Gay Press, Gay Power: Great History

While there have been several books and efforts to discuss the history of publications in the GLBT movement / community, at last there is one that contains the basic research and expertise needed to pull into one place the basic facts, names, and information of the magazines, newspapers, newsletters that recorded that history which they helped to make. This book, Gay Press, Gay Power, edited by Tracy Baim, covers many of our movement’s publications from the start in the early 1950s to 2012. It contains new information, corrects some misinformation, and provides us with rich biographical information on the pioneering journalists who worked on these publications.

To put the history in context, there is a discussion, with examples, of the horrible coverage the media gave homosexuality until about the late 1960s, when coverage exploded after Stonewall. The publications started with the movement to gain equal rights for homosexual Americans, and thus this civil rights movement is documented by the very people who were active in the effort. A historian or researcher trying to see how coverage changed from the 1950s on could see the evidence by looking through editions of the Readers Guide to Periodicals Index.  Baim has done this for the reader.

The first publications are discussed in full in an early chapter by C. Todd White. They started during the worst of times, the McCarthy era when homosexuals and Communists were considered to be allies and were labeled as threats to the nation’s security. The first publicly available publication (1953), ONE magazine,  suffered from the same problems all early ones did: little income, people afraid to have their names as subscribers to a homosexual publication, businesses afraid to place ads, and few authors or journalists of note willing to let their names appear in the publication. There was also a problem few other causes had: there were homosexual people in hiding who tried to keep their sexuality from being questioned or discovered by loudly protesting the existence of a publication discussing homosexuality. Many such people later were arrested for homosexual acts and still refused to support the effort to educate the public and change laws.

Issue #1, Jan. 1953

But ONE was successful, and was joined by the Mattachine Review and then The Ladder, aimed toward women. The editors of ONE, led by Don Slater and attorney Eric Julber, fought a legal battle with the Post Office to protect its right to publish and mail a magazine subtitled “The Homosexual Viewpoint” and won only at the U. S. Supreme Court level in 1958. These three magazines were slowly joined by others each few years, and together they planted the seeds that are the major media the lgbt movement/community has today. The early publications were supported by an organization. Today most are independent.

The book is loaded with pictures of most of the publications covered—a great help as it shows the progression from early publications to those of today. As White says, they are “time capsules of their era.”  One clue to how things have changed is in observing the terms used in the three eras. First they were called homophile publications, then homosexual, then gay and, now gay and lesbian or lgbt.

Gay Press / Gay Power includes short biographies of some LGBT journalists who helped make the publications successful.  The index catalogs the large number of people covered and names hundreds of current LGBT publications.

Many readers will gain a sense of pride knowing the history of the GLBT media’s growth from ONE to the hundreds of publications that exist today, currently giving the community news and views, entertainment and education, continuously revitalizing those who seek to make life better for everyone and to make this a more perfect nation, for all citizens.

No historian or journalist can write on the subject without knowing the contents of this book because the history of a movement is told through the history of its publications.

OTHER publications in other causes/how much good did they do? A note to Tracy Baim.

I am going to ask others, but thought I’d bring up my question—to myself—about how publications affected individuals in other civil rights efforts.

When I went to LSU in 1950, I had already been to the first efforts of the YM/YWCA and Methodist church to start getting young Southerners ready for racial desegregation and perhaps racial integration-summer camps in NC and Ohio—ironically Miami University of Ohio where Paul Ryan went.

So perhaps I was “ready” to find resources that fit my thoughts and interests. I found in the old LSU Library issues of the first black publication I had seen: Negro Digest. I read it and even did what it asked readers to do: write advertisers to thank them for placing their ads in this publication. What I wonder is: Do young LGBT people seek and find LGBT material today, perhaps now online?

It is also interesting that when that publications ended. I think it was replaced by Ebony—both are Johnson Pub magazines. I didn't find Ebony as interesting. I am sure for most black readers it was more entertaining and interesting—only later came Jet.  

It was good when ONE and The Ladder, etc., were joined later, in the 1960s and ’70s, by Drum, Advocate, and then the local newspapers. I never saw a black newspaper in those days even though I am sure they might have served the community better than the Digest and maybe even Ebony.

I see OutSmart Magazine from Houston and am amazed at its high quality and good articles. But I still think Houston needs an old-style newspaper.

What we will never know is how much good these publicatins did. Did they change many peoples ideas, lives? Where are the people today who read the Negro Digest? Are they better personally and as citizens? Were these publicatins necessary to get black and LGBT publications where we are today?

Why are LGBT history books ignored by the media, including the LGBT media?

ONE example—here is a view by William Percy:

From one of Walter William’s finest students, C. Todd White’s Pre-Gay L.A. probably ranks as the best work on homosexuality yet published (University of Illinois Press). An anthropologist by training, White meticulously integrates individual biographies with institutional and social history in a charming and gripping narrative. The book is hard to put the book down because the splits and various movements in L. A. and beyond were so dramatic that one would not think it was published by a university press. It describes facts and personalities that scholars and young glbt people should want to find out about. It adheres to the finest traditions of objective scholarship; White excitingly describes how all of the major issues confronting the movement since Stonewall were discussed in depth and intelligently before that riot.  

White focused more institutional history rather than the broad-ranging sensationalized Gay L.A: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics and Lipstick Lesbians (2006). It began with the Indian village on which the Spanish built, emphasizing movie stars and celebrities. White also downsized the exaggerated role assigned to Harry Hay in Gay L.A and corrected its misuse of the term gay for the ’30s and ’40s.

Where do we get our moral leadership? Preachers or tv/movies

One of the basic arguments we get from religious bigots is that without religion, their god and church, synagogue or mosque, there would be no basis for morals, integrity, and education of future generations on our heritage as a people.

Nonsense. The evidence I go by was reinforced this week by seeing some old movies and tv shows and what I got was better moral leadership from these sources than any preacher, rabbi or imam I have heard—in fact I have heard none of such people saying that the Islamist or Christian terrorists are evil and wrong.

I think members of our community/movement need to THINK. The fact is that much of our work was harmed in the early days by the failure of the media to hear us, thus meaning few people knew of our work and ideas, including homosexuals who were deep in their closet.

Much of the problem of homosexuals or people preferring homosexual sex comes from religion, laws based on religion and mental health people whose “thinking” also comes from religion more than they seem to understand.

So what have we heard from religion? Not much except how bad we are and a few quotes from a book that not only has been badly translated, but has hundreds of different interpretations, not only on the issue of homosexuality but even how to baptize or what day of the week we should give to our god.

But what have we been getting, for several years now, from the media, the “industry” and writers of tv shows and movies. A lot. All good. But does the average person know how much such resources affect our lives and how others view the world, including views on homosexuality? Idon’t think so.

In fact, often, when some person or show does try to cover our issue they get no congratulations and support but negative feedback if they don’t do and say the exact thing some pc person, self-appointed, thinks is “right.”

So here is a list of a few such shows that should have been on the radar of every person concerned with discrimination against homosexual Americans.

I watched two older movies, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Anyone who watches these two movies, and many others and doesn't consider gay-friendly and gay-supportive has a personal problem with themselves. These shows and the people behind them should be honored. And the probability is that millions of people who haveseen these shows are less anti-gay than they were before the movies.

By the way, local people seeing a new movie channel over the air (not on cable/satellite) from the local CBS station are seeing many promos for non-profits, and one is a series of ads against using the word gay negatively. I wonder if this “message” is heard in any local churches?

Most people have heard the humor on shows of John Stewart and Stephen Colbert, on Comedy Central, and know that they are not anti-gay and make fun of bigots of all sorts, again I know of no preachers who speakout against bigots like such tv shows. I do know, from seeing the dvd, that Hal Holbrook’s show of Mark Twain does.

And what is the average viewer seeing on tv shows? Good things in our area. I only am concerned that we do not know in advance when a good show is coming on. For instance last night the ABC tv show Cupid was about a teenage homosexual boy being bullied at school. How relevant since this week another such boy committed suicide in Massachusetts. Have many preachers spoken out against people who don't protect our children from gay-bashing? So we get better advice from movies and tv than from our so-called moral leaders.

We must do what we can to be sure that anyone needing support knows where to get it. That is why we need PFLAG, yet support for some chapters has been falling—such as the Houston chapter.

But why is it that some parents and school personnel still don't know about GLSEN, which exists soley to support children suffering for their sexuality.

And do glbt newspapers and magazines list resources for their area? Have such publications as Gayellow Pages been mentioned in our media?

And have we challenged the academic community and professions to provide information to students and people on their work? Do law schools cover the duty of school boards to provide protection for students? Do medical schools cover problems, mental and physical that homosexuals may face? Have history professors stopped trying to delete homosexual history from coverage, and literary professors stopped hiding the homosexuality of famous writers? It is the bigots who have the “agenda.” They fear that if the average person knows the facts about homosexuality it will make them gay? Or what?

Hopefully gay marriage, aka same sex marriage, will not only be everywhere soon, but that the process is going to educate us all on what life as second-class citizens means and thus why we and all Americans deserve equal/civil rights.

How sad that the push for civil rights for us, as was the real case for blacks, women, etc,not only does not come in most churches, but in fact that those churches harbor and support bigots who quote their ignorance of their guide book against us as they have aganst equality for races, sexes, etc. And it was they who supported the decimation of American Indians/Native Americans in the name of “saving” them and didn't stop if it took killing them to save their souls—which of course meant that “we” could take away their land.

At least when the movies gave us the good cowboys and bad Indians, they knew they were exploiting the subject and making up history and have now moved on in the real world of this century.

News from the Rainbow History Project

The following press release is worth noting:


Washington, DC – The Historical Society of Washington, DC (HSW) and the Rainbow History Project (RHP) are pleased to announce their archival partnership in bringing Rainbow History’s collections of documents, images, and ephemera to a wider audience of researchers, students, and members of the community.

Mark Meinke, chair of Rainbow History, believes “Rainbow History’s mission of collecting, preserving, and promoting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) history of metropolitan Washington, DC fully complements the Historical Society’s mission to make ‘the history of the Washington metropolitan area and its people accessible and understandable to public audiences in order to achieve a sense of identity, place and pride in Washington for those who live and work here.’”

The Historical Society of Washington will house and preserve the collections transferred to it by the Rainbow History Project. The collections will be processed and made accessible under the leadership of Yvonne Carignan, Director of Kiplinger Research Library at the Historical Society.

The agreement between RHP and HSW preserves RHP’s rights to materials in its copyright and to access and display items from the collections in keeping with its mission. Both organizations look forward to working together to bring the history of the city’s LGBT community to a wider audience. RHP will work with HSW to bring other collections to the Historical Society in the years ahead.
Ms. Carignan remarked, “Those of us at Historical Society’s Kiplinger Research Library welcome this partnership. Since 1894 the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., has been dedicated to collecting, preserving, exhibiting and celebrating the many stories of Washington. We are very excited to have the RHP collection because it adds important depth and dimension to our rich collections on Washington history.”

Among the first items to be transferred to HSW will be Rainbow History’s collection of The Furies newspapers. A local lesbian feminist separatist collective which practiced and taught self-reliance to women, the Furies’ newspaper initiated nationwide discussion of the rights, challenges, and opportunities for women in the 1970s. Also transferred will be Rainbow History’s collection of seminal African-American LGBT publications including issues of Blacklight, BlackOut, BGM, BLK, and publications of Black and White Men together from the 1980s. The David Aiken collection of draft articles for The Advocate and his topical clippings and document files from 1970 to 1981 also joins the publications at the Historical Society of Washington

Guest Blogger: Aristide Laurent

The Advocate celebrated its 40th birthday in West Hollywood last night. Being the last of the Big Four who started The Advocate back in 1967, I was invited to attend ... not by the latest powers that be but by my friend Stuart Timmons, acclaimed author of the tell-all tome Gay L.A.

The Hollywood Cat Lady (a/k/a Jeanne Barney) was similarly snubbed but invited by Stuart to attend as one of the remaining Founding Fathers/Mothers of the gay press movement. She snubbed back and refused to attend. You don't go, girl.  For anyone old enough to remember, Jeanne B used to write the advice column, Smoke From Jeanne's Lamp, for the old Advocate

The hearalded event turned out to be a gathering of the truly fab-boo. For being 40 years old, there were very few people in attendance who who were 40 years old or older. But,.then, maybe I'm the last of the great gay dinosaurs. After all, I was a mere child of 4 when I helped produce the early copies of the Advocate in the basement print shop of ABC TV studios. Cough. Cough.

The Advocate has, indeed, come a long way. In fact, it's come so long a way that Dick Mitch & Bill Rau, the original creators, are probably rolling over in their graves somewhere in the outskirts of Visalia, California. [Note: After their sale of the Advocate to David Goodstein, they bought a ranch outside of Visalia and raised multiplying onions ... really ... no joke here.]

After Dick Mitch was arrested in a bar raid and charged with lewd conduct in the late 1960’s, he became a fired-up activist and, with his lover, Bill Rau and friend Sam Allen, they bought the Pride Newsletter and changed the name to The Advocate. Since it was dangerous to be a "pervert" prior to the liberation movement, you didn't use your real name for fear of reprisals, not only from harrassment by the LAPD but the ever present possibility of losing your day job, family & friends. Dick Mitch became Dick Michaels, the editor; Bill Rau became Bill Rand; and I became “P.Nutz,” jack of many trades. As many of you know I provided the so-called “humor” of the early Advocate in a monthly column titled “Mariposa de la Noche” (Butterfly of the Night). When I look at those columns in my mature years, I shudder. What a flamer I was! [No rebuttals, please].

The defining purpose of the early Advocate was to unite and inform the gay community of what was happening in their closed society. When Goodstein purchased it and took over, it evolved into a glossy fashion/celebrity magazine. Perhaps that is because the main stream media was now covering gay news and there was no particular need for a newspaper/magazine which specialized in such previously regularly occurring stories as bar raids, lewd conduct arrests, pro- and anti- legislation in various halls of government, etc.. So we became fabulous.

And, last night, the fabulous people turned out for The Advocate’s 40th birthday bash. Mayor Villaraigosa was there; a gay Marine wounded in Iraq was there; Katherine Heigl fresh from her Emmy win for Grey's Anatomy was there (she's really beautiful but should eat more!) with her fellow nominee T.R. Knight (who looked much better in person than on the series). The celebrants in attendance were the young and the beautiful: gay young male gym beauties, straight young female beautiies in flowing fashion, lesbians dressed to the nines in the latest lesbian gear. This was a long way from 1967. For all my efforts back then, I had become an anachronism. Hmmm.... do I sound pink with envy? (see photo)

The fact that The Advocate had gone from being an advocate for gay rights to a commerical success was evident in the dominating presence of corporate sponsors, from a s representative of Southwest Airlines who addressed the crowd, to a shiny Saturn convertible for on-the-move gay couples. Sky Vodka provided the [free] pink “advocate martinis” which helped me keep smiling and hob-nobbing with the I’m-more-faboo-than-you crowd.

There were video greetings from a number of celebrities such as Ellen Degeneres, Jon Stewart, Conan O’Brien and a host of others. I guess that is, indeed, progress as the stars of old, such as Liberace, Rod Hudson, Merv Griffin, et al., would never, ever have acknowledged the existence of those of us on the fringe of society back then.

While I stood there and downed one advocate martini after another, Stuart did what real cocktail partygoers do and worked the crowd. He shook hands with L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa and handed him a business card which read: STUART TIMMONS, HOMO HISTORIAN.  That cracked the mayor up, though I’m not sure he understood what it meant. The present editor of The Advocate assured Stuart & me that we “must get together and talk about the early days of The Advocate” ... hug, hug, kiss, kiss .... “Oh darling, there you are..... so good seeing you...” hug, hug, kiss, kiss. It wasn't actually phoney ... it's just what people do at cocktail parties. It's also why I try to NEVER go to cocktail parties.

As we left the gathering of the truly fabulous, I thought to myself: My job here is done. Let the young and the beautiful take it from here.

AJinLA

Gay/Lesbian Publications on newsstands or online (as compared to old days)

The first question should be, are homosexuals reading the publications aimed at them. If not, can that be their personal failing or that of the editors and publishers? Here’s what I found at the local bookstore, good and bad.
 
Instinct Magazine has an excellent series of articles on the homosexual community in Durango CO. But most gay men’s magazines spend most of their space on silly clothing and non-gay celebrities. So it is good to find coverage of people who are working to change things.

In most gay publications the people covered are models, or people who may be gay but have done nothing for our community/movement.  That must mean that the editors are interested in celebrities, or think their readers are only interested in celebrities. I also find that many publications have not only ads, which is good, but articles on products, which means they may be like too many motion picture producers, who make money by putting products in their films. That is of course ironic since in the early days ONE Magazine and others could not get ads.

Outlook Magazine and others have book reviews, such as the new book by Victor J Banis, Longhorn. But none have reviews of books that cover homosexuality seriously. But we learn of a James Lyon who was in the movie Poison and died.
 
The Advocate has mention of the coming production of the Beebo Brinker Chronicles, by Ann Bannon, and a letter from Toby Johnson about how gay bombs might be a good weapon. 
 
Several publications have ads for the new retirement developments for wealthy homosexuals, such as the one at Lookout Mountain in Tennessee, the ones in Santa Fe, Blue Ridge NC, etc. This is a sociologically interesting development in our community. Most ads are aimed only at rich gay/lesbian readers, as are the articles, on expensive housing, cars, clothes, vacations, etc. And most could be found in any general publication as they are not aimed specifically at homosexuals. In fact travel writers seem to never cover a gay/lesbian center, library, historical site, book store, but only cover hotels and bars that in some case are not even mainly gay. It seems to me that a gay visiting a new town would want to find the local gay/lesbian newspaper or magazine, and see what information the local gay/lesbian center would have, and perhaps find the local gay church.
 
Curve had lots of articles on lesbians, most of whom have done something for the cause, which makes them a better supporter of those who are working in our community.
 
OUT Magazine is an example of how the men’s magazines often are the opposite-they cover no community/movement people. I would like to discuss with the writers of the article in the current issue that devote a lot fo space to two men, one of whom adopted the other and had to get the state of Illinois to change its laws to do so, was a millionaire and the two men then spent their lives to growing lovely gardens. Is that what gays do? Apparently all their money and time and energy went to gardening and none to helping our community/movement.  And they are they type people OUT covers. Where are the articles on men and women who are working in our community/movement, dead or alive? I would think young homosexual men and women would be interested in knowing who changed America for homosexual citizens in 50 years and how they came to do it.
 
If so, they will, sadly, have to go to non-gay publications. I direct them to Details, which covers the issue of a homosexual man who has been in and out of the military and is an example of why we need to change the rules, something our movement has been trying to do since the early ’60s.
 
But on one of the most important issues we face, we also have to go to a general publication, Mother Jones. Here we find a great article on the issue of what makes us homosexual—or as the pc people would insist, gay. And here we find the view Don Slater and ONE/HIC has been making since the ’50s: it is NOT a good idea to insist that we are born homosexual. It doesn't matter whether or not this is true. It is lousy politics. And it can and is backfiring. The ex-gay and NARTH people are using it against us and there is a danger that the issue will go backwards and become a “medical problem” in which the main issue, our civil rights, is lost.
 
And the issue is found in another place, not on the newsstands but in a religiously oriented publication, the Record of the Evangelicals Concerned. Among the interesting news items we find a discussion of the Exodus, ex-gay meeting in Los Angeles in mid-June. And the strange statements by what have been promoters of ex-gay issues, such as Alan Chambers, who admits that he still has homosexual desires. More ex-gays have recanted, Michael Bussee, Jeremy Marks and Darlene Bogle. And covered is the “issue” that the Southern Baptist Church is still promoting ex-gay work but in a “kinder, gentler” way. But a member of that church has said that he thinks there may be a biological component of being gay. Is that good for us? Some think so, but most of us think that merely means we can be forced to change if they can find a way of doing that.
 
But is this and other important issues being covered in our press? Are we seeing books on the subject (Besen does cover it)? Mostly we are seeing books promoted by closeted gays who were rich and famous but now are safely able to come out thanks to he 50 years of a few homosexuals and allies who devoted their lives to making changes but are ignored by the current editors and publishers.
 
I of course have a conflict of interest, but I have no doubt that ONE Magazine, and later Tangents, did a better job of balanced coverage of homosexuality than the publications of today. Today there are so many, as in organizations, that they can specialize. But they even in doing that do not serve our community well. How many even have editorials? They seem to not want to say anything that might upset readers or advertisers, much like our politicians. And they often don't even have letters to the editor sections, so they don't even let their readers have a voice. Most don't carry movement news. 
 
I think it may be a good thing that many people now turn to the internet and gay/lesbian sites. There we find news, and views. So I won't have to go to the newsstand in my local book store much any more. Once the advertisers learn this, they may go to the internet too, where most of us have gone.