Christopher de la Torre

Photo: Copyright Peter Hujar. All rights reserved.

June 28, 1969 transformed the social landscape of our nation — and the world. But despite forty years of progress, “[it] is still difficult for the average American to empathize with the struggles of gay people.”  Just a week ago, The New York Times offered this as a partial explanation for the anomalous vacuum that prevented one singular voice from leading the gay rights movement after Stonewall — a voice that could have given the years that followed a deeper sense of solidarity, a voice strong enough to inspire martyrdom.

This blog series is, in part, a response to that article. I don’t worry myself with why the gay movement has no national leader. I do, however, think about how — whether via judges and legislation or in the court of public opinion — we continue to make remarkable progress with respect to equality despite sailing a ship with no apparent mast.

Before Stonewall, social evolution for most LGBT people was defined as a matter of winning the empathy of “average” Americans. Following the riots, it was more a matter of breaking from traditional definitions of sexuality, femininity and masculinity. One model depended on perceptions from the outside; the other drew on thoughtful introspection and the understanding of self.

There is something to be said about revolutions. One might say the angst in Manhattan’s West Village that year had been percolating for some time. The massive wave of riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 may have inadvertently set the clock for our own initiation into organized chaos. Widespread unrest in Europe and the Middle East and a senseless war raging in Southeast Asia most-likely aggravated the situation further. The summer air was ripe for rebellion.

The first organization to form after Stonewall in June, 1969, the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), was considered radical. The oppression of gays and lesbians, the GLF believed, stemmed from patriarchy and sexism. Only by revolting against patriarchy, sexism and capitalism simultaneously could society’s negative attitudes toward women, lesbians, gays and other minorities be changed.

According to founding GLF member Steven Dansky, “in addition to activism, a great deal of queer theory began with GLF thinkers and writers who compelled a shift in perception of reality so persistent that it radically altered assumptions about gender and sexuality.”

But at some point during the gay movement timeline, there appeared a conundrum. Peters writes:

The gay movement has always had a problem of achieving a dignity or moral imperative that the black civil rights movement had, or the women’s rights movement claimed.

Because this movement is fundamentally about the right to be sexual, it’s hard for the larger public to see that as a moral issue. [1]

Was the revolution really about sexuality? Or was it more about the prejudices that had surrounded it? I was determined to find the answer, and tapping into history was the only way for me to know for sure. My quest for real voices on the subject led me to an inspiring, talented and ambitious group of activists who refuse to take “no” for an answer.

The fact that we’ve made remarkable progress in the years since Stonewall is a testament, not to the existence of one leader, but to the perseverance of many. It is important, now more than ever, to put a face (or faces, as it were) on the modern gay rights movement. These are the stories of a few leaders who emerged from Stonewall’s aftermath.

If you’d like to be alerted whenever a new feature is published, subscribe here. Thanks for reading, and I hope these interviews and essays enlighten you as much as they did me. —Christopher

Series schedule after the jump

Image courtesy Gay Liberation Front

40 YEARS AFTER STONEWALL: TEN-PART SERIES SCHEDULE

PART 1 TUESDAY, JUNE 30: 40 YEARS AFTER STONEWALL: EMERGING VOICES

Christopher de la Torre is a New York-based journalist and social scientist. A former geneticist, he endeavors to take scientific discourse to a new level with the re-launch of his website, Urban Molecule, in 2010. He is currently writing his masters thesis in media theory and biotechnological evolution, for George Mason University.

PART 2 WEDNESDAY, JULY 1: STEVEN F. DANSKY INTERVIEW, FORMATIVE GLF MEMBER

Longtime political activist Steven F. Dansky was a formative member of the modern gay liberation movement. His work has been cited in nearly every book on early gay liberation, spanning more than three decades from the Gay Militants (1971) to American Social Movements: Gay Rights Movement (2003).

Dansky had been involved during the HIV pandemic for more than 15 years. Lecturing on AIDS throughout the country, he is the author of two books on HIV, Now Dare Everything: Tales of HIV-Related Psychotherapy (Haworth Press, 1994) and Nobody’s Children: Orphans of the HIV Epidemic (Haworth Press, 1997).

Dansky is a retired psychotherapist who had practices in New York City and Albany, New York.

As a photographer, Dansky’s work has been exhibited in New York City and Las Vegas, and he curated the current photographic exhibit, Gay Liberation Front (1969-1971: A 40th Anniversary Retrospective, at the LGBT Center, New York.

Via Steven Dansky

PART 3 THURSDAY, JULY 2: JOHN KNOEBEL INTERVIEW, FOUNDING GLF MEMBER

An active member of the Gay Liberation Front beginning in November 1969, John Knoebel participated in many demonstrations as well as the first Gay Pride March in June 1970. As a member of the GLF 95th Street gay men’s living collective from June 1970 through January 1971, Knoebel helped form numerous gay men’s consciousness-raising groups and spoke at colleges and other venues with the GLF speaker’s bureau.

Along with many other GLF groups from around the county, the collective attended both sessions of the Black Panther’s Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Conventions in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The collective also helped to organize the August 1970 Times Square demonstration that ended with several days of riots in the Village, as well as helped to establish GLF’s first community center on West 3rd Street.

A member of the cells, “Femmes against Sexism” and “Gay Male Group,” Knoebel eventually founded the Effeminists, a group of gay men who opposed sexism, and co-authored “The Effeminist Manifesto” with Steven Dansky and Kenneth Pitchford which originally appeared in Double F: a Magazine of Effeminism (published from 1972 to 1976).

Knoebel’s writings have appeared in the GLF newspaper, Come Out!, and were published in numerous early gay liberation anthologies. He is currently the Vice President of Consumer Marketing for the nation’s two largest LGBT magazines: The Advocate and Out.

PART 4 FRIDAY, JULY 3: ELLEN SHUMSKY PHOTO RETROSPECTIVE, FOUNDING GLF MEMBER

Ellen Shumsky, a photographer, documented the Gay Liberation Movement from 1969 – 1972. Her images were published (under the name Ellen Bedoz) in many underground newspapers and counterculture anthologies of that time including COME OUT! and RAT. She was a founding member of Radicalesbians and a co-author of the Lesbian Feminist Manifesto “The Woman Identified Woman.”

A book of her photographs, “Portrait of a Decade: 1968 – 1978,” Photography by Ellen Shumsky, Introduced and edited by Flavia Rando  (Graea Press) was published in June 2009. A show of 45 of her images is on display at the LGBT Center in New York City through the summer of 2009.

PART 5 FRIDAY, JULY 3: BRANDON WALLACE ESSAY, SOCIAL ACTIVIST

Activist Brandon Wallace completed his master’s degree in American Studies at Purdue University in 2005. A native of Chicago, Wallace has also lived in Indiana and currently resides in Alabama. He writes regularly at his blog, Julius Speaks.

Via Julius Speaks

PART 6 SATURDAY, JULY 4: KEVIN KOPELSON ESSAY, AUTHOR

Kevin Kopelson is Professor of English at the University of Iowa and author of Neatness Counts: Essays on the Writer’s Desk; Sedaris; Love’s Litany: The Writing of Modern Homoerotics; Beethoven’s Kiss: Pianism, Perversion, and the Mastery of Desire; and The Queer Afterlife of Vaslav Nijinsky.

Via glbtq.com

PART 7 SUNDAY, JULY 5: KARLA JAY, FOUNDING GLF MEMBER

Karla Jay has written, edited, and translated ten books, most recently: “Tales of the Lavender Menace: a Memoir of Liberation.” She has also written for Ms Magazine, the Village Voice and the Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide. Ms. Jay is Distinguished Professor of English and Women’s & Gender Studies at Pace University in New York City.

From The Gay Liberation Front Live, NYPL (Jason Baumann, moderator)

PART 8 TUESDAY, JULY 7: PERRY BRASS INTERVIEW, FOUNDING GLF MEMBER

Perry Brass was born in Savannah, GA, but reborn in New York City in November, 1969 when he joined the Gay Liberation Front and the GLF newspaper Come Out! He has since published 14 books including How to Survive Your Own Gay Life, his work has been included in 25 anthologies, and 50 of his poems have been set to music.

From The Gay Liberation Front Live, NYPL (Jason Baumann, moderator)

PART 9 WEDNESDAY, JULY 8: JOHN-MANUEL ANDRIOTE INTERVIEW, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR

Items from journalist and author John-Manuel Andriote’s “Victory Deferred” collection (based on his 1999 book of the same name) are currently showing at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History as part of a display dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising.

The book jacket of Victory Deferred notes, “Andriote, who has been at the center of national advocacy and AIDS politics in Washington, is judicious without being uncritical, and his account of the political maturation of the gay community is one of the most stirring civil rights stories of our time.” [2]

Andriote’s many interview subjects include AIDS activist and author Larry Kramer.

PART 10 FRIDAY, JULY 10: KEVIN CATHCART INTERVIEW, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF LAMBDA LEGAL

Kevin M. Cathcart, Executive Director of Lambda Legal since 1992, is a leading strategist and spokesperson in the movement to achieve full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and people with HIV. Cathcart has made Lambda Legal an unparalleled national force through its far-reaching litigation and public education.

A longtime leader in the lesbian and gay community, Cathcart served from 1984 to 1992 as executive director of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) in Boston, New England’s lesbian, gay, and AIDS legal organization. Prior to GLAD, Cathcart was a staff attorney at the North Shore Children’s Law Project. He also serves on the Steering Committee of the LGBT Executive Director’s Institute.

Via Lambda Legal

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