QUIZ 8

204 A Queer History of the United States

U.S. television debut in February I964 and continuing through the introduction of the Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, David Bowie (whose even more outrageous alter ego, Ziggy Star-

dust, would emerge a few years later}, and others, American teens

were faced with rock stars that radically broke from traditional mas- culine affect and hinted at their own homoerotic longings. Perform-

ers such as Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Aretha Franklin, and Dusty Springfield gave voice to women's sexual desires, although in a con-

text of traditional heterosexuality. The hippie ethos espoused free love, antimilitarism, communal

living, anticapitalism, and a soft version of anarchistic antiestablish- ment sentiment. It brought together many of the ideas of the Beats,

homophile groups, feminism, and civil rights. It was also resonant

with the nineteenth-century anarchists, free lovers, transcendental- ists, commune advocates, and some radical labor activists. Gender

roles were quickly changing. Women were beginning to think of

themselves as independent from men and place value on being able to form friendships with other women. Men-many of whom grew

their hair long, sported earrings, and wore colorful clothing that would have been condemned as too feminine five years earlier- were no longer immediately chastised for expressing their feelings. The cultural terror of men wearing their hair long is a vivid example

of how change in gender affect was deeply threatening. For years,

mainstream media posted the panicked response: "You can't tell

whether it's a boy or a girl." The flourishing of I96os youth culture, with its integration of

sexuality and sexual freedom into everyday life, was the result of a slow, incremental, yet constant homosexualization of America. It was also the beginning of a new kind of homosexuality that was,

first and foremost, a form of political resistance.

TEN

REVOLT/BACKLASH/RESISTANCE

COUNTRY IN REVOLT

T~roughout the I96os and until peace was declared in I 975 , the

V1et.nam War was the continual bac~drop-dramatic, violent, ap- pallmg~ and tragic-that defined eve;ything that was happening in the Umted States. The Eisenhower administration had sent close to

nine hundred advisors to South Vietnam to prevent what the U.S. saw as a potential communist takeover by the North Vietnamese. By

I963, President Kennedy had dispatched sixteen thousand Ameri- can military personnel. Howard Zinn, in A People's History of the United States, notes:

From I964 to I972, the,wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of the world made a maximum military effort

with everything short of atomic bombs, to defeat a national~ ist revolutionary movement in a tiny, peasant country-and failed ....

In the course of that war, there developed in the United States the greatest antiwar movement the nation had ever experienced. 1

By the end of the war, the losses on ali sides were tremendous.

The United States suffered the least, with 58,I59 men dead, 303,635 wounded, and I,7I9 reported missing. The South Vietnamese gov-

ernment reported 220,357 dead and I,I70,ooo wounded. The Na-

205

206 A Queer History of the United States

tional Liberation Front in North Vietnam reported l,176,000 dead

or missing and a minimum of 600,000 wounded. The civilian ca- sualties were staggering: two million in North Vietnam and over a million and a half in South Vietnam. United States citizens were

constantly divided over the war, often along generational, race, and

gender lines. The popular movement against the war started in the early 1960s

with national faith-based peace groups, such as the Fellowship of Reconciliation (of which Jane Addams was a founding member),

the American Friends Service Committee, and the Catholic Worker Movement. It then quickly spread to youth-based political groups

such as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), one of the

founding groups of the New Left. SDS was organized in 1960 with the writing of its manifesto, the Port Huron Statement. Maurice

Isserman points out that "in 1961 SDS had roughly 300 dues-paying

members; by 1968 it had roughly those many chapters."2

The United States saw the worst outbreaks of sustained public vi- olence since the labor riots and strikes of the 1920s. The most shock-

ing events were the assassinations of Medgar Evers, John Kennedy,

Malcolm X, Martiµ Luther King Jr., and Robert Kennedy. Between 1964 and 1969, close to seventy-five major urban race-related riots

broke out across the country, in cities as large as Los Angeles and New York and as small as York, Pennsylvania, and Plainfield, New

Jersey. After the King assassination, there were riots in sixty cities. In total there were close to one hundred and twenty deaths; over

three thousand injured (by a conservative count); over fifty thousand

women, men and children arrested; and billions in damage. Almost all of the people killed, injured, or arrested were African

Americans. In 1966, the Black Panther Party formed in order to fur- ther the Black Power movement using more militant and aggressive

tactics than mainstream African American civil rights groups. Pri-

vate and police assassinations of civil rights workers, both black and white, and of members of Black Power groups were not infrequent.

Along with the Vietnam War and racial tensions, the rise of femi-

nism was dividing the country. After women won suffrage, the or- ganized feminist movement had little public presence. Beginning in

the l96os-with the approval of the birth control pill by the U.S.

Revolt/Backlash/Resistance 207

Food and Drug Administration-the second wave of the feminist movement began. For nearly half a century, feminists had identified

lack of reproductive control as a central impediment to women's personal, sexual, and economic independence and freedom. The

Pill suddenly, and simply, separated sex from reproduction, mar-

riage, and the family. In 1961 doctors wrote prescriptions {or four hundred thousand women. A year later, I.2 million women were taking it. Three years later that number had jumped to 3.6 million women.

The introduction of the birth control pill, interestingly enough, helped the cause of homosexual liberation and struck against anti-

homosexual prejudice. The major moral, scientific, and legal ar- gument against homosexual activity had always been that it does

not lead to reproduction and is thus unnatural. The birth control

pill made the separation between sex and reproduction socially acceptable.

By the end of the 1960s, radicai feminism added an analysis of heterosexuality-an analysis often implicit in the writings of the

homophile groups-to the understanding of women's oppression. Groups such as the Redstockings and Cell 16 often drew on a Marx-

ist analysis of women as a distinct cultural group and an oppressed

class of people. Like the anarchists and radical labor activists in the early part of the century, and the more recent Black Power ad- vocates, radical feminists were interested not in reforming a sys-

tem they considered esseQtially corrupt, but in replacing it with one

that was more just and equitable. Under the umbrella of the Wom-

en's Liberation Front, radical feminist groups began staging high- profile demonstrations, including the September 1968 "No More Miss America!" protest in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

The progressive politics of the late 1960s were predicated on the principle that a person had complete autonomy and control over her or his body. This included freedom from violence, control of repro-

duction, the ability to engage in any consensual sexual behavior,

and the freedom to take drugs. The massive numbers of men killed in Vietnam or returning wounded or mutilated was a constant re-

minder-increasingly broadcast on television-of the fragility of the body as well as the importance of making your own choices about it.

I ,I

, I I,, 1',

ii I ,I

208 A Queer History of the United States

This new wave of activism was constituted mainly of younger peo-

ple, because of the strong antiauthoritarian views emanating from

anger over U.S. policy in Southeast Asia. Like much of the counterculture, political messages were framed

in sexual contexts. To promote draft resistance, folk singer Joan

Baez and her sister Mimi Farina posed for a poster that read "Girls

Say Yes to Boys Who Say No." At the August I968 Democratic National Convention in Chi-

cago, conservative Democratic mayor Richard Daley deployed

twenty-three thousand police officers to manage ten thousand anti- war demonstrators. Violent chaos ensued as police tear-gassed and

beat the mostly peaceful demonstrators. The official government in-

vestigation of the convention violence called it a "police riot." Cap- tured on film, the violence was so extreme that it received worldwide

condemnation, even as U.S. polls showed widespread support for the police. In October I968, SDS passed a resolution titled "The

Elections Don't Mean Shit-Vote Where the Power Is-Our Power

Is in the Street." Following these models, homosexual liberation became predomi-

nantly a political question. In early I969, Carl Wittman, the son of Communist Party members and a drafter of the Port Huron State- ment, wrote "A Gay Manifesto" while living in the midst of the

political and gay scenes in San Francisco. It became the defining document for a new movement. The conclusion lists "An Outline of

Imperatives for Gay Liberation":

I. Free ourselves: come out everywhere; initiate self defense and political activity; initiate counter community institutions.

2. Turn other gay people on: talk all the time; understand,

forgive, accept. 3. Free the homosexual in everyone: we'll be getting a good bit

of shit from threatened latents: be gentle, and keep talking &

acting free. 4. We've been playing an act for a long time, so we're consum-

mate actors. Now we can begin to be, and it'll be a good

show! 3

Revolt/Backlash/Resistance 209

Wittman's combination of community building, constructive

dialogue, goodwill, trust, and fun was a mixl;ure of New Left or- ganizing, homosexual playfulness, and the single most important

directive of gay liberation: to come out. (The term "coming out"

had not been in common use before; previously the metaphor had been about coming into the homosexual world.) For gay liqeration- ists, coming out was not simply a matter of self-identification. It was a radical, public act that would impact every aspect of a person's

life. The publicness of coming out was a decisive break from the

past. Whereas homophile groups argued that homosexuals could find safety by promoting privacy, gay liberation argued that safety

and liberation were found only by living in, challenging, and chang- ing the public sphere.

Physical resistance was the logical course of action in this con-

text. For over two days in August I968, transvestites and street peo- ple in San Francisco's Tenderloin District fought with police at the

Compton Cafeteria after manage~ent called in the officers to eject some rowdy customers. Undoubtedly there were numerous similar,

but unrecorded, incidents in which gay individuals and groups re- sisted arrest and police violence. But the most famous incident took place a year later.

In the early hours of Saturday, June 28, I969, police conducted a routine raid on the Stonewall Inn at 53 Christopher Street in the heart of Greenwich Village. They evicted patrons and arrested some

of the staff. A crowd gathered outside and refused to leave. Clashes

with the police ensued. Even though the bar had been closed, crowds

gathered again and the scene was repeated, with less violence, late Saturday evening. After a few days of calm, more protests and some

violence occurred the following Wednesday night. The events at Stonewall were not riots, but sustained street altercations of rau-

cous, sometimes violent, resistance. The larger culture of political militance was evident in the slogans that emerged immediately after

Stonewall, such as GAY POWER and, as someone chalked on the front of the now closed Stonewall Inn, THEY WANT us TO FIGHT FOR OUR COUNTRY [BUT) THEY INVADE OUR RIGHTS. 4

The only viable gay political organization that existed in New

:I'

210 A Queer History of the United States

York at the time was Mattachine. Its members viewed the Stonewall

incident and the highly public political activiti~s that ensued as a dis- ruptive departure from their political process. On June 28, Matta-

chine members were already working with the police to stop further

protests. They even posted a sign on the closed bar:

WE HOMOSEXUALS PLEAD WITH

OUR PEOPLE TO PLEASE HELP

MAINTAIN PEACEFUL AND QUIET

CONDUCT ON THE STREETS OF

THE VILLAGE-MATTACHINE

At one of the last Mattachine meetings before the police attack

on the Stonewall Inn, Jim Fouratt, a younger member, insisted: "All

the oppressed have to unite! The system keeps us all weak by keep-

ing us separate."5

Stonewall was less a turning point than a final stimulus in a se-

ries of public altercations. A coalition of disgruntled Mattachine

members, along with lesbians and gay men who identified with the

pro-Black Power, antiwar New Left, called for a meeting on July c 24, 1969. The flyer announcing the meeting was headlined, "Do you think homosexuals are revolting? You bet your sweet ass we are."

This radical change in rhetoric was indicative of fiercely antihier-

archal, free-for-all, consensus-driven discussion. Out of it emerged

the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). The group took its name from the Women's Liberation Front, which in turn had taken its name from

the Vietcong National Liberation Front. More traditionally anar-

chist than leftist, the lack of structure and clash of ideas in GLF was perfectly indicative of the intellectual, social, sexual, and political excitement of the time. A GLF member stated that "GLF is more of

a process than an organization."6 But it was a powerful process that

produced results. Within a year, GLF had organized Sunday night meetings, nineteen "cells" or action groups, twelve consciousness- raising groups, an ongoing radical study group, an all-men's meet-

ing, a women's caucus, three communal living groups, and a series of successful community dances, in addition to publishing the news-

paper Come Out! The publication became a model for numerous

Revolt/Backlash/Resistance 211

highly influential LGBT community newspapers, including Michi~ gan's Gay Liberator, Philadelphia's Gay Alternative, San Francisco's Gay Sunshine, and Boston's Fag Rag and Gay Community News. Hundreds of independent GLF groups immediately sprang up on college campuses and in cities across the country.

GLF's open-ended process, as well as its refusal to see1 antigay bias or hatred as disconnected from other forms of oppression, nei- ther resulted in hoped-for coalitions nor appealed to all members.

Women's liberation, Black Power, antiwar, and labor groups were

unwilling to work with GLF because of their own dislike or fear of homosexuality.

By November 1969, after a discussion of donating money to the Black Panthers, some GLF members decided to start the Gay Ac-

tivists Alliance (GAA). Thi~ new organization would, according to its constitution, focus only on achieving civil rights for gay people,

"disdaining all ideologies, whethei; political or social, and forbear- ing alliance with any other organization." 7 Although GAA dis- dained official political ideologies, it was forthright in confronting

antihomosexual bias in media, legal, and social venues. Much of its

power came from its "zaps" -high-profile public confrontations of people and institutions that promoted antihomosexual sentiments-

which garnered enormous attention and brought LGBT issues into the media.

GLF and GAA coexisted until GLF's demise in 1972. As GAA grew and some of its leaders began to have political ambitions, their agenda became more reformist and conservative. Transgender activ- ists Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson had left GLF to help form

GAA, but ultimately found themselves, and issues of gender identity,

excluded. In 1970 they started Street Transvestite Action Revolution (STAR), which became the foundational group for contemporary

transgender activism. By 1974 GAA was crumbling, and prominent

members such as Bruce Voeller left to start the National Gay Task Force (now the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force). When GAA

finally folded in 1980, it had, according to historian David Eisen- bach, reverted to GLF's inclusive political analysis. s

The split between the pragmatism of GAA and the idealism of GLF echoed the earlier division within Mattachine and can be

212 A Queer History of the United States

traced back to nineteenth-century political discussions of suffrage,

free love, labor reform, and anarchism. GLF's comprehensive vision of social justice was mirrored in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "no one

is free, until everyone is free." This approach distanced King from

many civil rights activists and supporters as he began to vocally op- pose the war in Vietnam, in his 1967 "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" speech, and to connect capitalism to black oppres-

sion. GAA's single-issue politics had a much greater impact than GLF on mainstream gay political organizing. It became the template

for the contemporary gay rights movement, which works to change,

not overthrow, the system. GLF had a more lasting impact on the formation of gay and les-

bian youth groups across the nation. Between 1969 and 1980 nearly fifty youth support groups-aimed at lesbians and gay men in their

teens-were founded. Some of these were grassroots and came out of the gay liberation movement; others were founded by progres-

sive social service organizations. 9 The advent of these groups made

perfect sense, since gay liberation emerged, in part, from the youth counterculture, but also because young people were engaging in sex earlier. Lesbian and gay youth now had a political and social

framework in which to declare and celebrate their identity. These youth groups provided them with a vital social outlet that was badly

needed, since underage people could not go to bars to meet people,

and coming out at school or home could be dangerous. The men in GLF and GAA had grown up in a prefeminist world.

Their actions, even after lesbians confronted them, often reflected

their upbringing, which was not to take women and their concerns seriously. Nevertheless, many lesbians joined these groups because

they were not welcome in the National Organization of Women (NOW) or even in some radical feminist groups. Betty Friedan's

antilesbian sentiments were so present in NOW that a group of lesbi-

ans, including Karla Jay and Rita Mae Brown, formed the Lavender Menace, a guerilla action group. They confronted NOW's mem-

bers at its Second Congress to Unite Women in May 1970, where they passed out their manifesto, "The Woman-Identified Woman." A year later, NOW passed a resolution affirming that lesbian rights

were "a legitimate concern for feminism." But a critical break had

Revolt/Backlash/Resistance 213

occurred. The Lavender Menace, who now called themselves Radi-

calesbians and understood that their concerns were distinct from those of heterosexual women and gay men, began a distinct move- ment: lesbian feminism.

Lesbian feminism created a new political and social identity for lesbians that had not existed previously. Jill Johnston, a Nrw York- based dance critic and activist nationally famous for her outspoken-

ness and flair for publicity, stated in her 1973 book Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution:

Historically the lesbian had two choices: being criminal or going straight. The present revolutionary project is the cre-

ation of a legitimate state defined by women. Only women

can do this. Going straight is legitimizing your oppression. As was being criminal. A male society will not permit any other choice for a woman. 10

Faderman describes lesbian feminism as being "pro-women and pro-children" and compares it to the utopian vision of reformers

such as Jane Addams. 11 In the early 1970s, women started national networks of small presses, such as Daughters Inc., which published

Rita Mae Brown's groundbreaking lesbian novel Rubyfruit Jungle. They also founded over a hundred newspapers, magazines such as Amazon Quarterly, and music cooperatives and festivals such as the Michigan Womyn's Mqsic Festival. Many lesbians still worked with

gay men and heterosexual feminists on shared concerns, and lesbian

feminism addressed many of the concerns that women in the Daugh-

ters of Bilitis had voiced about lesbians in the workplace, lesbian health, and legal discrimination that lesbians faced in relationships.

But a world centered around women brought new ideas. Lesbian feminists set up health clinics, created grassroots political organiza-

tions, and instituted a widespread national network of communal living collectives that, although unaffiliated, saw themselves as part of a movement.

In their pursuit of making the world a safer place for children

and women, some lesbian feminists, in conjunction with hetero- sexual feminists, articulated views about sex and gender perceived

214 A Queer History of the United States

as antithetical to radical feminism and gay liberation. As a group, they were often called "cultural feminists" by their detractors. They criticized nontraditional sexual activity such as SIM and bondage, and they condemned drag queens and drag shows (which they saw as a parody of women's oppression). They offered harsh critiques

of transsexual and transgender people, such as Janice Raymond's

1979 The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male, in which she argued that sex-reassignment surgery is violence against

women's bodies. In the mid to late 1970s they conducted censor- ship campaigns against pornography, which they saw as a cause of

rape. Many of these positions generated heated, and often angry, discussion. Historian Alice Echols argues that "advocating sexual

repression as a solution to violence against women [ends up] mobi- lizing women around their fears rather than their visions." 12 Lesbian

theorist Gayle Rubin makes concrete comparisons of these policies to the ideas of the social purity movement.

The exciting, confusing, and often contradictory whirlpool of LGBT politics in the years after Stonewall helped, along with other

forces, to shape the movement. It is striking, however, to realize that the numbers of people actively involved in these organizations

were minuscule. As with the Mattachine, the Daughters of Bilitis, the Women's Liberation Front, and the Black Panther Party, the

work of a few people in small organizations touched the lives of large numbers of people and changed the world. One way the LGBT

political groups did this was through their enormous influence on mainstream culture, now that homosexuality was more openly dis-

cussed than ever before. Publishing, film, TV, and the press reached

millions of Americans. Much of the mainstream press was implicitly positive. On Octo-

ber 31, 1969, just four months after the Stonewall conflict, Time had a cover story called "The Homosexual in America." The article in-

side featured photos of gay liberationists on a picket line and a drag queen in a beauty contest. A discussion sponsored by the magazine

among a panel of "experts," including psychiatrists, clergy, liberals, and gay activists, was clearly won by the latter two. As Time noted, "the love that once dared not speak its name now can't keep its mouth

shut." The April 1971 issue of Playboy featured a long "roundtable"

Revolt/Backlash/Resistance 215

on homosexuality that was clearly skewed against the conservative

voices. The December 31, 1971, issue of Life.included an eleven-page spread titled "Homosexuals in Revolt." It was decidedly affirmative, featuring numerous upbeat photos of lesbian and gay activists.

The mainstream publishing industry, having discovered that pos- itive depictions of lesbian and gay male life were a niohe market,

quickly published books on the subject. In Sappho Was a Right-On Woman: A Liberated View of Lesbianism, published in 1972, Sid- ney Abbott and Barbara Love argued-as Phillip Wylie had in the

l94os-that society has to be cured of its negative attitudes toward sexuality. In the same year, GAA member Peter Fisher's The Gay Mystique: The Myth and Reality of Male Homosexuality argued that young people over the age of sixteen have a right to act on their

sexuality and that lesbian and gay teachers would be positive role

models for students. Dozens of fiction and nonfiction books present- ing similar material were publisl?-ed by mainstream and smaller pub-

lishers over the next five years. Unlike pulp novels and sociological studies, these books determinedly affirmed homosexuality.

New freedom in Hollywood now allowed complex and compel- ling images of LGBT people. Sidney Lumet's 1975 Dog Day Af- ternoon featured Al Pacino as a gay male bank robber who was financing his lover's sex change operation. George Schlatter's 1976 Norman ... Is That You?, about an interracial gay couple dealing with one set of parents, was funny and politically incisive. Even tele- vision censorship-which had always been stricter than censorship in Hollywood, since television images entered the home-began to

be relaxed. As early as February 1971, the enormously popular All in the Family featured a gay male character who was a former pro- fessional football player. Nine months later, the popular TV series Room 222, about an African American teacher in the fictional Walt Whitman High School, dealt with homosexuality and teens in the episode "What Is a Man?" In 1972 -ABC presented a made-for-TV movie, That Certain Summer, in which a formerly married gay man comes out to his fourteen-year-old son. The only outcry was from gay liberationists claiming the movie was too timid. That same week

NBC broadcast "A Very Strange Triangle," an episode on the series The Bold Ones: The New Doctors, about a physician still in love

216 A Queer History of the United States

with a woman he dated who is now in a lesbian relationship. John

J. O'Connor, the New York Times critic, lambasted "A Very Strange Triangle" as biased against lesbians and noted, "If taboo subjects are going to be used for little more than injecting titillation into

inane plots, they should be left taboo." By I978, in dramatizations such as the made-for-television film A Question of Love, legal ques- tions of lesbian custody and parenting were being forthrightly, and

sympathetically, discussed.

LIBERATION, SOCIAL PURITY, AND BACKLASH '

Social, political, and cultural changes were happening on such a wide and visible range of fronts that many Americans, including

the ever-expanding LGBT community, did not know what to ex-

pect next. Between I969 and I979, more than thirty thousand gay people, the majority of them men, moved to San Francisco. Like

other great migrations, such as southern African Americans mov- ing north, this shift-which continued into the I98os-was vital

in remaking a minority culture and formed one of the most impor- tant gay political and cultural centers in the United States. On a

smaller scale, Huey Newton, chairman of the Black Panther Party, gave a speech in which he surprisingly acknowledged that the party

should "try to form a working coalition with the gay liberation and women's liberation groups" and that "homosexuals are not given

freedom and liberty by anyone in the society. They might be the

most oppressed people in the society." This was the first, and maybe

the only, time that a I97os political group called for a coalition with

gay liberation groups. Other changes simply fell into the category of gossip, such as

celebrities, both living and dead, coming out or being outed. Rock

stars David Bowie, Elton John, and Janis Joplin claimed that they slept with both sexes. New biographies proclaimed that some of Hollywood's biggest stars-such as Rudolph Valentino, Cary

Grant, Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Charles Laughton, Agnes Moorehead, Marlene Dietrich, and Errol Flynn-were lesbian, gay,

or bisexual.

Revolt/Backlash/Resistance 217

The hyped sexualization of the glitterati was indicative of wide- spread media coverage of a suddenly sexualizep. urban life. Nightlife in major American cities-especially New York, San Francisco, and

Miami-was becoming identified with gay male venues. Newspa- pers gleefully reported on the Continental Baths, a plush gay male

bathhouse located in a once-fashionable New York hotel that also

housed a popular cabaret room open to heterosexuals. The Conti- nental gained national prominence in I97I when Bette Midler an-

nounced on the Johnny Carson show that she got her start there, playing mostly to men clad only in towels. Later that decade, New York magazine and other publications lavishly detailed the drug- fueled nightlife of high-profile discos such as New York's Studio 54, popular with prominent politicians, sports figures, and rock stars.

This copious public discussion about sexuality continually created the impression across America that traditional norms and morali-

ties were outmoded. The frivolous, but commonplace, tone of these articles made them even scarier to women and men who were fearful

that American culture was quickly losing its moral grounding. And their fears were not without reason: The huge success of anticen-

sorship fights, the ongoing battle for reproductive rights (including abortion rights), the wider acceptance of recreational drug use, and

increasing media glorification of nonreproductive heterosexual acts

in films such as I972's Deep Throat all made the situation more ominous.

For conservatives, tht issue was no longer simply about homosex- uals. If homosexuality was a disease, as the psychoanalysts argued, it was infecting the entire body politic. To the conservative mind

' this infection was seen in a number of alarming ways. Heterosexu- als, for instance, were beginning to act like homosexuals. Gay peo-

ple, who had never had the ability to marry, had long demonstrated that couples could maintain relationships without state or religious

sanction. Heterosexuals, consciously or not, learned from their ex-

ample. Census figures show that the rate of heterosexual cohabita- tion rose I,I50 percent from the I96os to 2000, from one out of ten couples to seven out of ten. As more and more heterosexuals began

to cohabit, the widespread cultural acceptance of the practice made it easier for homosexuals to be open about their own relationships.

I

I

218 A Queer History of the United States

As if all this was not bad enough, homosexuality was literally

spreading. In May 1974, Time magazine reported on "The New Bisexuals," claiming that "bisexuals, like homosexuals before them,

are boldly coming out of their closets, forming clubs, having parties and staking out discotheques." The article attributed the rise of bi- sexual women to Kinsey, feminism, and "the emphasis by [sex thera-

pists] Masters and Johnson, among others, on the clitoral orgasm

that has led to more sexual experimentation." It ended, however, with a warning about families and children. Such warnings were

becoming increasingly prevalent in writing about nonstraight sexu- alities. In the same Time article, Manhattan psychoanalyst Natalie Shainess noted that "the constant ricocheting from one sex to the

other ... can create unstable friendships as well as a chaotic home

life. If there are children involved, this may confuse their sense of sexual identity."13

By this time, however, conservative psychoanalysts had lost their

battle. In December 1973-six months before the Time article-the American Psychiatric Association, after being lobbied by lesbian

and gay activists and professionals within the organization, voted to formally drop homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The twenty thousand members

were deeply divided, but the board voted 13-0. The New York Times headline stated, "Doctors Rule Homosexuality Not Abnormal." A

highly public discussion ensued. In a December 23, 1973, New York Times roundtable, psychoanalyst Irving Bieber, who disagreed with the APA vote, stated that he was "interested in the implications this

has for children .... I can pick out the entire population at risk in

male homosexuality at the age of five, six, seven, and eight. If these children are treated, and their parents are treated, they will not be- come homosexual."

It was in this ambivalent social context, in which homosexuality was being simultaneously depathologized and viewed as the source of newly articulated threats to the family, that legal change began

to happen. Mattachine members had picketed the White House and

other federal buildings from 1965 to 1969, no doubt inspired by the African American civil rights marches. (Mattachine leader Frank Kameny's use of the phrase "Gay Is Good" in a 1968 speech was

Revolt/Backlash/Resistance 219

clearly resonant of "Black Is Beautiful.") But after Stonewall, _gay

rights activists-gay liberationists had little interest in specific le-

gal issues-began to lobby to repeal sodomy laws and pass statutes

outlawing discrimination against gays. By 1979, twenty states had repealed their sodomy laws, some willingly and others after legal battles. Arkansas did away with its sodomy law durill;g a general

revision of the state's penal code, but outcry from clergy and conser- vatives was so great that it was reinstated. State senator Milt Earn-

heardt, arguing to reinstate the sodomy law, told the senate, "This bill is aimed at weirdos and queers who live in a fairyland world and

are trying to wreck family life." The new law criminalizing sodomy was passed unanimously. 14

In 1975, voters in Massachusetts elected Elaine Noble to the state's House of Representatives, making her the first openly les- bian or gay state legislator in U.S. history. Around the same time, activists were introducing nondiscrimination bills, misnamed by

the press as "gay rights bills," fn towns, cities, and counties around

the country. These laws-modeled on the Civil Rights Act of 1964,

which forbids discrimination based on "race, color, religion, sex, [or] national origin"-targeted discrimination based on actual or perceived sexual orientation. Liberal university cities passed the first

such laws, starting with East Lansing, Michigan, in March 1972

and Ann Arbor, Michigan, in August. Larger cities, such as Seattle, Minneapolis, and Washington, D.C., followed. By 1976, twenty- nine such laws had b~en passed in the United States.

The fight over the "gay rights" bill in Dade County, Florida, which includes Miami, became a pivotal turning point. On Janu-

ary 18, 1977, the county commission passed, by a 5 to 3 vote, an ordinance that would make it illegal to discriminate on the basis

of sexual orientation in employment, housing, or public services, including both public and private schools. Local Catholics, Protes-

tants, and Orthodox Jews, along with other conservative groups, immediately rallied a movement to fight for repeal. Included in this

coalition was Save Our Children, a newly formed Christian group

founded by Anita Bryant. Bryant was a minor celebrity-a singer, entertainer, and former Miss America runner-up-and deeply re- ligious. At Save Our Children's first press conference on February

220 A Queer History of the United States

n, Bryant, backed by clergy from all of Miami's major churches, announced she had proof that gays were "trying to recruit our chil-

dren to homosexuality." 15 Because this was the first time that an ordinance prohibiting discrimination against gays was under ap-

peal, and because Bryant was a colorful figure whose statements became increasingly outrageous, the fight in Dade County gained

national attention. On June 7, in a special referendum with record-

breaking voter turnout, the ordinance was repealed, 69.3 percent to

39.6 percent. 16

After the win, Bryant announced she was going to start a na- tional campaign against "gay rights laws." But the energy generated

by the Bryant campaign had already begun to spread. In April and May I978, laws protecting gays from discrimination were repealed

in St. Paul, Minnesota; Wichita, Kansas; and Eugene, Oregon, even though Bryant did not personally campaign for their repeal.

The tide turned a bit, back to favoring the rights of lesbian and

gay people, when in November I978 California's Proposition 6- also known as the Briggs initiative, after its author, state senator John Briggs-was defeated. While the referendums to repeal non-

discrimination laws were reactive, Proposition 6 was proactive. It sought to prohib,it lesbians and gay men, as well as any teacher who

was found "advocating, imposing, encouraging or promoting" ho-

mosexuality, from teaching in public schools. Lesbian and gay activ- ists-including Harvey Milk-spent months organizing the "No on

6" campaign, which successfully defeated the proposition by a 58.4

percent to 4I.6 percent margin. The Dade County vote and Proposition 6 vote presented differ-

ent challenges, but the main reason gay and lesbian activists were victorious in the latter was a striking difference in organizing styles.

Pro-gay activists in Dade County brought in outside spokespersons, used a rhetoric of human rights, and countered religious arguments

with secular ones. In California, the "No on 6" campaign, using the gay liberation-influenced slogan "Come Out! Come Out! Wherever

You Are," urged lesbians and gay men to explain to their families, neighbors, and fellow citizens how Proposition 6 would affect their

lives. Citizens in California responded to a personal appeal that al- lowed them insight into the lives of lesbians and gay men, whereas

Revolt/Backlash/Resistance 221

the Florida vote was lost when people failed to be persuaded by intellectual or political arguments. The contrast between these two

approaches is even more striking given that in both cases, the oppo- sition focused on the threat of homosexuals to children.

These battles were a crucial moment in LGBT history for sev- eral reasons. They marked the beginning of a conservative political and religious backlash that is still happening today. This was also

the point at which the gay and lesbian movement of the I96os and

I97os, which was still in the process of defining itself, had to come to grips with two crucial, and connected, issues: its relationship to

the new-and often overtly sexual-visibility of lesbians and gay men in political and popular culture, and its relationship to children and young people.

The social changes that had been unfolding since World War II

were speeding up, and many Americans were frightened. The suc-

cess of Save Our Children is viewed by many social historians as the beginning of the rise of the r~ligious right; Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Jim and Tammy Bakker supported Bryant in her campaigns. Some religious historians have even described America

in the late I97os as undergoing a Fourth Great Awakening. The

outpouring of religious rhetorical fervor and conservative political activity was largely, as in past awakenings, a direct response to pro- gressive social changes. These changes included not only the new visibility and acceptance of the gay movement, but also the push for

equality for African Am~ricans, the rise of feminism (and the bitter fight over the Equal Rights Amendment throughout the I97os), the increasingly vocal demonstrations against the Vietnam war, the de- cline of America's social and political status around the world, and the sexualization of popular culture.

By the mid to late I97os, the LGBT movement had not only made progress but had radically changed how some Americans

thought about homosexuality, heterosexuality, gender, gender roles, sexual activity, children's sexuality, privacy, and most profoundly, sexuality itself. Other political movements had also made vital

strides; although there were still serious problems in the United

States, the lives of women and African Americans were better than before. But these changes were often about civil equality and the

222 A Queer History of the United States

dignity of the individual. The gay liberation movement, lesbian feminism, and even the gay rights movement (which clearly articu-

lated a politic of equality) were far more threatening to American society because they brought into question the underpinnings of

sexual identity and sexual orientation. The idea that there could be "hidden homosexuals," that a perceived sexual identity might

be a mask, or that a person-child, parent, brother, friend-could

suddenly "come out" was profoundly upsetting. The concept that heterosexuality and homosexuality might not be stable personal or

social categories was even more disturbing. And on some level, ho- mosexuality offered alternatives to heterosexuals that they found

intriguing. That was why heterosexuals, caught between fascination and fear, experienced such ambivalence. A poster held by a lesbian

at New York's Gay Pride March in 1971 summed up this irony. It read: WE ARE YOUR WORST FEAR. WE ARE YOUR BEST FANTASY.

This ambivalence, starting during World War II and growing quickly, brought the persecuting society-and its most active and ef-

fective enforcers, the social purity groups-to the forefront. Bryant's

stated moral superiority was predicated on her being a woman and a mother, and in that context, her defense of the family and children made sense. ,This paradigm reinforced the stereotype that homosex-

uality-particularly male homosexuality-was extremely danger-

ous and threatening to morality and the country. During her Florida campaign, Bryant conjured society's primal fear of the homosexual:

"As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically repro- duce children; therefore, they must recruit our children."17 The enor-

mous success of Bryant's campaign and its resonance in American

culture were due to her translation of the social purity movement's rhetoric about protecting women from male lust-which no longer

made sense now that women had more freedom and sexuality was viewed more positively-into a new moral imperative of protecting

children from a more vehement expression of predatory male lust:

homosexuality. There was a reality in this situation that went unacknowledged

by everyone involved. The spokespeople for Save Our Children could not mention it, and the lesbian aO:d gay community, under the worst political attack they had ever experienced, did not want

Revolt/Backlash/Resistance 223

to talk about it. The reality was that there were young people,-teens and even younger, who saw themselves _as being lesbian, gay, bi~. sexual, or transgender. Their existence had been obvious in many of

the novels from the 1950s, in Rebel Without a Cause, in the vibrant youth culture of the 1960s, in the writings of radical feminists such

as Kate Millett and members of the Gay Liberation Froµt, and in the more recent gay youth groups. These young women and young men, girls and boys, were acknowledging their own sexuality and coming

out at younger and younger ages. It may have been impossible at the

time, given the heated social and political climate, but the events

surrounding Save Our Children would have taken quite a different turn if the voices of LGBT youth-proclaiming that they were not in danger, but part of a larger LGBT community-had been publicly

avowed. Their visibility would have been an antidote to the fear and lies of Bryant and her supporters.

The repeal of the ordinance in Dade County moved the issue of

gay rights into the national spotlight, with tremendous antigay ef- fects. After the Dade referendum, the story in Time was headlined "A 'No' to Gays"; U.S. News and World Report titled their story "Miami Vote: Tide Turning Against Homosexuals." 18 The "danger-

ous" connection between homosexuals and children was looming large in the public imagination, and much of this sentiment was enacted into law. States began passing laws that affected a range of

family issues, such as banning lesbians and gay men from adopt-

ing children or becpming foster parents. Ironically, although the charges of recruitment and sexual molestation were aimed almost

entirely at gay men, legal restrictions on adoption and foster care

disproportionately affected lesbians. Bryant's success with an em-

boldened religious right helped start a series of conservative policies- including economic, foreign, educational, military, social, and eco- logical policies under the Reagan administration-that had long- lasting negative effects for gay people.

Bryant and her supporters made no secret that they saw this fight as a religious battle for the Christian soul of America. In her book

The Anita Bryant Story: The Survival of Our Nation's Families and the Threat of Militant Homosexuality, Bryant wrote: "To think we live in a country where freedom and right are supposed to reign,

,'1'' 1',

224 A Queer History of the United States

a country that boasts 'In God we trust' and has such a rich spiritual

heritage; yet where internal decadence is all too evident, where the word of God and the voice of the majority is sometimes not heeded at all."19 Many of the "culture wars" since that time-over guide-

lines for sex education, funding for the arts, decisions about military

policies, judicial decisions about family law and, critically impo~­ tant the federal response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic-have their

root~ in this basic conflict. It was a battle that pitted LGBT people's demand for legal equality against mainstream culture's religiously

informed, if ever ambivalent, relationship to homosexuality. The legal and cultural wars of the late I97os brought LGBT

communities across the nation together in powerful ways, includ- ing massive rallies and campaigns against this new wave of political

repression. When the repression took a violent turn-as it ~id w~th the June 24 , I973, firebombing of a New Orleans gay bar, m which thirty-two people were burned to death, or the assassination of San

Francisco mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk in I 978-the diverse LGBT community was able to put aside its

internal differences to fight a common enemy.

AIDS: RESILIENCE AND RESISTANCE

Within three years, that common enemy would take forms that were eerily familiar, but in a context that was nearly unimaginable. On June 5, I 9 8I, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly, a newsletter from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), men-

tioned five cases of an unusual pneumonia in patients in Los Angeles.

A month later, on July 3, the New York Times printed a short article headlined "Rare Cancer Seen in 4I Homosexuals." By December the CDC had identified nonhomosexual men with similar symp-

toms. As the year ended, there had been I2I deaths from what was

at first called gay-related immune deficiency. Eventually it would be given another name: acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).

By 2007, AIDS would claim the lives of 583,298 women, men,

and children in the United States and 2.I million worldwide. In the early stages of the pandemic, researchers did not understand, as they

Revolt/Backlash/Resistance 225

would by I983, that the disease was caused by a virus that would

later be called HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). At first it was largely unclear exactly how the virus was spread, and there was no

easily available diagnostic test for HIV until I98 5. This lack of facts rendered AIDS particularly frightening.

HIV/AIDS is not specifically connected to homos€xuality or same-sex sexual behavior. But because it was first detected in gay

males and rapidly spread through the gay male community, it imme-

diately became associated with gay men in the public imagination. This quickly lead to three dire consequences. First, gay male sexual-

ity, now synonymous with a fatal illness, became more stigmatized than ever before. Second, this stigmatization led to numerous laws

that discriminated against people with AIDS in insurance, the work- place, and housing. In some municipalities, children who were HIV-

positive or diagnosed with AIDS were forbidden to attend school. Third, because people with AIDS were so demonized and because

they were often associated with outsider groups-by I983 it became clear that intravenous drug users, Haitian immigrants, and a small

number of hemophiliacs were also at high risk-the media and state

and federal governments provided little in the way of basic educa- tion or even news coverage.

This was true of even the most respected news sources. In Oc- tober I982 the country was in a panic because an unknown person in the Chicago area had placed cyanide in Tylenol capsules, caus-

ing seven fatalities. Tlae New York Times printed thirty-one stories about the Tylenol poisonings during October and another twenty-

nine throughout November and December. By October 5, I982, 634 people in the United States had been diagnosed with AIDS, and over

a third of them had died. The New York Times ran three stories about AIDS in I98I and three more in I98 2 .20

Because of the deep denial of the situation's gravity-denial that clearly would not have occurred if the majority of people being af-

fected by AIDS had been white heterosexuals-medical research ' prevention education, and basic care for the women and men who

were sick started far too late. This lack of response, which in retro-

spect can only be understood as willful negligence, helped construct a social situation that allowed an epidemic to spread unchecked.

226 A Queer History of the United States

In many ways the rapid, catastrophic growth of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is a perfect illustration of R. I. Moore's ideas in The Forma- tion of a Persecuting Society. Moore argues that European medieval society created categories of "dangerous" groups-Jews, heretics,

lepers, homosexuals-whose ostracization made the majority feel safer. Moore's theory conflates neatly with Mary Douglas's notions of purity and danger. Douglas points out how societies put into

place edicts, laws, social proscriptions, and prejudices that maintain the preexisting conservative underpinnings of society by controlling

or stopping what they understand to be cultural pollution. These two theories are essential to the larger social picture, but

they are based on personal lives. Author Sarah Schulman notes that the message of her I990 novel People in Trouble, set in the early days of the epidemic in New York City's Lower East Side, was "that

personal homophobia becomes societal neglect, that there is a direct

relationship between the two." 21 This observation-that personal prejudice has a fundamental, devastating effect on public opinion

and policy-explains to a great degree how ignorance, misunder- standing, dislike, fear, and hatred of homosexuals could escalate to

such an extent that large numbers of Americans could simply not

care about the deaths of their fellow citizens. Occurring just three years after the repeal of the Dade County

ordinance resulted in a wave of antigay sentiment across the na- tion, the HIV/AIDS epidemic was perfectly suited to the rhetoric of the religious and political right. Pat Buchanan, a conservative

Catholic Republican leader, wrote in a I990 column that "AIDS is nature's retribution for violating the laws of nature." 22 Shortly after

this, popular televangelist Jerry Falwell stated that "AIDS is not just God's punishment for ho~osexuals. It is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."23 These theological sentiments easily translated into political action, as shown in a funding letter

from the conservative American Family Association:

Dear Family Member, Since AIDS is transmitted primarily by perverse homo-

sexuals, your name on my national petition to quarantine all homosexual establishments is crucial to your family's health

Revolt/Backlash/Resistance 227

and security. . . . These disease carrying deviants wander the

street unconcerned, possibly making you their next victim.

What else can you expect from sex-crazed degenerates but selfishness? 24

As Gayle Rubin posited in her essay "Thinking Sef,'' published in 1984, "It is precisely at times such as these, when we live with the possibility of unthinkable destruction, that people are likely to

bec_ome dangerously crazy about sexuality."25 AIDS was caused by a virus, not by homosexuality. It was, however, a "gay disease" in

the important sense that because many of those affected were gay men, the moral, social, political, and legal stigma attached to ho-

mosexuality shaped the country's response. As a result, hundreds of thousands of deaths occurred in circumstances that were unjust and a direct result of the behavior of the majority.

Although a great deal of excellent work was done in medicine and in prevention and education strategies, in general the fight

against AIDS was inseparable from a cultural mandate to restate and at times legally reinforce, traditional attitudes about sexuality'.

By I984, cities such as San Francisco and New York began initia- tives to close down bathhouses and sex clubs, claiming they were

public health hazards. Certainly the transmission of HIV could hap- pen in these sites, as well as in private homes. It is clear, from selec- tive enforcement and the use of cod~d language, that these efforts were actually attel1)pts to regulate sexuality rather than promote

public health. 26 The epidemic was also used as an excuse to arrest

female and male prostitutes. 27 Thanks to tremendous scientific prog-

ress since the 1950s, new drugs were able to cure or treat diseases- syphilis and gonorrhea being prime examples-that were previously untreatable. The inability to treat or cure HIV/AIDS caused a panic

that allowed people to keep their anxiety and anger tied to the idea of unregulated sexuality.

Some of this sex negativity and discomfort came from within the gay and lesbian community. Many of the lists of "dangerous"

sexual activities found in early HIV prevention guidelines included activities, such as SIM, that were socially frowned on but not able to transmit HIV. Even after routes of transmission were scientifi-

228 A Queer History of the United States

cally proven and the use of condoms was being promoted to prevent them, many guidelines also urged gay men to limit the number of

their partners. Editorials in the LGBT press frequently called for gay men to move from a community adolescence of sexual promiscuity

to a "more adult" world of monogamous relationships. Even as late

as 1998, journalist Andrew Sullivan articulated these sentiments: "The gay liberationists have plenty to answer for .... Saving lives

was less important than saving a culture of 'promiscuity as a collec- tive way of life,' when, of course, it was little more than a collective

way of death .... They constructed and defended and glorified the

abattoirs of the epidemic."28

As much as the entire LGBT community was under attack be-

cause of the AIDS epidemic (despite the reality that lesbians were

at extremely low risk of transmitting HIV to one another sexually), women and men formed health-focused community organizations

from the moment that the first cases appeared. They continued to

do so under increasingly severe conditions. The mortality rate from HIV/AIDS during the 1980s and 1990s was staggering: the total

number of reported deaths was l,476 in 1983, n,932 by 1987, and 31,129 by 1990. Not all of these deaths were of gay men, but a high proportion were; in some urban areas, such as San Fran-

cisco, the vast majority were. The massive tide of illness and death -as Canadian poet Michael Lynch put it, "these waves of dying friends" -trumped the long history of divisions within the LGBT

community. Organizations such as Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York Boston's AIDS Action Committee, and the San Francisco

' AIDS Foundation provided counseling, health care, home visits, and education, often not only for the gay community but for anyone af- fected by AIDS. LGBT legal groups quickly began fighting discrimi-

nation against all people with HIV/AIDS. This response was possible in part because of the tightly knit,

cohesive, self-sustaining sexual communities that had been form- ing since the end of World War II. Sarah Schulman argues in Stage Struck that the bars, baths, and other meeting places that were blamed for the AIDS epidemic were the very structures that gave the community the knowledge and networking that allowed for efficient

organizing when the epidemic began. This sentiment is echoed in

Revolt/Backlash/Resistance 229

"The History of Gay Bathhouses,'' written by Allan Berube an9. submitted as a brief when the California Superior Court was decid-

ing whether San Francisco could legally close bathhouses for health

reasons. 29 The constant political backlash, going back to 1977, had also made gay and lesbian political organizing more effective.

The other major reason AIDS organizing was so produf'.tive had

to do with the use of knowle~ge and models originating in other movements. The large number of lesbians and feminists aiding the

effort included many women who had become politically active dur- ing the 1960s and 1970s and were highly familiar with the theory

and practices of the women's health care movement. Beginning

with the publication in 1973 of Our Bodies, Ourselves, feminists- knowing they could not trust the male-dominated medical estab- lishment-began their own support networks, research groups, and publications. Their intent was both to inform women of their own

health needs and to demand from the medical establishment the basic care and medical attention women needed. The organizational underpinnings of the women's health care movement were evident

as people with AIDS began to better understand the complexity of

their medical, social, and political needs. In addition, community- based AIDS services, such as a free breakfast program and free com-

munity health clinics, were started and executed with great success

by the Black Panther Party, first in Oakland and then in other cities. The Black Panther Party's approach to community organizing was largely based on the CO)Dmunist Party model of cells that was used by Harry Hay to form the Mattachine Society.

Despite some misinformation and early bias, the advent of what

would eventually be called "safe sex" was a major innovation that occurred in response to the AIDS epidemic. The phrase was first

used by Richard Berkowitz and Michael Callen in their 1983 pam-

phlet How to Have Sex in an Epidemic: One Approach. The phrase "safe sex" came to embody not only concrete strategies to avoid HIV transmission, but also a new approach to the epidemic that

completely resisted the impulses of sexual regulation and repression that were being articulated in response to AIDS. The sheer neces-

sity of having to negotiate sexual activity demanded that the parties involved talk about their desires and their actions. This was, in the

230 A Queer History of the United States

midst of dealing with the immediacy of illness and death, a reclaim- ing of the sexually based community formation that had started

decades before. Along with this new way to discuss sexuality within the gay male

community and the continued valuation of sex as a positive good, another discussion was taking place within the lesbian and femi-

nist communities. At a 1982 conference at Barnard College, sev- eral women delivered papers that promoted a more open discussion

of women's sexuality. These papers, which included Gayle Rubin's "Thinking Sex," contradicted the politics of feminists who were

involved in antipornography campaigns and who were critical of

nontraditional sexualities such as SIM, role playing, and changing gender identity. These women, many of whom came out of a radical feminist and gay liberation background, were interested in formulat-

ing a new language of discussing female pleasure and sexuality that was in direct opposition to the sexually regulatory modes of the so-

cial purity groups of the nineteenth century and their contemporary descendants. The connection to the AIDS epidemic, although not

noted at the time, is clear in retrospect. As Cindy Patton wrote in

19 86, "Lesbians/gay liberationists throughout the AIDS crisis have

insisted that AIDS must not be viewed as proof that sexual explora-

tion and the elaboration of sexual community were mistakes .. · · It is essential to maintain the vision of community in order to navigate

the difficult waters of political backlash." 30

The political and legal backlash engendered by the AIDS epi-

demic was tremendous, but the anger with which the LGBT com-

munity responded was fueled by other events as well. On June 30,

19 86, the Supreme Court ruled in Bowers v. Hardwick that the~e was no constitutional protection for homosexual sodomy. The deci-

sion was an affirmation of the vast legal undermining of the LGBT

community that had been happening since 1977· Inflammatory rhetoric ran so high that the moralism and bias of the past paled in comparison. In a March 18, 1986, New York Times opinion piece, esteemed political commentator William F. Buckley urged that "ev- eryone detected with AIDS should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common-needle users, and on the buttocks, to prevent

the victimization of other homosexuals." The Reagan administra-

Revolt/Backlash/Resistance 231

tion, meanwhile, had done almost nothing in the early years of the epidemic. The president himself-in what can only be seen as a

conscious, and shocking, act of indifference-had mentioned AIDS

publicly only twice, briefly, before giving a speech during the Third

International Conference on AIDS in Washington on May 31, 1987. This was after 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS, of whom 20,849 had died.

Two months earlier, at a meeting in New York City, playwright and activist Larry Kramer called for a new, grassroots AIDS orga-

nization that would perform direct action and demand the basic health care, civil rights, legal protections, and respect that Ameri-

cans were guaranteed under the Constitution. Two days later, three hundred people turned out for a meeting to form such a group. The

result was the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). In many

ways, ACT UP was a return to the raucous street actions of the Gay Liberation Front and the "zaps" of the Gay Activist Alliance. But

it was also a repudiation of the play-within-the-system approach of the reformist LGBT rights groups. Kramer was explicit about this in his original speech, in which he stated that the group Gay

Men's Health Crisis, of which he was a cofounder, had no political clout in the legal or medical world. National and local groups, such

as New York's Lambda Legal Defense and Education Foundation and Boston's AIDS Law Project of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and

Defenders, were doing necessary legal work. But the instances of discrimination were SO< pervasive, and enforcement often so weak , that there was still much more to be done. With devastation increas- ingly evident in the gay male community and anger and frustration

mounting, new tactics had to be tried and new energy harnessed.

Like the Gay Liberation Front, ACT UP was predicated on the prin- ciple, traced back to anarchist thinking as well as labor and other

social justice reform groups, that the people who are affected by injustice are the most effective in changing their own circumstances.

ACT UP took to the streets almost immediately. On March 24, three weeks after the first meeting, ACT UP members marched on

Wall Street demanding an end to profiteering by drug companies and easier access to experimental HIV drugs. Seventeen people were arrested for civil disobedience. Within months, the Food and Drug

232 A Queer History of the United States

Administration announced that it would shorten the drug approval process by two years. On April I5, ACT UP marched on New York's

General Post Office, where thousands were waiting in line to file tax returns. This was the first time ACT UP used the image of the

upside-down pink triangle and the phrase "Silence = Death." In June ACT UP, along with other national AIDS groups, took part

in civil disobedience at the White House to protest the federal gov- ernment's inaction on AIDS. As with the Gay Liberation Front, within months of ACT UP's formation, local offshoots were started

in cities across the country. But ACT UP did not specifically see itself as an LGBT group.

All communities were affected by AIDS, but in particular impov-

erished communities, communities of color, women, immigrants, and-as the epidemic spread-children. ACT UP's single-issue man-

date translated into a multicommunity coalition. During this time, many LGBT people began using the word

"queer" to describe themselves and their culture. This was partly an act of reclaiming language, just as gay liberationists had used

once-pejorative words such as "fag" and "dyke" in a new, positive

context that could change their political meaning. Unlike those

terms, "queer" could be used to describe people with a wide rang~ of sexual identities who were working in coalition. For the constitu- ents of ACT UP, using this word was a reflection of their politi-

cal vision and actions. Just as "queer" had been angrily shouted at lesbians and gay men in past decades, ACT UP and other activists now shouted the word as a declaration of difference and strength.

As members of Queer Nation, a direct action group founded by members of ACT UP in I990, would chant at their marches, "We're

Here. We're Queer. Get Used To It." It had been less than forty years since Harry Hay met with his

friends to start the Mattachine Society, but sexuality identity, po-

litical activism, and the world had changed tremendously. The Gay Liberation Front had protested with hand-lettered signs and banners made of bedsheets. ACT UP, in an age of new technologies, was

able to reach a wider audience and get its message across with more

sophistication and media flair. Posters and T-shirts created by the Gran Fury collective, a working project within ACT UP, were com-

Revolt/Backlash/Resistance 233

parable to professional adverting art; some of them even included references to commercial advertisements. Th,e messages continually

hammered home the idea that social ignorance and negligence led directly to death. One sign, with an image of a bloody handprint in the center, read:

THE GOVERNMENT HAS BLOOD ON ITS HANDS

ONE AIDS DEATH EVERY HALF HOUR

The new technologies also reflected the original message of gay liberation. One poster announced:

I AM OUT

therefore IAM.

ACT UP also branched into other media as well. After a January I988 article in Cosmopolitan magazine assured women they could have no-risk vaginal intercourse with an HIV-positive man without

using a condom, five hundred ACT UP demonstrators, organized by

the Women's Caucus of ACT UP, picketed the publication's offices. Two women in the caucus made a documentary, Doctors, Liars, and Women: AIDS Activists Say NO to Cosmo, that detailed and ex- plained the action; it went on to win awards and was used in fund-

raising and future organizing. In I989 several ACT UP members

s~arted DIVA TV (DIVA was an acronym for "dammed interfering video activists") to document ACT UP activity and the AIDS epi-

demic. These documentary efforts were an acknowledgment that the mainstream media could not be trusted to tell the truth-a theme in

many ACT UP posters-and that it was incumbent on activists to

make certain that their own history would be preserved accurately.

ACT UP was the most effective political action group the LGBT movement had ever produced. Its constant demands for legal and medical accountability were often met with success. This was largely

because ACT UP was, by intent, a bold, theatrical move. Throughout the history of the United States, entertainmtnt, theater, film televi- . '

s10n, and the fine arts have, through visceral response, connected

234 A Queer History of the United States

people of different identities and allowed them to reimagine their lives. This kind of social justice is more than legal or even political.

Sometimes, as with the patriotic statues of Harriet Hosmer and the photography of F. Holland Day, art has helped viewers understand,

and maybe heal, the damage of war. Other times, the subversion of gender norms in art-such as the cross-dressing acts of vaudeville,

the drag shows of the USO, and the lesbian pulps-has had both

overt and subtle implications for everyday life. Similarly, the power of ACT UP's theatricality came from bringing issues of gender and

sexual expression to the forefront in a way that continued to reso- nate in unlikely places, for audiences and actors alike. To echo the

words of Carl Wittman, it was "a good show." ACT UP's defiant theatricality was evident in one of its most fa-

mous political protests. On December I2, I989, over five thousand activists, including members of ACT UP and a separate but affili-

ated group, Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM), held a "Stop the Church" demonstration in front of New York's

St. Patrick's Cathedral. Over a hundred of them entered the cathe-

dral, lay down in the aisles, and were arrested for civil disobedience. They were protesting the influence that the archdiocese and Cardi-

nal John O'Connor had exerted on city and state policy relating to AIDS, safe-sex education, sexuality, and reproductive rights. The

archdiocese had lobbied heavily, with expensive public advertise- ments as well as political pressure, to stop a program that dispensed

condoms in public high schools and youth homeless shelters, as well as to stop needle exchange programs, which were proven ef-

fective in preventing HIV transmission in intravenous drug users.

The archdiocese also promoted the falsehood that condom use was an ineffective means of controlling HIV transmission. In addition, it lobbied against any HIV and sex education that did not promote abstinence as the only way to avoid AIDS and pregnancy. O'Connor

was quoted as saying, "The truth is not in condoms or clean needles. These are lies, lies perpetrated often for political reasons on the part

of public officials ... [and] some health care professionals." 31

The Stop the Church protest received enormous attention, be-

cause of both its size and the sheer audacity of confronting O'Connor in his own church. ACT UP's response to O'Connor was succinct

Revolt/Backlash/Resistance 235

and pointed to the high stakes involved: "The Catholic Church has long taught men and women to loathe their bodies and to fear their· .

sexual natures. This particular vision of good and evil continues to bring suffering and even death." 32 The Catholic Church was no

different, or worse, than any other organization in United States his- tory that had tried to regulate and control women's and men's sexual desires, bodies, and actions.

ACT UP, like many forms of art, was known for "going too far." But the people who have had to go too far to assert their own inde- pendence and deeply held beliefs about social justice-such as Anne

Hutchinson, Jemima Wilkinson, Harriet Tubman, Walt Whitman, Victoria Woodhull, Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Hay, and Bayard

Rustin-have made the most lasting changes in American social policy, political beliefs, and everyday lives. Their powerful effects

on how we think about gender and sexuality happened both gradu-

ally and, under extreme suffe~ing, more immediately, just as wars, after they are ostensibly concluded, can profoundly redefine what it

means to be an American. America was a war zone during the first

decade of the AIDS epidemic, but it had always been a theater of control and liberation, where bodies fall and boundaries break in the fervor of solidarity.