Wrong Road, Right Road, Wrong Road, Right Road.

Just recently I read these words,  “all that is happening right now is a perfect example of why organizations might prefer to be single issue!” I am not going to write about the whole flap that was happening but instead I wish to write and think about single and multi-issue movements within our TBLG stories.  This essay could well be called Around and Around and Up and Down and Back and Forth we go.

 Going against our nature and our people.

I know for a fact that TBLG people are here, there and everywhere. I would hope that all of us know that. Just by stating that it becomes obvious why we could never be a single issue movement. I remember back in the day when we were trying to get straights to make a connection with us. ”We are your grandmothers, grandfather’s, aunts, uncles, niece, nephew, mother, father, sons, daughters we are your family, your neighbors, we are here, there and everywhere.” Anyway it went something like that. So if that was the truth then in all of our diversity we would have to take on many issues not just issues that pertained to a certain class amongst us. No matter how difficult it could be. And today we remember that some of those early freedom fighters spoke the truth and today many still do.  And if we don’t remember it we better dust out the cobwebs in our memory banks and start now recalling. These are dangerous times and the larger coalitions that we build the better off we will be. If we don’t get into this coalition building we could very well find ourselves and our people on the wrong side of the fence with no allies to help us beat back an attack by our foes.

Let’s do a brief contempoary history of Our Story, Where Do We Come From?

A good place to start is prior to our revolution at Stonewall Inn in 1969.  Let’s start with Harry Hay and the Mattachine Society founded in 1950. The Mattachine Society’s programs were strongly multi-issue, committed to cooperation among oppressed people and to linking the gay struggle with the Black and Chicano movements. Harry Hay who was a radical and former member of the Communist party knew that only a unified struggle by all of the oppressed together was the road to freedom for all.  “A statement of the Mattachine in 1951 asserted that homosexuals were one of the largests minorities in America and were a group who were victimize as a result of their oppression.” (1)  Hay, like many of us today know that civil rights for homosexuals were the same as civil rights for other groups in society. That those who were denied their rights by an abusive system must rise up and demand for themselves, what the constitution of the United States is suppose to grant to all people. From his days in the communist party days  Harry Hay understood that to build coalitions amongst all the people was the way and the only way to go. In coalitions there was protection, in coalitions the oppressor can not pick one group off without the others. The People United, Are Never Defeated. But let’s not forget here that Hay had to resign from the Communist Party as the party was strongly opposed to homosexuality.   How could anyone oppressed not be in coalition together when they were faced with a society rabidly anti anything but straight conservative white. In America of this period ,during the cold war,  progressives like Hay spoke about the approach of American fascism and reminded people that gays would be a certain target as they were under Nazi rule. Hay spoke for a united front and worried that a  community that would only worry about its own was doomed for failer.  But of course not everyone thought that way. These were the day of the House Un-American Activities Committee and to be associated with Communists spelled doom. Joseph McCarthy and his committee were all over the headlines and television with anti-Communist hysteria and everyone was afraid of anything red. Senator Mc Carthy and his young counsel Roy Cohn had no compunction abut using people’s homosexuality to destroy them. Their war against “perverts” began an atmosphere of persecution and purges nationwide for homosexual Americans. Harry Hay was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955 for his Communist activities. Even the ACLU in 1957, 10 years into the persecutions announced, “It is not within the province of the Union, (ACLU) to evaluate the social validity of laws aimed at the suppression or the elimination of homosexuals.” Have they ever apologize to the community?

A death in the family:  A multi-issue movement becomes one issue. 

Rumors were about in the Society that the founders were communist or former communists and at a convention of the group in 1953 the original founders such as Hay resigned as leaders. Red-baiting was the order of the day at this stormy convention and a cry went out demanding loyalty oaths to the U.S. One member threatened to deliver the names of everybody present to the FBI unless the body endorsed political screening for all members.(1) This group within the Mattachine Society, the conservatives did not believe that they belonged to any minority group. In Hay’s words during an interview with The Progressive Magazine he explained it like this, ” They threw me out because I stood for us being a national minority. They didn’t want that. All they wanted was to march up to Sacramento and change the law just a tiny bit. They would say, “It’s ridiculous to think of a homosexual brotherhood. We don’t have anything in common except what we do in bed together. If you can change the law, we can all be normal.” Hay goes on to say, “It’s a lot like that nowadays. The assimilationist group you have now is exactly the same crowd that threw me out, only forty years later. Assimilation is the way you excuse yourself. It absolutely never worked at all. You may not think you are noticeable. But they know who you are. You won’t find out until push comes to shove. And then you’ll find out real fast. Because they’re respectable in the eyes of God and you aren’t. A law is a law. It can be voted in and voted out. It can be voted in as long as you have a majority. Lose that and watch out. You can quickly become the enemy.” (2)  After the radicals were purged the Mattachine Society embarked on a new course of respectability and long-term very low-key education. A large part of that education was to allow “experts” or outsiders to define homosexuals and to participate in the process of gathering endorsements of professionals from mainstream society. (It bothers me today when our reform minded movements do this in gathering endorsements from anyone outside our community.) This course of action marked the homophile movement up until Stonewall in 1969.

DO YOU THINK HOMOSEXUALS ARE REVOLTING? YOU BET YOUR SWEET ASS WE ARE.

We’re going to make a place for ourselves in the revolutionary movement. We challenge the myths that are screwing up this society. MEETING: Thursday, July 24th, 6:30 PM at Alternate U, 69 West 14th Street at Sixth Ave.

This was the leaflet passed out in Greenwich Village that began the Gay Liberation Front in 1969.

After the Stonewall riot which marked the start of saying “NO” to all forms of gay oppression a new militancy replaced the moderate homophile movement. The Gay Liberation Front allied in a multi-issue movement with women, minorities and other radicals. The new gay militants no longer would claim that they could fit into society. Rather it was claimed that it was society that needed changing. To topple not transform. To overthrow. The GLF saw themselves as contributing to world wide revolutionary change. The GLF allied itself with the Black Panther Party and preached a radical agenda including the overthrow of Capitalism. In 1970 The Panthers called for a “Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention” that would draft a new constitution representing all oppressed people. The GLF was invited to attend. At this time Huey P. Newton publicly expressed his solidarity with the gay power movement and proclaimed “Homosexuals might be the most oppressed people in society.”  One statement that I love went like this. “We regard established heterosexual standards of morality as immoral and refuse to condone them by demanding an equality which is merely the common yoke of oppression.” And you know, this old queer stills believes that. Many people involved with the GLF had come out of various other new left groups. One of the founders was Carl Wittman who had played a prominent role in the SDS and was a union organizer. In the spring of 1969 Wittman had written Refugees from America: A Gay Manifesto calling on gays to free themselves, come out, create institutions and liberate themselves from the yoke of oppression. One section of the manifesto that I find especially powerful were these words. “The straight image of the gay world is defined largely by those who have violated straight roles. There is a tendency amongst homophile groups to deplore gays who play a visible role–drag queens and nellies. As liberated gays we must take a clear stand. 1. Gays who stood out have become our first martyrs. They came out, were out, and withstood disapproval before the rest of us did. 2. If they have suffered from being open it is straight society who we must indict not the drag queens. (3) That message one of inclusion was a message that had a short lived history. The idea of respectable gays and lesbians who matched what straight society call respectable was very much apart of the early homophile movement but met its death in the Gay Liberation Front and then reared its ugly head again when the single issue Gay Activist Alliance came on the scene. All though it is different today the movement still suffers from this break and the disregarding and disrespecting of the Transgender Community today has its birth in both the homophile movement and the GAA. Both in my opinion were on the wrong road and today anyone who stills follows this road is not only wrong but setting us all up for failure. And this failure will be brought about because of single cell selfishness. As if a body can ever run on one cell. As if our people were not diversified, therefore multi-issue. As if our people were all comfortable class white gays and lesbians with white gay and lesbian concerns. 

Radical Caucus Split from the Homophile Groups

The North American Conference of Homophile Organizations, (NACHO) met in August 1969. The approach of the groups that made up NACHO was fashioned after the NAACP and worked through education, legal action,voter education and appealing to the consciences of people by creating a good public image of homosexuals and through respectability. At their meeting in 1969 the respectable approach was attacked by a radical caucus from within their ranks. This caucus was joined by the NACHO Youth Committee. The caucus came out with a twelve point Radical Manifesto. This document spoke of a general attempt to oppress all minorities and to keep them powerless, that their fate was linked with these minorities, and that the organized enemies of homosexuals, the repressive government, religion, business and medicine will not be moved by appeasement or appeals to reason, that the Vietnam war must be rejected and an all out refusal to encourage complicity in war or to support the war machine and in opposition to the movement gaining security clearances for homosexuals as this was seen as contributing to the war machine. After this confrontation and others to follow the reformist homophile movement began to fall apart.

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE—THE GAY LIBERATION FRONT, LOS ANGELES , CALIFORNIA

During December 1969 the Gay Liberation Front Los Angeles was founded. Their statement of purpose opened with these words.

Community of Interest:We are in total opposition to America’s white racism, to poverty, hunger, the systematic destruction of our patrimony; we oppose the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, and are in total opposition to wars of aggression and imperialism, whoever pursues them. We support the demands of Blacks, Chicanos, Orientals, Women, Youth, Senior Citizens and others demanding their full rights as human beings. We join in their struggle and shall actively seek coalition to pursue these goals. (4)

Harry Hay along with others founded the Gay Liberation Front of Los Angles and made the proposal that the group reject majority voting and arrive at all decisions by consensus. The group also believed that all who came to the group were an associate and there were no dues. GLF LA saw themselves are a part of a broad coalition of minorities and disadvantaged groups seeking full rights and liberation.

December 1969 NYC>>>>> ON the one way road with the GAA.<<<<<<<<

The end of the multi-issue revolutionary Gay Liberation Front began when a fraction championed single issue, exclusively gay reform politics, ignoring the links between gay and women’s liberation, minority rights and working class issues. (The Ct. Love Makes a Family comes to mind with their single issue stand on marriage for Lesbians and Gays.)..remember our linking here.) Rather than uniting with other groups in a people’s fight against the oppressor and linking all oppression the GAA worked only on issues that were in a sense at that time white gay make concerns. The GAA was out to win acceptance within the country’s institutions and cultures. 

20 people met to organize the Gay Activist Alliance who idea was to devote their activities solely and specifically to gay and lesbian rights. It was decided that this group would work within the political system, seeking to abolish discriminatory sex laws, promoting gay and lesbian civil rights and challenging politicians and candidates to state their views on gay rights. The structure of the group went like this: It was decided that all new members of the group would be screened by a committee to keep out GLF infiltrators. A preamble was written stating that the group would work on gay issues only and this would be done through responsible actions only. There were procedures for voting members in and out, voting on issues and having officers serve. On December 21, 1969 nineteen carefully screened people gathered together to write the final version of the preamble and the constitution. (5) One section of the constitution went so far to say that anyone could be expelled by recommendation of the executive committee. ( this group was mainly the inside group of founders). One of the by-laws found in Dancing the Gay Lib Blues by Arthur Bell is interesting it states, “The GAA will not endorse, ally with, or otherwise support any political party, candidate for public office and or any organization not directly related to the homosexual cause.” Wow!! This is so far removed from the consensus and the thinking of the LA Gay Liberation Front. Talk about control.  One begins to see more and more while reading  Dancing the Gay Lib Blues  that “it became clear, it was Jim Owles political way or no way.” “That Jim Owles and his supporters in the group laid down the law as they saw fit, and they upsurged various committees to get their way, even so far as to speak for committees to the press when they hadn’t attended any committee meetings.”(6) The GAA’s thinking on drag  according to Arthur Bell went like this. “Drag Queens were and weren’t welcomed, it depended on who you asked and on what day you were asking. Drag Queens by there mere presence trespassed against some encoded middle-class white script of most of the members of GAA.” Once again the respectables reared their ugly heads and those  who were out and open before everyone else were put down and excluded. The same old shit, embarrassing militants and Drag Queens must be denounced. The GAA became the largest and most active group in New York City and most of the members were reform minded men who were determined to work on gay issues within mainstream politics. The Alliance was radical in its own way for its idea of the ZAP and direct action. The ZAP was designed to confront politicians, the media, individuals and institutions that the group perceived to be anti gay. But the GAA also supported a failed leadership whose main concern was their own power and how to keep it.  Single issue strategy held back the GAA’s effectiveness as revolutionary agents or successful reformers.  

All the while both groups the GLF and the GAA seemed to be in a state of misdirection as they made organizational decisions rather than community decisions. That by their actions and being in the forefront they held the welfare of many of us at stake and not including all of us in the process through consensus were not building a community of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people but building a movement based on hierarchy that could never answer the needs of a diversified group of people or this group of people’s concerns.(7) 

One of the worse slaps across the face of our trans community came during this period. The GAA and the Lesbian Feminist Liberation were working on a “gay” civil rights bill for NYC. They wanted a bill that was passable. Transvestites wanted to be included in the bill as a protected group. According to Jean O’Leary this is the conclusion that the group came to. “Politically this will not work if Transvestites are included. We are never going to get the bill through the city council if transvestites are included in the bill. This is not what our battle is about. It’s about gay rights, not transvestites rights. We are talking about being able to love someone of your own sex, being able to have a relationship. This is not about how we dress.” (8) So the transvestites were excluded from the bill and they were never reinstated.  I wonder if these women and these men had been living in some other place. I still after all these years find it hard to comprehend how gays and lesbians could work to exclude anyone when most in society, on the left and in the women’s movement were more than willing to exclude gay men and lesbians.  Queers know that many within both the left and liberal movements are more than willing still. Strange also is how people then and many now still accept the definition and the yardstick of straights to measure by their goals and aspirations by.

Re-becoming Respectable 

Conflicts between radicals and reformists within the GAA intensified and a group lead by Bruce Voeller left the GAA and formed the National Gay Task Force. The goal of the new organization was to be a Gay NAACP or ACLU establishing gays and lesbians as a political force and synthesizing the old homophile movement and the reformist gay and lesbian movement approach into a new movement with broader appeal. Both the Task Force and David Goodstein the owner of the gay male tabloid, The Advocate began to sell people on the idea of a new gay respectability. It was an anti-activist type of a gay theology. This more conservative establishment approach harked back to the day of the homophile organizations. Jean O’Leary became co-executive director in 1974. (GIVE ME A BOO OR TWO!) Others who were instrumental in establishing the Task Force were Frank Kamery, Barbara Gittings, Martin Duberman and Howard Brown.(9)  A breed of respectables who made a come back and very quickly began to discredit LGBTQ radicalism creating a tasteful image acceptable to straight society. These people have it down to an art form the manner in which they sell out anyone or any part of the movement that is not that old spoonful of sugar. They always miss what thousands of Radical People of Color and Queer white radicals and their straight allies know. That clearly racism, sexism, and homophobia are diseases of Capitalism and that both mainstream political parties will never bring about the liberation of any people. They know that more than sexual-preference and moderate reform, the right to serve in the military and the right to marry is at stake in our struggle and are certain that only when the TBLG movement allies itself with others in a revolutionary struggle can there be any hope for our freedom.

*TODAY I SAY TODAY* SOMEHOW ITS NOT MUCH BETTER TODAY I SAY.*

The Human Rights Campaign and Barney Frank are full of it.They have been for years. Back in 1999 when Sylvia Rivera came to Hartford I spoke out against them in my opening remarks at the Stonewall Congress. At that time Barney was whinnying about the bathroom issue. What bathroom would a trans person use. Barney didn’t understand that when one has to go one has to go. I thought at that time that his concern was deeper that a trannie going into a stall to pee. I thought, gee Barney are you afraid of something? Gee, Barney they are only there to do their business, wash their hands and leave. Maybe it was because Barney was in their for more than excreting his wastes. You know the old, I’ll show mine if you show yours. Been there, done that, do it sometime so I guess I can speak about it.  Is that what they are afraid of, a FTM admiring someone’s ding-a-ling. A MTF taking a look at Missey’s goodies. Don’t think its going to happen. I wonder about that. I wonder what is the hang-up. Please someone fill me in. My disgust for Franks grew when he reminded us all that even though he didn’t support inclusion in the ENDA bill that he fully supported inclusion for the trans community in the Hate Crimes bill. Gee, Barney that’s nice. Can I say okay, but when one is dead they are dead. Yes full prosecution of the criminals is in order. But what about the everyday? What about a job, food on the table, shelter. What about the everyday? ( I’ll ask twice in case the first time it wasn’t heard) What about showing a bit of respect to a people who are the most discriminated against.  People who just want a job. People who just want to live freely. But he never got the message. I guess he never cared to hear the pleas, hear the real life stories of a people oppressed.  But would rather play political kickball with other people’s life. The recent fight over the ENDA bill was to me pretty disgusting. First: It was disgusting that any g & l person would even consider supporting a bill that would leave anyone in this community out with no protections. Second: It was disgusting that we would allow people like Nancy Pelosi and crew to decide for us who would or who would not be included. An outsider telling us what is good for us. Look how far we haven’t come. One idea that has always interested me was how the liberals, the gay careerists, the reformist, the baby steppers, the crumb gathers, and sympathizers within the Democratic Party created a tasteful, moderate image of gays and lesbians that would be acceptable to non-gay sympathizers. Third: History tells us that very rarely does this community come back for those it has abandoned. Our Trans community here in CT. is still fighting to be included in the g & l Civil Rights Bill of 1991. The only reason it is even on the radar screen is because of work that is being done by our sister Jerimarie Liesegang and the CT. TransAdvocacy Coalition. Not because the mainstream gay and lesbian movement of CT. has come back for anyone. Sure there are supporters in the Love Makes A Family group but I don’t believe that they were the group that instigated this needed change for the Transgender community. Over 300 groups in our community joined a United ENDA Coalition to stand against HRC, Barney Frank, and Nancy Pelosi. My only hope is that this coalition will not waver in its opposition and begin to cozy up to HRC again. One example that should be discussed and must be talked about in Connecticut is how come Love Makes A Family and True Colors after joining the United ENDA Coalition then sponsored a panel discussion controlled by HRC with almost up to the last minute had no Trans voices on the panel. How quickly the dissolve. I knew it was bound to happen but hadn’t expected it to be so soon. Let’s hope that A People’s Panel is formed soon to speak truth to this misguided power of people who I believe are on the wrong road as far as a true Queer movement is concerned who do not and can not even begin to understand what the Trans community faces or have an inkling of what the working class or poor within our ranks live with. I look for a movement that is one, that embraces all the issues that our people face each and every day and embraces issues that other communities face and by doing so builds a lasting people’s coalition. I do not want a movement that has the comfortable class in leadership that works so hard at trying to convince all of us that what they see as  burning issues for them should be our burning issues. (This reminds me of the West Hartford l & g Swimming Pool fight a few years back. Where all of us were expected to jump off our chairs and fight the “good” fight for the comfortable class of gays and lesbians to receive a family discount to swim in the pool.) 

Lambda Legal sent out a very good analysis of the stripped down version of the ENDA bill that Franks, Pelosi, the democratic leadership and of course that representative of the rich, white, gay and lesbian crowd, HRC. Hear what Lambda had to say and then tell me if you think that HRC, Franks, Pelosi and the rest of their lackeys are off on the wrong track. Point 2 of Lambda’s Preliminary Analysis Summary says this: In addition to missing vital protections for transgender people on the job, this new bill also leaves out a key element to protect any employee, including lesbians, gay men and bisexuals who may not conform to their employer’s idea of how a man or woman should look and act. This is a huge loophole through which employers sued for sexual orientation discrimination can claim that their conduct was actually based on gender expression, a type of discrimination that the new bill does not prohibit.” Give me some of that olden days boys and girls. Isn’t it lovely that your straight jerk boss has so much power and control over your life! What person within this movement would want that? That one paragraph alone gets my blood boiling and I want to come out fighting. This is the same old crap over again that cries Assimilate! Assimilate! Same Old Shit from a bunch of do good-er straights and their homo friends. Oh this look-ism! Even way back in the good old day Emma Goldman spoke out against look-ism when coming to the defence of French Anarchist and poet Louise Michel alleged to be a lesbian because of the way she looked. Goldman spoke against assuming a women to be a lesbian simply because she did not fit men’s “shopworn requirements of womanhood.”(10)

So now the Trans community must suffer again because those in power do not believe that a bill that included them would have a chance of passing. We know the long list of organizations that opposed this bill from the TBLG communities across America. This is a bill we do not want but never the less was shoved down our throats by Democratic leadership and HRC. But what really gets me in all this fighting and all this anger that there isn’t even a snowballs chance in hell that this ENDA bill would be signed into law by George Bush. But at least it all came out into the open. One lesson that I hope we understand is that HRC and all of their supporters must be done away with, done in and sent packing. But the part that I can’t read or write on a full stomach is HRC telling the Trans community that they will be back for them. Sounds like history going around and around again. A history of liars.

1. Radically Gay: Gay Liberation in the words of its founder, Harry Hay. Edited by Will Roscoe. The Mattachine Society 1948-1953

2. The Progressive. September 1998. Interview with Harry Hay and Anne Marie Casac.

3. Refugees from America: A Gay Manifesto. Archives R. Nelson

4. Radically Gay: Gay Liberation in the words of its founder, Harry Hay. Edited By Will Roscoe. pages 176-178 Statement of Purpose. GLF Los Angeles.

5. Dancing the Gay Lib Blues, Arthur Bell. Pages 21-23. For a reading of the preamble and constitution. ( Pick up the book and read the whole thing. Very enlightening and Bell is a good writer and always one of my favorites.)

6. Dancing the Gay Lib Blues, Arthur Bell, pages 89-90

7. Dancing the Gay Lib Blues, Arthur Bell, Conversation with Arthur Bell and Ralph Hall

8 Making History, Eric Marcus, The Ex-Nun Jean O’Leary, Pages 266-267.

9. Out of the Past, Neil Miller, Vintage Books

10. Gay resistance: The Hidden History, Sam Deaderick and Tamara Turner, page 31.