Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context (Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies) (Paperback)

Credit goes to Dr. Vern L. Bullough, currently an adjunct professor of nursing at the University of Southern California, who took over the project conceived by Wayne Dynes nearly a decade ago but who withdrew because of other commitments and difficulties with potential contributors.

In an introduction, Dr. Bullough surveys the historical context. He underlines the importance of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895), who argued in Germany that same-sex relationships are no more dangerous to society than procreative sex between married persons. Karoly Maria Benkert (or Kertbeny) (1824-1882) is credited for having coined the term homosexuality. Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840-1902) helped bring homosexuality out of the closet. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) worked to remove German laws against homosexuality. Although Emma Goldman (1869-1940) urged Marxists to change laws concerning gays, the Russian Communist Party under Stalin considered homosexuality a product of capitalist degeneration. The Nazis sent thousands to their deaths in concentration camps and destroyed Hirschfeld’s research materials. Bullough concisely details what homosexuals painfully endured in other parts of the world, tells of the “pansy craze” in the 1920s, and mentions the importance of works by Radclyffe Hall, Blair Niles, Robert Scully, even James T. Farrell. He points out the liberating elements of England’s Wolfenden Report and the inspiring help supplied to individuals by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The book is divided into four parts: pre-1950; organizational activists; movers and shakers on the national scene; and other voices and their influence.

Henry Gerber is dubbed the grandfather of the American gay movement, his problems with The Establishment vividly described by Jim Kepner and Stephen O. Murray. Other pre-1950 activists include Xavier Mayne, Prescott Townsend, Jeannette Foster, Pearl Hart, Lisa Ben, and Berry Berryman. C. A. Tripp writes a lucid description of the positive role played by sexologist Alfred C. Kinsey.

Harry Hay, Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon are three of the organizational activists described in detail, along with others of those who formed the Mattachine Society and ONE, Inc. Dale Jennings was one of the first who admitted his homosexuality, then successfully fought a public charge of lewd behavior. Jim Kepner decried ego-driven antagonisms among organizers but with Dorr Legg and others created the first gay studies program, the first after Hirschfeld’s institute was torched by the Nazis 23 years earlier. Franklin Kameny, head of the Mattachine Society in the capital, was among the first to proclaim that homosexuality is neither sick nor immoral, and he came up with the slogan “Gay Is Good.”

In 1955, individuals involved in the Daughters of Bilititis and the publication Ladder are credited. Barbara Gittings, Sten Russell, Helen Sanders, Billye Talmadge, and Barbara Grier are some of the many whose efforts are described.

The times, they were a’changing. Magazines little by little showed pictures of naked men, the movies became less prudish. The Advocate in 1968 had a section selling sex, classified as well as unclassified. Hugh Heffner’s Playboy similarly began treating sex behavior openly.

The “other voices” in the final part of the book include descriptions of the parts played by Allen Ginsberg, Donald Webster Cory, Christine Jorgensen, Troy Perry, and others.

A scorecard is almost needed to keep track of which women slept with other activist women, which men with other activist men, and who else did what to whom. Refreshingly, the various brief biographies dish the dirt. The book’s negatives are next to nil, the index commendably thorough.

For most, “Stonewall” is a reference to the June 1969 Greenwich Village uprising, of which I was a participant. However, in the historical context, June 1969 was but a minor part. Today’s various veterans’ groups are, sadly, a fissiparous lot whose members may or may not have played any role in the ugly disturbances that week in June. They uninspiringly fight over which group gets to lead the annual Heritage of Pride Parade, and they disagree about how to raise money and where to spend it. What Before Stonewall points out is that the gay and lesbian rights movement has been a long time coming, from Europe and California no less. Its pre-1950 activists here and elsewhere are deserving of an updated appreciation for their activism, efforts that have resulted in the gay life so many of us now enjoy and which countless others are still unable to experience.

Warren Allen Smith in New York City's Greenwich Village is author of Celebrities in Hell and Who’s Who in Hell (Barricade Books).