Queer As Art issue 2 April-May-June 2017 | Page 25

appeasing the tensions by painting the
lgbt community as respectable and
acceptable for the rest of the population.
They tend to ignore gender
nonconforming people and transsexual
people, who risk appearing too
threatening for the status-quo. Vanguard,
an organization founded in 1965, insisted
on “peaceful co-existence”.
picket lines in front of the White House, 1965.
Kay Tobin Lahusen - New York Public Library
Manuscripts and Archives Division
Meanwhile, the cultural background
evolves too. In 1961, the Motion Picture
Code allows movies to talk about
homosexuality and the same year, the first
documentary on homosexuality, The
Rejected, airs on TV. In 1962, James
Baldwin writes Another Country, a novel
set in Greenwich Village and deals with
bisexuality of both men and women,
interracial couples, extramarital affairs, and
it becomes a best-seller.
But these attempts stay mild,
essentially coming from people of higher
social background, and focus mostly on
24
This changes when the decade
culminates in the events of Stonewall, on
June 29th, 1969. What was a police raid
into a gay bar turns into a rebellion from
the clients, led by trans women of colour,
and leads the way towards a more
inclusive and more radical activism.
Directly resulting from the riots, the Gay
Liberation Front and the Gay Activists
Alliance are formed, the first being more
radical and the second more reformist.
These two groups help spreading LGBT
activism and serve as an anchor for the
whole LGBT community. Newspapers
become a new way to share ideas, events
and LGBT culture - Gay, Come Out!, and
Gay Power, gathered between 20,000 and
2 5 , 0 0 0 r e a d e r s . Pe o p l e a r e t h e n
encouraged to come out en masse, by the
revolutionary article of reporter Leo
Laurence, “HOMO REVOLT: DON’T HIDE
IT” published in the leftist magazine
Berkeley Barb. The Red Butterfly published
Carl Wittman’s Gay Manifesto in 1970,
where the LGBT activist encourages all gay
people to find refuge in San Francisco.
Also In 1970, the commemoration of the
Stonewall riots, organized by bisexual