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102-572: The Mattachine Society ( / ˈ m æ t ə ʃ iː n / ), founded in 1950, was an early national gay rights organization in the United States , preceded by several covert and open organizations, such as Chicago 's Society for Human Rights . Communist and labor activist Harry Hay formed the group with a collection of male friends in Los Angeles to protect and improve the rights of gay men . Branches formed in other cities, and by 1961

204-761: A 2011 television series on NBC , includes a lesbian Playboy Bunny in a lavender marriage with a gay man. The two are members of the Chicago Mattachine chapter. The Mattachine Steps , also known as the Cove Avenue stairway, is an outdoor staircase in Silver Lake , Los Angeles , dedicated to the Mattachine Society in 2012 in memory of its founder Harry Hay . In 2015, a gay bar called Bar Mattachine opened in downtown Los Angeles. The podcast " Making Gay History " (season 1, episode 7)

306-440: A Marxist background could understand. Founding member Chuck Rowland recalled the energy the two brought to the group. "It was like magic when they joined. Suddenly everything started to happen." Following a conversation with co-founder Harry Hay about Medieval masque troops known as "mattachines", Gruber suggested changing the group's name from "Society of Fools" to Mattachine Society . Gruber attributed Mattachine's success to

408-640: A bar in New York City resisted a police raid. Immediately after Stonewall, such groups as the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the Gay Activists' Alliance (GAA) were formed. Their use of the word gay represented a new unapologetic defiance—as an antonym for straight ("respectable sexual behavior"), it encompassed a range of non-normative sexuality and sought ultimately to free the bisexual potential in everyone, rendering obsolete

510-581: A chapter, however, and so instead named itself the Janus Society of Delaware Valley. In 1964 they renamed themselves the Janus Society of America due to their increasing national visibility. In January 1962 East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO) was established, with its formative membership including the Mattachine Society chapters in New York and Washington D.C., the Janus Society , and

612-860: A contingent dressed as workmen obtained access to the basement and shut off the lights. In 1971, the gay liberation movement in Germany and Switzerland started with Rosa von Praunheims movie It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives . Easter 1972 saw the Gay Lib annual conference held in the Guild of Undergraduates Union (students union) building at the University of Birmingham . In May 1974

714-436: A course on the history of popular music for a workers' education project. In a 1976 interview with Jonathan Ned Katz, Hay was asked the origin of the name Mattachine. He mentioned the medieval-Renaissance French Sociétés Joyeuses : One masque group was known as the "Société Mattachine." These societies, lifelong secret fraternities of unmarried townsmen who never performed in public unmasked, were dedicated to going out into

816-601: A crime. In 1833, an anonymous English-language writer wrote a poetic defense of Captain Nicholas Nicholls, who had been sentenced to death in London for sodomy: Whence spring these inclinations, rank and strong? And harming no one, wherefore call them wrong? Three years later in Switzerland, Heinrich Hoessli published the first volume of Eros: Die Männerliebe der Griechen (English: "Eros: The Male Love of

918-411: A criminal offence". All but James Adair were in favor of this and, contrary to some medical and psychiatric witnesses' evidence at that time, found that "homosexuality cannot legitimately be regarded as a disease, because in many cases it is the only symptom and is compatible with full mental health in other respects." The report added, "The law's function is to preserve public order and decency, to protect

1020-815: A dedicated member of the CPUSA for 15 years, stepped down as the Society's leader. Others were similarly ousted, and the leadership structure became influenced less by communism, replaced by a moderate ideology similar to that espoused by the liberal reformist civil rights organizations that existed for African Americans . The Mattachine Society existed as a single national organization headquartered first in Los Angeles and then, beginning around 1956, in San Francisco. Outside of Los Angeles and San Francisco, chapters were established in New York; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; and other locales. Due to internal disagreements,

1122-740: A demonstration that they would not tolerate interference, and any infringements on their rights would be addressed through legal means. On the eve of January 1, 1965, several homophile organizations in San Francisco, California - including Mattachine, the Daughters of Bilitis , the Council on Religion and the Homosexual , and the Society for Individual Rights - held a fund-raising ball for their mutual benefit at California Hall on Polk Street. San Francisco police had agreed not to interfere; however, on

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1224-463: A document he referred to as "The Call". However, the men who had been interested at the party were less than enthusiastic 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". He planned to call this organization "Bachelors Anonymous" and envisioned it serving

1326-684: A first commemoration of the Stonewall Riots. Liberation groups, including the Gay Liberation Front, Queens, the Gay Activists Alliance, Radicalesbians , and Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (STAR) all took part in the first Gay Pride Week. Los Angeles held a big parade on the first Gay Pride Day. Smaller demonstrations were held in San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston. In the United Kingdom

1428-473: A four-year period, from 1889 to 1893, form one of the earliest known works of self-conscious homosexual autobiography in English. The recently decoded autobiographies of Anne Lister are an earlier example in English. Another friend of Ives was the English socialist poet Edward Carpenter . Carpenter thought that homosexuality was an innate and natural human characteristic and that it should not be regarded as

1530-561: A meeting of an early homophile organization then called the "Society of Fools". Gruber and Stevens joined the group in April 1951 and became part of the "Fifth Order", the group's central leadership. Both men were eager to join despite not having been previously politically involved and not having backgrounds in the Marxist philosophy that informed the group. That lack of familiarity led the group to restate its ideas in ways that those without

1632-462: A need to work together. Leaders of the lesbian and gay movement of the 1970s, '80s and '90s often attempted to hide masculine lesbians, feminine gay men , transgender people, and bisexuals from the public eye, creating internal divisions within LGBTQ communities. Roffee and Waling (2016) documented that LGBTQ people experience microaggressions, bullying and anti-social behaviors from other people within

1734-595: A new generation of activists, many of whom felt that the gay rights movement needed to endorse a larger and more radical agenda to address other forms of oppression, the Vietnam War , and the sexual revolution . Several unaffiliated entities that went under the name Mattachine eventually lost support or fell prey to internal division. In 1973 Hal Call opened the Cinemattachine, a venue showing both Mattachine newsreels and pornographic movies. The Cinemattachine

1836-555: A novel titled The Well of Loneliness . Its plot centers on Stephen Gordon, a woman who identifies herself as an invert after reading Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis , and lives within the homosexual subculture of Paris. The novel included a foreword by Havelock Ellis and was intended to be a call for tolerance for inverts by publicizing their disadvantages and accidents of being born inverted. Hall subscribed to Ellis and Krafft-Ebing's theories and rejected (conservatively understood version of) Freud's theory that same-sex attraction

1938-696: A number of homosexual rights groups came into being or were revived across the Western world, in Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries and the United States. These groups usually preferred the term homophile to homosexual , emphasizing love over sex. The homophile movement began in the late 1940s with groups in the Netherlands and Denmark, and continued throughout

2040-402: A pattern to form a larger diamond. Harry Hay conceived the idea of a gay activist group in 1948. 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 him called "Bachelors for Wallace". Encouraged by the response he received, Hay wrote the organizing principles that night,

2142-421: A popular all-night restaurant, Gene Compton's Cafeteria. The Wolfenden Report was published in Britain on September 4, 1957, after publicized convictions for homosexuality of well-known men, including Edward Montagu-Scott, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu . Disregarding the conventional ideas of the day, the committee recommended that "homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be

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2244-549: A prominent influence in political systems of social acceptability. Radicals of the 1970s would later disparage the homophile groups for being assimilationist . Any demonstrations were orderly and polite. By 1969, there were dozens of homophile organizations and publications in the U.S., and a national organization had been formed, but they were largely ignored by the media. A 1965 gay march held in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, according to some historians, marked

2346-560: A rather cohesive group with a well-expressed philosophy. A secret British society called the Order of Chaeronea campaigned for the legalization of homosexuality. The society was founded in 1897 by George Cecil Ives , one of the earliest gay rights campaigners, who had been working for the end of oppression of homosexuals, what he called the "Cause". Members included Oscar Wilde , Charles Kains Jackson , Samuel Elsworth Cottam , Montague Summers , and John Gambril Nicholson . Ives met Wilde at

2448-555: A similar function and purpose as Alcoholics Anonymous . Hay met Rudi Gernreich in July 1950. The two became partners, and Hay showed Gernreich The Call. Gernreich, declaring the document "the most dangerous thing [he had] ever read", became an enthusiastic financial supporter of the venture, although he did not lend his name to it (going instead by the initial "R"). Finally on November 11, 1950, Hay, along with Gernreich and friends Dale Jennings and partners Bob Hull and Chuck Rowland, held

2550-578: A sin or a criminal offense. In the 1890s, Carpenter began a concerted effort to campaign against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation , possibly in response to the recent death of Symonds, whom he viewed as his campaigning inspiration. His 1908 book on the subject, The Intermediate Sex , would become a foundational text of the LGBT movements of the 20th century. Scottish anarchist John Henry Mackay also wrote in defense of same-sex love and androgyny . English sexologist Havelock Ellis wrote

2652-574: A time when the legal penalty for buggery was death by hanging. His advocacy stemmed from his utilitarian philosophy , in which the morality of an action is determined by the net consequence of that action on human well-being. He argued that homosexuality was a victimless crime , and therefore not deserving of social approbation or criminal charges. He regarded popular negative attitudes against homosexuality as an irrational prejudice, fanned and perpetuated by religious teachings. However, he did not publicize his views as he feared reprisal; his powerful essay

2754-453: A typical discussion group. Membership diversified, with more women and people from a broader political spectrum becoming involved. With that growth came concern about the radical left slant of the organization. In particular, Hal Call and others out of San Francisco along with Ken Burns from Los Angeles wanted Mattachine to amend its constitution to clarify its opposition to so-called "subversive elements" and to affirm that members were loyal to

2856-628: A work of what would later be called " gay history ." Although the Oxford English Dictionary credits the medical writer C.G. Chaddock for introducing "homosexual" into the English language in 1892, Symonds had already used the word in A Problem in Greek Ethics . Symonds also translated classical poetry on homoerotic themes, and wrote poems drawing on ancient Greek imagery and language such as Eudiades , which has been called "the most famous of his homoerotic poems". While

2958-532: Is about Mattachine co-founder Chuck Rowland, and another episode is about Mattachine co-founder Harry Hay (season 4, episode 3). Julius’ bar in Manhattan has held a monthly party called "Mattachine" honoring the early gay rights pioneers. Notes Citations Bibliography LGBT social movements Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer ( LGBTQ ) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBTQ people in society. Although there

3060-538: Is her only known contribution to the cause. Women only began to join the previously male-dominated sexual reform movement around 1910 when the German government tried to expand Paragraph 175 to outlaw sex between women. Heterosexual feminist leader Helene Stöcker became a prominent figure in the movement. Friedrich Radszuweit published LGBT literature and magazines in Berlin (e.g., Die Freundin ). Hirschfeld, whose life

3162-563: Is not a primary or an overarching central organization that represents all LGBTQ people and their interests, numerous LGBTQ rights organizations are active worldwide. The first organization to promote LGBTQ rights was the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee , founded in 1897 in Berlin. A commonly stated goal among these movements is equal rights for LGBTQ people, often focusing on specific goals such as ending

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3264-693: The American Psychiatric Association , after years of pressure from activists , changed the wording concerning homosexuality in the Sixth printing of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders from a "mental disorder" to that of a "sexual orientation disturbance". While still not a flattering description, it took gay people out of the category of being automatically considered mentally ill simply for their sexual orientation. By 1974, internal disagreements had led to

3366-644: The Annual Reminder picket in Philadelphia. However, the film sets the Reminder earlier in the summer than it really was, predating the June 28 Stonewall riots . In 2002 Mattachine Midwest was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame . In 2009 the Mattachine Society and its founders became the subjects of the play The Temperamentals by Jon Marans . After workshop performances in 2009,

3468-552: The Authors' Club in London in 1892. Wilde was taken by his boyish looks and persuaded him to shave off his mustache, and once kissed him passionately in the Travellers' Club . In 1893, Lord Alfred Douglas , with whom he had a brief affair, introduced Ives to several Oxford poets whom Ives also tried to recruit. John Addington Symonds was a poet and an early advocate of male love. In 1873, he wrote A Problem in Greek Ethics ,

3570-464: The Daughters of Bilitis chapter in New York. ECHO was meant to facilitate cooperation between homophile organizations and outside administrations. In 1964, ECHO secured a $ 500 settlement from the Manger Hamilton hotel, following the abrupt cancellation of ECHO's conference at the hotel. This out-of-court resolution was presented by Frank Kameny as a clear message to the homophile community –

3672-432: The Daughters of Bilitis in the launching of that group's magazine, The Ladder , in 1956. The Daughters of Bilitis were an independent lesbian organization who occasionally worked with the predominantly male Mattachine Society. The Janus Society grew out of lesbian and gay activists meeting regularly, beginning in 1961, in hopes of forming a Mattachine Society chapter. The group was not officially recognized as such

3774-599: The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee campaign publicly against the notorious law " Paragraph 175 ", which made sex between men illegal. Adolf Brand later broke away from the group, disagreeing with Hirschfeld's medical view of the " intermediate sex ", seeing male-male sex as merely an aspect of manly virility and male social bonding. Brand was the first to use " outing " as a political strategy, claiming that German Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow engaged in homosexual activity. The 1901 book Sind es Frauen? Roman über das Dritte Geschlecht (English: Are These Women? Novel about

3876-460: The criminalization of homosexuality or enacting same-sex marriage . Others have focused on building LGBTQ communities or worked towards liberation for the broader society from biphobia , homophobia , and transphobia . LGBTQ movements organized today are made up of a wide range of political activism and cultural activity, including lobbying , street marches , social groups , media, art, and research . Sociologist Mary Bernstein writes: "For

3978-540: The drag queen caucus of the GLF, including Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera , formed the group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), which focused on providing support for gay prisoners, housing for homeless gay youth and street people, especially other young "street queens". In 1969, Lee Brewster and Bunny Eisenhower formed the Queens Liberation Front (QLF), partially in protest to

4080-736: The queer movement have argued that the categories of gay and lesbian are restrictive, and attempted to deconstruct those categories, which are seen to "reinforce rather than challenge a cultural system that will always mark the non heterosexual as inferior." After the French Revolution the anticlerical feeling in Catholic countries coupled with the liberalizing effect of the Napoleonic Code made it possible to sweep away sodomy laws. However, in Protestant countries, where

4182-546: The 17th-century cross-dressing was common in plays, as evident in the content of many of William Shakespeare 's plays and by the actors in actual performance (since female roles in Elizabethan theater were always performed by males, usually prepubescent boys). Thomas Cannon wrote what may be the earliest published defense of homosexuality in English, Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify'd (1749). Although only fragments of his work have survived, it

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4284-595: The 1950s and 1960s with groups in Sweden, Norway, the United States, France , Britain and elsewhere. ONE, Inc. , the first public homosexual organization in the U.S., was bankrolled by the wealthy transsexual man Reed Erickson . A U.S. transgender rights journal, Transvestia: The Journal of the American Society for Equality in Dress , also published two issues in 1952. The homophile movement lobbied to establish

4386-533: The Communist Party, which was anti-homosexual, calling it a ‘fascistic tendency’, and did not allow gay people to be members. Hay himself approached party leaders and recommended his own expulsion. The party decided to expel him as a "security risk", but declared him a "Lifelong Friend of the People" in recognition of his previous work for the party. Mattachine was originally organized in similar structure to

4488-425: The Communist Party, with 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 both the potential for horizontal and vertical growth. The founding members constituted the so-called "Fifth Order" and from the outset remained anonymous. The primary goals of

4590-542: The GLF had its first meeting in the basement of the London School of Economics on October 13, 1970. Bob Mellors and Aubrey Walter had seen the effect of the GLF in the United States and created a parallel movement based on revolutionary politics and alternative lifestyle. By 1971, the UK GLF was recognized as a political movement in the national press, holding weekly meetings of 200 to 300 people. The GLF Manifesto

4692-488: The GLF were established across the U.S. and in other parts of the Western world. The Front homosexuel d'action révolutionnaire was formed in 1971 by lesbians who split from the Mouvement Homophile de France . The Gay liberation movement overall, like the gay community generally and historically, has had varying degrees of gender nonconformity and assimilationist platforms among its members. Early marches by

4794-603: The Greeks"), another defense of same-sex love. In many ways, social attitudes to homosexuality became more hostile during the late Victorian era . In 1885, the Labouchere Amendment was included in the Criminal Law Amendment Act , which criminalized 'any act of gross indecency with another male person'; a charge that was successfully invoked to convict playwright Oscar Wilde in 1895 with

4896-521: The LGBTQ community. This is due to misconceptions and conflicting views as to what entails "LGBT". For example, transgender people found that other members of the community were not understanding toward their own, individual, specific needs and would instead make ignorant assumptions, and this could cause health risks. Additionally, bisexual people found that lesbian or gay people were not understanding or appreciative of bisexual sexuality. Evidently, even though most of these people would say that they stand for

4998-657: The Labour Home Secretary . When passed, the Sexual Offenses Act decriminalized homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age in private in England and Wales . The seemingly innocuous phrase 'in private' led to the prosecution of participants in sex acts involving three or more men, e.g. the Bolton 7 who were so convicted as recently as 1998. Bisexual activism became more visible toward

5100-537: The Mattachine Society in San Francisco and MSNY, were among the foremost gay rights groups in the United States, but beginning in the middle 1960s and, especially, following the Stonewall riots of 1969, they began increasingly to be seen as too traditional, and not willing enough to be confrontational. Like the divide that occurred within the Civil Rights Movement , the late 1960s and the 1970s brought

5202-574: The Mattachine society and Daughters of Bilitis stressed looking "respectable" and mainstream, and after the Stonewall Uprising the Mattachine Society posted a sign in the window of the club calling for peace. Gender nonconformity has always been a primary way of signaling homosexuality and bisexuality, and by the late 1960s and mainstream fashion was increasingly incorporating what by the 1970s would be considered "unisex" fashions. In 1970,

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5304-486: The Niagara Frontier , 1970). In 1963 Congressman John Dowdy introduced a bill which resulted in congressional hearings to revoke the license for solicitation of funds of the Mattachine Society of Washington; the license was not revoked. A largely amicable split within the national Society in 1952 resulted in a new organization called ONE, Inc. ONE admitted women and, together with Mattachine, provided help to

5406-541: The Society had splintered into regional groups. At the beginning of gay rights protest, news on Cuban prison work camps for homosexuals inspired Mattachine Society to organize protests at the United Nations and the White House in 1965. The Mattachine Society was named by Harry Hay at the suggestion of James Gruber, inspired by a French medieval and renaissance masque group he had studied while preparing

5508-505: The Third Sex ) by Aimée Duc was as much a political treatise as a novel, criticizing pathological theories of homosexuality and gender inversion in women. Anna Rüling , delivering a public speech in 1904 at the request of Hirschfeld, became the first female Uranian activist. Rüling, who also saw "men, women, and homosexuals" as three distinct genders, called for an alliance between the women's and sexual reform movements, but this speech

5610-550: The United States and its laws (which declared homosexuality illegal). In an effort to preserve their vision of the organization, the Fifth Order members revealed their identities and resigned their leadership positions at Mattachine's May 1953 convention. With the founders gone, Call, Burns and other like-minded individuals stepped into the leadership void, and Mattachine officially adopted non-confrontation as an organizational policy. Some historians argue that these changes reduced

5712-607: The age of consent for same-sex partners to be at age 15, making it equal to heterosexual couples. In Japan, LGBT groups were established in the 1970s. In 1971, Ken Togo ran for the Upper House election. Bisexuals became more visible in the LGBT rights movement in the 1970s. In 1972 a Quaker group, the Committee of Friends on Bisexuality, issued the "Ithaca Statement on Bisexuality" supporting bisexuals. The Statement, which may have been "the first public declaration of

5814-470: The beginning of the modern gay rights movement. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the LGBT youth organization Vanguard was formed by Adrian Ravarour to demonstrate for equality, and Vanguard members protested for equal rights during the months of April–July 1966, followed by the August 1966 Compton's riot, where transgender street prostitutes in the poor neighborhood of Tenderloin rioted against police harassment at

5916-770: The bisexual movement" and "was certainly the first statement on bisexuality issued by an American religious assembly," appeared in the Quaker Friends Journal and The Advocate in 1972. In that same year the National Bisexual Liberation Group formed in New York. In 1976 the San Francisco Bisexual Center opened. James Gruber James Gruber was born August 21, 1928, in Des Moines, Iowa . Growing up he considered himself bisexual and

6018-477: The case (under the name "Citizens Committee to Outlaw Entrapment") and the publicity it generated brought in 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 and Mattachine declared victory. Most of the Mattachine founders were communists . As the Red Scare progressed, the association with communism concerned some members as well as supporters and Hay,

6120-423: The categories of homosexual and heterosexual. According to Gay Lib writer Toby Marotta , "their Gay political outlooks were not homophile but liberationist". "Out, loud and proud," they engaged in colorful street theater . The GLF's "A Gay Manifesto" set out the aims for the fledgling gay liberation movement, and influential intellectual Paul Goodman published " The Politics of Being Queer " (1969). Chapters of

6222-661: The church was less severe, there was no general reaction against statutes that were religious in origin. As a result, many of those countries retained their statutes on sodomy until late in the 20th century. However, some countries have still retained their statutes on sodomy. For example, in 2008 a case in India's High Court was judged using a 150-year-old reading that was punishing sodomy. In eighteenth - and nineteenth-century Europe , same-sex sexual behavior and cross-dressing were widely considered to be socially unacceptable, and were serious crimes under sodomy and sumptuary laws . There were, however, some exceptions. For example, in

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6324-416: The citizen from what is offensive or injurious, and to provide sufficient safeguards against exploitation and corruption of others ... It is not, in our view, the function of the law to intervene in the private life of citizens, or to seek to enforce any particular pattern of behavior." The report eventually led to the introduction of the Sexual Offences Bill 1967 supported by Labour MP Roy Jenkins , then

6426-429: The civil and political spheres. As with other social movements, there is also conflict within and between LGBTQ movements, especially about strategies for change and debates over exactly who represents the constituency of these movements, and this also applies to changing education. There is debate over the extent that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people, as well as others, share common interests and

6528-558: The countryside and conducting dances and rituals during the Feast of Fools , at the Vernal Equinox . Sometimes these dance rituals, or masques, were peasant protests against oppression—with the maskers, in the people's name, receiving the brunt of a given lord's vicious retaliation. So we took the name Mattachine because we felt that we 1950s Gays were also a masked people, unknown and anonymous, who might become engaged in morale building and helping ourselves and others, through struggle, to move toward total redress and change. This French group

6630-524: The defense had even had a chance to begin their argumentation when the case came to court. This event has been called "San Francisco's Stonewall " by some historians; the participation of such prominent litigators in the defense of Smith, Donaldson and the other two lawyers marked a turning point in gay rights on the West Coast of the United States. 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

6732-426: The earliest organizations for bisexuals, the Sexual Freedom League in San Francisco, was facilitated by Margo Rila and Frank Esposito beginning in 1967. Two years later, during a staff meeting at a San Francisco mental health facility serving LGBT people, nurse Maggi Rubenstein came out as bisexual. Due to this, bisexuals began to be included in the facility's programs for the first time. The new social movements of

6834-443: The effectiveness of this newly organized Mattachine and led to a precipitous drop in membership and participation. Other historians contend that the Mattachine Society between 1953 and 1966 was enormously effective as it published a magazine, developed relationships with allies in the fight for homosexual equality, and influenced public opinion on the topic too. During the 1960s, the various unaffiliated Mattachine Societies, especially

6936-469: The end of the 1960s in the United States. In 1966 bisexual activist Robert A. Martin (also known as Donny the Punk) founded the Student Homophile League at Columbia University and New York University. In 1967 Columbia University officially recognized this group, thus making them the first college in the United States to officially recognize a gay student group. Activism on behalf of bisexuals in particular also began to grow, especially in San Francisco. One of

7038-406: The evening of the ball, the police surrounded the building and focused numerous Klieg lights on its entrance. As each of the 600 plus persons entering the ball approached the entrance, the police took their photographs. Police vans were parked in plain view near the entrance to the ball. Evander Smith , a (gay) lawyer for the groups organizing the ball, and gay lawyer Herb Donaldson tried to stop

7140-399: The feeling of acceptance that it fostered. "All of us had known a whole lifetime of not talking, of repression. Just the freedom to open up...really, that's what it was all about. We had found a sense of belonging, of camaraderie, of openness in an atmosphere of tension and distrust....Such a great deal of it was a social climate. A family feeling came out of it, a great nonsexual emphasis....It

7242-615: The first meeting of the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles, under the name Society of Fools . James Gruber and Konrad Stevens joined the Society in April 1951 and they are generally considered to be original members. Also that month the group changed its name to Mattachine Society , a name suggested by Gruber and chosen by Hay, after Medieval French secret societies of masked men who, through their anonymity, were empowered to criticize ruling monarchs with impunity. As Hay became more involved in his Mattachine work, he correspondingly became more concerned that his orientation would negatively affect

7344-613: The first nation to decriminalize homosexuality, probably thanks in part to Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès , who was one of the authors of the Napoleonic Code . With the introduction of the Napoleonic Code in 1808, the Duchy of Warsaw also decriminalized homosexuality. In 1830, the new Penal Code of the Brazilian Empire did not repeat the title XIII of the fifth book of the "Ordenações Philipinas", which made sodomy

7446-574: The first objective scientific study of homosexuality in 1897, in which he treated it as a neutral sexual condition. Called Sexual Inversion it was first printed in German and then translated into English a year later. In the book, Ellis argued that same-sex relationships could not be characterized as a pathology or a crime and that its importance rose above the arbitrary restrictions imposed by society. He also studied what he called 'inter-generational relationships' and that these also broke societal taboos on age difference in sexual relationships. The book

7548-590: The gains made in Germany would soon be drastically reversed with the rise of Nazism , and the institute and its library were destroyed in 1933. The Swiss journal Der Kreis was the only part of the movement to continue through the Nazi era. USSR's Criminal Code of 1922 decriminalized homosexuality. This was a remarkable step in the USSR at the time – which was very backward economically and socially, and where many conservative attitudes towards sexuality prevailed. This step

7650-431: The lesbian and gay movement, then, cultural goals include (but are not limited to) challenging dominant constructions of masculinity and femininity , homophobia , and the primacy of the gendered heterosexual nuclear family ( heteronormativity ). Political goals include changing laws and policies to gain new rights, benefits, and protections from harm". Bernstein emphasizes that activists seek both types of goals in both

7752-620: The most severe sentence possible under the Act. The first person known to describe himself as a drag queen was William Dorsey Swann , born enslaved in Hancock, Maryland . Swann was the first American on record who pursued legal and political action to defend the LGBTQ community 's right to assemble . During the 1880s and 1890s, Swann organized a series of drag balls in Washington, D.C. Swann

7854-511: The movement's splintering. Organizations that spun off from the movement included the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard , Gay News , and Icebreakers . The GLF Information Service continued for a few further years providing gay related resources. GLF branches had been set up in some provincial British towns (e.g., Bradford, Bristol, Leeds, and Leicester) and some survived for a few years longer. The Leicester group founded by Jeff Martin

7956-613: The national organization disbanded in 1961. The San Francisco national chapter retained the name "Mattachine Society", while the New York chapter became " Mattachine Society of New York, Inc " and was commonly known by its acronym MSNY. Other independent groups using the name Mattachine were formed in Washington, D.C. ( Mattachine Society of Washington , 1961), in Chicago ( Mattachine Midwest , 1965), and in Buffalo ( Mattachine Society of

8058-429: The play opened Off-Broadway at New World Stages in early 2010. The Temperamentals received a Drama Desk Award for Best Ensemble Cast. Michael Urie , who originated the role of Rudi Gernreich, received a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actor. A new Mattachine Society of Washington , D.C. was formed in 2011 and is dedicated to original archival research of LGBT political history. The Playboy Club ,

8160-407: The police from conducting the fourth "inspection" of the evening; both were arrested, along with two heterosexual lawyers - Elliott Leighton and Nancy May - who were supporting the rights of the participants to gather at the ball. But twenty-five of the most prominent lawyers in San Francisco joined the defense team for the four lawyers, and the judge directed the jury to find the four not-guilty before

8262-847: The political mainstream on the same level as other groups in society. In arguing that sexual orientation and gender identity are innate and cannot be consciously changed, attempts to change gay, lesbian, and bisexual people into heterosexuals (" conversion therapy ") are generally opposed by the LGBTQ community. Such attempts are often based on religious beliefs that perceive gay, lesbian, and bisexual activity as immoral. Religion has, however, never been univocal opposed to either homosexuality, bisexuality or being transgender, usually treating sex between men and sex between women differently. As of today, numerous religious communities and many believers in various religions are generally accepting of LGBTQ rights. However, others within LGBTQ movements have criticized identity politics as limited and flawed, elements of

8364-461: The removal of homosexuality as a mental illness from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders . Growing increasingly disillusioned with life in Los Angeles, Gruber moved to Palo Alto in 1960 and changed his first name to John. He pursued a teaching career at Foothill College and San Francisco State University and also taught or tutored at Cubberly High School, Milpitas High School and de Anza College. Gruber helped to document

8466-460: The same values as the majority of the community, there are still remaining inconsistencies even within the LGBTQ community. LGBTQ movements have often adopted a kind of identity politics that sees gay, bisexual, and transgender people as a fixed class of people; a minority group or groups, and this is very common among LGBTQ communities. Those using this approach aspire to liberal political goals of freedom and equal opportunity , and aim to join

8568-719: The sixties, such as the Black Power and anti-Vietnam war movements in the US, the May 1968 insurrection in France, and Women's Liberation throughout the Western world, inspired many LGBT activists to become more radical, and the Gay Liberation movement emerged towards the end of the decade. This new radicalism is often attributed to the Stonewall riots of 1969, when a group of gay men, lesbians, drag queens and transgender women at

8670-585: The society were to 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 simply plead guilty to the charge and hope to quietly rebuild their lives. Jennings and the rest of the Fifth Order saw the charges as a means to address the issue of police ‘entrapment’ of homosexual men. The group began publicizing

8772-472: The taboos of Victorian England prevented Symonds from speaking openly about homosexuality, his works published for a general audience contained strong implications and some of the first direct references to male-male sexual love in English literature. By the end of his life, Symonds' homosexuality had become an open secret in Victorian literary and cultural circles. In particular, Symonds' memoirs, written over

8874-428: The traditional institutions of family and marriage that were seen to enslave women. Some advocates of free love in the early 20th century, including Russian anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman , also spoke in defense of same-sex love and challenged repressive legislation. An early LGBT movement also began in Germany at the turn of the 20th century, centering on the doctor and writer Magnus Hirschfeld . In 1897 he formed

8976-648: The treatment of the drag queens at the first Christopher Street Liberation Day March . One of the values of the movement was gay pride . Within weeks of the Stonewall Riots, Craig Rodwell , proprietor of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in lower Manhattan, persuaded the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) to replace the Fourth of July Annual Reminder at Independence Hall in Philadelphia with

9078-471: Was a brand new idea." In 1953, the Communist ties of several of the Fifth Order led the leadership, including Gruber, to resign. Through his studies at Occidental, Gruber met the author Christopher Isherwood , who in turn introduced him to W. H. Auden . Isherwood also introduced Gruber to his landlady, Evelyn Hooker . Hooker, a psychologist, pioneered research into sexual orientation that contributed to

9180-493: Was a humorous anthology of homosexual advocacy, written with an obvious enthusiasm for its subject. It contains the argument: "Unnatural Desire is a Contradiction in Terms; downright Nonsense. Desire is an amatory Impulse of the inmost human Parts: Are not they, however, constructed, and consequently impelling Nature?" Social reformer Jeremy Bentham wrote the first known argument for homosexual law reform in England around 1785, at

9282-486: Was an extension of the Mattachine Society's Sex Education Film Series and branded as being presented by both The Mattachine Society and The Seven Committee. In 1976 a venue with the name Cinemattachine Los Angeles at the ONE opened. The same screenings as the San Francisco establishment were shown there. Mattachine co-founder Chuck Rowland indicated that he did not feel that Call associating this venue with The Mattachine Society

9384-481: Was appropriate. In the Quantum Leap comic book titled Up Against a Stonewall (1992), the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis are mentioned as two groups campaigning for LGBT rights prior to the Stonewall riots . The 1995 film Stonewall included members of the Mattachine Society of New York among its characters. Mattachine members are seen leafleting, attending meetings and participating in

9486-466: Was arrested in police raids numerous times, including in the first documented case of arrests for female impersonation in the United States, on April 12, 1888. From the 1870s, social reformers began to defend homosexuality, but due to the controversial nature of their advocacy, kept their identities secret. The Uranian poets and prose writers, who sought to rehabilitate the love between men and boys and in doing so often appealed to Ancient Greece, formed

9588-415: Was caused by childhood trauma and was curable. In the United States, several secret or semi-secret groups were formed explicitly to advance the rights of homosexuals as early as the turn of the 20th century, but little is known about them. A better documented group is Henry Gerber 's Society for Human Rights formed in Chicago in 1924, which was quickly suppressed. Immediately following World War II ,

9690-469: Was dedicated to social progress for people who were transsexual, transvestite and homosexual, formed the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexology) in 1919. The institute conducted an enormous amount of research, saw thousands of transgender and homosexual clients at consultations, and championed a broad range of sexual reforms including sex education, contraception and women's rights. However,

9792-535: Was involved with both men and women. His father, a former vaudevillian turned music teacher, relocated the family to Los Angeles in 1936. Gruber enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1946 at the age of 18 and was honorably discharged in 1949. Using his G.I. Bill benefits, Gruber studied English literature at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Gruber met and began a relationship with photographer Konrad Stevens. The couple attended

9894-642: Was named in turn after Mattaccino (or the Anglicized Mattachino), a character in Italian theater. Mattaccino was a kind of court jester , who would speak the truth to the king when nobody else would. The "mattachin" (from Arabic متوجهين mutawajjihin , "mask-wearers") were originally Moorish (Hispano-Arab) sword-dancers who wore elaborate, colorful costumes and masks. The Mattachine Society used so-called harlequin diamonds as their emblem . The design consisted of four diamonds arranged in

9996-566: Was not published until 1978. The emerging currents of secular humanist thought that had inspired Bentham also informed the French Revolution , and when the newly formed National Constituent Assembly began drafting the policies and laws of the new republic in 1792, groups of militant "sodomite-citizens" in Paris petitioned the Assemblée nationale , the governing body of the French Revolution , for freedom and recognition. In 1791, France became

10098-652: Was noted for its involvement in the setting up of the local "Gayline", which is still active today and has received funding from the National Lottery . They also carried out a high-profile campaign against the local paper, the Leicester Mercury , which refused to advertise Gayline's services at the time. In 1972, Sweden became the first country in the world to allow people who were transsexual by legislation to surgically change their sex and provide free hormone replacement therapy . Sweden also permitted

10200-418: Was part of a larger project of freeing sexual relationships and expanding women's rights – including legalizing abortion, granting divorce on demand, equal rights for women, and attempts to socialize housework. During Stalin's era, however, USSR reverted all these progressive measures – re-criminalizing homosexuality and imprisoning gay men and banning abortion. In 1928, English writer Radclyffe Hall published

10302-430: Was published, and a series of high-profile direct actions, were carried out. The disruption of the opening of the 1971 Festival of Light was the best organized of GLF action . The Festival of Light, whose leading figures included Mary Whitehouse , met 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

10404-428: Was so controversial at the time that one bookseller was charged in court for holding copies of the work. It is claimed that Ellis coined the term 'homosexual', but in fact he disliked the word due to its conflation of Greek and Latin . These early proponents of LGBT rights, such as Carpenter, were often aligned with a broader socio-political movement known as ' free love '; a critique of Victorian sexual morality and

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