Gay Liberation comes to D.C.

Article about the Gay Liberation Front of Washington, D.C.

Quicksilver Times, June 23-July 3, 1970, p. 4

Bruce Pennington Papers, 1947-2003

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English

Washington (D.C.)

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Page 4 June 23-July 3, 1970 Quicksilver Times Gay Liberation
CslA£ I tt?& to
by d. ail^en
, The "gay l i b e r a t i o n movement has
f i n a l l y reached Washington.
People who identify themselves
\as homosexuals and who want t o openly
confront the repression they feel
came "out of the closets and into the
s t r e e t s " long ago in other major
c i t i e s such as New York, Los Angeles,
§an Francisco, and Chicago.
• ' T h i s week (June 22-28) is Gay
Pride Week, ft marks the f i r s t anniversary
of the. "Christopher Street
R i o t s , " when the gay brothers and
s i s t e r s of New York City fought off
a gang of cops who were trying to
bust a Greenwich Village gay bar.
This was the event in which gay people
f i r s t "came out" and t o l d Puritan
Amerika t o shove off. The anniversary
is being celebrated in
c i t i e s across the country.
I t takes a while for such consciousness
to reach our n a t i o n 's
k a p i t a l , i t seems, but things are
now moving. The last issue of Quicks
i l v e r carried a l e t t e r from Mike
Yarr, an ex-Air Force member who
works for the Washington Peace Cent
e r , inviting homosexuals interested
in forming a Gay Lib group to get
in touch with him. Many did. A
meeting for everybody who is interested
in helping get such a group
together has been scheduled for
Tuesday, June 30, at 8pm in Georgetown
University annex.
Some of the aspects of the repression
felt by gay people are obvious.
They are faced in a l l states
except I l l i n o i s with archaic "sodomy
laws" which, although seldom
enforced, contribute to a furtiveness
and paranoia about human relationships
which should be open and
free. (Even in I l l i n o i s , which repealed
i t s "sodomy law" more or
less by accident, pips use any number
of pretexts to bust gay bars
which don't pay enough protection
money.
Gay people usually try to conceal
t h e i r o r i e n t a t i o n from t h e ir
employers rather than take the
r i sk of being fired. Not all employers
would do so, of course, but
even a person who i s generally liberal
can have a blind dread of homosexuals.
Finally, gay people usually
have a h e l l of a time finding other
gay people. Relatively few gay
| people walk around with l i t t le
pink booties, lavender lace blouses,
and limp w r i s t s , so i t ' s hard to'
identify who's gay. Most guys don't
have the chutzpah to walk up to
another guy and say, "Hey buddy, ya
wanna fuck?"
So most gays are forced to
seek t r i c k s e i t h e r in dangerously
public places (parks, t o i l e t s , etc.)
or in one of the ghettoized bars,
a l l of which must pay off the pigs
and many (though somehow not a l l ) of
which charge outrageous prices for
watered drinks and have a typical at-
'"V '*A>~
mosphere of forced f r i v o l i t y.
In a word, the gay piers on lives
in a ghetto without boundaries. He
lives among the s t r a i g h t s , but in his
head h e ' s an outsider.
Naturally, these forms of repression
must be fought. Laws must be
changed, firings of gay people must
be protested, overpriced gay bars must
be boycotted and social events must
be arranged where gay people as well
as s t r a i g h t people can meet each other
in a relaxed atmosphere. These are
some of the things Gay Lib groups
in other c i t i e s have done.
But an even more basic need
would remain even i f all these things
somehow were accomplished. That is
the need for s e l f - r e s p e c t.
I t ' s no surprise that the
" s t r a i g h t world" expresses i t s dread
of homosexual feelings with repressive
t a c t i c s . What is really t r a g i c,
however, is that those who experience
these feelings accept the prevalent
notion that they are unspeakable dirt
y , e v i l , and s i n f u l , and repress
themselves.
A s o c i a l psychologist named
Martin Hoffman has written a righton
book t i t l e d "Hie Gay World," in
which he looks at, among other
things, the problem most male homosexuals
feel in developing a lasting,
deep relationship with another guy
t h a t ' s not b u i l t exclusively on sex.
He says:
"To put the matter in its most
si rrrp le. te ZWB t , We t re as ons the males
who are homostfculaly inclined' cannot•••'
.form stable relafloiishipii wit}peach^:
r
other- is that ^society <i)es not'jjwt^-
them to.. .Closeness between men- is'-;^:'-' .-•
considered^ si'gn of something wrcnigi;
with the individual's .mind, he im~/t .'•'.
mediately,di? fines'diimseIf. -as a •'. ,-'''''.'• 7~
sissy, faggot^[degenerate, eta. ..••.•.'
Sexual arousal<\provides 'sufficient ...
irnpebus ..to overborne, the:sociaI pro-- •'
hibition against genital- contact, . . •_;'.'
but not to '.overcome the prohibition,
against intimacy. To overeom? this. .
second kind of condemnation would, :•_'
require a kind of freedom from •_''-»''"•'
social constraint that is not really
to be expected, except in a.few. , ••'
[cases. " ' ''• • •': • "' ' \- "'••'''
Well, t h a t ' s where Gay Lib .-.'.
comes in, folks. ^ Gay is Good.
There's no reason why men shouldn't
be close to men, and women to women,
in a l a s t i n g , loving way. But there's
a hell of a lot of internal hang
ups to overcome before this can
happen.
That's why we need a group:
Everybody who needs to come to
grips with t h e i r feelings, and with
the repression they feel in a
society which demands conformity, can
use a l i t t l e help from t h e i r friends.
We want to reach all the people
in the area who have homosexual feelings,
whether or not they're ready to
come out and identify themselves as
"gay." I t ' s hard to recognize and
deal with desires and feelings that
you've been taught are dreadful and
unnatural. But i t ' s important to
r e a l i z e that they're not "unnatural,"
that you're not "sick" because you
feel them, and that psychiatrists who
say something like "all the homosexuals
I see are sick" are leaving out
the other side: all of the heterosexuals
they see are probably sick,
too.
I t ' s especially important that
gay women get together as well as
j gay men. There's already enough male
chauvinism among heterosexuals; a gay
movement shouldn't contribute to it
by concerning i t s e l f only with male
homosexuality. Women will almost
c e r t a i n l y want to have t h e i r own
separate rap sessions, but there's
a lot that gay men and gay women can
do together.
Gay people are perhaps the last
oppressed group to get themselves
together. Blacks, Indians, Puerto
Ricans, women - everybody's getting
organized. I t ' s time for gays t o surface,
join with t h e i r comrades (both
gays and right-on s t r a i g h t s ) and
fight repression in a l l forms.
If you want to rap with somebody
about the idea of gay l i b , call
Mike Yarr during the day at 234-
2000, or at night phone Dave Aiken
at 234-4287 or Miles Gritz at 965-
2734.
Power to the People! Gay power
to gay people!