A Queer History of the United States for Young People

Front” to connect themselves, by association, to the National Liberation
Front, the North Vietnamese group that was fighting the United States
troops in the ongoing war in Vietnam.
I was there on that hot summer night. I had already been heavily involved
in protests against the war in Vietnam, but I wasn’t thinking about the war
that night. I was thinking about a lot of other things. I was thinking that this
new political cause was about me: About me being gay and not being able
to tell many people. About me being gay and being bullied in high school
because other boys suspected it.
And, to be honest, being only twenty years old, I was also thinking of
some other things that night as I walked into the small room at the Alternate
U. I was really hoping I looked OK and not like a nerd from New Jersey. I
hoped that my hair looked alright. (Like a lot of men at the time, I wore
mine in a long ponytail.) I hoped that people would like me.
I held my breath as I entered the room. I didn’t know anyone and was
immediately intimidated. The room was filled with women and men—some
older, some my age—who were animated and arguing and laughing and
yelling. It was more like a party than a political meeting. As I began to
listen, I realized that everyone was talking about politics and what we were
going to do next and how we were going to change the world.
That was fifty years ago. It would be the beginning, not only of a new life
for me but of a career as well. That night, in my nervousness and
excitement, it seemed that anything—maybe everything—was possible.
This meeting was my introduction to LGBTQ politics. (The language we
used was different then. “Gay” was a collective term—as in “gay people”—
that often meant gay men but also lesbians. Later, our idea of community,
and language, grew and the words “lesbian,” “bisexual,” “transgender,” and
“queer” were added to make LGBT and, later still, Q.) I knew that I wanted
to get involved and “do something” for the new movement. And even
though we talked about changing the world, I had no idea then—none of us
did—how much the world really would change, and how much I would be a
part of that change.
That meeting sent me down a new, exciting path for my life. A year after
this, I would move to Boston and become involved with Gay Men’s
Liberation, the Boston equivalent of the Gay Liberation Front. I went to
work on Fag Rag, the first national gay men’s cultural and political