Gay Liberation Front

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Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of a number of Gay Liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots.

Contents 1 GLF in the United States 2 GLF in the United Kingdom 3 See also 4 Footnotes 5 References

[edit] GLF in the United States

The Gay Liberation Front (GLF):

The Activist GLF was interested in the sexual liberation for all people, as they believed that heterosexuality was a remant of cultural inhibition and felt that change would not come about unless the current social institutions were dismantled and rebuilt without defined sexual roles. To do this the GLF was intent on transforming the idea of the biological family and clan and making it more akin to a loosely affliation of members without biological subtexts. Prominent members of the GLF also opposed and addressed other social inequalities between the years of 1969 to 1972 such as militarism, racism, and sexism but because of internal rivalries the GLF officially ended its operations in 1972.

History of the GLF: The Stonewall Riots

The Stonewall Riots are considered by many as the catalyst in the organization of the GLF and other gay and lesbian movements. These riots also considered to be the origin of the gay rights passivist movement. On June 27, 1969 in Greenwich Village, NY, a gay bar was raided by New York police after neighbors complained. When the police arrive the customers began pelting the police with coins, and later, bottles and rocks. The crowd also freed those who members who were put into police vans, and the officers outnumbered retreated inside the bar. Soon, the Tactical Patrol Force (TPF), originally trained to deal with war protests, were called in to control the mob, which was now using a parking meter as a battering ram. As the patrol force advanced, the crowd did not disperse, but instead doubled back and reformed behind the riot police, throwing rocks and shouting “Gay Power!”, dancing and taunting their opposition. For the next several nights, the crowd would return in ever increasing numbers, handing out leaflets and rallying themselves. In early July, due in large part to the riots in June, discussions in the gay community lead to the formation of the Gay Liberation Front. Soon the word “Stonewall” came to represent fighting for equality in the gay community.

One of the GLF's first acts was to organize a march in response to Stonewall, and to demand an end to the persecution of homosexuals. The GLF had a broad political platform, denouncing racism and declaring support for various Third World struggles and the Black Panther Party — some of whom would return the gesture of solidarity. They took an anti-capitalist stance, and attacked the nuclear family and traditional gender roles.^[1] Several GLF women such as Martha Shelley went on to form the Lavender Menace.

Main Goals and General Mandate of the GLF:

The Gay Liberation Front was initially formed by thirty-seven men and women in light of the Stonewall Riots. The group’s first demonstration in response to the riots was the organization of a candlelight march, in which they demanded an end to homosexual persecution. The GLF was not only dedicated to gay rights, but also to the broader social ideals which dominated the 1960’s, including peace, equality and economic justice. Between 1969 and 1972, the GLF was an influential force, and ultimately consisted of more than 80 independent chapters across the United States and abroad.

The GLF’s primary mandate was to oppose and fight against those institutions in society which had historically oppressed and demeaned gay individuals. Ideally, the GLF wanted to ensure that gay individuals were treated with increased equality. In order to do this, the GLF participated in and organized marches, demonstrations, speeches, confrontations, meetings, books and films in order to raise awareness of their cause and their struggle.

In 1970, the GLF represented itself as a movement “against conformity to arbitrary standards, for an open society in which each of us may choose his own way of life.” The GLF, in addition to focusing on gay rights, essentially criticized American values and society in general, and became involved with other causes and social movements, including the anti-war and civil rights movements, and the fight to end racism and bigotry. Ideally, the GLF wanted to establish an open society, in which all individuals could express themselves freely, and it especially fought against machismo (the notion that masculinity is superior, and thus has a right to dominate), which the GLF felt oppressed all individuals in society – both straight and gay.

GLF Ignored by New Left Historians:

No historian would argue that Stonewall was unimportant; its symbolic power brings out hundreds of thousands of people who gather yearly for marches commemorating the riot. Although many New Left historians of the period have downplayed its importance or have excluded it entirely"^[2]. James Miller’s Democracy in the Streets stops just short of 1969, choosing to end the sixties before gay liberation began. The anthology The 60s without Apology has only one entry, by Charles Shively, which directly addresses gay liberation’s place in the sixties. Listed under the year 1969 one finds the Woodstock and Altamont music festivals, the Days of Rage in Chicago, and the beginning of Northern Ireland’s civil rights movement, but no mention of the pivotal event of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement.^[3] This historical overview is in part due, as Winifred Breines suggests, a dichotomy between the ‘good sixties’ and ‘bad sixties’. The ‘good sixties’ is classified as the early period of antiwar and civil rights activism, and the ‘bad sixties’ as the final years of the decade characterized by a turn towards a criticism of ‘the system’ and the rejection of liberalism and electoral politics, and the support of violent revolutionary action. In Breines’s words “these accounts diminish the mass movement after 1968” as the ‘years of hope’ which characterized the movements of the early sixties were transformed into the ‘days of rage’. This dichotomy built a narrative history around it, leaving out the birth of such movements as women’s liberation and gay rights movements.

Internal Tensions and the End of the Gay Liberation Front:

Tensions within the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) were rooted in differing inter-group definitions and characterizations of gay and lesbian sexualities by both male and female Front members. One such conflict was the outcome of critiques of stereotypical sexuality by members who identified as feminists, such as the Radicalesbians, a group which formed out of the GLF in 1970, as well as gay male effeminates. These criticisms had the effect of creating categories of sexual behaviour with rigid gender polarities, as well as alienating such “off limits” behaviour as butch lesbianism and sadomasochism. Transvestites and transsexuals were also attacked by both lesbian feminists and gay liberationists who argued that drag “reinforced gender stereotypes and was insulting to women.”^[4]

Ongoing debates made consensus within the GLF impossible. The goals of the Front further limited its ability to move forward, as it continually rejected short term initiatives and reformist strategies in favour of an idea of “total revolution.”^[5] While hostilities within the GLF increased, the successful grown of alternate groups such as the Radicalesbians and Gay Activists Alliance also contributed to declining attendance at GLF meetings and activities. Although internal reforms such as clearer internal policies and membership requirements were established, it was too late to rescue the GLF. By the summer of 1971 the collapse was inevitable, and in 1972 the GLF came to an end with the last publication of Come Out!.

[edit] GLF in the United Kingdom

Having read about the GLF, Aubrey Walter went to New York after graduating from the London School of Economics (LSE). While in New York he met Bob Mellors, another LSE student.

After returning to London, they arranged a GLF meeting in a room at the LSE on October 13, 1970. When Louis Eaks, a leading member of the Young Liberals, was arrested for cottaging on Highbury Fields, Islington, the GLF decided to protest. This torchlight demonstration on November 27 1970 involved around 80 GLF members, and was the first ever public gay protest in Britain.

In August 1971 a GLF march along Islington's Upper Street to Highbury Fields laid the foundations for the first Gay Pride in London in 1972. The GLF occupied Time Out's London office in March 1972, demanding that the magazine publish gay advertisements. The group inserted a flyer in copies of Dr David Reuben's Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex (which claimed gay men were obsessed with vegetables) claiming the publishers would give a refund to anyone who was not satisfied with the book, and later delivered a 12-foot long cucumber to the publishers' London offices.

Easter 1972 also saw the Gay Lib annual conference held in the Guild of Undergraduates Union (students union) building at the University of Birmingham.

The best organised GLF action was to disrupt the opening of the Festival of Light organised by Mary Whitehouse at Methodist Central Hall. Groups of GLF members in drag invaded and spontaneously kissed each other; others released mice, sounded horns and unveiled banners, and a contingent dressed as workmen obtained access to the basement and shut off the lights.

The papers of the GLF are among the Hall-Carpenter Archives at the London School of Economics.

[edit] See also

• USA GLF: Tony Diaman, Brenda Howard, Sylvia Rivera
• London GLF: Bob Mellors, Peter Tatchell
• Gay Activists Alliance
• Hall-Carpenter archives

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ Gay Liberation Front: Manifesto. London, 1971, revised 1978
2. ^ Kissack, Terence. Freaking Fag Revolutionaries: New York’s Gay Liberation Front, 1969-1971. Radical History Review 62, 1995 p.105
3. ^ Kissack, p. 106
4. ^ Kissack, p. 123
5. ^ Kissack, p. 128

[edit] References

• Canfield, William J.. We Raise our Voices. Gay & Lesbian Pride & Politics.
• Diaman, N.A. (1995). Gay Liberation Front.
• Kissack, Terence (1995). Freaking Fag Revolutionaries: New York’s Gay Liberation Front. Radical History Review 62. 
• Power, Lisa (1995). No Bath But Plenty Of Bubbles: An Oral History Of The Gay Liberation Front 1970-7. Cassell, 340 pages. ISBN 0-304-33205-4. 
• Walter, Aubrey (1980). Come together : the years of gay liberation (1970-73). Gay Men's Press, 218 pages. ISBN 0907040047. 
• Wright, Lionel (July 1999). The Stonewall Riots – 1969. Socialism Today #40.

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