., Foster. “Credentials Planning Program, Discussion Bulletin #4.” March 6, 1967.

Gunnison Jr., Foster to Stephan Donaldson, March 21, 1967.

Hodges, Julian to Garfield Nichol. August 10, 1965 (Reel 9).

Kameny, Frank. East Coast Homophile Organizations Treasurer's Report. April 3,1965.

Kameny, Frank Chairman, Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizationsto Eastern Homophile Organizations and Others Interested. 1969.

King, Robert et. al. 1965 ECHO Conference Proceedings. 1965 (Reel 9).

Leitsch, Dick to Mr. Bradley, Hotel New Yorker. March 5, 1965 (Reel 9).

Leitsch, Dick to Sam Overton. The Village Voice. March 11, 1965 (Reel 9).

Leitsch, Dick to Tom Kahn. July 7, 1965.

Leitsch, Dick to Robert Koch. July 28, 1965 (Reel 9).

187

Leitsch, Dick. Handwritten Concluding Remarks. September, 1965 (Reel 9).

Leitsch, Dick to Barbara Gittings. June 24, 1969.

Leitsch, Dick to Jack Campbell (Mattachine of Cleveland). March 2, 1970.

Long, Jr., Howard W. Advertising Director, National Review to Glenn Raymond, Advertising Director, East Coast Homophile Organizations (March 26, 1965). (Reel 9)

The Mattachine Society of New York. Constitution and By-Laws. March 14, 1962 (Reel 9).

The Mattachine Society of New York to The Pig in the Poke, March 1st 1964.

The Mattachine Society of New York. Call Logs. August 1965--December 4, 1965.

The Mattachine Society of New York to The Members and Friends of MSNY. 1965.

The Mattachine Society of New York. “Newsletter Draft.” 1966 (Reel 8)

The Mattachine Society of New York (Michal Kotis, President). “MSNY Rejects Its Treasurer's Views of Militants.” 1970. (Reel 8)

The Mattachine Society of Washington. The Constitution of the Mattachine Society of Washington. August 27, 1963 (Reel 9).

The Mattachine Society of Washington. “Why Are Homosexuals Picking the U.S. Civil Service Commission?” 1965.

The Mattachine Society of Washington. “News Release: Homosexuals to Picket Pentagon.” July 29, 1965.

The Mattachine Society of Washington. “Information Bulletin re: State Department Protest.” August, 1965.

Raymond, Glenn to Classified Advertising Department. The New Republic. March 12, 1965.

Snow, J. Hudson to Mattachine Society of New York. August 16, 1965 (Reel 9).-------------------------------------

FBI Documents

Author's Note: A full record of the FBI's files on the Mattachine Society are available online at http://vault.fbi.gov/mattachine-society.

SAC San Francisco to Director of FBI. “The Mattachine Foundation aka The

188

Mattachine Society.” 7/14/1953. 100-403320-obscured.

SAC Los Angeles to Director of FBI. “The Mattachine Society.” 12/31/53. 100-403326-7

Report. SAC Los Angeles to Director of FBI. “Changed The Mattachine Society; ONE Inc.” 12/31/53. 100-403326-7.

-------------------------------------Periodicals

Authors Note: Due to the occasionally incomplete records of EBSCOhost, some articles were not accompanied by page numbers.

Adkins, Warren, Kay Tobin, and Barbara Gittings. “Report ECHO '64: Parts 1-3” The Ladder. 9:4. January 1965: p. 5.

Adkins, Warren, Kay Tobin, and Barbara Gittings. “Report ECHO '64: Part 4” TheLadder. 9:5/6. February/March 1965: pp. 13-17.

“Advertisement.” New York Times. September 23, 1963: p. 26

Associated Press. “Pickets Demand Fair Treatment for Homosexuals.” The Sunday Star. May 30, 1965.

Bart, Peter. “War Role Sought for Homosexuals.” The New York Times. April 17, 1966: p. 12.

Baudry, Andre. “The Homosexual in France.” ONE. 3:2. February, 1955: pp. 21-23

Burke, Tom. “The New Homosexuality.” Esquire. December 1969: p. 316.

Cervantes, Madolin. “Whither The Militants?” The Advocate. 4:?. January, 1970: pp. 4, 7.

Cory, Donald Webster, and John P. LeRoy. “The ECHO of a Growing Movement.” ONE. 12:1. January 1964: p. 25

Daniels, David L. “Homophile Diaspora” ONE Magazine. 9:6. June, 1961: p. 9.

“East Coast Homophile Organizations Discuss Civil Rights.” ONE. 12:11. November, 1964: p. 26.

Gunnison Jr., Foster. “Logic and the Ethics of Sex.” The Homosexual Citizen. 1:12.December 1966: pp. 13-17.

Gunnison Jr., Foster. “The Hidden Bias: The Homophile Movement and Law Reform.” The Homosexual Citizen. 2:3. March, 1967: pp. 11-12.

189

“Homosexuals Ask Candidates' Ideas: Seek Views on Penalties--'Bill of Rights' Urged.” New York Times. August 19, 1968.

Legg, Dorr. “One Midwinter Institute: A Report by W.Dorr Legg.” ONE. 9:4. April 1961: p. 5.

Lyon, Phyllis and Del Martin. “The Homosexual Citizen in the Great Society.” The Ladder. 10:4 January 1966: p. 9.

MacA, I. “Highlights from East Coast Homophile Organizations Conference Speeches.” Tangents. 1:2. November 1965: p. 12.

Martello, Leo Louis. “Gay Liberators Confront N.Y. Mayoral Candidates.” Advocate. 3:11. December 1969.

Martin, Del. “No To NACHO: Why DOB Cannot Belong Legally.” The Ladder. 13:11/12.August 1969: p. 2.

ONE, 4:8, December 1956: pp. 39-40.

ONE. 5:4. April 1957: p. 24.

“Other Organizations and Their Work.” The Mattachine Review. 10:4-9. April, 1964.

Overseth, Marcus. “Inside Look at Where We Stand.” San Francisco Free Press. 1:9. 1969.

Schumach, Murray. “Columbia Charters Homosexual Group.” New York Times. May 3, 1967.

Shotwell, Jody. “ECHO Convention '63.” The Ladder. 8:3. December 1, 1963: p. 8.

Shotwell, Jody. “East Coast Homophile Organizations Discuss the Great Society.” Tangents 1:2. November 1965: p. 10.

Tobin, Kay. “Picketing: The Impact & The Issues.” The Ladder. 9:12. 1965: pp. 4-5

United Press International. “Pickets Call Nation Unfair to Deviates.” The Washington Post. May 30, 1965.

White, Jean. “Homophile Groups Argue Civil Liberties.” The Washington Post. October 11, 1964: p. B10

-------------------------------------Other

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“East Coast Homophile Organizations Preconference Report.” in Resources for Research on Regional Organizations in the 1960s. The Rainbow History Project. http://www.rainbowhistory.org/html/echo.htm

Gittings, Barbara. “Minutes of Eastern Regional Homophile Conference.” The Rainbow History Project. http://www.rainbowhistory.org/pdf/echo1964.pdf

Gittings, Barbara to “Friends”. January 1970. in Resources for Research on Regional Organizations in the 1960s. The Rainbow History Project http://www.rainbowhistory.org/pdf/erchoinvitation.pdf.

Kameny, Frank. “'Gay Is Good' Resolution Adopted Unanimously by the NACHO.” August 1968. in Resources for Research on Regional Organizations in the 1960s. The Rainbow History Project http://www.rainbowhistory.org/html/echo.htm.

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Photographic Appendix

Window of the Stonewall Inn after the riots (1969)

The Mattachine Society's Founding Fathers (year unknown)Harry Hay (upper left), then (l–r) Konrad Stevens, Dale Jennings, Rudi

Gernreich, Stan Witt, Bob Hull, Chuck Rowland (in glasses), Paul Bernard.

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Photo by James Gruber

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1965 ECHO Program Cover

1965 ECHO ConferenceKneeling at far left: Julian Hodges next to Dick Leitsch; Kneeling at far

right: Dick Gayer. Standing: Second from Left, Clark Polak; fourth fromleft, Shirley Willer; fifth from left, Jack Nichols; on Nichols' right,

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Bill Beardemphl; Ssecond from right, Frank Kameny; fourth from right, BobBasker (founder of Mattachine Midwest)

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Dick Leitsch and Barbara Gittings picketing in 1965 Frank Kameny in Washington (circa 1970)

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Bob Martin by Robert Giard (1996) Foster Gunnison Jr. with his everpresent cigar (circa 1970)

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Members of MSNY being refused service at the Julius sip-in

The Gay Activist Alliance at the 1970 Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade

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The Gay Liberation Front Marching in Times Square (1969)

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