Making History

The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945–1990

Eric Marcus

• Publisher: Harper Voyager Impulse
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9780062848260
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: Social Sciences

When Making History was first published in 1992, the acclaimed oral historian Studs Terkel called it, "One of the definitive works on gay life." Novelist Armistead Maupin said that author "Eric Marcus not only writes with grace and clarity but makes it look so easy—the ultimate measure of historian and novelist alike." Now, for the first time, the original complete edition of Making History is available in e-book. 

Through his engaging oral histories, Eric Marcus traces the unfolding of LGBTQ civil rights effort from a group of small, independent underground organizations and publications into a national movement, covering the years from 1945 to 1990. Here are the stories of its remarkable pioneers: a diverse group of nearly fifty Americans, who hail from all corners of the nation. 

From the period in history when homosexuals were routinely beaten by police to the day when gay rights leaders were first invited to the White House, Making History is the story of an against-all-odds struggle that has succeeded in bringing about changes in American society that were once unimaginable.

Part One
1945–1961
Taking Root

More than four decades before World War II, the first organization for homosexuals was founded in Germany. The goals of the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, as the organization was called, included the abolition of Germany’s antigay penal code, the promotion of public education about homosexuality, and the encouragement of homosexuals to take up the struggle for their rights. The rise of the Nazis put an end to the Scientific Humanitarian Committee and the homosexual rights movement in Germany.

In the United States, except for a very short-lived effort in the 1920s in Chicago, the first stirrings of a sustained movement did not occur until after World War II, when homosexual men and women first met formally in Los Angeles homes to talk about their lives and their hopes.

What was it about this moment in time that made possible these meetings and the subsequent emergence of a gay rights movement? Historian Allan Bérubé, author of Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two, attributes the “gay awakening” in part to both World War II and the Cold War, when gay people became targets of institutionalized discrimination in the military, government employment, and in urban gathering places across the country. In Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities, historian John D’Emilio also credits the war years, when “mobilization of American society for victory during World War II . . . uprooted tens of millions of American men and women, many of them young, and deposited them in a variety of nonfamiliar, often sex-segregated environments.” World War II and its dislocations provided gay young people with unprecedented opportunities to meet one another and to discover that they were not alone. D’Emilio also credits the publication of the Kinsey reports on male and female sexual behavior, in 1948 and 1953, with permanently altering “the nature of public discussion of sexuality as well as society’s perception of its own behavior,” and legitimizing “sexuality as a topic of discussion in the popular, mass circulation press.” Americans first learned from the Kinsey reports that significant numbers of the nation’s men and women had engaged in homosexual activity.

Following World War II, gay people in the United States first began to consider systematically the nature of homosexuality, share information about how to survive in a relentlessly hostile world, and organize secretive groups for gay men and women. At meetings of these organizations—including the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis, and ONE, Inc.—gay people explored who and what they were; debated whether they were indeed sick, as psychiatrists claimed; sought the advice of experts; and argued among themselves what, if anything, they should—or could—do to improve their standing in American life. They also began using the courts to fight for their rights to congregate in bars without fear of arrest or police harassment and to send their magazines through the mail. When the local postmaster withheld the October 1954 issue of ONE magazine as “obscene, lewd, lascivious and filthy,” the publishers, ONE, Inc., successfully fought their case all the way to the Supreme Court.

These early California-based gay organizations inspired new, usually tiny chapters in other cities around the country and even held national conventions, despite the bleak cultural and political climate. During the 1950s, gay people were linked to Communists and, like the Communists, were assumed to be subversive. They were purged from governmental jobs, hounded out of the military, and harassed at bars and other popular gathering spots as antigay campaigns swept the country.

During this era, the general public rarely had a glimpse of the homosexual subculture and nascent gay rights organizations, and then only as a result of police actions. For example, during a 1954 crackdown on gay men in Miami, local headlines screamed: “Perverts Seized in Bar Raids,” “Crackdown on Deviate Nests Urged,” and “Great Civilizations Plagued by Deviates.” One article about the police sweeps revealed the existence in Los Angeles of a new gay organization and even a gay magazine. The article, published in the Miami Daily News, was entitled “How L.A. Handles Its 150,000 Perverts.” It posed the question: “Is Greater Miami in danger of becoming a favorite gathering spot for homosexuals and sexual psychopaths?” It reported that In California “homosexuals have organized to resist interference by police. They have established their own magazine and are constantly crusading for recognition as a ‘normal’ group, a so-called ‘third sex.’” The article went on to alert readers that the January 1954 issue of ONE magazine urged homosexuals in the Miami area to organize and sue the City of Miami Beach for their arrest in a raid “on homosexuals gathered at the 22nd Street bathing beach.” It concluded with a police estimate that “between 6,000 and 8,000” hmosexuals lived in the Miami area. Without intending to, reports like this, which were not uncommon, helped spread the word to gay men and women that they were not alone and that it was possible to fight back against police repression.

Politicians also helped raise the profile of homosexuality throughout the 1950s, particularly when they seized it as a campaign issue. For example, in San Francisco in 1959, Democratic mayoral candidate Russell Wolden charged incumbent Mayor George Christopher with making homosexuals feel so welcome in San Francisco that they moved their national organization to Christopher’s “open city.” To support his charge, Wolden offered as proof the fact that the number of bars, steam baths, nightclubs, theaters, and hotels catering to homosexuals in San Francisco had climbed to an astounding twenty-seven. ONE magazine scoffed at the claim, stating: “Such an anti-climax! When, in recent decades, have there ever been so few as 27 homosexual spots in San Francisco, or any comparable city?”

Wolden’s emphasis on the specter of homosexuality in his campaign resulted in front-page press coverage, but he was uniformly criticized for raising the issue in the first place. ONE magazine reported that the San Francisco Examiner called Wolden’s “smear campaign” an “unforgivable slur on San Francisco” and “explained that it’s no news that homosexuals exist, but it is vicious to try to make political capital by stirring up public emotions on such a misunderstood subject.” Although Wolden’s use of homosexuality as a campaign issue backfired—he was trounced in the election—homosexuality has proved an effective weapon in campaigns for both local and national office right up to the present day.

Looking back to this time, when exposure of homosexuality could mean the loss of job, friends, family, and home, it seems remarkable that these first gay and lesbian organizations survived long enough to take root. But they not only survived, they established a foundation, however shaky, on which the gay rights struggle was built.

“Gay Gal”

Lisa Ben

In 1945, Lisa Ben,* a young secretary from northern California, set out for Los Angeles to escape her overbearing parents. It was there that she first met other women like her, and it was there that she first put her ideas about homosexuality down on paper in her own “magazine” for lesbians, which she produced using sheets of carbon paper on her office typewriter. Beginning in mid-1947, Lisa produced nine editions of Vice Versa, which she distributed to her friends, who, in turn, passed them on to their friends. Although Lisa was able to produce only ten copies of each edition, her publication was almost certainly read by dozens, if not hundreds, before it disappeared into history.

Lisa lives in a modest bungalow in a residential neighborhood in Burbank, California. She has shoulder-length, wavy brown hair, which frames a pretty, almost girlish, round face. Her eyes, set off by a colorful blouse and coordinated slacks, sparkle. The small front room of her house, where she spends most of her time, was tidy, a condition that Lisa explained was not its usual state. An upright piano was on one wall, and a sofa on the opposite wall. Lisa noted that she owns her home, paid for by a life’s work as a secretary.

Lisa Ben was born in 1921 and grew up in a rural northern California town, where as a young woman of fourteen, she fell in love for the first time.

My first real lesbian love was in high school. I was very much taken with her. She was fifteen. Of course, we did nothing below the waist, if you’ll pardon my being so frank. I loved her dearly, and we would hug each other and that sort of thing. She was so spontaneous in her hugs and kisses. We were so innocent about it and so joyous.

One time after she left me for another girl at high school, I was crestfallen. My mother said to me, “You never did anything wrong with her, did you?” I never thought that my love for this girl was weird or strange, but when my mother asked me that, I suddenly realized that there was something not quite right. I immediately turned to her and said, “Well, no, Mother, what do you mean?” I was quite serious, because by wrong I thought she meant playing doctor when you’re five or six years old or maybe stealing something or smoking cigarettes. And we hadn’t done any of those things. Up until that time I would talk to my mother and say, “Oh, she’s left me, and I’m so blue,” but after that, I didn’t mention the girl to her very much, and my mother and I just grew apart.

Later on, when I was living in the town where this girl lived, I ran into her on a rainy night. I remember I was hungry and I had holes in the bottoms of my shoes. I was walking to this man’s place where I did secretarial work, and out from this hotel doorway came my friend. “Oh,” she said, “How are you? I thought that was you. You know, I’m married now and you should see Junior. I have the cutest little boy.” She had grabbed hold of my arm, and before I could think, I said, “Don’t touch me!” I reacted that way because all through those years I had never resolved my love for her. Grabbing my arm the way she did was just like sticking me with a knife. She let go and said, “Well, if that’s the way you feel about it.” And I said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I’m not feeling well tonight, and I’m late to go to a job. Please excuse my saying that. I think that’s very nice that you’re married. Well, I’ve got to go now. Bye, bye.” I went home and I was just crushed, although, since she was married, I wouldn’t have taken her back. I didn’t want her. She was tainted.

A few years later, in 1945, I moved down here to Los Angeles to get away from my mother, who was always coming by and going through my things. I didn’t know any gay people when I moved here. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even know the word lesbian. I knew how I felt, but I didn’t know how to go about finding someone else who was like me, and the...

Table of contents

• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Part One: Taking Root
• “Gay Gal”
• The Psychologist
• The Organizer
• The Editor
• News Hound
• The Attorney
• “Gay Sexualist”
• The Teacher
• The Outsider
• Part Two: The Homophile Movement Emerges
• The Very Mad Scientist
• The Rabble Rousers
• One Angry Nurse
• The Best Kind of Friend
• The Defenders
• “Dear Abby”
• Part Three: Liberation
• The Radical Activist
• The Drag Queen
• Fearless Youth
• The Old Timers
• The Idealist
• Mother and Child
• The Good Doctor
• Part Four: Coming of Age
• The Ex-Nun
• The Jock
• The Good Sailor
• The Iconoclast
• The Insider
• A Boy from Boise
• The Christian Educator
• The Fighting Irishman
• The Protector
• The Conservative Congressman
• Sale Juive
• The Hollywood Screenwriter
• The “Sissy” from Mississippi
• Part Five: AIDS and Beyond
• The Film Historian
• The Unwanted Messenger
• The Storekeepers
• The Mixed Couple
• The Bridge Builder
• The Brave Alaskan
• The Radical Debutante
• The Bishop
• The Television Anchor
• The Role Models
• In Memoriam
• Index
• Also by Eric Marcus
• Copyright
• About the Publisher