Gay rights in the 60s
The 1960's
Nothing Out in the Redwoods?
The 1960s
In 1965, four years before Stonewall, and ten years before the founding of GALA, UCSC's first official gay and lesbian organization, gays and lesbians were not out at UCSC. Unlike earlier eras, homosexuality was taboo in the middle of the twentieth century. Small but courageous homophile organizations like the Mattachine Society, One, and Daughters of Bilitis fought for civil rights, but homophobia and intolerance remained pernicious in the 1960s. Homosexuality was pathologized, classified by the American Psychiatric Association as a psychiatric disorder, a definition that was not removed until 1973. Faculty, living in fear of losing their jobs, remained in the closet. As two of our interviewees have recalled, the climate at UCSC was not helped by the fact that two prominent campus leaders, Cowell Provost Page Smith and Founding Chancellor Dean McHenry, publicly expressed anti-gay sentiments.
The late-1960s witnessed the beginnings of the gay liberation movement, including landmark events such as the founding of t
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down two decisions at the terminate of June favoring gay marriage. One ruling struck down federal restrictions in the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) of 1996, the other cleared the way for gay marriages in California. With the rapid recent progress of the gay rights movement, including changes in public attitudes, some see parallels with the earlier African-American civil rights movement. Is the comparison valid? What’s different this time? Illinois history professor Kevin Mumford specializes in the history of both movements, and is working on a book about black gay history. He spoke with News Bureau social sciences editor Craig Chamberlain.
You say that some gay rights advocates want to characterize recent events as the normal business of America doing civil rights – to see continuity with the black civil rights movement. But what’s flawed in that comparison?
First, it is easy to forget the context and duration of the civil rights movement. After the Civil War, African-Americans had full citizenship, elected local and federal representatives, and then
Barbara Gittings Helps Lead First 'Annual Reminder' Protests
Vice squads–police units faithful to “cleaning up” undesirable parts of urban life–routinely raided the bars frequented by LGBTQ+ people. Laws against people of the same sex dancing together or wearing clothing made for the opposite sex were used as justification to arrest patrons. By the 1960s in New York City, the mafia owned many of these establishments and its members would bribe officers in order to avoid fines. Sometimes the arrangement meant that patrons would be forewarned of a pending raid in time to change their clothing and terminate dancing. That wasn’t true during the early morning hours of June 28 1969, when the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village.
When they arrived at Stonewall, the police locked the doors so that no one could escape as they conducted arrests. As certain patrons were released, they joined a large crowd that had been gathering outside the bar. Those chosen for arrest started resisting the police officers with the encouragement of the jeering crowd. Violence broke out
Historical Essay
by Will Roscoe
Two Castro Couples -- Love, sweet love.
Photo: Crawford Barton, Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California
| An intersectional gay rights movement came to light in the 1960s when the gay community joined with the momentum of the civil rights movement, anti-war protestors, and feminists. This communal gay rights movement was prefaced by two events. Firstly, a much-debated “Homosexual Bill of Rights” was drafted and acted as a prototype for the gay civil rights agenda of the 1970s. Secondly, the incumbent mayor Christopher was re-elected in 1959 by a landslide even after the opposing candidate ran a smear campaign criticizing the mayor of harboring “sexual deviates” in the city. There were many adj political efforts by the prior gay community, including the Tavern Guild, the Society for Individual Rights, and the Council on Religion and Homosexuality, that together helped curb rampant anti-gay police brutality. |
In the 1960s, the gay movement absorbed the profound and successive influences of the civil rights, anti-