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170-477: The homosexual organizations and publications of the 1950s and 1960s, which commonly used the term " homophile ", are now known collectively as the homophile movement. The term "homophile" was coined by German psychoanalyst Karl-Günther Heimsoth in 1924, before being popularized by the Dutch COC . Proponents of the term hoped to emphasize the romantic rather than sexual aspect of same-sex relationships by replacing

340-474: A Chicano readership. In 1975, he took a leading role in a water rights campaign to prevent the federal government from damming the Rio Grande . Local activists argued that it would devastate local farmland while benefitting the wealthy land owner Richard Cook, whose own land would be made fertile by the dam and who owned the company that was due to construct it. Hay organised the publication of literature on

510-402: A Prussian anti- sodomy law . In 1886, the psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing used the terms homosexual and heterosexual in his book Psychopathia Sexualis . Krafft-Ebing's book was so popular among both laymen and doctors that the terms heterosexual and homosexual became the most widely accepted terms for sexual orientation. As such, the current use of the term has its roots in

680-610: A tall tale that, in 1925, he was invited to a local gathering of Natives, where he claimed to have met Wovoka , the Paiute religious leader who revived the Ghost Dance movement, and that Wovoka had recognized him in some way. However, Wovoka, as a well-known spiritual leader, led a well-documented life, and Hay's story does not line up with his activities and whereabouts during the time in question. However, Hay's family did have an actual, documented, blood connection to Wovoka and

850-595: A "not-movement". In organizing the event, Hay handled the political issues, Burnside the logistics and mechanics, Kilhefner the budgetary and administrative side, and Walker was to be its spiritual leader. A flier advertising the event was released which proclaimed that gays had a place in the "paradigm shift" of the New Age , and quoted Mark Satin and Aleister Crowley alongside Hay; these fliers were sent out to gay and leftist bookstores as well as gay community centres and health food stores . Around 220 men turned up to

1020-567: A "security risk", they also declared him a "Lifelong Friend of the People" in recognition of his many years of service. Hay's relationship with Gernreich ended not long after, with Hay entering a relationship with Danish hat-maker Jorn Kamgren in 1952; it would last for eleven years, during which Hay helped him establish a hat shop, attempting to use his contacts within the fashion and entertainment industries to get exposure for Kamgren's work and meeting with moderate success. Mattachine's structure

1190-531: A Faerie circle in Los Angeles that met at their house, which became known as "Faerie Central", devoting half their time to serious discussion and the other half to recreation, in particular English circle dancing. As more joined the circle, they began meeting in West Hollywood 's First Presbyterian Church and then the olive grove atop the hill at Barnsdall Park ; however they found it difficult to gain

1360-597: A brief affair with James Broughton . In 1931, he came out as gay to some people he knew at Stanford, and while he did not face any vehement backlash, some friends and associates, including a number who were gay, chose not to be seen with him from then on. A severe sinus infection led Hay to drop out in 1932, and he returned to his cousin's Nevada ranch to recuperate; he would never return to university. Relocating to Los Angeles, Hay moved back in with his parents. He associated with artistic and theatrical circles, befriending composer John Cage and his lover Don Sample, with

1530-414: A contemporary construction of sexuality that would have been foreign to their times. Other scholars see continuity instead. In social science, there has been a dispute between "essentialist" and "constructionist" views of homosexuality. The debate divides those who believe that terms such as "gay" and "straight" refer to objective, culturally invariant properties of persons from those who believe that

1700-403: A copy of Edward Carpenter 's book The Intermediate Sex . Reading it, he discovered the word homosexual for the first time and came to recognize that he was gay. Aged twelve he enrolled at Los Angeles High School , where he continued to be studious and developed a love of theater. Coming to reject Catholicism, he remained at the school for three mandatory years before deciding to remain for

1870-480: A feeling of Gay Liberation that was soon to give a name to a new movement. In 1963, homophile organizations in New York City, Philadelphia , and Washington, D.C. joined to form East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO) to more closely coordinate their activities. The success of ECHO inspired other homophile groups across the country to explore the idea of forming a national homophile umbrella group. This

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2040-525: A free adult male and a free adolescent, was valued for its pedagogic benefits and as a means of population control, though occasionally blamed for causing disorder. Plato praised its benefits in his early writings but in his late works proposed its prohibition. Aristotle , in the Politics , dismissed Plato's ideas about abolishing homosexuality (2.4); he explains that barbarians like the Celts accorded it

2210-764: A further two. In this period, he took part in the school's poetry group, became State President of the California Scholarship Federation and President of the school's debating and dramatic society, and competed in the Southern California Oratorical Society's Contest, as well as joining the Reserve Officers' Training Corps . During the summer holidays, Hay's father sent him to work on his cousin's cattle ranch in Smith Valley , Nevada. Here he

2380-584: A gay brotherhood called the Circle of Loving Friends in 1965, although they would frequently be the only members of it. As the Circle they participated in early homophile demonstrations throughout the 1960s and helped establish the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO) in 1966. Fascinated by spirituality, they regularly attended events of the Council on Religion and

2550-578: A handful of accounts by Arab travelers to Europe during the mid-1800s. Two of these travelers, Rifa'ah al-Tahtawi and Muhammad as-Saffar, show their surprise that the French sometimes deliberately mistranslated love poetry about a young boy, instead referring to a young female, to maintain their social norms and morals. Israel is considered the most tolerant country in the Middle East and Asia to homosexuals, with Tel Aviv being named "the gay capital of

2720-460: A handful of others who were boycotting Stonewall 25, including NAMBLA, organized an alternative, competing event. He was also critical of the HIV/AIDS activist group ACT UP , arguing that their confrontational tactics were rooted in the typical machismo of straight men and thus reflected an assimilationist approach. Hay believed that by adopting these tactics and attitudes, ACT UP was shrinking

2890-405: A hetero." At a subsequent ONE event, Hay met the inventor John Burnside , who became his life partner. Burnside left his wife for Hay, with the latter becoming the manager for Burnside's kaleidoscope factory. As the pair became increasingly interested in the counter-culture, many individuals belonging to the movement came to work for them. Moving to downtown Los Angeles, together the pair created

3060-402: A homosexual orientation (the other is sheep). Many gay and lesbian people are in committed same-sex relationships. These relationships are equivalent to heterosexual relationships in essential psychological respects. Homosexual relationships and acts have been admired as well as condemned throughout recorded history, depending on the form they took and the culture in which they occurred. Since

3230-664: A marketing strategy planner. Briefly returning to acting, he appeared in George Sklor 's off-Broadway play Zero Hour . The couple involved themselves with the city's Communist Party branch, with Hay becoming a party functionary in the Theater Arts Committee for Peace and Democracy , and in 1941 he was appointed interim head of the New Theatre League, responsible for organising trade union theatre groups and teaching acting classes, for which he adopted

3400-409: A means to address the issue of police entrapment of homosexual men. The group began publicizing the case under the name Citizens Committee to Outlaw Entrapment, and the generated publicity brought financial support and volunteers. Jennings admitted during his trial to being a homosexual but insisted he was not guilty of the specific charge. The jury deadlocked (eleven to one in favor of acquittal), with

3570-508: A meeting that came to be known as "Bloody Sunday", Kilhefner quit, accusing Hay and Burnside of "power tripping", while Walker resigned. Walker and Kilhefner formed a new Los Angeles-based gay spiritual group called Treeroots which promoted a form of rural gay consciousness associated with Jungian psychology and ceremonial magic . However, despite the division among its founders, the Radical Faerie movement continued to grow, largely as

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3740-492: A minority group. Hay met Rudi Gernreich in July 1950, with the pair soon entering a relationship. Gernreich shared many of Hay's leftist ideas, and was impressed by The Call. He became an enthusiastic financial supporter of the venture, although not lending his name, going instead by the initial "R". Hay, Gernreich, and their friends Dale Jennings , Bob Hull , and Chuck Rowland met on November 11, 1950, in Los Angeles, under

3910-509: A more participatory democratic structure. SIR was focused on building community, and sponsored drag shows , dinners, bridge clubs , bowling leagues , softball games , field trips, art classes, and meditation groups. In 1966, SIR opened the nation's first gay and lesbian community center , and by 1968 they had over 1000 members, making them the largest homophile organization in the country. The world's first gay bookstore had opened in New York

4080-536: A much more informal, unpublicized movement among British intellectuals and writers, led by such figures as Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds . Beginning in 1894 with Homogenic Love , Socialist activist and poet Edward Carpenter wrote a string of pro-homosexual articles and pamphlets, and "came out" in 1916 in his book My Days and Dreams . In 1900, Elisar von Kupffer published an anthology of homosexual literature from antiquity to his own time, Lieblingminne und Freundesliebe in der Weltliteratur . There are

4250-461: A negative connotation . Gay and lesbian are the most common alternatives. The first letters are frequently combined to create the initialism LGBT (sometimes written as GLBT), in which B and T refer to bisexual and transgender people. Gay especially refers to male homosexuality, but may be used in a broader sense to refer to all LGBTQ people. In the context of sexuality, lesbian refers only to female homosexuality. The word lesbian

4420-406: A new set of terminology such as gay , lesbian , and bisexual . Denmark France Netherlands Sweden United Kingdom United States International Notes Bibliography Homosexuality Homosexuality is sexual attraction , romantic attraction , or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender . As a sexual orientation , homosexuality

4590-461: A non-profit corporation to purchase property under a community land trust with tax-exempt status. They were partly inspired by a pre-existing gay collective in rural Tennessee, Short Mountain. In 1980, Walker secretly formed the "Faerie Fascist Police" to combat "Faerie fascism" and "power-tripping" within the Faeries. He specifically targeted Hay: "I recruited people to spy on Harry and see when he

4760-513: A non-religious wedding ceremony overseen by a Unitarian minister. Their honeymoon however was cut short as a result of the sudden death of Hay, Sr. Settling into married life, Hay gained employment with the Works Progress Administration supervising the cataloguing of Orange County 's civil records, while the couple continued their activism by taking photographs of Los Angeles' slums for a leftist exhibition. However,

4930-557: A precipitous drop in membership and participation. Hay was distraught at Mattachine's change in direction, having an emotional breakdown as a result. Hay's relationship with Kamgren was strained, and he was bored by a life of domesticity and annoyed with Kamgren's controlling and regimented nature. They had little in common, with Kamgren not sharing Hay's interest in political activism, instead being conservative and, in Hay's words, " petty bourgeois ". Kamgren permitted Hay to spend three nights

5100-590: A professional actor in Los Angeles, where he joined the Communist Party USA , becoming a committed labor activist. He ended his 1938 marriage to a Party activist after recognizing he remained homosexual, establishing the Mattachine Society in 1950. Hay increasingly stood against the assimilationism advocated by the majority of gay rights campaigners. Organizing to subvert the social and political marginalization of gay people, he cofounded

5270-532: A punishment but must be confessed to the monastery. These codes apply to monks only and not to the general population. The Kama Sutra written in India around 200 AD also described numerous homosexual sex acts positively. There were no legal restrictions on homosexuality or transsexuality for the general population prior to early modern period and colonialism, however certain dharmic moral codes forbade sexual misconduct (of both heterosexual and homosexual nature) among

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5440-625: A record store, a television repair shop, and at a boiler manufacturing plant. Better-paid work was barred from him by his political viewpoints, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation monitoring his activities. He spent much time teaching lessons in Marxism across the Los Angeles Bay Area, for which he read widely in anthropology and sociology, but faced problems due to the increased anti-communist repression being exerted by

5610-450: A result of its egalitarian structure, with many participants being unaware of the squabbles. Hay himself continued to be welcomed at gatherings, coming to be seen as an elder statesman in the movement. During the 1980s, Hay involved himself in an array of activist causes, campaigning against South African apartheid , Nicaragua's Contras , and the death penalty, while also joining the nuclear disarmament and pro-choice movements, becoming

5780-491: A screen extra, usually as a stunt rider in B movies , and also worked as a freelance dialogue coach for expat aristocrats in Hollywood. Through a friendship with George Oppenheimer he was able to get work screen-writing as a ghost-writer. Immersing himself in the Hollywood gay scene, he claimed to have had brief flings with Willy Wakewell , Philip Ahn , Hans Heinrich von Twardowski , and Richard Cromwell . Having met

5950-545: A shawl that he had created with a crocheted depiction of the Northwest European Iron Age deity Cernunnos on it; the shawl became an important symbol of the Faeries, and would be sent from gathering to gathering over subsequent decades. There, Hay publicly revealed the founding trio's desire for the creation of a permanent residential Faery community, where they could grow their own crops and thus live self-sustainably. This project would involve setting up

6120-642: A special honor (2.6.6), while the Cretans used it to regulate the population (2.7.5). Some scholars argue that there are examples of homosexual love in ancient literature, such as Achilles and Patroclus in the Iliad . Little is known of female homosexuality in antiquity. Sappho , born on the island of Lesbos , was included by later Greeks in the canonical list of nine lyric poets . The adjectives deriving from her name and place of birth ( Sapphic and Lesbian) came to be applied to female homosexuality beginning in

6290-805: A state could criminalize sodomy , but, in 2003, overturned itself in Lawrence v. Texas and thereby legalized homosexual activity throughout the United States of America . It is only since the 2010s that census forms and political conditions have facilitated the visibility and enumeration of same-sex relationships. Same-sex marriage in the United States expanded from one state in 2004 to all 50 states in 2015, through various state court rulings, state legislation, direct popular votes ( referendums and initiatives ), and federal court rulings. In East Asia , same-sex love has been referred to since

6460-527: A vocal critic of the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush . Hoping for a left-ward turn in U.S. politics, he was involved in the Lavender Caucus of Jesse Jackson 's National Rainbow Coalition . Although pleased with the popular protests in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe that took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was unhappy that those nations abandoned

6630-478: A week in study, which the latter spent reading anthropological and historical texts to learn more about the role of gay people in society, becoming particularly interested in the berdache of Native American communities. In doing so, Hay was annoyed that Marxist scholars like V. Gordon Childe and George Derwent Thomson evaded the subject in their works. Although his writing style was widely deemed difficult to read, he published articles on many of his findings in

6800-492: A woman, adhering to the party line that same-sex attraction was a symptom of bourgeoise decadence. Acting on this advice, in 1938 he married Anna Platky (1914-1983), a Marxist Party member from a working-class Jewish family. Hay maintained that he loved her, and was happy to have a companion with whom he could share his political pursuits; he also got along well with her family. Their marriage took place in September 1938, in

6970-923: A workshop on "New Breakthroughs in the Nature of How We Perceive Gay Consciousness" at the annual conference of the Gay Academic Union , held at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. This event convinced Hay and his partner John Burnside that they should leave their home in New Mexico and move to Los Angeles, where they settled into a 1920s house on the eastern edge of Hollywood. The three then decided to organise an outdoor conference at which they could teach other gay men about their ideas regarding gay consciousness. Kilhefner identified an ideal location from an advert in The Advocate ;

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7140-422: Is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exclusively to people of the same sex or gender. It "also refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions." Along with bisexuality and heterosexuality , homosexuality is one of the three main categories of sexual orientation within

7310-598: Is a Greek and Latin hybrid , with the first element derived from Greek ὁμός homos , "same" (not related to the Latin homo , "man", as in Homo sapiens ), thus connoting sexual acts and affections between members of the same sex, including lesbianism. The first known appearance of homosexual in print is found in an 1868 letter to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs by the Austrian-born novelist Karl-Maria Kertbeny . arguing against

7480-466: Is also a word referring to same-sex love, homophilia . Some synonyms for same-sex attraction or sexual activity include men who have sex with men or MSM (used in the medical community when specifically discussing sexual activity) and homoerotic (referring to works of art). Pejorative terms in English include queer , faggot , fairy , poof , poofter and homo . Beginning in

7650-531: Is derived from the name of the Greek island Lesbos , where the poet Sappho wrote largely about her emotional relationships with young women. Although early writers also used the adjective homosexual to refer to any single-sex context (such as an all-girls school), today the term is used exclusively in reference to sexual attraction, activity, and orientation. The term homosocial is now used to describe single-sex contexts that are not specifically sexual. There

7820-796: The Civil Marriage Act , which legalised same-sex marriage across Canada. Canada has been referred to as the most gay-friendly country in the world, ranked first in the Gay Travel Index chart in 2018, and among the five safest in Forbes magazine in 2019. It was also ranked first in Asher & Lyric's LGBTQ+ Danger Index in a 2021 update. In 1986, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Bowers v. Hardwick that

7990-672: The Aztecs , Mayas , Quechuas , Moches , Zapotecs , the Incas , and the Tupinambá of Brazil. The Spanish conquerors were horrified to discover sodomy openly practiced among native peoples, and attempted to crush it out by subjecting the berdaches (as the Spanish called them) under their rule to severe penalties, including public execution , burning and being torn to pieces by dogs. The Spanish conquerors talked extensively of sodomy among

8160-462: The Criminal Code in 1969 to provide that anal sex between consenting adults in private (defined as only two persons) was not a criminal offence. In advocating for the law, the then-Minister of Justice, Pierre Trudeau , said: "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation." In 1995, the Supreme Court of Canada held that sexual orientation is a protected personal characteristic under

8330-631: The Duke of Buckingham , served to highlight the issue, including in anonymously authored street pamphlets: "The world is chang'd I know not how, For men Kiss Men, not Women now;...Of J. the First and Buckingham: He, true it is, his Wives Embraces fled, To slabber his lov'd Ganimede" ( Mundus Foppensis, or The Fop Display'd , 1691). Love Letters Between a Certain Late Nobleman and the Famous Mr. Wilson

8500-476: The Konstantin Stanislavski 'system' . By 1940 he was having a series of affairs with men in the city, developing a seven-month relationship with architect William Alexander , almost leaving his wife for him. During this period he took part in the research of sexologist Alfred Kinsey . In 1942, the couple returned to Los Angeles, renting a house near to Silver Lake and Echo Park; the area

8670-547: The Stonewall riots because it also refused NAMBLA a place in the event. Instead, he joined an alternate parade called "The Spirit of Stonewall". As late as 2000, Hay continued to speak out against assimilation saying, "The assimilationist movement is running us into the ground." Hay and Burnside returned to San Francisco in 1999 after concluding that Hay was not receiving proper care in Los Angeles for his serious health concerns, including pneumonia and lung cancer. He served as

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8840-681: The Thelemite high priestess Regina Kahl on a play that they were both working on, he agreed to play the organ for the public performances of the Gnostic Mass given by Agape Lodge , the Hollywood branch of Ordo Templi Orientis . While working on a play, Hay met actor Will Geer , with whom he entered into a relationship. Geer was a committed leftist, with Hay later describing him as his political mentor. Geer introduced Hay to Los Angeles' leftist community, and together they took part in activism, joining demonstrations for laborers' rights and

9010-434: The heterosexual–homosexual continuum . Although no single theory on the cause of sexual orientation has yet gained widespread support, scientists favor biological theories . There is considerably more evidence supporting nonsocial, biological causes of sexual orientation than social ones, especially for males. A major hypothesis implicates the prenatal environment , specifically the organizational effects of hormones on

9180-416: The law and the church established sodomy as a transgression against divine law or a crime against nature . The condemnation of anal sex between males, however, predates Christian belief. Throughout the majority of Christian history , most Christian theologians and denominations have considered homosexual behavior as immoral or sinful . Condemnation was frequent in ancient Greece; for instance,

9350-414: The leather subculture through the first decade of the post-Stonewall gay movement, Hay opposed what he believed were efforts to move other groups to the margins as the gay rights movement progressed. In 1990, Stuart Timmons published The Trouble with Harry Hay , a biography based on three years of research. Timmons described Hay as "the father of gay liberation". The 2002 documentary film Hope Along

9520-575: The "Fifth Order" and from the outset remained anonymous. Mattachine's membership grew slowly at first but received a major boost in February 1952 when founder Jennings was arrested in a Los Angeles park and charged with lewd behavior. Often, men in Jennings' situation would plead guilty to the charge and hope to quietly rebuild their lives. Jennings and the rest of the Fifth Order saw the charges as

9690-457: The -sexual suffix with the Green root "philos," meaning love. They hoped to distinguish further by describing people as homophiles, while reserving "homosexual" to describe sexual activity itself. After the gains made by the homosexual rights movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the vibrant homosexual subcultures of the 1920s and '30s became silent as war engulfed Europe. Germany

9860-482: The 14-year-old Hay met and had sex with a 25-year-old merchant-sailor named Matt, who introduced him to the idea of gay men as a global "secret brotherhood". Hay would later build on this idea, in combination with a Stalinist definition of nationalist identity, to argue that homosexuals constituted a "cultural minority". The little pockets existed and either you were lucky enough to fall into them or you could go your whole life and not know about them. The close-down,

10030-545: The 1990s, some of these have been reclaimed as positive words by gay men and lesbians, as in the usage of queer studies , queer theory , and even the popular American television program Queer Eye for the Straight Guy . The word homo occurs in many other languages without the pejorative connotations it has in English. As with ethnic slurs and racial slurs , the use of these terms can still be highly offensive. The range of acceptable use for these terms depends on

10200-480: The 19th century. Sappho's poetry centers on passion and love for various personages and both genders. The narrators of many of her poems speak of infatuations and love (sometimes requited, sometimes not) for various females, but descriptions of physical acts between women are few and subject to debate. In Ancient Rome , the young male body remained a focus of male sexual attention, but relationships were between older free men and slaves or freed youths who took

10370-518: The Chicago-based gay rights group the Society for Human Rights , although Hay would later deny having any knowledge of previous LGBT activism. In 1930, Hay enrolled at Stanford University to study international relations , taking independent study courses in English, history, and political science. There, he became increasingly interested in acting and also wrote poetry, some of which

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10540-538: The Committee for Traditional Indian Land and Life, attending the first North American Traditional Indian conference at Tonawanda , New York state , in 1967. In June 1969, the Stonewall riots in New York City marked a move toward a more radical and militant approach among gay rights activists; Hay however stated that "I wasn't impressed by Stonewall, because of all the open gay projects we had done throughout

10710-736: The Ghost Dance movement. In 1890, a misinterpretation of the Ghost Dance ritual as a war dance by Indian agents led to the Wounded Knee Massacre . Hay's great-uncle, Francis Hardie, carried the Third Cavalry flag at Wounded Knee. In 1926, at the end of the summer, Hay took his union card to a hiring hall in San Francisco, convinced the union officials he was 21, and got a job on a cargo ship to work his way back to Los Angeles. After an unloading at Monterey Bay ,

10880-548: The Grand Marshal of the San Francisco gay pride parade that same year. While in hospice care, Hay died of lung cancer on October 24, 2002, at age 90. His ashes, mingled with those of his partner John Burnside, were scattered in Nomenus Faerie Sanctuary, Wolf Creek, Oregon . As he had throughout his life of activism, Hay continued to oppose what he perceived as harmful assimilationist attitudes within

11050-906: The Homophile movement such as the American communist Harry Hay were more radical. In 1951, the president and vice-president of the Dutch COC initiated an International Congress of European homophile groups, which resulted in the formation of the International Committee for Sexual Equality (ICSE). The ICSE brought together, among other groups, the Forbundet of 1948 (Scandinavia), the Riksförbundet för Sexuellt Likaberättigande (Sweden), Arcadie (France), Der Kreis (Swiss), and, later, ONE (U.S.). Historian Leila Rupp describes

11220-614: The Homosexual , and despite his anti-military stance, Hay became Chairman of the Los Angeles Committee to Fight Exclusion of Homosexuals from the Armed Forces, taking part in the group's motorcade protest through the city. Attempting to gain greater visibility for the gay rights cause, he made appearances on local media, such as The Joe Pyne Show . Hay and Burnside also took part in research and fundraising for

11390-499: The ICSE as a classic example of transnational organizing; "It created a network across national borders, nurtured a transnational homophile identity, and engaged in activism designed to change both laws and minds." However, the ICSE failed to last beyond the early 1960s due to poor attendance at meetings, lack of active leaders, and failure of members to pay dues. By the early-1960s, lesbian , gay , bisexual , and transgender people in

11560-592: The Lambdas de Santa Fe, designed to fight homophobic violence in northern New Mexico. The group sponsored a gay ball , and in June 1977 they held Albuquerque 's first Gay Pride Parade . Hay's fame had begun to grow across the U.S., and at this time he was contacted by the historians Jonathan Ned Katz and John D'Emilio over the course of their independent research projects into the nation's LGBT history. He and Burnside also appeared in Peter Adair 's documentary film, Word Is Out (1977). In 1978, Hay teamed up with Don Kilhefner and Mitchell L. Walker to co-host

11730-457: The Los Angeles chapter of the Gay Liberation Front in 1969. After moving to New Mexico in 1970 with his longtime partner John Burnside , Native American religions influenced the couple to cofound the Radical Faeries in 1979 with Don Kilhefner and Mitchell L. Walker . After returning to Los Angeles, Hay remained involved in an array of activist causes throughout his life, and became a well-known, albeit controversial, elder statesman within

11900-464: The Mattachine Society; she was angry and upset. In September they gained a divorce on the grounds of Hay's "extreme cruelty" and he moved out of their home. He continued to send half his paycheck to Anita for twelve years, meanwhile cutting out most of his friends from that social milieu. He informed the Communist Party of the news, recommending that he be expelled; the Party forbade homosexuals from being members. Although they agreed and discharged him as

12070-647: The Middle East" and considered one of the most gay friendly cities in the world. The annual Pride Parade in support of homosexuality takes place in Tel Aviv. On the other hand, many governments in the Middle East often ignore, deny the existence of, or criminalize homosexuality. Homosexuality is illegal in almost all Muslim countries. Same-sex intercourse officially carries the death penalty in several Muslim nations: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Mauritania , northern Nigeria , and Yemen . Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , during his 2007 speech at Columbia University , asserted that there were no gay people in Iran. However,

12240-525: The Party. Feeling that he was being restrained by the relationship, Hay left Kamgren, in 1963 beginning a brief relationship with Jim Kepner . Together they mooted the idea of starting a new Mattachine Society; this came to nothing. Influenced by the growing counter-culture, Hay ceased to wear suits, instead favouring brightly colored clothing, earrings and necklaces, also growing his hair long. In doing so, he stated that "I never again wanted to be mistaken for

12410-581: The Riddle of Man-Manly Love. In 1867, he became the first self-proclaimed homosexual person to speak out publicly in defense of homosexuality when he pleaded at the Congress of German Jurists in Munich for a resolution urging the repeal of anti-homosexual laws. Sexual Inversion by Havelock Ellis , published in 1896, challenged theories that homosexuality was abnormal, as well as stereotypes , and insisted on

12580-509: The Society as a Communist group, Hay stepped down from his position. The group's membership was diversifying, with people from a broader political spectrum becoming involved. Many members were concerned by the far left control of the group and felt that it should have a more open, democratic structure. At a group convention held in Spring 1953, Hal Call and other conservative members challenged

12750-534: The Sri Ram Ashram was a gay-friendly spiritual retreat in the desert near Benson, Arizona , owned by an American named Swami Bill. Hay, Kilhefner, and Walker visited to check its suitability, and although Hay disliked Bill and didn't want to use the site, the others insisted. Their conference, set for Labor Day 1979, was to be called the " Spiritual Conference for Radical Fairies ", with the term "Radical Faerie" having been coined by Hay. The term "Radical"

12920-562: The United States were forming more visible communities, and this was reflected in the political strategies of American homophile groups. Frank Kameny , an American astronomer and gay rights activist, had co-founded the Mattachine Society in Washington D.C.in 1961. While the society did not take much political activism to the streets at first, Kameny and several members attended the 1963 March on Washington , where having seen

13090-601: The White House. Not only did Kameny continue his work with the Mattachine society, but furthered on to work with other notable gay rights groups like ACT UP , where he continued to use civil disobedience in his efforts to "...accord gays and lesbians the same rights and privileges enjoyed by all citizens." Formed in 1964, the San Franciscan Society for Individual Rights (SIR) had a new openness and

13260-592: The ancient world. However, there were diverse sexual practices that varied in acceptance depending on time and place. In ancient Greece, the pattern of adolescent boys engaging in sexual practices with older males did not constitute a homosexual identity in the modern sense since such relations were seen as phases in life, not permanent orientations, since later on the younger partners would commonly marry females and reproduce. Other scholars argue that there are significant continuities between ancient and modern homosexuality. In cultures influenced by Abrahamic religions ,

13430-408: The belief of the French homophile group Arcadie, "that public hostility to homosexuals resulted largely from their outrageous and promiscuous behaviour; homophiles would win the good opinion of the public and the authorities by showing themselves to be discreet, dignified, virtuous and respectable." However, while some were prepared to come out , they did risk severe persecution, and some figures within

13600-402: The boys, in honor of this boy when he was fourteen, and when he needed to know best of all what only another gay man could show him and tell him". He continued to speak on panels at NAMBLA events in 1984 and 1986, and at the 1986 Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade he wore two signs; on his front one that read " Valerie Terrigno walks with me", referring to the politician who agreed to withdraw from

13770-403: The broader 19th-century tradition of personality taxonomy. Many modern style guides in the U.S. recommend against using homosexual as a noun, instead using gay man or lesbian . Similarly, some recommend completely avoiding usage of homosexual as it has a negative, clinical history and because the word only refers to one's sexual behavior (as opposed to romantic feelings) and thus it has

13940-477: The cause in a neutral/scientific manner. Numerous artworks and literary works from this period also describe homosexuality. The Pali Cannon, written in Sri Lanka between 600 BC and 100 BC, states that sexual relations, whether of homosexual or of heterosexual nature, is forbidden in the monastic code, and states that any acts of soft homosexual sex (such as masturbation and interfumeral sex) does not entail

14110-569: The classical pattern of Greece and Rome. But even as many of the male population were engaging in same-sex relationships, the authorities, under the aegis of the Officers of the Night court, were prosecuting, fining, and imprisoning a good portion of that population. From the second half of the 13th century, death was the punishment for male homosexuality in most of Europe. The relationships of socially prominent figures, such as King James I and

14280-410: The context and speaker. Conversely, gay , a word originally embraced by homosexual men and women as a positive, affirmative term (as in gay liberation and gay rights ), came into widespread pejorative use among young people in the early 2000s. The American LGBT rights organization GLAAD advises the media to avoid using the term homosexual to describe gay people or same-sex relationships as

14450-617: The country's gay community. In his later years, Hay was an active supporter of the pedophile advocacy organization North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), speaking on panels and sessions at several of the group's annual meetings. Hay protested the group being expelled from Pride parades , including his boycott of the 1994 New York Pride March . Hay was born in the coastal town of Worthing in Sussex, south-east England (at 1 Bath Road, then known as "Colwell"), on April 7, 1912. Raised in an upper middle class American family, he

14620-515: The earliest recorded history. Homosexuality in China , known as the passions of the cut peach and various other euphemisms, has been recorded since approximately 600 BCE. Homosexuality was mentioned in many famous works of Chinese literature. The instances of same-sex affection and sexual interactions described in the classical novel Dream of the Red Chamber seem as familiar to observers in

14790-481: The end of his reign, expanded the proscription to the active partner as well (in 558), warning that such conduct can lead to the destruction of cities through the "wrath of God". During the Renaissance , wealthy cities in northern Italy — Florence and Venice in particular—were renowned for their widespread practice of same-sex love, engaged in by a considerable part of the male population and constructed along

14960-425: The end of the 20th century, there has been a global movement towards freedom and equality for gay people, including the introduction of anti-bullying legislation to protect gay children at school, legislation ensuring non-discrimination, equal ability to serve in the military , equal access to health care , equal ability to adopt and parent , and the establishment of marriage equality . The word homosexual

15130-512: The epic, change genders, such as Shikhandi , who is sometimes said to be born as a female but identifies as male and eventually marries a woman. Bahuchara Mata is the goddess of fertility, worshipped by hijras as their patroness. Historians have long argued that pre-colonial Indian society did not criminalise same-sex relationships, nor did it view such relations as immoral or sinful. Hinduism has traditionally portrayed homosexuality as natural and joyful. The earliest Western documents (in

15300-579: The equality clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms . The federal Parliament and provincial legislatures began to amend their laws to treat same-sex relations in the same way as opposite-sex relations. Beginning in 2003, the courts in Canada began to rule that excluding same-sex couples from marriage violated the equality clause of the Charter . In 2005, the federal Parliament enacted

15470-401: The event lest being barred, and on his back "NAMBLA Walks With Me", after organizers banned the pedophile advocacy group from joining the march. The organizers complained to police and he narrowly avoided arrest. In Before Stonewall , biographer Vern L. Bullough writes, "Getting him to agree to simply wear a sign [supporting NAMBLA] rather than carry a banner took considerable negotiation by

15640-557: The event, despite the fact that the Ashram could only accommodate around 75. Hay gave a welcoming speech in which he outlined his ideas regarding Subject-SUBJECT consciousness , calling on those assembled to "throw off the ugly green frogskin of hetero-imitation to find the shining Faerie prince beneath". Rather than being referred to as "workshops", the events that took place were known as "Faerie circles", and were on such varied subjects as massage, nutrition, local botany , healing energy,

15810-500: The event, which one person there described as "a four day acid trip – without the acid!". On the final night of the gathering, they put together a performance of the Symmetricon , an invention of Burnside's, while Hay gave a farewell speech. After Hay and the others returned to Los Angeles, they received messages of thanks from various participants, many of whom asked when the next Faerie gathering would be. Hay decided to found

15980-404: The experiences they name are artifacts of unique cultural and social processes. "Essentialists" typically believe that sexual preferences are determined by biological forces, while "constructionists" assume that sexual desires are learned. The philosopher of science Michael Ruse has stated that the social constructionist approach, which is influenced by Foucault, is based on a selective reading of

16150-406: The farm. Hay had a strained relationship with his father, whom he labelled "tyrannical". Hay Sr. would beat his son for perceived transgressions, with Hay later suspecting that his father disliked him for having effeminate traits. He was particularly influenced on one occasion when he noted that his father had made a factual error: "If my father could be wrong, then the teacher could be wrong. And if

16320-607: The fascist Friends of New Germany group. After Hay had become increasingly politicized, Geer introduced him to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA); however, from the beginning, Hay was perturbed at the Party's hostility to homosexuals and its view that same-sex attraction was a deviance resulting from bourgeois society. Although he joined the Party in 1934, his involvement was largely restricted to attending fundraisers until 1936. In late 1937, Hay attended further classes in Marxist theory at which he came to fully understand and embrace

16490-549: The fetal brain. There is no substantive evidence which suggests parenting or early childhood experiences play a role in developing a sexual orientation. Scientific research shows that homosexuality is a natural and normal variation in human sexuality and is not in and of itself a source of negative psychological effects. There is insufficient evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual orientation . The most common terms for homosexual people are lesbian for females and gay for males , but

16660-503: The figure of the Two-Spirit individual (the term itself was coined only in 1990). Typically, this individual was recognized early in life, given a choice by the parents to follow the path and, if the child accepted the role, raised in the appropriate manner, learning the customs of the gender it had chosen. Two-Spirit individuals were commonly shamans and were revered as having powers beyond those of ordinary shamans. Their sexual life

16830-400: The following year began to suffer intense mental anxiety and repeated nightmares as he realised that he was still homosexual and that his marriage had been a serious mistake. The couple divorced in 1951. The post-war reaction, the shutting down of open communication, was already of concern to many of us progressives. I knew the government was going to look for a new enemy, a new scapegoat. It

17000-534: The form of literary works, art objects, and mythographic materials ) concerning same-sex relationships are derived from ancient Greece . In regard to male homosexuality, such documents depict an at times complex understanding in which relationships with women and relationships with adolescent boys could be a part of a normal man's love life. Same-sex relationships were a social institution variously constructed over time and from one city to another. The formal practice, an erotic yet often restrained relationship between

17170-548: The former getting Hay to perform vocals at one of his concerts in November 1932. Becoming a professional voice actor, he obtained a minor role in a radio adaptation of Charles Dickens ' A Tale of Two Cities performed by George K. Arthur 's International Group Players for the Hollywood Playhouse . They were impressed with his talent, and gave him a job as a permanent understudy. He supplemented this income as

17340-408: The founding of Mattachine in the belief that homosexuals constituted a cultural minority, Hay was wary of discarding the unique attributes of that minority in favor of adopting the cultural traits of the majority for the purpose of societal acceptance. Having witnessed the move of Mattachine away from its founding Marxist activist principles and having seen the gay community marginalize drag queens and

17510-462: The gay community. "We pulled ugly green frog skin of heterosexual conformity over us, and that's how we got through school with a full set of teeth," Hay once explained. "We know how to live through their eyes. We can always play their games, but are we denying ourselves by doing this? If you're going to carry the skin of conformity over you, you are going to suppress the beautiful prince or princess within you." Having rooted his political philosophy from

17680-745: The gay press, namely ONE Institute Quarterly and ONE Confidential , also giving lectures on the subject at ONE's Mid-Winter Institute. Meanwhile, in May 1955 Hay was called to testify before a subcommittee of the House Un-American Activities Committee that was investigating Communist Party activity in Southern California. The subcommittee was aware that Hay was a Marxist, and as such he struggled to find legal representation, fearing that he would lose his job and worrying that his sexuality would be used to smear

17850-491: The genre; he continued to teach these classes through the mid-1950s. In September 1943, Hay and his wife adopted a daughter, Hannah Margaret, soon moving to a larger home nearby to accommodate her. They adopted a second daughter, Kate Neall, several days after her birth in December 1945. Hay was a caring parent, and encouraged his children's interests in music and dance. In 1945, Hay was diagnosed with hypoglycemia , and

18020-532: The government through the Smith Act and the subsequent creation of the House Un-American Activities Committee . From 1945, he was involved in the People's Songs organisation, becoming the group's theoretician, through which he came to know Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger . From 1947, he taught a musicology class on the "Historical Development of Folk Music", through which he articulated a Marxist understanding of

18190-607: The group gradually shifted from being female-dominated to male-dominated through the 1930s, as the tone of the magazine simultaneously became less militant. After the war, organizations began to re-form, such as the Dutch COC in 1946. Other, new organizations arose, including Forbundet af 1948 ("League of 1948"), founded by Axel Axgil in Denmark , with Helmer Fogedgaard publishing an associated magazine called Vennen (The Friend) from January 1949 until 1953. Fogedgaard used

18360-647: The group. The second Faerie gathering took place in August 1980 in Estes Park near Boulder, Colorado . Twice as long and almost twice as large as the first, it became known as Faerie Woodstock. It also exhibited an increasing influence from the U.S. pagan movement, as Faeries incorporated elements from Evans' Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture and Starhawk 's The Spiral Dance into their practices. At that gathering, Dennis Melba'son presented

18530-812: The historical record that confuses the existence of homosexual people with the way in which they are labelled or treated. The first record of a possible homosexual couple in history is commonly regarded as Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum , an ancient Egyptian male couple, who lived around 2400 BCE. The pair are portrayed in a nose-kissing position, the most intimate pose in Egyptian art , surrounded by what appear to be their heirs. The anthropologists Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe reported that women in Lesotho engaged in socially sanctioned "long term, erotic relationships" called motsoalle . The anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard also recorded that male Azande warriors in

18700-432: The idea of male anal sex being "unnatural" is described by a character of Plato 's, though he had earlier written of the benefits of homosexual relationships. Many historical figures, including Socrates , Lord Byron , Edward II , and Hadrian , have had terms such as gay or bisexual applied to them. Some scholars have regarded uses of such modern terms on people from the past as an anachronistic introduction of

18870-507: The ideology, becoming a fully committed member of the Party. From the time he joined the Party until leaving it in the early 1950s, Hay taught courses in subjects ranging from Marxist theory to folk music at the "People's Educational Center" in Hollywood and later throughout the Los Angeles area. Hay, along with Roger Barlow and LeRoy Robbins, directed the 1937 short film Even As You and I , featuring Hay, Barlow, and filmmaker Hy Hirsh , in which they spoofed surrealism . In early 1937, Hay Sr.

19040-485: The judge dismissing the charges; Mattachine declared victory. Following the Jennings trial, the group expanded rapidly, with founders estimating membership in California by May 1953 at over 2,000 with as many as 100 people joining a typical discussion group. This brought greater scrutiny of the group, and in February 1953 a Los Angeles daily newspaper published an article exposing Hay as a Marxist; not wishing to tar

19210-548: The last Englishmen to be so hanged. To this day, historians are still arguing about the question of the Sexuality of Frederick the Great (1712−1786), which essentially revolves around the taboo of whether the myth of one of the greatest war heroes in world history is allowed to be psychologically deconstructed. Between 1864 and 1880 Karl Heinrich Ulrichs published a series of 12 tracts, which he collectively titled Research on

19380-435: The latter being a term that he later rejected. He planned to call this organization "Bachelors Anonymous" and envisioned it serving a similar function and purpose as Alcoholics Anonymous . At the centre of its approach was Hay's view that homosexuals were "a social minority" or "cultural minority" who were being oppressed; in this he was influenced by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin 's Marxist–Leninist concepts of what constituted

19550-508: The leaders to amend its constitution and to affirm that members were loyal to the United States and its laws. In an effort to preserve their vision of the organization, the Fifth Order members revealed their identities and resigned their leadership positions. With the founders gone, Call and other like-minded individuals stepped into the leadership void, and Mattachine officially adopted non-confrontation as an organizational policy. The reduced effectiveness of this newly organized Mattachine led to

19720-559: The legal restrictions on same-sex dancing. In May 1971, Hay and Burnside moved to the San Juan Pueblo in New Mexico , taking their kaleidoscope factory with them. However, in June 1973, an accidental fire destroyed their kaleidoscope factory and mail order inventory, leaving them without a livelihood. In New Mexico, Hay once again took part in activism; he volunteered for a radical newspaper, El Grito ( The Cry ), which aimed at

19890-400: The legality of serving alcohol to homosexuals. NACHO disbanded after a contentious 1970 conference at which older members and younger members, radicalized in the wake of the 1969 Stonewall riots , clashed. Gay Sunshine magazine declared the convention "the battle that ended the homophile movement". The gay liberation movement, which emerged around this time, replaced the term "homophile" by

20060-466: The marriage did not quell Hay's same-sex attractions, and by 1939 he had begun to seek sexual encounters with other men in local parks on a weekly basis. He would later describe the marriage as "living in an exile world". The couple moved to Manhattan , New York City, where Hay went through a series of unsteady and low-paid jobs, including as a scriptwriter, a service manager in Macy's toy department, and

20230-556: The medieval Tang dynasty (618–907), attributed to the rising influence of Christian and Islamic values, but did not become fully established until the Westernization efforts of the late Qing dynasty and the Republic of China . South Asia has a recorded and verifiable history of homosexuality going back to at least 1200 BC. Hindu medical texts written in India from this period document homosexual acts and attempt to explain

20400-562: The methods used by Black civil rights activists , they then applied them to the Homophile movement. Kameny had also been inspired by the black power movements slogan " Black is Beautiful ", coining his own term "Gay is Good". From the mid-1960s, they engaged in picketing and sit-ins , identifying themselves in public space for the first time. Kameny further implemented the use of social protest methods of advocating for rights through his timeline as an activist. While earlier in his career as an activist, he as well as other organizers picketed out

20570-457: The name "Society of Fools". The group changed its name to "Mattachine Society" in April 1951, chosen by Hay at the suggestion of fellow member James Gruber , based on Medieval French secret societies of masked men who (through their anonymity) were empowered to criticize ruling monarchs with impunity. In April 1951, Hay informed his wife about his continuing homosexuality and his work with

20740-534: The natives to depict them as savages and hence justify their conquest and forceful conversion to Christianity. As a result of the growing influence and power of the conquerors, many native cultures started condemning homosexual acts themselves. Among some of the indigenous peoples of the Americas in North America prior to European colonization, a relatively common form of same-sex sexuality centered around

20910-674: The natural world and became a keen outdoorsman through walks in the wilderness around the city. Aged ten he was enrolled at Virgil Junior High School , and soon after joined a boys' club known as the Western Rangers, through which he developed an interest in Native American Cultures , specifically the Hopi and the Sioux . Becoming a voracious reader, in 1923 he began to volunteer at a public library, where he discovered

21080-576: The northern Congo routinely took on young male lovers between the ages of twelve and twenty, who helped with household tasks and participated in intercrural sex with their older husbands. As is true of many other non-Western cultures, it is difficult to determine the extent to which Western notions of sexual orientation and gender identity apply to Pre-Columbian cultures. Evidence of homoerotic sexual acts and transvestism has been found in many pre- conquest civilizations in Latin America , such as

21250-478: The opposite sex. During the colonial period, both the French and the British criminalised same-sex sexual relations. Anal sex between males was a capital offence. Post-Confederation, anal sex and acts of "gross indecency" continued to be criminal offences, but were no longer capital offences. Individuals were prosecuted for same-sex sexual activity as late as the 1960s, which led to the federal Parliament amending

21420-402: The organizing principles that night, a document he referred to as "The Call", however the men who had expressed an interest were not enthused the following morning. Over the next two years, Hay refined his idea, finally conceiving of an "international ... fraternal order" to serve as "a service and welfare organization devoted to the protection and improvement of Society's Androgynous Minority",

21590-577: The parade organizers, who wanted to distance the gay and lesbian movement from pedophilia, yet wanted Harry to participate." Hay continued to protest NAMBLA being banned from Pride parades , in 1994 protesting the Stonewall 25 events exclusion of NAMBLA on the grounds that such exclusions "pandered to heterosexual-dominated society". Despite the efforts of the vast majority of the LGBT community to distance themselves from pedophiles and pedophilia, Hay and

21760-407: The parents and friends of gays are truly friends of gays, they would know from their gay kids that the relationship with an older man is precisely what thirteen-, fourteen-, and fifteen-year-old kids need more than anything else in the world", as well as highlighting his own relationship with an adult man when he was fourteen, saying "I send to all of you my love and deep affection for what you offer to

21930-411: The politics of gay enspiritment, English country dancing, and auto-fellatio . Those assembled took part in spontaneous rituals, providing invocations to spirits and performing blessings and chants, with most participants discarding the majority of their clothes, instead wearing feathers, beads, and bells, and decorating themselves in rainbow makeup. Many reported feeling a change of consciousness during

22100-523: The present as do equivalent stories of romances between heterosexual people during the same period. Ming dynasty literature, such as Bian Er Chai (弁而釵/弁而钗), portray homosexual relationships between men as more enjoyable and more "harmonious" than heterosexual relationships. Writings from the Liu Song dynasty by Wang Shunu claimed that homosexuality was as common as heterosexuality in the late 3rd century. Opposition to homosexuality in China originates in

22270-467: The probable reason is that they keep their sexuality a secret for fear of government sanction or rejection by their families. In ancient Sumer , a set of priests known as gala worked in the temples of the goddess Inanna , where they performed elegies and lamentations. Gala took female names, spoke in the eme-sal dialect, which was traditionally reserved for women, and appear to have engaged in homosexual intercourse. The Sumerian sign for gala

22440-472: The pseudonym "Homophilos", introducing the concept of "homophile" in May 1950, unaware that the word had been presented as an alternative term a few months previously by Jaap van Leeuwen  [ es ; nl ] , one of the founders of the Dutch COC. The word soon spread among members of the emerging post-war movement who were happy to emphasize the respectable romantic side of their relationships over genital sexuality. A Swedish branch of Forbundet af 1948

22610-491: The publication of the Kinsey Reports , Hay conceived the idea of a homosexual activist group in August 1948 which later became the Mattachine Society. After signing a petition for Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace , Hay spoke with other gay men at a party about forming a gay support organization for the campaign called "Bachelors for Wallace". Encouraged by the response he received, Hay wrote out

22780-487: The receptive role in sex. The Hellenophile emperor Hadrian is renowned for his relationship with Antinous , but the Christian emperor Theodosius I decreed a law on 6 August 390, condemning passive males to be burned at the stake. Notwithstanding these regulations taxes on brothels with boys available for homosexual sex continued to be collected until the end of the reign of Anastasius I in 518. Justinian , towards

22950-538: The same change of consciousness that had been present at the rural gathering. The group began to discuss what the Faerie movement was developing into; Hay encouraged them to embark on political activism, using Marxism and his Subject-SUBJECT consciousness theory as a framework for bringing about societal change. Others however wanted the movement to focus on spirituality and exploring the psyche , lambasting politics as part of "the straight world". Another issue of contention

23120-666: The sixties in Los Angeles. As far as we were concerned, Stonewall meant that the East Coast was catching up." The riot led to the emergence of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), with Hay and Burnside involving themselves in the early development of its Los Angeles chapter in December 1969. Hay was elected its first chairperson, organising pickets of homophobic establishments, holding a one-day "Gay-In" in Griffith Park and "funky dances" at Troupers Hall to challenge

23290-628: The socialist cause altogether and retained his faith in Marxism. Hay came to be viewed as an elder statesman within the gay community, and was regularly invited to give speeches to LGBT activist and student groups. He was the featured speaker at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade in 1982, and Grand Marshal of the Long Beach Gay Pride Parade in 1986. In 1989, West Hollywood city council awarded him an honor for his years of activism while that year he

23460-459: The space available for diversity of gender roles for gay men, with the gentle and the effeminate discarded in their favor. He went so far as to condemn the group while at a June 1989 rally in New York's Central Park where he shared the stage with Allen Ginsberg and Joan Nestle . In 1994, Hay refused to participate in the official parade in New York City commemorating the 25th anniversary of

23630-547: The subject, forming an umbrella activist group, and building it into a national campaign through the Nation-Wide Friends of the Rio Grande. The campaign was ultimately successful as the government rejected the plans in 1976. During the campaign, his mother died, and he was unable to return to Los Angeles for her memorial service. After this, he involved himself in the foundation of a local LGBT rights group,

23800-406: The teacher could be wrong, then the priest could be wrong. And if the priest could be wrong, then maybe even God could be wrong." Hay was enrolled at Cahuenga Elementary School , where he excelled at his studies but was bullied. He began experimenting with his sexuality, and aged nine took part in sexual activity with a twelve-year-old neighbour boy. At the same time he developed an early love of

23970-670: The term gay also commonly refers to both homosexual females and males. Other common labels that include gay people are LGBTQ and queer . The percentage of people who are gay or lesbian and the proportion of people who are in same-sex romantic relationships or have had same-sex sexual experiences are difficult for researchers to estimate reliably for a variety of reasons, including many gay and lesbian people not openly identifying as such due to prejudice or discrimination such as homophobia and heterosexism . Homosexual behavior has also been documented in many non-human animal species , though humans are one of only two species known to exhibit

24140-459: The term is "frequently used by anti-gay extremists to denigrate gay people, couples and relationships". Some scholars argue that the term "homosexuality" is problematic when applied to ancient cultures since, for example, neither Greeks or Romans possessed any one word covering the same semantic range as the modern concept of "homosexuality". Nor did there exist a distinction of lifestyle or differentiation of psychological or behavioral profiles in

24310-441: The terror, was so complete that people could remain ignorant, unsocialized, and undeveloped. 'Communities' were the little groups that formed by accident. And with lots of restrictions. Tiresome bitchiness and boasting predominated. To find someone whose sensibility was more wide-ranging was relatively rare. —Harry Hay on Los Angeles' gay scene in the 1930s. Graduating from school in 1929, Hay hoped to study paleontology , but

24480-458: The ubiquity of homosexuality and its association with intellectual and artistic achievement. Although medical texts like these (written partly in Latin to obscure the sexual details) were not widely read by the general public, they did lead to the rise of Magnus Hirschfeld 's Scientific-Humanitarian Committee , which campaigned from 1897 to 1933 against anti-sodomy laws in Germany , as well as

24650-848: The unemployed, and on one occasion handcuffed themselves to lamposts outside UCLA to hand out leaflets for the American League Against War and Fascism . Other groups whose activities he joined in with included End Poverty in California , Hollywood Anti-Nazi League , the Mobilization for Democracy , and Workers' Alliance of America . Hay and Geer spent a weekend in San Francisco during the city's 1934 General Strike , where they witnessed police open fire on protesters, killing two; this event further committed Hay to societal change. Hay joined an agitprop theatre group that entertained at strikes and demonstrations; their performance of Waiting for Lefty in 1935 led to attacks from

24820-467: The upper class of persists and monks, and religious codes of foreign religions such as Christianity and Islam imposed homophobic rules on their populations. Hinduism describes a third gender that is equal to other genders and documentation of the third gender are found in ancient Hindu and Buddhist medical texts. There are certain characters in the Mahabharata who, according to some versions of

24990-577: The year before. A 1965 gay picket held in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia , according to some historians, marked the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. Meanwhile, in San Francisco in 1966, transgender street prostitutes in the poor neighborhood of Tenderloin rioted against police harassment at a popular all-night restaurant, the Compton Cafeteria . These and other activities of public resistance to oppression led to

25160-647: Was a ligature of the signs for "penis" and "anus". One Sumerian proverb reads: "When the gala wiped off his ass [he said], 'I must not arouse that which belongs to my mistress [i.e., Inanna].'" In later Mesopotamian cultures, kurgarrū and assinnu were servants of the goddess Ishtar (Inanna's East Semitic equivalent), who dressed in female clothing and performed war dances in Ishtar's temples. Several Akkadian proverbs seem to suggest that they may have also engaged in homosexual intercourse. Harry Hay Henry Hay Jr. (April 7, 1912 – October 24, 2002)

25330-726: Was an American gay rights activist, communist , and labor advocate . He cofounded the Mattachine Society , the first sustained gay rights group in the United States, as well as the Radical Faeries , a loosely affiliated gay spiritual movement. Hay has been described as "the Founder of the Modern Gay Movement" and "the father of gay liberation". Acknowledging both his same-sex sexual attraction and an interest in Marxism from an early age, Hay eventually worked as

25500-605: Was based partly on that of the Communist Party and partly on fraternal brotherhoods like Freemasonry . Operating on the Leninist basis of democratic centralism , it had cells, oaths of secrecy and five different levels of membership, each of which required greater levels of involvement and commitment. As the organization grew, the levels were expected to subdivide into new cells, creating the potential for both horizontal and vertical growth. The founding members constituted

25670-583: Was born in February 1914, but following the outbreak of the First World War, the family moved to Northern Chile, where Hay Sr. had been offered a job managing a copper mine in Chuquicamata by the Guggenheim family 's Anaconda Company . In Chile, Hay Jr. contracted bronchial pneumonia , resulting in permanent scar tissue damage to his lungs. In May 1916, his brother John "Jack" William

25840-511: Was born. In June 1916, Hay Sr. was involved in an industrial accident, resulting in the amputation of a leg. As a result, he resigned from his position and the family relocated to California in the United States. In February 1919, they moved to 149 Kingsley Drive in Los Angeles, with Hay Sr. purchasing a 30-acre citrus farm in Covina , also investing heavily in the stock market. Despite his wealth, Hay Sr. did not spoil his son, and made him work on

26010-509: Was chosen to reflect both political extremity and the idea of "root" or "essence", while the term "Faerie" was chosen in reference both to the immortal animistic spirits of European folklore and to the fact that "fairy" had become a pejorative slang term for gay men. Initially, Hay rejected the term "movement" when discussing the Radical Faeries, considering it to instead be a "way of life" for gay males, and he began referring to it as

26180-496: Was colloquially known as "the Red Hills" due to its large left-wing community. There, Hay went through various jobs, including with Russian War Relief , as a puddler , and as a production engineer at a manufacturing plant. He was not conscripted into the armed forces following the outbreak of World War II due to his work with Avion Aircraft , which was deemed essential for the country's war effort. He would subsequently work in

26350-564: Was done with the formation in 1966 of the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO, rhymes with Waco). NACHO held annual conferences, helped start dozens of local gay groups across the country and issued position papers on a variety of LGBT-related issues. It organized national demonstrations, including a May 1966 action against military discrimination that included the country's first gay motorcade. Through its legal defense fund, NACHO challenged anti-gay laws and regulations ranging from immigration issues and military service to

26520-474: Was forbidden from doing so by his father, who insisted that he pursue law. Hay Sr. obtained an entry-level job for his son at his friend's legal firm, Haas and Dunnigan. While working at the firm, Hay discovered the gay cruising scene in Pershing Square , where he developed a sexual relationship with a man who taught him about the underground gay culture. It has been claimed that here he learned about

26690-561: Was formed in 1949 and a Norwegian branch in 1950. The Swedish organization became independent under the name Riksförbundet för sexuellt likaberättigande (RFSL, "Federation for Sexual Equality") in 1950, led by Allan Hellman . The same year in the United States, the Mattachine Society was formed, and other organizations such as ONE, Inc. (1952) and the Daughters of Bilitis (1955) soon followed. In 1954, nearly 60,000 copies of ONE's magazine were distributed, though its actual readership

26860-550: Was introduced to Marxism by fellow ranch hands who were members of the Industrial Workers of the World ("Wobblies"). They gave him books and pamphlets written by Karl Marx , leading to his adoption of socialism . He learned of men having sex with other men through stories passed around by ranch hands, telling him of violent assaults on miners who attempted to touch men with whom they shared quarters. Hay often told

27030-712: Was invited to give a lecture at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, which he turned down. He nevertheless remained highly critical of the mainstream gay rights movement, and took controversial and, at times, divisive positions, including his consistent support of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) being included in Pride parades. When speaking at the 1983 Gay Academic Union forum at New York University , his speech included, "If

27200-558: Was likely much higher due to the practice of surreptitiously circulating existing copies. Homophile organizations elsewhere include Arcadie (1954) in France and the British Homosexual Law Reform Society (founded 1958). These groups are generally considered to have been politically cautious, in comparison to the LGBT movements that both preceded and followed them. Historian Michael Sibalis describes

27370-464: Was manipulating people, so we could undo his undermining of the scene." At a winter 1980 gathering in southern Oregon designed to discuss acquiring land for a Faerie sanctuary, a newcomer to the group, coached by Walker, confronted Harry about the power dynamics within the core circle. In the ensuing conflict, the core circle splintered. Plans for the land sanctuary stalled and a separate circle formed. The core circle made an attempt to reconcile, but at

27540-675: Was named after his father, Harry Hay, Sr. (1869-1938), a mining engineer who had been working for Cecil Rhodes first in Witwatersrand , South Africa, and then in Tarkwa , Ghana. His mother, Margaret Hay (née Neall), a Catholic , had been raised in a wealthy family among American expatriates in Johannesburg , South Africa, prior to her marriage in April 1911. Hay Sr. was raised a Presbyterian but converted to her religion on their marriage, and their children were brought up Catholic. Harry Hay Jr.'s aunt took him to an Episcopal church and later he would join First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles . Their second child, Margaret "Peggy" Caroline Hay,

27710-419: Was over what constituted a "Faerie"; Hay had an idealized image of what someone with "gay consciousness" thought and acted like, and turned away some prospective members of the Circle because he disagreed with their views. One prospective member, the gay theater director John Callaghan, joined the circle in February 1980, but was soon ejected by Hay after he voiced concern about hostility toward heterosexuals among

27880-424: Was partly paralysed following a stroke, leaving Hay to take on many of his family duties. Hay began Jungian analysis in 1937. He later claimed that the psychiatrist "misled" him into believing that through marriage to a woman, he could become heterosexual; the psychiatrist suggested that Hay find himself a "boyish girl". After confiding with fellow Party members that he was homosexual, they too urged Hay to marry

28050-399: Was predictable. But Blacks were beginning to organize and the horror of the holocaust was too recent to put the Jews in this position. The natural scapegoat would be us, the Queers. They were the one group of disenfranchised people who did not even know they were a group because they had never formed as a group. They – we – had to get started. It was high time. —Harry Hay. Influenced by

28220-401: Was published in 1723 in England, and is presumed by some modern scholars to be a novel. The 1749 edition of John Cleland 's popular novel Fanny Hill includes a homosexual scene, but this was removed in its 1750 edition. Also in 1749, the earliest extended and serious defense of homosexuality in English, Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplified , written by Thomas Cannon ,

28390-426: Was published in university magazines. He came to frequent the gay scene in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, attending parties where men danced with men, women danced with women, people cross-dressed , and alcohol was consumed, all of which was illegal. He had a number of sexual and romantic trysts with various men; one biographer asserts that these included a one-night stand with Prince George, Duke of Kent , and

28560-424: Was published, but was suppressed almost immediately. It includes the passage, "Unnatural Desire is a Contradiction in Terms; downright Nonsense. Desire is an amatory Impulse of the inmost human Parts." Around 1785 Jeremy Bentham wrote another defense, but this was not published until 1978. Executions for sodomy continued in the Netherlands until 1803, and in England until 1835, James Pratt and John Smith being

28730-405: Was the traditional home of such movements and activists, but in Nazi Germany , gay literature was burned, gay organizations were dissolved, and many gay men imprisoned in concentration camps . The Swiss journal Der Kreis ("the circle") was the primary homosexual publication in Europe and the only one to publish during the Nazi era. Der Kreis was edited by Anna Vock , and later Karl Meier ;

28900-455: Was with the ordinary tribe members of the same sex. During the colonial times following the European invasion, homosexuality was prosecuted by the Inquisition , sometimes leading to death sentences on the charges of sodomy, and the practices became clandestine. Many homosexual individuals went into heterosexual marriages to maintain appearances, and many joined the (unmarried) Catholic clergy to escape public scrutiny of their lack of interest in

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