HOMOPHILE PRESS

"Homophile press" usually refers to the dozen or so mid-twentieth-century lesbian and gay newsletters and magazines published before the Stonewall Riots, most of which emphasized the acceptability of homosexuality through intellectual, political, and/or artistic content, and deemphasized the sexual aspects of homosexuality. Although lesbian and gay organizations did not widely adopt the word "homophile" until 1960, they (and later historians) often applied the term retroactively to groups and publications dating as far back as the late 1940s and early 1950s.

In retrospect, many of the publications of the homophile press may now seem tame and apologetic, but they were radical for their time. In an era when homosexuality was almost universally condemned as a crime, a sin, a mental illness, and a sign of general untrustworthiness, the writers of these publications dared to talk about homosexuality in the first person and say that it was an essentially harmless variation of human nature. Some homophile journalists directly challenged psychiatrists' claims that gay people were sick. Most of the publications argued for decriminalization of homosexuality and an end to police harassment of people in gay bars. They ran articles about police crackdowns, sex-law reform campaigns in other countries, famous homosexuals throughout history, psychiatric research into sexual orientation, and recent homophile events and conferences. Some also included book and film reviews, short stories, and whimsical humor. Even with this relatively tame content, postal authorities of the 1950s sometimes considered the mere fact that a magazine defended "sexual perversion" grounds to impound copies of it as obscene.

In addition to shipping copies to subscribers and organization members, the organizations that published such material often sent free copies to people perceived as having the power to change the treatment of lesbian and gay people in American society: mental health professionals, legislators, law enforcement officers, writers and journalists from mainstream news organizations, radio and television talk show hosts, and so on.

Pre-1960s Publications

The earliest homophile periodicals had very limited press runs, ranging from fewer than twenty copies per issue to about 7,500. Some people have argued that the homophile press had little impact on lesbian and gay people at the time. It is in fact true that most lesbians and gay men did not even know there was a movement afoot for gay equality, much less that gay news periodicals existed. However, these publications were important despite their small circulation. For the movement's writers and activists, the homophile press was a laboratory for developing ideas, political philosophies, and rhetoric, and a way to keep up with what colleagues were accomplishing elsewhere in the country. For nonmovement readers, the periodicals were a source of information, entertainment, and ideas that were at odds with the overwhelming conventional wisdom about homosexuality. For straight mental health professionals and law enforcement officers, they provided an opportunity to understand the perspectives of a type of homosexual person such heterosexuals seldom knowingly met: those neither in therapy nor in trouble with the police. The magazines were also a way of encouraging the mainstream media to occasionally present reports about homosexuality that took into account the perspectives of the people most affected: homosexuals themselves.

When authors write about the history of the homophile press, they usually begin with Vice Versa, which published nine monthly issues starting in June 1947. Its editor and main writer, later known as "Lisa Ben," distributed this typewritten, carbon-copied newsletter for women in two Los Angeles lesbian bars. Distributing Vice Versa was simple because there were only twelve copies of each issue. Vice Versa is the earliest U.S. lesbian and/or gay–equality periodical known to survive. The only earlier documented publications were the 1925 newsletters of the Chicago-based Society for Human Rights, no copies of which are known to still exist.

The "big three" national homophile magazines of the 1950s— ONE, the Mattachine Review, and the Ladder —were the official publications of the era's most prominent homophile groups: ONE, Incorporated; the Mattachine Society; and the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB). All three either launched with or quickly adopted a professionally typeset look. All were monthly publications for most of their run.

ONE was the first to launch, in 1953. Its parent organization, ONE, Incorporated, was founded in Los Angeles the year before for the purpose of creating a lesbian and gay–focused news and literary magazine. ONE differed from previous lesbian and gay periodicals in that it was professionally typeset on semigloss paper, was sold openly at several newsstands, and had a comparatively large press run. Editors during the first year were Martin Block and (later) Dale Jennings, who had cofounded the magazine with Bill Lambert (a.k.a. "W. Dorr Legg"). Early contributors included Jim Kepner, Chuck Rowland, and Ann Carll Reid. Although the magazine's content focused more on gay men than lesbians for most of its run, it did often include material by lesbian writers and artists, and for a time it was edited by a woman (Reid). After the magazine's debut, its parent organization developed into a lesbian and gay–equality group and an academic-style research and learning center on lesbian and gay issues. In 1958 ONE won a landmark legal battle that benefited all homophile publications: the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that defending homosexuality did not, in and of itself, make a magazine obscene. That same year, ONE, Incorporated, began to publish America's first lesbian and gay–studies journal, the groundbreaking ONE Institute Quarterly of Homophile Studies (1958–1965). It was an unprecedented publication with a limited appeal: it attracted fewer than two hundred subscribers. The group also produced a newsletter for members, ONE Confidential. ONE magazine continued publication until 1969, when it fell apart due to internal factionalism.

The Mattachine Review, the second major homophile magazine, stood in stark contrast to ONE. For much of its 1955 to 1966 run, it was a kind of gay Reader's Digest, composed of reprints and summaries of gay-relevant articles originally published elsewhere, interspersed with original reporting and opinion. Whereas ONE often published fiction, poetry, and humor, the Mattachine Review was primarily a source of news and political views. Even more so than ONE, it deemphasized sex. Partly, this approach was a public relations ploy, to counteract the stereotype that gay people were sex fiends who cared little about personal responsibility as members of society. Partly, it was on the advice of the Mattachine Society's lawyers, who worried both about the magazine's potential seizure for obscenity and about its being perceived as promoting a criminal activity (gay sex). Especially in its early years, the Mattachine Review advanced a very conformist, middle-class image of gay men, suggesting they are just like everyone else and would blend into society inconspicuously if only society would let them. In addition to this national magazine, there were local Mattachine newsletters in at least eight cities, most of which began publication in the 1960s.

The Ladder began as a mimeographed publication. As the official magazine of DOB—a lesbian organization—it focused primarily on news, features, poetry, and fiction for women. However, its readership and writers did include some gay men. DOB cofounders Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon launched the Ladder in San Francisco in 1956 as a way to boost the membership of their struggling, year-old organization. In the mid-1960s, under the editorship of Philadelphia-based activist Barbara Gittings, it became the first lesbian or gay magazine to consistently feature photos of actual people (in this case, lesbians) on the covers, thus putting a human face on homosexuality. During this period, the production of the Ladder became a battleground for some of the era's key ideological controversies within the homophile movement, and Gittings often had disagreements with the DOB's national headquarters over everything from the magazine's content to the text that appeared on each cover. By the time Barbara Grier (a.k.a. Gene Damon) became the Ladder 's final editor in 1968, DOB as an organization was on the wane, eclipsed by more radical organizations with ties to the women's liberation movement. Grier infused the Ladder with feminist politics that did not sit well with the DOB's national leadership. In 1970, after a lengthy struggle with DOB, she gained full control of the magazine. Grier published it independently until 1972. Judging from the letters received by the editors throughout the magazine's sixteen years, the publication served as a lifeline for a great many lesbians in remote areas of the United States. The DOB's regional chapters throughout the country also produced newsletters focusing on local events and issues.

Publications That Debuted in the 1960s

Some pre-Stonewall gay-equality periodicals of the 1960s fit firmly into the homophile model established in the 1950s, whereas others employed sexual references and political rhetoric that presaged the sexual liberationist gay lib publications of the early 1970s.

Periodicals following the homophile model included mimeographed newsletters such as the LCE News (published in San Francisco by the League for Civil Education starting in 1961), The Atheneum Review (published in Florida by the Atheneum Society starting in 1964), and the Homophile Action League Newsletter (published in Philadelphia starting in 1968). There were also slicker publications with a magazine format, such as Tangents (which split off from One in 1965) and The Homosexual Citizen (published by the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., in collaboration with the Mattachine Society of Florida starting in 1966).

One of the earliest gay news periodicals to incorporate nude photography and a more sex-positive ethos was Drum, published in Philadelphia beginning in 1964.Drum was the brainchild of Clark Polak, head of Philadelphia's Janus Society (formerly the local Mattachine chapter). In Drum, Polak created one of the best-selling gay periodicals of the era and used the profits to fund activism and legal challenges. The idea of a homophile organization issuing a borderline soft-porn magazine made Polak and the Janus Society many enemies within the homophile movement. The magazine included serious news (indeed, it was apparently the first gay publication to hire a clipping service to research gay-relevant events in the world), as well as sexually tinged comic strips and essays. However, it was the photographs of young men in bathing suits, shorts, or nothing at all that fueled the ire of many activists. To avoid problems with postal authorities, Drum avoided using full frontal nudity (at least not in the version mailed to subscribers), but Polak was nonetheless arrested for distributing obscene literature. In 1969 the magazine folded amid pending legal actions.

In 1967 the Los Angeles–based Personal Rights in Defense and Education (PRIDE) launched a newsletter that would soon become a nationally sold independent gay newspaper: the Los Angeles Advocate. A review of its back issues from the late 1960s indicates a tone very different from that of the 1950s homophile publications. Although the Advocate, too, contained news and reviews, its playful approach suggested something not obvious in the earlier, more solemn homophile press: that gay people sometimes had fun. In its pages it promoted such clearly nonhomophile events as an ongoing "Advocate Groovy Guy Contest," in which well-muscled young male readers vied to be named the Groovy Guy of the year. The Advocate, like other publications such as Vector (in San Francisco) and the newspaper Gay (in New York), marked a transitional stage between the old homophile press and the imminent explosion of gay liberation publications.

As longtime ONE columnist and Advocate journalist Jim Kepner once noted, some historians have dismissed the earliest homophile periodicals as amateurish, because they had few professionally trained journalists on their staff. However, as Kepner pointed out, professional journalists were not willing to take the risk of writing for the homophile press. "We did the job," he said, "while the professional journalists stayed in the closet for thirty years" (pp. 6–7).

Bibliography

Cain, Paul D. Leading the Parade: Conversations with America's Most Influential Lesbians and Gay Men. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2002.

D'Emilio, John. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940–1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.

Kepner, Jim. Rough News, Daring Views: 1950s Pioneer Gay Press Journalism. New York: Harrington Park Press, 1998.

The Ladder, 1956–1972. New York: Arno Press, 1975.

Marcus, Eric. Making Gay History: The Half-Century Fight for Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.

The Mattachine Review, 1955–1966. New York: Arno Press, 1975.

Stein, Marc. City of Sisterly and Brotherly Loves: Lesbian and Gay Philadelphia, 1945–1972. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Streitmatter, Rodger. Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1995.

Tobin, Kay, and Randy Wicker. The Gay Crusaders. New York: Arno Press, 1975.

Steven Capsuto

see alsoadvocate; ben, lisa; censorship, obscenity, and pornography law and policy; drum; gittings, barbara, and kay tobin lahusen; grier, barbara; homophile movement; kepner, james; ladder; legg, dorr; lyon, phyllis, and del martin; mattachine review; newspapers and magazines; one; polak, clark.