“Off the Couches, Into the Streets!”: Queer Liberation Movements

1. “Off the Couches, Into the Streets!”: Queer Liberation Movements

2. Compton’s Cafeteria, Stonewall • Stonewall: • Mafia Run Gay Bar in Greenwich Village, NY • Multi-day riot, started on June 28, 1969 • helped to trigger gay liberation movement. • Compton’s Cafeteria • Riot by street queens and other transgender • people in 1966 in reaction to police harassment Photo from Stonewall Riot

3. Village Voice Quote • After a police raid on the Snake Pit, which led to the death of Alfredo Vinales, the The Village Voice: • “While official harassment-police or otherwise—is a continuing frustration and fright to the gay world, the real tyranny is subtler and more pernicious. It is the tyranny of the secret and the lie and the pseudonym, the tyranny of discretion, the tyranny of streets not walked and friends not seen and help not asked. It is the tyranny that drove Alfred Vinales out of a police station window. It is the tyranny of a shadowy underworld driven into itself for warmth and protection, driven to the extremes of self-caricature to cement a perverted identity… The Snake Pit raid is one more illustration of the ugly games that straights inflict on gays… driving them finally into an up-front struggle of liberation to establish, once and for all, that gay is neither perversion, nor sissy nor sick nor faggot nor silly. Gay is good

4. Birth of Gay Liberation • Gay Liberation Front: • Born in the aftermath of the Stonewall Riot in 1969. • In contrast to earlier homophile movement, sought radical • change: overthrow of capitalism; militant tactics against oppression • of gay people; and pride in homosexuality. • Sought a transformation of how homosexuals and straights • related to their sexuality. • Sought alliances with other movements for liberation, like black • power, the Asian American movement, Chicano power, the anti- • Vietnam War movement, and Women’s Liberation “Say it clear, say it loud; gay is good, gay is proud!” “Gay is Good!” “Out of the Closets, Into the Streets!” “Gay Power!” Gay Liberation Front

5. Gay Activists Alliance • Members of the Gay Liberation Front formed the Gay Activists Alliance to singularly • focus on gay rights in December, 1969, just 4 months after the Stonewall Riot. • Marty Robinson and Jim Owles were two founding members of GAA. • More conservative than the GLF, led primarily by white men. Gay Activists Alliance (GAA)

6. Lesbian Feminism • Lesbian Feminist groups formed due to dissatisfaction • with conservative feminists who rejected lesbian issues • and with male-dominated gay liberation groups who did • the same. • Men within Gay Liberation groups often acted domineering • and sexist. • Spring of 1970, Rita Mae Brown and others wrote the • Influential “The Woman-Identified Woman.” • Formed Radicalesbians in New York. The Lavender Meance

7. Gender and Gay Liberation Gender transgression 1971 San Francisco Gay Liberation Front

8. Transgender Liberation • Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries • Founded in 1970, led by Marsha P. Johnson • and Sylvia Rivera, who identified as “Street • Transvestites.” • Sought to help transgender youth who • primarily lived on the streets of NYC. • Fought for the rights of transgender people • within the larger Gay Liberation movement. • In addition to demanding social revolution, • STAR addressed: lethal prison conditions, • police harassment, the discriminatory mental • and legal systems, and discrimination against • Trans people in housing and employment • Started STAR House for homeless transvestite • Street youth. Marsha P. Johnson and STAR (Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries) Sylvia Rivera

9. Anita Bryant • Christian Fundamentalist, former Miss America, Spokesperson for the Florida Orange Juice Commission. • Helped to lead the fight against queer rights on the Christian Right. • Led a successful campaign in 1977 in Dade County, Florida to overturn a gay rights ordinance. This success helped spark a number of other successful anti-gay efforts across the U.S. Anita Bryant

10. The Briggs Initiative • On the California Ballot on November 7, 1978. • Senator John Briggs, Republican of Orange County, led the effort to get the initiative passed. • If passed, it would have made it illegal for gays and lesbians, and their straight supporters, to teach in the public school system. • Ultimately failed, after a movement arose to defeat it, with 59% vote no and 41% of voters favoring the initiative. John Briggs is in the Left

11. The Anti-Briggs Movement • Groups like the Gay Teachers of Los Angeles, the Lesbian School Workers and the Gay Teachers and School Workersin the Bay Area organized to defeat the Briggs Initiative. • Gay and Lesbian community groups popped up across the state, including specifically to defeat Briggs. • Harvey Milk, who had just recently become an openly gay member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (and who was a teacher at an earlier stage in his life), was very involved in the campaign to defeat Briggs. • The movement to defeat Briggs brought gays and lesbians, after years of working separately, together to defeat the Christian Right. Harvey Milk