A historical snapshot from 1976: Feminism's war on gays

[Pab Sungenis]

I came across this article on-line while doing some research. I thought I would share parts of it here.

This is an interesting snapshot of a particular point in history. Our progress or lack of same is open for debate.

This talk was delivered to the Gay Academic Union Conference IV, New York City, 1976. Despite my discomfort with some of the rhetoric I used thirty years ago, I have made no changes in the text. I hereby give permission to print out this document and to photocopy it. However, it may not be published commercially without my permission. My current views on Gay Liberation are found in my book, A Freethinker's Primer of Male Love.

http://paganpressbooks.com/jpl/DTF.HTM

The early homosexual rights movement and the women's emancipation movement were both part of a broader sexual reform movement in the first three decades of the 20th century; they were regarded as comrade struggles. This was also true in the gay liberation phase of our movement, from the fall of 1969 onwards. I believe this is correct, and that every progressive person should endorse the basic goals of both movements — though to be sure, neither movement is a systematic body of doctrine, and both movements have internal disagreements.
Unfortunately, some very serious problems have arisen. Self-proclaimed feminists have acted in ways that were harmful to both gay liberation and women's liberation, and reactionary ideas have been advanced under the banner of feminism. I do not say these things were characteristic of the women's movement as a whole; rather, they can be attributed to a small, but highly publicized, minority.

...

At the first gay conference at Rutgers in 1970, the major panel on the last day was disrupted by a group of women who demanded that all proceedings come to a halt. They charged that the panel was “elitist” and “sexist” (although half of the panelists were women); their main ostensible grievance was that on a table in the hall, provided for leaflets and free literature, were copies of Gay newspaper, in which they had found a reproduction of a beautiful, lush, reclining female nude, painted in the style of classic romanticism. This, they charged, was designed to titillate men, and was degrading to women. Overlooked was the fact that the picture illustrated an article written by a lesbian, and that it was unlikely the editors of Gay had intended to convert their male readers to heterosexuality.
The conference organizers were cruelly attacked, apparently for the sin of not having policed and censored the free literature table. It was a senseless, abusive, and thuggish disruption; the main organizer of the conference was reduced to tears, and the women as well as the men on the panel were moved to call the disrupters “fascists”, an epithet that was not unjustified. For the most specious of reasons, a beautiful and mellow gay conference — one of the very first — had been turned into a nightmare.

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This year in the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee, a few women (speaking for all women) laid down a series of demands. First, women would march at the head of the parade, to offset what they called “lesbian invisibility”. Second, half of the marshals and speakers would have to be women (actually, this had always been the case). Third, all floats and speakers would have to be approved by a committee, which would censor anything it found guilty of “sexism”, “racism”, “classism” (whatever that is), and perhaps some other “ism”. The main fear of these women was that female impersonators would be allowed, either on floats or as speakers.
For several years now, drag queans have been special targets of feminist wrath. We gay men have been forcefully told that if we support women's liberation, we must denounce and repudiate everyone and everything connected with drag. The censorious feminists claim that drag oppresses women — that it is a mockery of women, misogyny, and a form of bigotry. If anyone feels I am exaggerating the feminist position, then I urge him to read an article in GCN (20 November 1976) by Karen Lindsey. Lindsey, who identifies herself as a “straight woman”, delivers a vicious attack against drag queans, and in the process engages in some coy anti-male-homosexual bigotry. She compares wearing drag to “sexual harassment”, pimping, rape, and wife-beating.
I am fascinated by one sentence of hers; she writes: “But when men dress in spike heels, rhinestones, sheer stockings, and evening gowns fitted with bustdarts, there is no room for doubt — or for tolerance.”
I have two questions for Ms. Lindsey. Number one: “You say that there in no room for tolerance. May we know specifically what forms of intolerance you would advocate?” Number two: “Do you believe that Woman, the eternal feminine or whatever, comprises such things spike heels and rhinestones?”

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To continue the story of this year's Christopher Street Liberation Day: every one of the women's demands was agreed to. Women were at the head of the Gay Pride march, and women with bullhorns cleared the area of male interlopers. In this contingent, two women marched with a banner proclaiming: “Cocksucking Causes Cancer!” Despite the vaunted concern with censoring “sexism”, apparently none of the other women in the contingent suggested to these sisters that they were marching in the wrong parade.

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What feminist writers seem totally unable to comprehend is the validity of all-male attachments — the great desire and need men have for the companionship, friendship, and love of other men. The feminists cannot see male fellowship as a positive thing; to them it can only be misogyny, a rejection and exclusion of women, a form of segregation.
Whereas a gay liberationist would say that men in our culture are alienated in their affection for each other, some feminists believe that men are too close to each other already.
I am not exaggerating the feminist position, and urge everyone to read Carol Hanisch's article, “Men's Liberation”, from the Redstockings anthology, Feminist Revolution; it is most instructive. Hanisch writes in a very clear, succinct, and straightforward manner; there is never any doubt what she is saying. The essence of her argument is that men's liberation groups are a reactionary development; that it is absurd to imagine that men are oppressed by the prevailing sex-roles, because all men profit from the oppression of all women; that therefore men have nothing to be liberated from. When she gets to homosexuality, Hanisch has this to say:

“Men's liberationists always bring up ‘confronting their own feelings about men’ by which they mean homosexuality. Male homosexuality is an extension of the reactionary club) meaning both group and weapon). The growth of gay liberation carries contempt for women to the ultimate: total segregation. The desire of men to ‘explore their homosexuality’ really means encouraging the possibility of homosexuality as a reaction against feminist demands. This is the reason the movement for “gay rights” received much more support only after women's liberation became a mass movement.”