Oral History with Nancy Tucker (Queer Capital-Genny Beemyn)

In 1967, Nancy Tucker was a young college student in DC interested in meeting other openly gay people. Having heard about the Mattachine Society of Washington through gay newspapers coming out of San Francisco, she contacted the group and interviewed for membership. At the time, the Mattachine Society–led by pioneering LGBT activists such as Frank Kameny, Eva Freund, and Lilli Vincenz–preached concepts of civil libertarianism, in which homosexuals would receive their civil rights upon proving they were assimilated, upstanding citizens. 

However, Tucker describes how the mood began to change in 1969, when the Stonewall Riots kickstarted the Gay Liberation movement. This tension between liberationist and assimilationist politics led to The Mattachine Society of Washington starting a publication, initially with the intention of communicating civil libertarianism to the gay community in Washington. Tucker was chosen as one of the editors, and thus the famous Washington Blade was born. Tucker describes how the Blade soon became an important newspaper for the gay community. Distributed at various gay spots throughout DC, it communicated not only general news about the community, but also roommate referral services, warnings of police entrapment, and eventually news about even the more previously underground LGBT communities, such as the drag and leather communities. 

As the liberation movements of the late 60s and 70s grew in popularity, Tucker describes how it became increasingly difficult to find her own place in them. She was uncomfortable with both the misogyny of the overwhelmingly gay male Gay Liberation Front, as well as the radical feminism of lesbian separatist groups such as The Furies Collective. Tucker left the gay activist community in the mid-1970s, passed on the publishing of The Washington Blade to others, and subsequently became more involved with AA and gay AA groups. In the late 80s, however, Tucker re-entered the community via the Gay Women’s Alternative and OWLS (Older Wiser Lesbians), and enjoyed creating lesbian spaces with lectures, potlucks, dances, and other community programming.