Hugh McLeod
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199298259
- eISBN:
- 9780191711619
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199298259.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter discusses the sexual revolution, gay liberation movement, ‘second wave feminism’, and changes in family life that had a significant impact on religion. The 1960s and early 1970s were a ...
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This chapter discusses the sexual revolution, gay liberation movement, ‘second wave feminism’, and changes in family life that had a significant impact on religion. The 1960s and early 1970s were a time of crisis for the churches in most Western countries. Of the changes in this period in the field of sex, gender, and the family, those that had an impact on the largest numbers of people were the increasing focus of life on the home and the nuclear family, the influence of the ‘companionate marriage’ ideal, and the declining importance of the neighbourhood and of customs enforced by pressure from neighbours and extended families. The Women's Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements exercised a powerful influence, but on much smaller numbers of people, revolutionizing the thinking of those who joined, becoming for many of them a complete way of life, and often placing attachments to religion or the churches under severe strain.Less
This chapter discusses the sexual revolution, gay liberation movement, ‘second wave feminism’, and changes in family life that had a significant impact on religion. The 1960s and early 1970s were a time of crisis for the churches in most Western countries. Of the changes in this period in the field of sex, gender, and the family, those that had an impact on the largest numbers of people were the increasing focus of life on the home and the nuclear family, the influence of the ‘companionate marriage’ ideal, and the declining importance of the neighbourhood and of customs enforced by pressure from neighbours and extended families. The Women's Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements exercised a powerful influence, but on much smaller numbers of people, revolutionizing the thinking of those who joined, becoming for many of them a complete way of life, and often placing attachments to religion or the churches under severe strain.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804773997
- eISBN:
- 9780804777834
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804773997.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter offers a detailed description on Anglo-American Gay Liberation. Gay Liberation was the third of the triad of militant late-1960s movements grounded in the retrieval and affirmation of ...
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This chapter offers a detailed description on Anglo-American Gay Liberation. Gay Liberation was the third of the triad of militant late-1960s movements grounded in the retrieval and affirmation of the self. The challenge to conventional psychological diagnosis and therapy by R. D. Laing was the Anglo-American counterculture's most explicit legacy to the gay movement. The Gay Liberation movement in the States and, recently, in Britain, has attached onto Black Power rhetoric while investigating a separatism that was motivated by the logic of identity politics and a defensive reaction to the prejudice. Gay Lib in London closely covered and replicated tactics and modes of the New York, L.A., and San Francisco movements. It is observed that the reconstruction of the gay self in the late twentieth century was as much a matter of “performance discourse” as manifesto argument and political lobbying.Less
This chapter offers a detailed description on Anglo-American Gay Liberation. Gay Liberation was the third of the triad of militant late-1960s movements grounded in the retrieval and affirmation of the self. The challenge to conventional psychological diagnosis and therapy by R. D. Laing was the Anglo-American counterculture's most explicit legacy to the gay movement. The Gay Liberation movement in the States and, recently, in Britain, has attached onto Black Power rhetoric while investigating a separatism that was motivated by the logic of identity politics and a defensive reaction to the prejudice. Gay Lib in London closely covered and replicated tactics and modes of the New York, L.A., and San Francisco movements. It is observed that the reconstruction of the gay self in the late twentieth century was as much a matter of “performance discourse” as manifesto argument and political lobbying.
Emily K. Hobson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520279056
- eISBN:
- 9780520965706
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520279056.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Between 1969 and 1973, gay liberationists began to define radical alliances as central to sexual liberation. Gay men drew on Black radicalism, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and other causes to ...
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Between 1969 and 1973, gay liberationists began to define radical alliances as central to sexual liberation. Gay men drew on Black radicalism, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and other causes to analyze anti-gay oppression and to draw analogies between sexuality and race. They pursued solidarity with the Black Panther Party and defined gayness as a means to resist U.S. militarism. They also distinguished leftist gay liberation from a different politics termed gay nationalism, as by opposing a gay nationalist scheme to colonize California's Alpine County — a project gay leftists argued would replicate capitalism, imperialism, and anti-gay oppression. In contrast to such proposals, Bay Area gay radicals organized gay solidarity with a multiracial and socialist left.Less
Between 1969 and 1973, gay liberationists began to define radical alliances as central to sexual liberation. Gay men drew on Black radicalism, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and other causes to analyze anti-gay oppression and to draw analogies between sexuality and race. They pursued solidarity with the Black Panther Party and defined gayness as a means to resist U.S. militarism. They also distinguished leftist gay liberation from a different politics termed gay nationalism, as by opposing a gay nationalist scheme to colonize California's Alpine County — a project gay leftists argued would replicate capitalism, imperialism, and anti-gay oppression. In contrast to such proposals, Bay Area gay radicals organized gay solidarity with a multiracial and socialist left.
Lucy Robinson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719074349
- eISBN:
- 9781781701591
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719074349.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
The history of homosexuality has often presented gay activism as spontaneously erupting in a fit of excitement at the Stonewall Riots in June 1969. The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in New York City was ...
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The history of homosexuality has often presented gay activism as spontaneously erupting in a fit of excitement at the Stonewall Riots in June 1969. The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in New York City was formed in reaction to the Stonewall Riots, but the Front took its political inspiration from the wider counter-culture, feminism, black power and anti-war, anti-psychiatry and free Speech movements. The GLF announced itself through three major campaigns; the defence of Louis Eakes which tackled the legal oppression experienced by lesbians and gay men, demonstrations against the evangelical National Festival of Light which challenged religious oppression and GLF's campaign against Dr Reuben's book Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Sex but Were to Afraid to Ask, which opposed oppression by medical institutions. It was when the GLF tried to act on the third liberational stage, to Change the World, that it came most directly into conflict with both the existing homosexual reform movement, particularly the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, and the Trotskyite Left.Less
The history of homosexuality has often presented gay activism as spontaneously erupting in a fit of excitement at the Stonewall Riots in June 1969. The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in New York City was formed in reaction to the Stonewall Riots, but the Front took its political inspiration from the wider counter-culture, feminism, black power and anti-war, anti-psychiatry and free Speech movements. The GLF announced itself through three major campaigns; the defence of Louis Eakes which tackled the legal oppression experienced by lesbians and gay men, demonstrations against the evangelical National Festival of Light which challenged religious oppression and GLF's campaign against Dr Reuben's book Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Sex but Were to Afraid to Ask, which opposed oppression by medical institutions. It was when the GLF tried to act on the third liberational stage, to Change the World, that it came most directly into conflict with both the existing homosexual reform movement, particularly the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, and the Trotskyite Left.
Lucy Robinson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719074349
- eISBN:
- 9781781701591
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719074349.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
Punk and Rock Against Racism took on the liberation movements' emphasis on culture and lifestyle. The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) had not helped to build a world-wide revolution. For all intents and ...
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Punk and Rock Against Racism took on the liberation movements' emphasis on culture and lifestyle. The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) had not helped to build a world-wide revolution. For all intents and purposes, it appeared that many of the original aims of gay liberation ‘[could] be gained this side of socialism’. This chapter looks at what gay activists did instead of the third liberational stage. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, post-GLF organisations took on the self-conscious role of discerning ‘what went wrong?’ in the liberation years and what opportunities there were now for gay left politics. Groups such as the Gay Activist Alliance and the Gay Workers Movement continued to work to unite gay activism with the Left, alongside the Gay Left Collective's more theoretical stance. The Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) explored the lessons learnt from lesbian and gay politics and tried to relate them to a different, more challenging, sexual identity. Meanwhile, other gay activists edged closer to the mainstream, for example by supporting the Greater London Council.Less
Punk and Rock Against Racism took on the liberation movements' emphasis on culture and lifestyle. The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) had not helped to build a world-wide revolution. For all intents and purposes, it appeared that many of the original aims of gay liberation ‘[could] be gained this side of socialism’. This chapter looks at what gay activists did instead of the third liberational stage. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, post-GLF organisations took on the self-conscious role of discerning ‘what went wrong?’ in the liberation years and what opportunities there were now for gay left politics. Groups such as the Gay Activist Alliance and the Gay Workers Movement continued to work to unite gay activism with the Left, alongside the Gay Left Collective's more theoretical stance. The Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) explored the lessons learnt from lesbian and gay politics and tried to relate them to a different, more challenging, sexual identity. Meanwhile, other gay activists edged closer to the mainstream, for example by supporting the Greater London Council.
Ryan Powell
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226634234
- eISBN:
- 9780226634401
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226634401.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gay and Lesbian Studies
This chapter looks at a strand of seventies gay hardcore porn films that operated as a site for gay liberation politics and philosophy. It considers how elements such as music, spatiality, and ...
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This chapter looks at a strand of seventies gay hardcore porn films that operated as a site for gay liberation politics and philosophy. It considers how elements such as music, spatiality, and performance are organized within utopian frameworks meant to elaborate the sociosexual potentials of gay liberation, premised on new ways of situating popular hardcore sex tropes in relation to couple, group and public formation. The chapter shows how hardcore tropes such as the come shot and what Linda Williams has called “maximum visibility” are further mediated to work within a gay liberationist ethos that emphasizes polymorphous perversity, the socializing capacities of non-monogamy, and activities that eschew divisions between public and private space. This chapter also considers how the cinematic spaces of gay hardcore and actual spaces, such as the porn theater and the bathhouse, may operate in homologous relation to one another in how they orchestrate sociosexual activities. It explores Boys in the Sand (1971) within the context of both black power and gay liberation movement activities of the early 1970s, alongside the diptych L.A. Plays Itself/Sex Garage (1972), the agitprop of Jean-Claude Van Itallie’s “The Office” from American Cream (1972), and Joe Gage’s popular “Working Man Trilogy” (1976-79).Less
This chapter looks at a strand of seventies gay hardcore porn films that operated as a site for gay liberation politics and philosophy. It considers how elements such as music, spatiality, and performance are organized within utopian frameworks meant to elaborate the sociosexual potentials of gay liberation, premised on new ways of situating popular hardcore sex tropes in relation to couple, group and public formation. The chapter shows how hardcore tropes such as the come shot and what Linda Williams has called “maximum visibility” are further mediated to work within a gay liberationist ethos that emphasizes polymorphous perversity, the socializing capacities of non-monogamy, and activities that eschew divisions between public and private space. This chapter also considers how the cinematic spaces of gay hardcore and actual spaces, such as the porn theater and the bathhouse, may operate in homologous relation to one another in how they orchestrate sociosexual activities. It explores Boys in the Sand (1971) within the context of both black power and gay liberation movement activities of the early 1970s, alongside the diptych L.A. Plays Itself/Sex Garage (1972), the agitprop of Jean-Claude Van Itallie’s “The Office” from American Cream (1972), and Joe Gage’s popular “Working Man Trilogy” (1976-79).
Emily K. Hobson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520279056
- eISBN:
- 9780520965706
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520279056.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
By the mid 1970s radical gay men were building a gay left and forging alliances with lesbians. They sharpened their politics through socialist feminism and Chilean solidarity, confronted police ...
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By the mid 1970s radical gay men were building a gay left and forging alliances with lesbians. They sharpened their politics through socialist feminism and Chilean solidarity, confronted police brutality, and challenged racism in gay men's life. The organization Bay Area Gay Liberation built grassroots power while the Third World Gay Caucus networked gay and lesbian people of color. While gay and lesbian leftists pursued anti-imperialism over liberal reform, by the late 1970s they also joined strategic left-liberal coalitions against the New Right. Radicals played key roles in defeating the Briggs Initiative's attack on gay and lesbian teachers, and though unable to stop a death penalty measure, evidenced resistance to state violence in the White Night Riots.Less
By the mid 1970s radical gay men were building a gay left and forging alliances with lesbians. They sharpened their politics through socialist feminism and Chilean solidarity, confronted police brutality, and challenged racism in gay men's life. The organization Bay Area Gay Liberation built grassroots power while the Third World Gay Caucus networked gay and lesbian people of color. While gay and lesbian leftists pursued anti-imperialism over liberal reform, by the late 1970s they also joined strategic left-liberal coalitions against the New Right. Radicals played key roles in defeating the Briggs Initiative's attack on gay and lesbian teachers, and though unable to stop a death penalty measure, evidenced resistance to state violence in the White Night Riots.
Lucy Robinson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719074349
- eISBN:
- 9781781701591
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719074349.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
This book demonstrates how the personal became political in post-war Britain, and argues that attention to gay activism can help us to rethink fundamentally the nature of post-war politics. While the ...
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This book demonstrates how the personal became political in post-war Britain, and argues that attention to gay activism can help us to rethink fundamentally the nature of post-war politics. While the Left were fighting among themselves and the reformists were struggling with the limits of law reform, gay men started organising for themselves, first individually within existing organisations and later rejecting formal political structures altogether. Gay activists intersected with Trotskyism, Stalinism, the New Left, feminism and youth movements. As the slogan of the Gay Liberation Front proclaimed, ‘Come out, come together and change the world’. Culture, performance and identity took over from economics and class struggle, as gay men worked to change the world through the politics of sexuality. Throughout the post-war years, the new cult of the teenager in the 1950s, CND and the counter-culture of the 1960s, gay liberation, feminism, the Punk movement and the miners' strike of 1984 all helped to build a politics of identity. When AIDS and Thatcherism impacted on gay men's lives in the 1980s, gay politics came into its own. There is an assumption among many of today's politicians that young people are apathetic and disengaged. This book argues that these politicians are looking in the wrong place. People now feel that they can impact the world through the way in which they live, shop, have sex and organise their private lives. The book shows that gay men and their politics have been central to this change in the post-war world.Less
This book demonstrates how the personal became political in post-war Britain, and argues that attention to gay activism can help us to rethink fundamentally the nature of post-war politics. While the Left were fighting among themselves and the reformists were struggling with the limits of law reform, gay men started organising for themselves, first individually within existing organisations and later rejecting formal political structures altogether. Gay activists intersected with Trotskyism, Stalinism, the New Left, feminism and youth movements. As the slogan of the Gay Liberation Front proclaimed, ‘Come out, come together and change the world’. Culture, performance and identity took over from economics and class struggle, as gay men worked to change the world through the politics of sexuality. Throughout the post-war years, the new cult of the teenager in the 1950s, CND and the counter-culture of the 1960s, gay liberation, feminism, the Punk movement and the miners' strike of 1984 all helped to build a politics of identity. When AIDS and Thatcherism impacted on gay men's lives in the 1980s, gay politics came into its own. There is an assumption among many of today's politicians that young people are apathetic and disengaged. This book argues that these politicians are looking in the wrong place. People now feel that they can impact the world through the way in which they live, shop, have sex and organise their private lives. The book shows that gay men and their politics have been central to this change in the post-war world.
Vincent L. Stephens
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042805
- eISBN:
- 9780252051661
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042805.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
This chapter illuminates how Johnnie Ray, Little Richard, Johnny Mathis, and Liberace achieved mainstream commercial success by discussing the dynamic gender norms of the postwar era. Drawing on Wini ...
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This chapter illuminates how Johnnie Ray, Little Richard, Johnny Mathis, and Liberace achieved mainstream commercial success by discussing the dynamic gender norms of the postwar era. Drawing on Wini Breines, the chapter frames the era as one of “disorientation”--notably, the outgrowth of gender conformity was pervasive alienation. These tensions generated spaces of gender rebellion that were stigmatized in mainstream media exposés and publicized simultaneously. This visibility reflected a public interest in deviance and helped gay men and lesbians develop an awareness of a community that catalyzed the Homophile and Gay Liberation movements. Parallel to these political movements was a subcultural movement among queer artists in film, literature, and popular music that is discernibly queer yet trafficked in sexual ambiguity at the time.Less
This chapter illuminates how Johnnie Ray, Little Richard, Johnny Mathis, and Liberace achieved mainstream commercial success by discussing the dynamic gender norms of the postwar era. Drawing on Wini Breines, the chapter frames the era as one of “disorientation”--notably, the outgrowth of gender conformity was pervasive alienation. These tensions generated spaces of gender rebellion that were stigmatized in mainstream media exposés and publicized simultaneously. This visibility reflected a public interest in deviance and helped gay men and lesbians develop an awareness of a community that catalyzed the Homophile and Gay Liberation movements. Parallel to these political movements was a subcultural movement among queer artists in film, literature, and popular music that is discernibly queer yet trafficked in sexual ambiguity at the time.
Simon Hall
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748698936
- eISBN:
- 9781474445160
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748698936.003.0011
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This chapter considers the historical significance of 1968 for the gay rights movement in the context of the Stonewall Riots of June 1969. The gay rights movement of the 1970s embodied the animating ...
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This chapter considers the historical significance of 1968 for the gay rights movement in the context of the Stonewall Riots of June 1969. The gay rights movement of the 1970s embodied the animating spirit of late 1960s activism, with its emphasis on the revolutionary potential of personal politics; embrace of direct action and street theatre; commitment to building alternative institutions; and idealistic faith that a more equal world was possible. For a time, gay liberationists echoed the activists of 1968 by denouncing American imperialism and calling for revolution. Yet, within months of the Stonewall riots, such militancy was already on the wane, as groups like the Gay Activists Alliance emerged to lead the fight for full equality and first-class citizenship rights. This more liberal, integrationist stance has, in many ways, come to define the gay rights movement in the years since Stonewall, and helped deliver some of its signature triumphs. As well as charting this post-1968 moment, the chapter also considers those who still hold true to the revolutionary values of 1968.Less
This chapter considers the historical significance of 1968 for the gay rights movement in the context of the Stonewall Riots of June 1969. The gay rights movement of the 1970s embodied the animating spirit of late 1960s activism, with its emphasis on the revolutionary potential of personal politics; embrace of direct action and street theatre; commitment to building alternative institutions; and idealistic faith that a more equal world was possible. For a time, gay liberationists echoed the activists of 1968 by denouncing American imperialism and calling for revolution. Yet, within months of the Stonewall riots, such militancy was already on the wane, as groups like the Gay Activists Alliance emerged to lead the fight for full equality and first-class citizenship rights. This more liberal, integrationist stance has, in many ways, come to define the gay rights movement in the years since Stonewall, and helped deliver some of its signature triumphs. As well as charting this post-1968 moment, the chapter also considers those who still hold true to the revolutionary values of 1968.
John Ibson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226656083
- eISBN:
- 9780226656250
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226656250.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gay and Lesbian Studies
Before the movement commonly described as “gay liberation” was well under way, queer life in the United States is sometimes thought to have been a veritable prison of shame, repression, illegality, ...
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Before the movement commonly described as “gay liberation” was well under way, queer life in the United States is sometimes thought to have been a veritable prison of shame, repression, illegality, and invisibility. Indeed during the 1950s, on the very eve of the “liberation,” the United States experienced an especially harsh, widespread outbreak of homophobia—with countless arrests, lost jobs, even lost lives, in a fierce cultural orgy of mandatory heterosexuality. Focusing on several American males who lived before the “liberation,” in stories of agency as well as agony, of fulfillment and pleasure as well as thwarted desire and self-loathing, Men without Maps freshly explores the actual quality of life for those “of the generation before Stonewall” who yearned for and sometimes experienced sexual involvements with other men. A few of the men studied are moderately well known today, but most are not. The involvements of some with other men were examples of long-lasting gay domesticity, while the encounters that others had were fleeting. Relying mostly on archival material--such as letters, memoirs, and snapshots--previously unused by a scholar, the book first explores those midcentury males, more numerous than usually realized, who lived as part of a male couple; it then examines experiences of solitary queer men who found coupling to be either unappealing or simply unattainable. Men without Maps joins John Ibson’s acclaimed previous books, Picturing Men and The Mourning After, to form a trilogy of studies, from varying angles, of male relationships in modern American society.Less
Before the movement commonly described as “gay liberation” was well under way, queer life in the United States is sometimes thought to have been a veritable prison of shame, repression, illegality, and invisibility. Indeed during the 1950s, on the very eve of the “liberation,” the United States experienced an especially harsh, widespread outbreak of homophobia—with countless arrests, lost jobs, even lost lives, in a fierce cultural orgy of mandatory heterosexuality. Focusing on several American males who lived before the “liberation,” in stories of agency as well as agony, of fulfillment and pleasure as well as thwarted desire and self-loathing, Men without Maps freshly explores the actual quality of life for those “of the generation before Stonewall” who yearned for and sometimes experienced sexual involvements with other men. A few of the men studied are moderately well known today, but most are not. The involvements of some with other men were examples of long-lasting gay domesticity, while the encounters that others had were fleeting. Relying mostly on archival material--such as letters, memoirs, and snapshots--previously unused by a scholar, the book first explores those midcentury males, more numerous than usually realized, who lived as part of a male couple; it then examines experiences of solitary queer men who found coupling to be either unappealing or simply unattainable. Men without Maps joins John Ibson’s acclaimed previous books, Picturing Men and The Mourning After, to form a trilogy of studies, from varying angles, of male relationships in modern American society.
Kevin J. Mumford
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469626840
- eISBN:
- 9781469628073
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469626840.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
A historical study of black gay activism and identities from the 1950s to the present based on research in printed and archival sources. It examines both the construction of racism and homophobia and ...
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A historical study of black gay activism and identities from the 1950s to the present based on research in printed and archival sources. It examines both the construction of racism and homophobia and the gradual mobilization by black gay men against oppression. To do so it surveys shifting representations in magazines, newspapers, film, pornography, and analyses the ways in which black gay men succumbed to and resisted negative stereotypes. In the era of civil rights, James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin spoke out for social justice, as well as critiqued some tenets of the new black power ideology. But the stigma surrounding black gay identities undermined their place in the movement. In the 1950s, black periodicals ran frank discussions of black homosexuality—often associated with deviance and crime--but this trend slowed by the 1960s, giving way to respectable images. But in 1967 a white filmmaker directed a film about the life of a black gay hustler, while the increase in gay pulp fiction presented yet another image of black gayness. After Stonewall, black gay activists organized for sexual liberation, gay rights, and religious freedom in their own right. Some joined coalitions between black and gay liberation, while others created black queer identities. Brother Grant-Michael Fitzgerald, a member of a Catholic order, worked to bridge black and gay liberation, while seeking full inclusion in the church. By the 1980s, a new generation settled in predominantly white gay communities, and sought recognition through writing, performing, and speaking out. Joseph Beam organized readings at the local gay bookstore, wrote for the local press, and edited the first black gay anthology. The Howard University professor, James Tinney, struggled against black homophobia but also founded the first black gay and lesbian church. By the 1980s, the AIDS crisis disproportionately hit black gay men, but new organizations, such as Black and White Men Together also formed to combat prejudice and overcome social isolation. By the 2000s, social media, legal change, and further acceptance created a veritable revolution in gay black history, even as racism and homophobia continued to impact the lives of black men who have sex with men.Less
A historical study of black gay activism and identities from the 1950s to the present based on research in printed and archival sources. It examines both the construction of racism and homophobia and the gradual mobilization by black gay men against oppression. To do so it surveys shifting representations in magazines, newspapers, film, pornography, and analyses the ways in which black gay men succumbed to and resisted negative stereotypes. In the era of civil rights, James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin spoke out for social justice, as well as critiqued some tenets of the new black power ideology. But the stigma surrounding black gay identities undermined their place in the movement. In the 1950s, black periodicals ran frank discussions of black homosexuality—often associated with deviance and crime--but this trend slowed by the 1960s, giving way to respectable images. But in 1967 a white filmmaker directed a film about the life of a black gay hustler, while the increase in gay pulp fiction presented yet another image of black gayness. After Stonewall, black gay activists organized for sexual liberation, gay rights, and religious freedom in their own right. Some joined coalitions between black and gay liberation, while others created black queer identities. Brother Grant-Michael Fitzgerald, a member of a Catholic order, worked to bridge black and gay liberation, while seeking full inclusion in the church. By the 1980s, a new generation settled in predominantly white gay communities, and sought recognition through writing, performing, and speaking out. Joseph Beam organized readings at the local gay bookstore, wrote for the local press, and edited the first black gay anthology. The Howard University professor, James Tinney, struggled against black homophobia but also founded the first black gay and lesbian church. By the 1980s, the AIDS crisis disproportionately hit black gay men, but new organizations, such as Black and White Men Together also formed to combat prejudice and overcome social isolation. By the 2000s, social media, legal change, and further acceptance created a veritable revolution in gay black history, even as racism and homophobia continued to impact the lives of black men who have sex with men.
Lucy Robinson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719074349
- eISBN:
- 9781781701591
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719074349.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
When the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 partially decriminalised homosexuality, it also exposed the limits of reform. Of all Labour Party's reforms, the decriminalisation of homosexuality was most ...
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When the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 partially decriminalised homosexuality, it also exposed the limits of reform. Of all Labour Party's reforms, the decriminalisation of homosexuality was most clearly not a simple party issue. This chapter focuses on the choices made by homosexual men as new arenas of political and cultural activism instead. It looks through the eyes of a variety of key participants, some of whom experienced at first hand the limits of traditional law reform and party politics: Anthony Grey, Allan Horsfall, George Melly, Colin MacInnes and Ray Gosling. In different ways, all these characters had a lasting impact on gay politics and each is emblematic of the different strands that fed into the gay liberation movement. Through these men's experiences, we can see the pull of single issue identity politics in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the emergence of a counter-culture around events such as the Wholly Communion in 1965 and the Dialectics of Liberation conference in 1967. The counter-culture offered a place for gay men to move away from reformism's apologies and the Left's silences.Less
When the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 partially decriminalised homosexuality, it also exposed the limits of reform. Of all Labour Party's reforms, the decriminalisation of homosexuality was most clearly not a simple party issue. This chapter focuses on the choices made by homosexual men as new arenas of political and cultural activism instead. It looks through the eyes of a variety of key participants, some of whom experienced at first hand the limits of traditional law reform and party politics: Anthony Grey, Allan Horsfall, George Melly, Colin MacInnes and Ray Gosling. In different ways, all these characters had a lasting impact on gay politics and each is emblematic of the different strands that fed into the gay liberation movement. Through these men's experiences, we can see the pull of single issue identity politics in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the emergence of a counter-culture around events such as the Wholly Communion in 1965 and the Dialectics of Liberation conference in 1967. The counter-culture offered a place for gay men to move away from reformism's apologies and the Left's silences.
Daniel Rivers
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469636269
- eISBN:
- 9781469636276
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469636269.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
This essay looks at the worldview of gay male communalists across the United States in the mid-1970s as seen in the rural gay magazine Rural Free Delivery (RFD) in the critical years from 1973 to ...
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This essay looks at the worldview of gay male communalists across the United States in the mid-1970s as seen in the rural gay magazine Rural Free Delivery (RFD) in the critical years from 1973 to 1976 as well as in other extant archival sources related to gay communalism. As a clearinghouse for gay men involved in radical, back-to-the-land ventures, RFD provides a complex view of the creation of a largely white, gay male counterculture spirituality that fused the sexual politics of early gay liberationists with ecofeminist, animist, New Age understandings of sexuality, the natural world, and spirit. Gay men who were or who wanted to live in communal spaces nationwide sent letters and stories into RFD, which was published in a variety of gay male communal spaces during these years.Less
This essay looks at the worldview of gay male communalists across the United States in the mid-1970s as seen in the rural gay magazine Rural Free Delivery (RFD) in the critical years from 1973 to 1976 as well as in other extant archival sources related to gay communalism. As a clearinghouse for gay men involved in radical, back-to-the-land ventures, RFD provides a complex view of the creation of a largely white, gay male counterculture spirituality that fused the sexual politics of early gay liberationists with ecofeminist, animist, New Age understandings of sexuality, the natural world, and spirit. Gay men who were or who wanted to live in communal spaces nationwide sent letters and stories into RFD, which was published in a variety of gay male communal spaces during these years.
Kevin J. Mumford
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469626840
- eISBN:
- 9781469628073
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469626840.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
In the era of black and gay liberation, activists attempted to forge coalitions that only temporarily provided space for black gay men. The Black Panthers fleetingly supported gay causes while ...
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In the era of black and gay liberation, activists attempted to forge coalitions that only temporarily provided space for black gay men. The Black Panthers fleetingly supported gay causes while relatively few black men joined gay liberation fronts. But the beginnings of a new black gay activism were visible.Less
In the era of black and gay liberation, activists attempted to forge coalitions that only temporarily provided space for black gay men. The Black Panthers fleetingly supported gay causes while relatively few black men joined gay liberation fronts. But the beginnings of a new black gay activism were visible.
Kevin J. Mumford
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469626840
- eISBN:
- 9781469628073
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469626840.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
At the intersection of liberation movements of the 1970s, Brother Grant-Michael Fitzgerald emerged to speak out for gay rights and religious freedom. A member of a Catholic order based in Milwaukee, ...
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At the intersection of liberation movements of the 1970s, Brother Grant-Michael Fitzgerald emerged to speak out for gay rights and religious freedom. A member of a Catholic order based in Milwaukee, Fitzgerald developed a new literature on sexual minorities for presentation to a leading organization of priests. He also advanced one of the first platforms from which to espouse black gay liberation.Less
At the intersection of liberation movements of the 1970s, Brother Grant-Michael Fitzgerald emerged to speak out for gay rights and religious freedom. A member of a Catholic order based in Milwaukee, Fitzgerald developed a new literature on sexual minorities for presentation to a leading organization of priests. He also advanced one of the first platforms from which to espouse black gay liberation.
Phil Tiemeyer
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520274761
- eISBN:
- 9780520955301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520274761.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Chapter 5 examines the flight attendant corps of the 1970s, when the profession became more attuned to both women’s liberation and gay liberation. This chapter examines how women and gays ...
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Chapter 5 examines the flight attendant corps of the 1970s, when the profession became more attuned to both women’s liberation and gay liberation. This chapter examines how women and gays cooperated—and sometimes fought—in both the workplace and the union hall to find common ground that respected all employees. I link these developments with the backlash against a feminist, pro-gay ethic, whether that backlash came from airline executives or larger conservative social movements. These increasingly severe skirmishes in the culture wars also influenced the legal legacy of Diaz v. Pan Am, as conservatives continued to portray women’s rights initiatives like the Equal Rights Amendment as backdoor pathways for queers to gain equal rights.Less
Chapter 5 examines the flight attendant corps of the 1970s, when the profession became more attuned to both women’s liberation and gay liberation. This chapter examines how women and gays cooperated—and sometimes fought—in both the workplace and the union hall to find common ground that respected all employees. I link these developments with the backlash against a feminist, pro-gay ethic, whether that backlash came from airline executives or larger conservative social movements. These increasingly severe skirmishes in the culture wars also influenced the legal legacy of Diaz v. Pan Am, as conservatives continued to portray women’s rights initiatives like the Equal Rights Amendment as backdoor pathways for queers to gain equal rights.
Todd Shepard
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226493275
- eISBN:
- 9780226493305
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226493305.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
This chapter explores how gay male discussions outside of the FHAR, most of which took place after the sharp rise and quick fade of radical gay liberation in France, continued to include a lot of ...
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This chapter explores how gay male discussions outside of the FHAR, most of which took place after the sharp rise and quick fade of radical gay liberation in France, continued to include a lot of Arab men and why this sex talk mattered. Other perspectives also appear, offered by individuals who kept the issue of homosexuality alive while declining to identify as gay. Maghrebi (male) commentators and authors were the most significant. Their interest in “gay male” sex talk about Arab men challenged claims from gay observers even as it also suggested the importance of the topic. By the late 1970s, such tensions between explicitly “gay” and “Arab” depictions and explanations provoked a sharp division between some of the most audible gay voices, including celebrations and critiques of the emerging gay world and its relationship to the larger “hetero” world.Less
This chapter explores how gay male discussions outside of the FHAR, most of which took place after the sharp rise and quick fade of radical gay liberation in France, continued to include a lot of Arab men and why this sex talk mattered. Other perspectives also appear, offered by individuals who kept the issue of homosexuality alive while declining to identify as gay. Maghrebi (male) commentators and authors were the most significant. Their interest in “gay male” sex talk about Arab men challenged claims from gay observers even as it also suggested the importance of the topic. By the late 1970s, such tensions between explicitly “gay” and “Arab” depictions and explanations provoked a sharp division between some of the most audible gay voices, including celebrations and critiques of the emerging gay world and its relationship to the larger “hetero” world.
Ryan Powell
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226634234
- eISBN:
- 9780226634401
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226634401.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gay and Lesbian Studies
This book is a historiographic exploration of the first wave of films made as a part of the consolidation of gay liberation movement politics and philosophy in the U.S. between the mid 1940s and the ...
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This book is a historiographic exploration of the first wave of films made as a part of the consolidation of gay liberation movement politics and philosophy in the U.S. between the mid 1940s and the late 1970s. It looks at how numerous kinds of film, movie-going contexts and industrial materials (advertisements, posters, reviews) operated in relation to gay liberationist discourse. A primary consideration is how this body of 200+ films—including home movies, avant-garde and experimental films, feature length independent dramas, and hardcore porn—moved beyond representational concerns to offer complex elaborations of what it might mean to be a participant in gay life. The book weaves together an expansive range of archival materials and case studies, exploring how proto gay and gay liberation era cinema took form through discourses both dominant and countercultural, how specific places and moments fostered censorship-challenging, antinormative cinema and cinema-going practices, and how gay cinema facilitated new and emergent publics. Through four chapters, the book charts changes in film and promotion as the sociopolitical organization of male-desiring men moved from a discourse of homosexuality to one of gay liberation, showing how both were taken up as self-reflexive zones of cultural production and performance.Less
This book is a historiographic exploration of the first wave of films made as a part of the consolidation of gay liberation movement politics and philosophy in the U.S. between the mid 1940s and the late 1970s. It looks at how numerous kinds of film, movie-going contexts and industrial materials (advertisements, posters, reviews) operated in relation to gay liberationist discourse. A primary consideration is how this body of 200+ films—including home movies, avant-garde and experimental films, feature length independent dramas, and hardcore porn—moved beyond representational concerns to offer complex elaborations of what it might mean to be a participant in gay life. The book weaves together an expansive range of archival materials and case studies, exploring how proto gay and gay liberation era cinema took form through discourses both dominant and countercultural, how specific places and moments fostered censorship-challenging, antinormative cinema and cinema-going practices, and how gay cinema facilitated new and emergent publics. Through four chapters, the book charts changes in film and promotion as the sociopolitical organization of male-desiring men moved from a discourse of homosexuality to one of gay liberation, showing how both were taken up as self-reflexive zones of cultural production and performance.
Scott Herring
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816677252
- eISBN:
- 9781452947440
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816677252.003.0015
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
RFD quarterly (once referred to as “Rural Fairy Digest”) was one of the first queer journals to extend the non-normative intersectional politics of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) to nonmetropolitan ...
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RFD quarterly (once referred to as “Rural Fairy Digest”) was one of the first queer journals to extend the non-normative intersectional politics of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) to nonmetropolitan U.S. audiences. This chapter extends recent historical scholarship on 1970s lesbian and gay US print cultures to analyze the anti-urban politics of RFD’s early stylistics. It offers an aesthetic archaeology of what one initial contributor, Donald Engstrom, later termed RFD’s “separatist fag community,” and what one historian of regional US cultures, James T. Sears, sees as the quarterly’s “anarcho-effeminism.” Extending their findings, the chapter explores how a particular version of gay male urbanity began to reprint itself as a normalizing print style in 1970s glossy magazines, and how RFD, alongside rural feminist journal Country Women, responded to this historical packaging with oppositional stylistics of its own.Less
RFD quarterly (once referred to as “Rural Fairy Digest”) was one of the first queer journals to extend the non-normative intersectional politics of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) to nonmetropolitan U.S. audiences. This chapter extends recent historical scholarship on 1970s lesbian and gay US print cultures to analyze the anti-urban politics of RFD’s early stylistics. It offers an aesthetic archaeology of what one initial contributor, Donald Engstrom, later termed RFD’s “separatist fag community,” and what one historian of regional US cultures, James T. Sears, sees as the quarterly’s “anarcho-effeminism.” Extending their findings, the chapter explores how a particular version of gay male urbanity began to reprint itself as a normalizing print style in 1970s glossy magazines, and how RFD, alongside rural feminist journal Country Women, responded to this historical packaging with oppositional stylistics of its own.
