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United we stand,

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or divided they'll
catch us, one by one.

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Division is the fastest way
that they can wedge in,

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divide you, and win the battle.

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June 28, 1969, will forever be remembered

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as the beginning of the
LGBTQ rights movement.

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Six days and nights of violent riots

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rocked New York City,

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and the Stonewall uprising gave birth

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to a revolution that had
been building for decades.

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If any group loses its rights,
we all lose our rights.

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For far too long, the LGBTQ
community had been persecuted,

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hunted, and beaten down

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by a society unwilling to
recognize their equality.

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The road to this revolution was
paved by many unsung heroes.

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Meet the warriors, the organizers,

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the artists and agitators who came before,

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who built community
through secret societies,

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who spoke out when it mattered most,

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and who rioted when they
got pushed too far.

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Why don't you guys do something?

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Papers would publish the name and address
and where they worked

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like they were mass murderers.

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They figured they were
guilty for being gay.

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You may not know all their names,

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but these are their stories.

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And this is our history.

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Because other people joined
them, a movement was forged.

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Gay rights now! Gay rights now!

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What do you say?

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Revolution now!

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www.subtitulamos.tv

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A hundred years ago, lesbians and gays

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could find their fun together
in the underground world.

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We're talking the Roaring Twenties

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and the Dirty Thirties.

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You know, prohibition,
speakeasies, and the like.

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It was still on the down-low,
but you could find the gay life

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if you knew where to look for it.

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But by the 1950s, queer
love was forbidden love.

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A conservative chill set
in across postwar America.

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What few freedoms we had evaporated

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in an atmosphere of Cold War hysteria.

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FBI agents swoop down on Communists...

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Gay people were linked to Communism.

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We were scapegoated,
criminalized, and hunted.

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Led by some radical gays and lesbians,

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two secret societies emerged to fight back.

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They were the men of the
Mattachine Society...

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I would not pretend.
I would not pull a mask over myself.

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I tend not to lose my wars.

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and the Daughters of Bilitis.

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Well, we met up in Seattle.

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We're talking 1949, and
"gay" was not a word then.

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This is the story of how their
actions would pave the way

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for the modern gay rights movement.

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You can't force us into
your boxes anymore.

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We are not going.

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At the top of this very hill
in Silver Lake in Los Angeles,

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five men came together
to form a secret society

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to improve and protect the
rights of homosexuals

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through covert action and
grassroots organizing.

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They were the Mattachine Society.

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One of them was Harry
Hay, considered by many

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to be the fairy godfather
of the gay rights movement.

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Another, a slightly more unsung hero,

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was this handsome devil, Dale Jennings.

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Their stories stretch
back before World War II

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and well into the 1950s.

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Even if there were only one Communist
in the State Department,

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that would still be one Communist too many!

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The Stonewall riots of 1969 are
more than a generation away...

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Gay power! Gay power!

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But here they stand at
the dawn of a new movement.

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Harry Hay usually gets all the credit,

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but I was there at the founding
of the Mattachine Society.

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We took the name Mattachine

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from secret societies in medieval France

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because we felt that we, 1950s gays,

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were also masked revolutionaries,

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hidden and ready for change.

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And to understand what the
Mattachine Society was

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and why we needed to organize,

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you need to know what it was
like to be gay in those days.

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I need to take you further back
to where our stories began.

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I moved to Los Angeles in 1935.

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I'd been married twice, to women.

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Admitting to being gay
back then was suicidal.

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But I knew what I was.

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I had founded a theater troupe,

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started moving in leftist circles.

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Believe it or not, it was cool
to be a Commie back then.

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I also started meeting other men like me.

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Then in 1952, something happened to me

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that had happened to a lot of my friends.

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A lonely stroll and a stop at a public
restroom turned into a nightmare

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when an undercover vice cop
tailed me,

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attempted to seduce me,

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tried to trick me
into making a pass,

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forced himself on me,

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and then arrested me.

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Straight vice cops played gay

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and were always on the lookout for prey.

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Gay guys were targets.

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Entrapment was a tool they used to ruin us,

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emotionally and financially.

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Some gay sex acts could
get you 15 years to life.

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If you weren't arrested,
you could be beaten

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and left for dead in the gutter.

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I had no idea what was
going to happen to me.

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Cops would contact our employers,

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publish our names and
addresses in the paper.

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We'd lose our jobs, our families...

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I've known men who were driven to suicide.

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That night, I was charged with
vagrancy and lewd conduct.

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It was happening to all of us,

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but we were starting to fight back.

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I was booked at 11:30 but wasn't
allowed to send a message out

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till 3:00 the next morning.

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I called Harry.

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I called on my brothers of
the Mattachine Society.

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The whole Mattachine Society
is going to support you, Dale.

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And we're going to fight this.

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And this was just the sort of fight

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Harry was waiting for to
put our cause on the map.

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He was a bit older than we were,

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and the roots of his radicalism

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were planted even earlier than mine.

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In the height of the '30s,

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when the heterosexual world
was very, very straight,

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very uptight, very sort of macho,

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very unemotional,

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it is in this period that we had
the lilies and the pansies,

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when all the queens, for instance,

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would have chiffon four miles long,

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all slightly lavender.

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When it wasn't a question of a limp wrist,

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it was practically a limp arm.

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Everything was limp.

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I could play the strutting
macho if I wanted to

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and I could drop my wrist
when I felt like it.

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When Dale and I met and
formed the Mattachine Society,

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my wife and I were active
in the Communist party.

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Oh, yeah, I was married at
the time with two kids.

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I knew more married gays than
unmarried gays in those days.

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It was a way to hide.
It was a good cover.

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And sometimes it could be
exciting to have a secret.

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A big change in America's gay life

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started back during World War II.

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Isolated gays from small
towns across the country

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were thrust together in large
numbers for the first time.

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And when the war was over,

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they naturally settled in
the big port cities...

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New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

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Then in 1948,

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Dr. Kinsey came out with his
book on male sexuality.

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It became an overnight bestseller

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by claiming that 37% of males

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have had a homosexual experience.

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Now there was proof that
there were thousands of us

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in every city and town across the country.

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Can you imagine?

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Now you could walk down the street

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knowing that one out of 10 people

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might be having those same feelings,

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those same experiences.

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You might finally meet
someone and fall in love.

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And speaking of love,

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another love that dare not speak
its name is about to be born,

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which in turn will birth yet
another secret society,

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the Daughters of Bilitis.

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It is now time for the sisters
to do it for themselves.

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I guess my first question is,
how did you meet each other?

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Oh, we met up in Seattle on the job.

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And...

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Phyllis tells this story better than I.

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Well...

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I was working for a
trade magazine up in Seattle.

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We heard that the boss

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had hired a divorced woman

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from San Francisco to come up

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and take over the daily
construction paper they had.

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All of us girls were really
excited about this new person.

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The day that she arrived,

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we were all sort of peering out
of our little office doors,

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and she came putzing in

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in her little suit and her high heels

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and carrying a briefcase.

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And I think that was the
first time ever in my life

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I'd ever seen a woman carrying a briefcase.

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We're talking 1949, right,

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and "gay" was not a word that I knew.

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So, I had a party for the
whole staff to meet her.

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And she sat out in the
kitchenette with all the men

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drinking whiskey and smoking cigars,

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trying to learn how to tie a
tie, which she never did.

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I didn't know anything about
lesbians till I met Del.

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Sure, I had thoughts of other
girls when I was in high school

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but didn't think anything could
happen, so I dismissed it.

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At the end of the night,

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I really had to make a move or forget it.

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So I made sort of a half pass.

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And she completed it.

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And that's how we met.

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_

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One night in 1949, I'm at a party
with a bunch of gay guys,

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and all the talk is about Kinsey

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and the homosexual witch hunt
going on in the U.S. government.

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This would later be known
as the Lavender Scare.

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On the president's order,
the State Department

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had already fired hundreds
of gays and lesbians

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on the basis that they
were security threats.

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We were scared.

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It seemed at that time

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that we were moving towards
a fascist corporate state.

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"Something's gotta be done," I said.

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As I learned as a Communist organizer,

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there was strength in numbers.

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I pulled an all-nighter writing "The Call,"

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a manifesto to organize homosexuals.

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We needed to establish a gay group

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to fight back against police
entrapment and discrimination.

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Problem was, the idea
was just too dangerous.

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Absolutely no one
would touch it,

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except for my wife,
who read it

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and promptly asked
for a divorce.

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Can you blame her?

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Soon after, when I was
teaching a music course

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at the California Labor School,

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my boyfriend, Rudi, suggested
that I pitch my idea

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to a couple of my students
who I suspected to be gay.

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They were totally behind it, and
we got together to discuss.

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We were just a few guys.

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One of them was Bob Hull.

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His boyfriend was Dale Jennings.

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We viewed homosexuals as part

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of an oppressed cultural minority.

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Harry ran with the idea,

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and it became the foundation
of the Mattachine Society.

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This was about real
brotherhood, real change.

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The possibility of a police raid

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meant our meetings had
to be held in secret.

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We were more than a little afraid.

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Before every meeting,
we'd draw the curtains,

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shove the phone in a dresser drawer

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and put a pillow over it,

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just in case there were
FBI bugs in the room.

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It was exciting to be a part of something
so new and progressive.

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By day, we were ordinary people,

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but by night, we became wild radicals,

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determined to change the world.

255
00:13:57,571 --> 00:14:00,516
When Del and I first came
to San Francisco in 1953,

256
00:14:00,542 --> 00:14:04,849
it took us two years to make
contact with another lesbian,

257
00:14:04,875 --> 00:14:08,014
not because we didn't see
them, but it took us a while

258
00:14:08,040 --> 00:14:10,993
to get up nerve enough
to say hello to them.

259
00:14:11,368 --> 00:14:16,267
We were very shy, and so we
sort of sat more like tourists.

260
00:14:16,571 --> 00:14:18,975
We did find some lesbian bars later

261
00:14:19,001 --> 00:14:22,298
and found that they were
being constantly raided.

262
00:14:22,571 --> 00:14:25,616
You never knew when the paddy wagon
was going to show up in front,

263
00:14:25,642 --> 00:14:28,392
officers come in and load you all in.

264
00:14:28,524 --> 00:14:30,311
And the charges were absurd,

265
00:14:30,337 --> 00:14:34,017
like something like visiting
a house of ill repute.

266
00:14:35,368 --> 00:14:38,837
We were so happy when somebody
suggested we should get involved

267
00:14:38,863 --> 00:14:40,889
with starting this new group

268
00:14:40,915 --> 00:14:44,975
because we figured we'd finally
meet some more lesbians.

269
00:14:45,001 --> 00:14:48,546
It started out as a
very secret social club.

270
00:14:48,571 --> 00:14:50,834
And we were meeting in each other's homes

271
00:14:50,860 --> 00:14:53,741
and having parties at
home where it was safe

272
00:14:53,767 --> 00:14:55,782
as compared to the gay bars.

273
00:14:56,530 --> 00:14:59,537
One of the women said,
"We've got to have a name.

274
00:14:59,571 --> 00:15:02,977
We can't just keep meeting and
not call ourselves anything."

275
00:15:03,470 --> 00:15:05,147
And she said, "Look, here's this book

276
00:15:05,173 --> 00:15:07,134
called 'The Songs of Bilitis, '"

277
00:15:07,415 --> 00:15:11,827
and Bilitis was a contemporary of Sappho,
at least in this book,

278
00:15:11,983 --> 00:15:14,288
and nobody would ever know what it meant,

279
00:15:14,314 --> 00:15:16,289
and none of us knew what it meant.

280
00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:19,545
She was the only woman
who ever read the book.

281
00:15:20,085 --> 00:15:23,028
Anyway, that's where the
Daughters of Bilitis came from,

282
00:15:23,054 --> 00:15:24,804
and had we known in 1955,

283
00:15:24,830 --> 00:15:28,121
we would have called it the
Lesbian Activist Group

284
00:15:28,147 --> 00:15:31,663
or something like that and never
had to explain it once more.

285
00:15:34,335 --> 00:15:35,887
One of the things Daughters of Bilitis did

286
00:15:35,913 --> 00:15:38,186
was to begin to let us
have a support group,

287
00:15:38,554 --> 00:15:40,624
to say, "Hey, I care
that you're in trouble."

288
00:15:40,686 --> 00:15:43,694
Because before then, it was
every person for themselves.

289
00:15:43,874 --> 00:15:46,405
Build your own safe
little world and try to...

290
00:15:47,302 --> 00:15:48,916
you know, hide in it.

291
00:15:48,942 --> 00:15:50,380
You're on your own, toots.

292
00:15:50,406 --> 00:15:52,987
So I think that's why Daughters
of Bilitis helped so much

293
00:15:53,013 --> 00:15:55,341
the beginning organizations, that said,

294
00:15:55,458 --> 00:15:57,349
"Let's try to be kind to each other.

295
00:15:57,375 --> 00:15:59,177
Let's try to figure out how we can help."

296
00:15:59,849 --> 00:16:03,942
Mattachine started in Los Angeles in 1950.

297
00:16:04,130 --> 00:16:08,573
So close was the conspiracy
of silence in the press and everywhere

298
00:16:08,737 --> 00:16:11,136
that when DOB started in 1955,

299
00:16:11,162 --> 00:16:14,417
we had no idea that Mattachine existed.

300
00:16:14,443 --> 00:16:17,157
And it wasn't until after
we started operating

301
00:16:17,183 --> 00:16:21,269
that we eventually discovered
these essentially men's groups.

302
00:16:21,964 --> 00:16:24,079
It's probably difficult to understand

303
00:16:24,105 --> 00:16:27,714
how alienated everybody was then,

304
00:16:28,828 --> 00:16:32,339
because it was so scary to
ever try to make contact.

305
00:16:37,571 --> 00:16:40,024
The beginning of the Daughters
of Bilitis was so fragile

306
00:16:40,050 --> 00:16:43,246
that Del and I were like peer
counselors to every member.

307
00:16:43,418 --> 00:16:46,519
There were so few of us,
and it was so scary.

308
00:16:47,407 --> 00:16:50,207
Those times, there was
nothing but fear out there.

309
00:16:50,571 --> 00:16:53,214
You could get arrested for dressing wrong.

310
00:16:53,418 --> 00:16:55,806
You could go to jail, lose your apartment.

311
00:16:55,832 --> 00:16:58,410
Could certainly lose
their jobs, and they had.

312
00:16:58,436 --> 00:17:00,546
They could be thrown out of their churches.

313
00:17:00,941 --> 00:17:03,110
If your family found out you were gay,

314
00:17:03,136 --> 00:17:04,977
you were thrown out of the house.

315
00:17:05,003 --> 00:17:07,144
A lot of women came to Daughters of Bilitis

316
00:17:07,170 --> 00:17:10,324
because they had been
abandoned by their families

317
00:17:10,688 --> 00:17:13,149
or their families had thrown
them into institutions

318
00:17:13,175 --> 00:17:15,546
where they'd be given shock therapy.

319
00:17:15,855 --> 00:17:19,722
So Daughters of Bilitis became
sort of a self-help group.

320
00:17:20,332 --> 00:17:22,733
Our statement of purpose
is to educate the public

321
00:17:22,759 --> 00:17:25,066
to accept the lesbian into society,

322
00:17:25,146 --> 00:17:27,246
and our motto became "Qui vive,"

323
00:17:27,285 --> 00:17:29,793
which is French for "stay vigilant."

324
00:17:30,272 --> 00:17:31,683
Qui vive!

325
00:17:35,144 --> 00:17:38,652
By now, the Mattachine Society
was firmly established,

326
00:17:39,121 --> 00:17:41,546
but it was still a dangerous time.

327
00:17:41,769 --> 00:17:44,161
Gay bars were constantly being raided.

328
00:17:44,187 --> 00:17:46,013
We weren't safe on the streets,

329
00:17:46,039 --> 00:17:48,396
barely safe in our own homes.

330
00:17:48,693 --> 00:17:51,682
One night at a Mattachine
meeting in Los Angeles,

331
00:17:51,708 --> 00:17:55,771
a disgruntled ex-vice cop
was invited to speak.

332
00:17:55,990 --> 00:18:00,120
He dished the dirt on a sting
operation at local beaches...

333
00:18:00,146 --> 00:18:04,671
decoys coming on to gay guys
and the cops entrapping them.

334
00:18:05,289 --> 00:18:06,937
The men were furious,

335
00:18:07,030 --> 00:18:08,996
determined to blow the cops' cover,

336
00:18:09,022 --> 00:18:11,200
to strike back with information

337
00:18:11,226 --> 00:18:14,351
and unite gay men all across the country.

338
00:18:14,571 --> 00:18:17,749
So they decided to launch a magazine.

339
00:18:20,351 --> 00:18:23,715
Dale Jennings and others
branched out from Mattachine

340
00:18:23,741 --> 00:18:27,140
and formed One, the first of its kind.

341
00:18:27,257 --> 00:18:31,153
It became known as the voice of U.S.
homosexuals.

342
00:18:31,179 --> 00:18:33,202
And that's exactly what it was.

343
00:18:33,228 --> 00:18:35,168
We weren't going to go out and say,

344
00:18:35,194 --> 00:18:37,335
"You should be gay," and do all of that.

345
00:18:37,571 --> 00:18:40,449
But we all say you can
be proud of being gay.

346
00:18:40,475 --> 00:18:42,546
You can be proud of being yourself.

347
00:18:42,571 --> 00:18:46,335
You can look yourself in the mirror
and say, "I'm me, and isn't that nice?"

348
00:18:46,517 --> 00:18:48,202
That in itself was radical.

349
00:18:48,228 --> 00:18:51,327
There were letters, articles, stories.

350
00:18:51,353 --> 00:18:55,207
Anything which was of
interest to homosexuals

351
00:18:55,233 --> 00:18:59,061
was printed in there so
that it became a forum.

352
00:18:59,171 --> 00:19:02,725
It began to acquaint the American public

353
00:19:03,077 --> 00:19:06,764
with questions regarding homosexuality,

354
00:19:07,139 --> 00:19:10,210
both in United States and abroad.

355
00:19:12,218 --> 00:19:15,718
And now the FBI really was on our ass.

356
00:19:15,827 --> 00:19:17,799
On May 19, 1953,

357
00:19:17,825 --> 00:19:20,159
confidential informant of known reliability

358
00:19:20,185 --> 00:19:22,088
who is a sex deviate made available

359
00:19:22,114 --> 00:19:25,052
a copy of a publication entitled One.

360
00:19:25,669 --> 00:19:29,435
Review of the publication indicates
it's written for sex deviates.

361
00:19:29,571 --> 00:19:33,151
I got a tip from Miss Romayne Cox,

362
00:19:33,177 --> 00:19:35,940
the secretary treasurer of
the Mattachine Society,

363
00:19:35,966 --> 00:19:38,690
telling me that those
flatfoots over at the FBI

364
00:19:38,716 --> 00:19:41,935
were building a legal case
against One Magazine.

365
00:19:42,185 --> 00:19:45,372
Well, if they were going
to play games with us,

366
00:19:45,435 --> 00:19:47,401
then we were gonna play games with them.

367
00:19:47,427 --> 00:19:51,002
So we wrote an article
suggesting everybody knows

368
00:19:51,028 --> 00:19:53,112
that J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director,

369
00:19:53,138 --> 00:19:55,849
and Clyde Tolson,
his close partner,

370
00:19:55,875 --> 00:19:57,059
were lovers.

371
00:19:57,443 --> 00:19:59,546
It was common knowledge
that they lived together

372
00:19:59,571 --> 00:20:02,546
and that their mothers lived
on either side of them.

373
00:20:02,724 --> 00:20:05,818
I mean, obviously they were queers, right?

374
00:20:05,989 --> 00:20:08,546
We know Hoover sent a
memo to Tolson saying,

375
00:20:08,571 --> 00:20:09,831
"We should take this crowd on

376
00:20:09,857 --> 00:20:11,896
and make them put up or shut up."

377
00:20:12,302 --> 00:20:14,573
FBI agents showed up at One's offices

378
00:20:14,599 --> 00:20:16,612
not long after the issue was mailed out,

379
00:20:16,638 --> 00:20:18,755
wanting to know who wrote the article.

380
00:20:18,943 --> 00:20:21,474
We told them Hoover's
mother wrote the article

381
00:20:21,500 --> 00:20:24,036
and that they should
kindly get the fuck out.

382
00:20:25,388 --> 00:20:28,385
Most of its officials and those
associated with the publication

383
00:20:28,411 --> 00:20:31,153
have immoral and subversive backgrounds

384
00:20:31,685 --> 00:20:33,833
and have been quite sarcastic

385
00:20:34,013 --> 00:20:35,917
upon contact by our agents

386
00:20:35,943 --> 00:20:39,185
relative to their slanderous
words about the FBI.

387
00:20:42,489 --> 00:20:44,546
I became editor in chief of One Magazine

388
00:20:44,571 --> 00:20:46,278
and also a contributor.

389
00:20:46,570 --> 00:20:48,995
I wrote the story of my arrest and my trial

390
00:20:49,021 --> 00:20:50,713
in the first issue of One,

391
00:20:50,739 --> 00:20:53,732
which was published in January 1953.

392
00:20:54,286 --> 00:20:58,193
After my arrest, I was
humiliated and depressed,

393
00:20:58,571 --> 00:21:01,458
but Harry and the others
were there to remind me,

394
00:21:01,735 --> 00:21:03,356
I was not alone.

395
00:21:04,325 --> 00:21:06,276
The members of the Mattachine raised money

396
00:21:06,302 --> 00:21:09,545
and hired a notorious labor
lawyer on my behalf.

397
00:21:09,571 --> 00:21:13,112
George Sibley was always on
the side of the underdog,

398
00:21:13,138 --> 00:21:15,546
and I knew he was the best man for the job.

399
00:21:15,989 --> 00:21:19,755
Also, he was the only lawyer
who would take my case.

400
00:21:21,138 --> 00:21:22,979
"The trial was a surprise.

401
00:21:23,005 --> 00:21:25,620
The attorney engaged by
the Mattachine Foundation

402
00:21:25,646 --> 00:21:28,357
made a brilliant opening
statement to the jury."

403
00:21:28,571 --> 00:21:32,546
Homosexuality and lasciviousness

404
00:21:32,571 --> 00:21:34,799
are not identical.

405
00:21:34,825 --> 00:21:37,403
And the only true pervert in the courtroom

406
00:21:37,571 --> 00:21:39,325
is the arresting officer.

407
00:21:39,351 --> 00:21:41,799
When I took the stand,
I declared under oath

408
00:21:41,825 --> 00:21:45,396
that I, Dale Jennings, was
admittedly homosexual.

409
00:21:45,833 --> 00:21:49,354
At the time, it was a bold thing
to admit in a court of law.

410
00:21:49,380 --> 00:21:50,727
Order in the court!

411
00:21:50,753 --> 00:21:52,852
The judge told me not to use that word.

412
00:21:52,878 --> 00:21:54,940
"That word is not used here."

413
00:21:55,173 --> 00:21:57,148
But he would not silence me.

414
00:21:57,712 --> 00:22:01,330
I was there because I was
an avowed homosexual,

415
00:22:01,876 --> 00:22:03,448
and I wasn't ashamed of it.

416
00:22:04,253 --> 00:22:07,546
And after 40 hours of
deliberations and a hung jury

417
00:22:07,572 --> 00:22:09,909
with just one holdout against me,

418
00:22:10,003 --> 00:22:13,323
we argued that the city move
for dismissal of the case,

419
00:22:13,349 --> 00:22:14,878
and it was granted.

420
00:22:15,292 --> 00:22:18,766
Mattachine, through our
Citizens' Committee to Outlaw Entrapment,

421
00:22:18,792 --> 00:22:22,315
had raised funds for my case
from all across the country.

422
00:22:22,571 --> 00:22:24,891
In this sense, a bond of brotherhood

423
00:22:24,917 --> 00:22:27,167
is not mere blind generosity.

424
00:22:27,193 --> 00:22:30,948
It is unification for self-protection.

425
00:22:32,329 --> 00:22:35,304
Dale and the Mattachine
were homosexual heroes.

426
00:22:35,393 --> 00:22:39,761
They had challenged the police,
and the police backed down.

427
00:22:40,143 --> 00:22:43,039
Not surprisingly, nobody covered the trial,

428
00:22:43,065 --> 00:22:44,545
but the word spread,

429
00:22:44,571 --> 00:22:47,386
and membership in the
Mattachine Society exploded.

430
00:22:47,412 --> 00:22:50,680
Hundreds of new chapters sprang
up all over the country,

431
00:22:50,706 --> 00:22:52,137
but it grew so fast,

432
00:22:52,163 --> 00:22:53,657
Harry, Dale

433
00:22:53,683 --> 00:22:56,227
and the founding members lost control.

434
00:22:56,253 --> 00:22:59,418
A new wave of conservative
gays were spooked

435
00:22:59,444 --> 00:23:01,861
by ties to the Communist sympathizers,

436
00:23:01,887 --> 00:23:04,176
and the old rebels got voted out.

437
00:23:04,332 --> 00:23:09,307
Hal Call became the new face
of the Mattachine Society.

438
00:23:09,408 --> 00:23:12,369
On the second meeting, we sort
of took it out of their hands.

439
00:23:12,650 --> 00:23:15,960
We wanted to see changes brought
about by evolutionary methods,

440
00:23:15,986 --> 00:23:18,072
not revolutionary methods.

441
00:23:18,470 --> 00:23:21,545
We had dedicated ourselves
so utterly to this.

442
00:23:21,571 --> 00:23:24,781
This was our lives, and
suddenly it was gone.

443
00:23:24,807 --> 00:23:26,546
Simply gone.

444
00:23:26,571 --> 00:23:28,546
The Mattachine went on without us.

445
00:23:28,571 --> 00:23:32,361
It was a signal that the gay
movement was in transition

446
00:23:32,626 --> 00:23:34,815
and not just for us.

447
00:23:35,953 --> 00:23:37,017
He's right.

448
00:23:37,043 --> 00:23:38,885
A new generation was coming up,

449
00:23:38,911 --> 00:23:41,148
new ideas and new voices.

450
00:23:41,174 --> 00:23:44,726
And one of them belonged to a young woman
named Barbara Gittings.

451
00:23:44,752 --> 00:23:47,932
It should be in the air in the society

452
00:23:48,025 --> 00:23:50,546
that homosexuality is perfectly alright

453
00:23:50,571 --> 00:23:53,765
and that it's to be just
as much valued and desired

454
00:23:53,791 --> 00:23:55,663
as a heterosexual orientation.

455
00:23:55,929 --> 00:23:58,731
In '56, I was living in Philadelphia.

456
00:23:58,757 --> 00:24:01,546
I had left home and I started
to try to find my people.

457
00:24:01,571 --> 00:24:03,012
First I found them in books.

458
00:24:03,038 --> 00:24:05,043
You look yourself up in little sections

459
00:24:05,069 --> 00:24:07,335
in the book on abnormal psychology.

460
00:24:07,571 --> 00:24:09,546
You try to find yourself in legal books.

461
00:24:09,571 --> 00:24:11,856
You try to find yourself in encyclopedias.

462
00:24:11,882 --> 00:24:13,546
It was very clinical.

463
00:24:13,571 --> 00:24:15,374
It didn't speak of love.

464
00:24:15,429 --> 00:24:17,629
They were talking about
some kind of condition,

465
00:24:17,655 --> 00:24:21,397
an alien condition that was
a departure from the norm.

466
00:24:21,571 --> 00:24:24,645
And one day I found out
about an organization

467
00:24:24,671 --> 00:24:26,351
called Daughters of Bilitis.

468
00:24:26,377 --> 00:24:31,319
So I arranged to take a plane
out to, uh... to San Francisco.

469
00:24:31,571 --> 00:24:35,397
And I called, I guess,
Del, Phyllis, somebody.

470
00:24:35,423 --> 00:24:39,114
And for the first time, I
found myself in a living room

471
00:24:39,140 --> 00:24:42,632
in a normal social setting
with 12 other lesbians.

472
00:24:42,679 --> 00:24:45,476
And it was a marvelous experience.

473
00:24:46,444 --> 00:24:47,541
Here she was,

474
00:24:47,567 --> 00:24:50,846
a little curly haired girl
in a shift and sandals.

475
00:24:50,872 --> 00:24:53,852
I never saw anything like it or her.

476
00:24:53,878 --> 00:24:55,546
She was younger than we were.

477
00:24:55,571 --> 00:24:59,464
Little did we know what we or
the gay movement was in for.

478
00:25:03,128 --> 00:25:06,914
Many women were afraid to
come to an actual DOB meeting

479
00:25:06,940 --> 00:25:09,722
or didn't live in a city
that had a DOB chapter.

480
00:25:09,854 --> 00:25:12,546
So it became increasingly
clear that we needed

481
00:25:12,571 --> 00:25:16,206
to find a secret way to connect
with isolated lesbians.

482
00:25:16,571 --> 00:25:20,503
So we began to publish
"The Ladder" in 1956.

483
00:25:21,159 --> 00:25:25,354
The first issue we mailed to
everybody that anybody knew.

484
00:25:25,571 --> 00:25:29,589
I think we printed 185, and
then the machine broke down.

485
00:25:30,571 --> 00:25:35,075
Gradually, we branched out and
expanded the newsletter into a magazine,

486
00:25:35,101 --> 00:25:37,676
which included news, book reviews,

487
00:25:37,702 --> 00:25:40,958
letters to the editor,
short stories, and so on.

488
00:25:42,177 --> 00:25:44,883
The magazine landed on
newsstands in big cities,

489
00:25:44,909 --> 00:25:48,761
but most of our readers received
our publication through the mail

490
00:25:49,284 --> 00:25:51,159
in a plain brown envelope.

491
00:25:51,352 --> 00:25:55,147
The response we got over and
over again from women was,

492
00:25:55,173 --> 00:25:58,188
"I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one."

493
00:26:01,665 --> 00:26:06,147
I cannot tell you what a source
of both inspiration and pleasure

494
00:26:06,173 --> 00:26:09,016
"The Ladder" contained
for me within its pages.

495
00:26:09,587 --> 00:26:12,001
I, as an introvert,

496
00:26:12,032 --> 00:26:14,485
can only know of what momentous importance

497
00:26:14,511 --> 00:26:16,485
such a movement as yours can mean

498
00:26:16,511 --> 00:26:18,840
for the ultimate good of us all.

499
00:26:18,866 --> 00:26:20,796
Like so many others,

500
00:26:20,944 --> 00:26:24,342
I am living a completely
repressed existence.

501
00:26:24,571 --> 00:26:27,652
One of the insertions in "The
Ladder" caught my attention

502
00:26:27,678 --> 00:26:30,952
and I could not help but muse
over it with some irony.

503
00:26:31,335 --> 00:26:33,874
The part about coming out of hiding,

504
00:26:34,796 --> 00:26:37,177
what a delicious invitation,

505
00:26:37,203 --> 00:26:39,364
but, oh, so impractical.

506
00:26:39,390 --> 00:26:42,924
If I were to come out of
hiding, I should lose my job

507
00:26:42,950 --> 00:26:45,177
and all chance of finding work.

508
00:26:46,824 --> 00:26:48,799
I would be blackballed all over the city.

509
00:26:48,825 --> 00:26:51,229
They somehow got passed
around from hand to hand,

510
00:26:51,255 --> 00:26:54,546
and they got mailed from
one subscriber to another

511
00:26:54,571 --> 00:26:56,010
in some other part of the country,

512
00:26:56,036 --> 00:26:57,878
who then sent it on to someone else.

513
00:26:57,904 --> 00:27:00,182
And the organization's little offices,

514
00:27:00,208 --> 00:27:03,745
they'd have letters and phone
calls from isolated gay people

515
00:27:03,771 --> 00:27:06,443
sometimes too afraid even to
give a name on the telephone,

516
00:27:06,469 --> 00:27:09,901
who would say things like,
"I'm just grateful for your existence,

517
00:27:09,927 --> 00:27:11,643
for the sheer existence of groups

518
00:27:11,669 --> 00:27:13,755
of my own kind that I can turn to."

519
00:27:14,122 --> 00:27:16,546
I am interested, very much interested

520
00:27:16,571 --> 00:27:19,341
in becoming a member of
the Daughters of Bilitis.

521
00:27:19,571 --> 00:27:21,776
Although at present, discretion prevents me

522
00:27:21,802 --> 00:27:24,052
from making any moves to help the cause,

523
00:27:24,224 --> 00:27:27,221
there is one very effective weapon we,

524
00:27:27,247 --> 00:27:30,247
who must fight from a
hiding place, still have...

525
00:27:30,571 --> 00:27:33,060
the fountain pen and the typewriter.

526
00:27:34,458 --> 00:27:36,546
I suppose we were dimly aware of the fact

527
00:27:36,571 --> 00:27:38,971
that there really weren't
very many women of color,

528
00:27:38,997 --> 00:27:42,372
at least not in the DOB meetings
that I was associated with.

529
00:27:42,398 --> 00:27:44,450
We had only the one in
the New York chapter,

530
00:27:44,476 --> 00:27:46,060
and that was Ernestine.

531
00:27:46,732 --> 00:27:50,735
I think we cannot be as radical

532
00:27:50,761 --> 00:27:54,165
as homosexuals as we can,

533
00:27:54,191 --> 00:27:57,113
as we could, as we do as Negroes,

534
00:27:57,230 --> 00:28:01,683
because the Negro cause is
already widely accepted.

535
00:28:01,878 --> 00:28:05,714
You know, the homosexual
cause is not yet accepted.

536
00:28:05,839 --> 00:28:08,634
And I think this has to
come first, the acceptance,

537
00:28:08,690 --> 00:28:11,577
then you can push as far and as often

538
00:28:11,603 --> 00:28:13,441
and as hard as you like.

539
00:28:15,571 --> 00:28:16,930
At the start of the '60s,

540
00:28:16,956 --> 00:28:19,688
gays and lesbians were still
a repressed minority.

541
00:28:19,714 --> 00:28:21,954
Government, churches, and doctors

542
00:28:21,980 --> 00:28:26,188
still saw us as illegal, immoral, and sick.

543
00:28:26,214 --> 00:28:29,055
One of the biggest problems I
think is police harassment,

544
00:28:29,081 --> 00:28:32,141
unequal treatment under the laws.

545
00:28:32,167 --> 00:28:35,156
For instance, the
surveillance of gay bars

546
00:28:35,189 --> 00:28:38,990
is much more strict
than that accorded to heterosexual bars.

547
00:28:39,016 --> 00:28:42,139
It seems strange, but gay
people would be arrested.

548
00:28:42,165 --> 00:28:43,834
They didn't know they couldn't be arrested.

549
00:28:43,860 --> 00:28:45,819
They figured they were
guilty for being gay,

550
00:28:45,845 --> 00:28:47,084
and so they got arrested.

551
00:28:47,110 --> 00:28:49,759
Very few, if any, fought back.

552
00:28:50,571 --> 00:28:53,470
At that time, as far as
the police were concerned,

553
00:28:53,496 --> 00:28:55,951
gay people were unapprehended felons,

554
00:28:55,977 --> 00:28:59,470
and lawmakers were too
concerned about re-election

555
00:28:59,496 --> 00:29:01,546
to try to do anything about it.

556
00:29:01,790 --> 00:29:05,546
Del and Phyllis decided the
best way to sway public opinion

557
00:29:05,571 --> 00:29:08,546
would be to get the church on our side.

558
00:29:08,618 --> 00:29:10,873
So the Daughters of Bilitis teamed up

559
00:29:10,899 --> 00:29:12,546
with other gay rights leaders

560
00:29:12,571 --> 00:29:15,936
and some of San Francisco's
most influential ministers

561
00:29:15,962 --> 00:29:19,852
to create the Council on
Religion and the Homosexual.

562
00:29:20,087 --> 00:29:23,795
This was a big step because the
ministers were going to try

563
00:29:23,821 --> 00:29:26,243
to convince the bigots in their pews

564
00:29:26,269 --> 00:29:28,852
that Jesus didn't hate gays.

565
00:29:29,353 --> 00:29:31,673
That was in 1965,

566
00:29:31,860 --> 00:29:35,063
and it's still a tough
sell today, okay?

567
00:29:36,633 --> 00:29:38,623
One of their most significant events

568
00:29:38,649 --> 00:29:41,546
was the now-infamous New
Year's costume ball

569
00:29:41,571 --> 00:29:43,696
to raise funds for this new group,

570
00:29:43,735 --> 00:29:46,646
which may seem like a fun night
out by today's standards,

571
00:29:46,672 --> 00:29:50,422
but at the time, it was a
dangerous and radical move.

572
00:29:50,448 --> 00:29:52,818
At that time, the police took the position

573
00:29:52,844 --> 00:29:56,665
that the only time you could dress
up in drag was on Halloween.

574
00:29:57,438 --> 00:29:59,373
And this was going to be a gala affair

575
00:29:59,399 --> 00:30:01,546
in which if you wanted to
go in drag, you could.

576
00:30:01,696 --> 00:30:04,055
- And it wasn't Halloween?
- It wasn't Halloween.

577
00:30:08,571 --> 00:30:10,975
The evening of the ball,
the ministers were there

578
00:30:11,001 --> 00:30:13,462
with their wives, receiving everyone.

579
00:30:13,743 --> 00:30:15,584
There were paddy wagons out front,

580
00:30:15,610 --> 00:30:18,266
and the whole place was
flooded with lights.

581
00:30:18,329 --> 00:30:19,693
The cops were taking pictures

582
00:30:19,719 --> 00:30:22,118
of everyone going in and
out of the building.

583
00:30:23,016 --> 00:30:24,546
In those circumstances,

584
00:30:24,571 --> 00:30:27,344
which is like passing a
picket line of cops,

585
00:30:27,414 --> 00:30:31,099
over 500 lesbians and
gays, including teachers,

586
00:30:31,133 --> 00:30:34,415
including people we knew who
were in sensitive positions,

587
00:30:34,441 --> 00:30:38,055
crossed that picket line
of cops into the building.

588
00:30:46,259 --> 00:30:48,290
We were the attorneys there at the door

589
00:30:48,316 --> 00:30:49,819
and we were there to make sure

590
00:30:49,845 --> 00:30:51,561
that everything was on the up and up

591
00:30:51,587 --> 00:30:54,827
so that there couldn't be any
reason to make any arrests.

592
00:30:54,853 --> 00:30:57,220
And then the police went
back on their word.

593
00:30:57,274 --> 00:31:00,030
I heard one of the cops say to a minister,

594
00:31:00,056 --> 00:31:03,569
"Well, if you're not going to
uphold God's law, then we will."

595
00:31:06,241 --> 00:31:09,832
Then all of a sudden, there were a
whole bunch of police in uniform came.

596
00:31:09,858 --> 00:31:12,546
They grabbed me, one on each side,

597
00:31:12,571 --> 00:31:14,850
and then they put us in jail.

598
00:31:18,866 --> 00:31:21,436
Once the cops arrested Evander and Herb,

599
00:31:21,571 --> 00:31:24,309
they barged in and then
they had to arrest somebody

600
00:31:24,335 --> 00:31:26,421
to justify what they had done.

601
00:31:26,493 --> 00:31:29,429
And so they charged these
guys with fondling each other.

602
00:31:29,571 --> 00:31:31,639
They hadn't been fondling each other!

603
00:31:31,819 --> 00:31:35,629
The whole situation at
the dance Saturday night

604
00:31:35,655 --> 00:31:38,147
was a situation of police harassment.

605
00:31:38,452 --> 00:31:41,458
The next day, seven angry ministers

606
00:31:41,484 --> 00:31:43,018
held a press conference.

607
00:31:43,044 --> 00:31:46,372
They were outraged by
what they had witnessed.

608
00:31:46,571 --> 00:31:49,799
Before that, they had
just heard our stories.

609
00:31:49,825 --> 00:31:52,442
This time, they lived through it.

610
00:31:52,723 --> 00:31:56,059
They began to see lesbians
and gays in a new light.

611
00:31:56,114 --> 00:32:00,427
And from then on, public opinion
really did start to change.

612
00:32:00,453 --> 00:32:01,643
It was significant.

613
00:32:01,669 --> 00:32:03,752
Boy, it galvanized the gay
community into action.

614
00:32:03,778 --> 00:32:04,809
Absolutely.

615
00:32:05,309 --> 00:32:07,911
That was our Stonewall.

616
00:32:08,091 --> 00:32:10,442
It had just as much confrontation.

617
00:32:10,468 --> 00:32:12,546
It didn't have the violent overtones,

618
00:32:12,571 --> 00:32:15,466
but we stood up and were counted.

619
00:32:18,458 --> 00:32:21,546
Both Del and Phyllis had
been editors of "The Ladder,"

620
00:32:21,571 --> 00:32:23,674
but then they were both getting tired.

621
00:32:23,700 --> 00:32:25,057
They wanted to do other things.

622
00:32:25,083 --> 00:32:27,235
They had responsibilities
on the board of directors,

623
00:32:27,261 --> 00:32:28,589
it was getting to be a burden,

624
00:32:28,615 --> 00:32:32,172
and they figured that I could
take over the magazine for a short term.

625
00:32:32,198 --> 00:32:36,546
Well, that's what happened. I only
intended to help out for a few months.

626
00:32:36,571 --> 00:32:38,683
Well, 3 1/2 years later...

627
00:32:39,730 --> 00:32:42,300
You see, I found I liked being editor.

628
00:32:42,326 --> 00:32:43,925
I liked the power.

629
00:32:44,168 --> 00:32:47,215
I could do a lot of things
that I thought were important.

630
00:32:47,241 --> 00:32:48,712
We tried to upgrade the fiction.

631
00:32:48,738 --> 00:32:50,774
We tried to upgrade the poetry,

632
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:53,118
and we certainly tried
to upgrade the covers.

633
00:32:53,144 --> 00:32:56,095
The covers were mostly drawings
when we first got the magazine,

634
00:32:56,121 --> 00:32:58,363
and some of them were perfectly awful.

635
00:32:58,389 --> 00:33:01,546
Great many pictures of
cats, drawings of cats.

636
00:33:01,707 --> 00:33:05,024
We kept making the "for adults
only" smaller and smaller.

637
00:33:05,050 --> 00:33:08,191
The subtitle, "A Lesbian
Review," got larger and larger.

638
00:33:08,965 --> 00:33:11,546
We tried not to politicize "The Ladder."

639
00:33:11,730 --> 00:33:14,079
There are lots of approaches
to changing society

640
00:33:14,105 --> 00:33:15,907
and how we fit into it.

641
00:33:15,933 --> 00:33:17,954
I told Barbara we'd welcome those

642
00:33:17,980 --> 00:33:20,546
with a more radical militant stance

643
00:33:20,571 --> 00:33:22,095
but that she needed to understand

644
00:33:22,121 --> 00:33:24,274
that not everyone was ready for that.

645
00:33:24,300 --> 00:33:28,168
Oh, there was always tension
of one kind or another,

646
00:33:28,571 --> 00:33:32,316
but that's partly because I think
any social change movement

647
00:33:32,342 --> 00:33:34,863
attracts strong-minded people.

648
00:33:35,571 --> 00:33:37,988
It's necessary to get things moving.

649
00:33:38,665 --> 00:33:41,503
Cue Mr. Frank Kameny,

650
00:33:41,746 --> 00:33:45,546
fabulous founder of Mattachine D.C.

651
00:33:45,571 --> 00:33:46,546
Check it out.

652
00:33:46,860 --> 00:33:49,384
He is about to kick the gay
rights movement up

653
00:33:49,410 --> 00:33:50,894
a few notches.

654
00:33:51,285 --> 00:33:55,207
Fired from his government
job in 1956 for being gay,

655
00:33:55,571 --> 00:33:58,371
Frank did not go quietly.

656
00:33:58,879 --> 00:34:02,546
The movement of those days
was a very unassertive,

657
00:34:02,571 --> 00:34:05,905
apologetic, defensive structure,

658
00:34:06,007 --> 00:34:08,911
not taking strong positions.

659
00:34:08,937 --> 00:34:11,903
Drivel! That didn't suit my personality.

660
00:34:11,929 --> 00:34:13,840
And the Mattachine Society of Washington

661
00:34:13,866 --> 00:34:15,929
was formed around my personality.

662
00:34:16,460 --> 00:34:18,981
Frank Kameny was a big influence on me

663
00:34:19,007 --> 00:34:21,825
because he had such a clear

664
00:34:21,919 --> 00:34:24,489
and compelling vision

665
00:34:24,778 --> 00:34:27,018
of what the movement should be doing.

666
00:34:27,044 --> 00:34:30,833
And that was that we should be
standing up on our hind legs

667
00:34:31,255 --> 00:34:34,786
and demanding our full
equality and our full rights.

668
00:34:38,857 --> 00:34:43,546
We started picketing, which
first created the mind-set

669
00:34:43,571 --> 00:34:49,396
which allowed for gays doing
public demonstration as gays.

670
00:34:51,571 --> 00:34:53,690
As much publicity as possible.

671
00:34:53,716 --> 00:34:57,724
That was the whole idea,
to crack that shield of invisibility

672
00:34:58,872 --> 00:35:00,940
that had always made it difficult for us

673
00:35:00,966 --> 00:35:02,857
to get our message across.

674
00:35:03,419 --> 00:35:06,932
You know, you knew you were
doing something momentous.

675
00:35:06,958 --> 00:35:09,073
Once isolated and separated,

676
00:35:09,099 --> 00:35:12,513
Mattachine and the Daughters
of Bilitis got together

677
00:35:12,539 --> 00:35:14,935
and started to mix it up.

678
00:35:15,571 --> 00:35:17,643
Gay and lesbian groups came out of hiding

679
00:35:17,669 --> 00:35:20,698
and got together, dressed to the nines,

680
00:35:20,724 --> 00:35:24,372
and picketed to show the
world that, yes, honey,

681
00:35:24,398 --> 00:35:26,546
we are just as good as you.

682
00:35:26,571 --> 00:35:29,091
They may look tame and orderly,

683
00:35:29,117 --> 00:35:32,701
but in 1965, gays on the picket line

684
00:35:32,727 --> 00:35:34,849
were a shock to the system.

685
00:35:40,571 --> 00:35:44,002
In the '60s, there was a
distinct change in the temper

686
00:35:44,028 --> 00:35:47,107
and the tempo of the gay movement,

687
00:35:47,591 --> 00:35:49,791
partly as a result of the...

688
00:35:49,817 --> 00:35:52,466
the black civil rights movement militancy.

689
00:35:52,817 --> 00:35:55,995
We characterized ourselves
within the movement

690
00:35:56,021 --> 00:35:58,546
as an activist militant organization.

691
00:35:58,571 --> 00:36:01,458
Well, those were very dirty
words in those days.

692
00:36:01,484 --> 00:36:04,787
And every 4th of July for
the rest of the decade,

693
00:36:04,928 --> 00:36:07,839
Barbara and Frank led a march

694
00:36:07,865 --> 00:36:10,546
in front of Philadelphia's
Independence Hall

695
00:36:10,571 --> 00:36:14,847
in what came to be known
as Reminder Notices,

696
00:36:14,873 --> 00:36:17,546
a reminder that gays and lesbians

697
00:36:17,571 --> 00:36:19,777
were still without rights and protections

698
00:36:19,803 --> 00:36:23,779
afforded other U.S. citizens
under the Constitution.

699
00:36:24,084 --> 00:36:26,621
It was a new show of unity,

700
00:36:26,647 --> 00:36:29,301
a new show of strength.

701
00:36:31,293 --> 00:36:34,285
Although the Daughters of Bilitis
and the Mattachine Society

702
00:36:34,311 --> 00:36:38,546
would fade from view following
the youthquake of the 1970s,

703
00:36:38,571 --> 00:36:41,546
the entire queer rights movement

704
00:36:41,571 --> 00:36:45,473
is built on the foundations they set down.

705
00:36:45,598 --> 00:36:47,808
And how's this for a happy ending?

706
00:36:47,996 --> 00:36:51,986
Del and Phyllis became the
first same-sex couple

707
00:36:52,012 --> 00:36:55,215
to legally tie the knot in 2008.

708
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:58,394
- With this ring...
- With this ring...

709
00:36:58,420 --> 00:37:00,546
- I thee wed.
- I thee wed.

710
00:37:03,269 --> 00:37:07,410
Before celebration, we
needed organization.

711
00:37:07,436 --> 00:37:09,441
They taught us how to work together,

712
00:37:09,467 --> 00:37:13,355
to come out of hiding,
and to fight the power.

713
00:37:13,381 --> 00:37:17,785
We have come this far, but
the fight is not over.

714
00:37:19,183 --> 00:37:21,546
We must stay vigilant.

715
00:37:21,860 --> 00:37:24,012
- Qui vive!
- _

716
00:37:25,114 --> 00:37:29,855
_

717
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:35,565
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