How Gay Is Gay?
Wandering into the New Town section of Chicago's North Side, a visitor quickly notices the changed city scene: male couples in tight jeans and with close-cropped hair walk together; the crowd watching a volleyball game in Lincoln Park is all male, so are most of the people taking the spring air on a strip of beach along Lake Michigan. In the past few years New Town has become Chicago's first center of open homosexual activity, with an initial result that could have been predicted a decade ago: last summer roving gangs of young toughs shouting anti-homosexual epithets beat up a number of men strolling the streets of the area late at night.
What followed, however, would have been remarkable if not unthinkable in Chicago or in many other major American cities just a few years ago. Gay Life, a local homosexual weekly, organized street patrols to stop the assaults. They were also aided by "straight" volunteers from neighborhood community associations. Moreover, they were helped by the Chicago police. Says a rather astonished Grant Ford, publisher of Gay Life: "The community groups came to our help right away. They saw us as neighbors rather than gays. The police were even more amazing. They were totally cooperative."
In its way, what happened in New Town symbolizes a national trend that is changing the lives of the American minority that forms the gay society. Homosexual men and women are coming out of the closet as never before to live openly. They are colonizing areas of big cities as their own turf, operating bars and even founding churches in conservative small towns, and setting up a nationwide network of organizations to offer counseling and companionship to those gays-still the vast majority-who continue to conceal their sexual orientation. As in New Town, gay people still encounter suspicion and hostility, and occasionally violence, and their campaign to live openly and freely is still far from won. But they are gaining a degree of acceptance and even sympathy from heterosexuals, many of whom are still unsure how to deal with them, that neither straights nor gays would have thought possible just the day before yesterday.
The evolving status of gays, and the way they are perceived by heterosexuals, is all the more surprising because of the nature of the gay society. Homosexuals form the most amorphous and isolated -though also the most pervasive-of all American minorities. Blacks and Hispanics, for example, are unified to a large degree by physical characteristics, history, customs and often socioeconomic position. "We cut across every socioeconomic line, every racial line," says Jean O'Leary, co-leader of the National Gay Task Force. "We're in every profession you can imagine." Says Robert L. Livingston, a gay member of the New York City commission on human rights: "Homosexuals are disco babies and Goldwater Republicans." He is not exaggerating: Donald Embinder, 44, gay publisher of Blueboy, something like a homosexual Playboy (circ. 135,000), once campaigned for Arizona's senior Senator.
Today the gays lack a recognized leadership: the heads of their organizations speak for only a tiny minority of a minority, and alone among American leaders they have no census of their constituency. The Institute of Sex Research, founded by Alfred C. Kinsey, defines a homosexual as anyone who has had more than six sexual experiences with a member of the same gender. On that basis, the institute estimates that homosexuals constitute 10% of the U.S. population (13% of the males, 5% of the females). Of these, according to gay leaders, perhaps only 1% or so are out of the closet. The rest are still known as homosexuals only to themselves and perhaps a few trusted friends. Until a decade ago, they had nothing in common but their sexual orientation and fear of society's contempt.
The turning point came in the summer of 1969 in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, when 400 gays flooded the streets for several nights to protest police raids on the Stonewall Inn, a homosexual bar on Christopher Street. The anti-Viet Nam, civil rights and women's rights movements all helped galvanize gays into thinking that they, too, could make a claim on society for recognition of their basic rights and point of view. Since then, the gay rights movement has impressed the nation's consciousness strongly enough to gain an ironic tribute: the rise of an alarmed, organized and vehement opposition that includes fundamentalist churches.
The struggle is being fought on many levels. Politically, the movement's victories are now barely balancing its defeats. Thirty-nine cities, towns and counties, including Detroit, Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis, have enacted ordinances forbidding discrimination against homosexuals in jobs and housing, but only five of those communities have been added to the list in the past two years. The city council in supposedly blase and sophisticated New York City defeated such an ordinance in 1978. Last week the Connecticut house of representatives voted down a gay rights bill.
Singer Anita Bryant's well-publicized anti-homosexual crusade in 1977 led to the repeal of gay rights ordinances in Dade County, Fla., Wichita, Kans., St. Paul and Eugene, Ore. But Bryant's efforts also prodded gays by the tens of thousands to join homosexual rights organizations. In Washington, B.C., last fall, the gays organized to help elect Marion Barry as mayor. A staunch gay rights advocate, Barry has expressed gratitude for their support. Says Tom Bostow, president of Washington's Gertrude Stein Democratic Club: "The single person who elected Barry was Anita Bryant." The gays also mobilized enough strength at the polls in California last November to turn down, 3 to 2, a proposition that would have permitted school boards to fire any openly homosexual teachers.
In 1975 the Civil Service Commission, responding to a federal court decision, issued guidelines stating that people could not be denied federal employment solely because of homosexuality. The guidelines do not govern some "excepted" departments. Among these, the Foreign Service and the Agency for International Development of the State Department officially ended discrimination against homosexuals two years ago, but the FBI and CIA are still holding out. The Defense Department clings to a hard-line policy: "Known homosexuals are separated from the military service."
Some 40 Congressmen are now sponsoring an amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that would forbid discrimination in jobs, housing, public facilities or federally aided programs on the basis of "affectional or sexual orientation," as well as race or religion. It has little chance of passage this year. In the future, each side will probably win a vote here and there, but in the nation as a whole the gays and the anti-gays seem to have fought each other to a political standstill.
That is not the case on the social and psychological fronts, where the increasing openness and the acceptance of gays is startling. Significantly, some 120 national corporations, including such major companies as AT&T and IBM, have announced that they do not discriminate in hiring or promoting people because they are homosexual. Television and movies are treating gay themes more openly and sympathetically. ABC's hit series Soap, for example, has two homosexual characters, one a macho football player. Another sign of the times: Advice Columnist Ann Landers, a stalwart champion of traditional morality, now counsels parents not to be ashamed of their homosexual children.
In several big cities-New York, Boston, Chicago-gays have moved into rundown neighborhoods, renovated buildings and set up their own bustling communities. One of the best-established gay neighborhoods is in San Francisco, where homosexuals are flocking by the thousands from all over the country to Castro Street and the Haight-Ashbury section, once the capital of hippiedom. They are even being recruited for the police department.
The district was once represented on the city board of supervisors by Harvey Milk, a gay leader who was killed in November by Daniel James White, a former member of the board and a political opponent. Now running for the seat is Leonard Matlovich, who was discharged from the Air Force four years ago in a test case on homosexual rights.
Even outside such "gay ghettos" as San Francisco's, the most striking evidence of the movement is the astonishing proliferation of organizations dedicated publicly to serving homosexuals, whether out of or still in the closet. They are designed to help gays in what is still in the overwhelming majority of cases a lonely struggle: first the battle within themselves to face the truth about their sexual orientation, then the excruciatingly difficult decision whether or not to "come out" -and if so, when and to whom.
A few younger gays, especially in big cities, have never hidden their identities. Benefiting from the progress of the movement, they have lived openly as homosexuals since they first realized that they were gay But they are a tiny minority of a minority Says Robin MacCormack, a gay assistant to Boston Mayor Kevin White: "I am just one very fortunate person. In those buildings in the financial district and all around the city, there are people who go to work every day wondering: Is this the day I'm going to let something slip? Is this the day I'm going to lose career chances or even my job?' It's a costume party, for gays and straights alike. Sometimes it's come as you are, but most often it's come as you aren't."
Even among those gays who have decided to reveal their sexuality, very few are all the way out of the closet. Some reveal their homosexuality to a few trusted friends but not to parents; some to parents but not to grandparents; some to families and friends but not employers. They are never sure of the reaction they will get. A young San Francisco attorney who handles the account of a major oil company for one of the city's most prestigious law firms finally steeled himself to reveal his homosexuality to one of his senior partners at dinner. The boss said he did not care, but cautioned the lawyer not to tell the other senior partners just yet. Elaine Noble, another assistant to Boston Mayor White, belongs to a 200-member organization of Boston-area lesbian professionals-bankers, lawyers, stockbrokers, ad people. She is one of merely a handful of members who have openly proclaimed their sexual orientation.
About the only way that homosexuals could find companionship until a few years ago was in gay bars or cruising certain streets. (One result: the rate of alcoholism among homosexuals is estimated at 20% to 30%, three to four times the rate among all adult Americans.) Today Washington, D.C., has more than 80 homosexual organizations, and Boston, with 70. even has one for overweight lesbians.
These organizations generally divide into two types. Many are primarily meeting, counseling and support groups for homosexual lawyers, doctors, businessmen, teachers, whatever. A person calling such a group will be put in touch with other gay males or lesbians with whom he or she can arrange quiet dinners and talks about professional or social problems. The organizations are particularly helpful for older gays who have no desire to patronize bars or discos catering to homosexuals, and whose life-style is far removed from the tight-jeans set.
The other type of homosexual organization is the community service group. For the religiously inclined, there is a national gay church: the Metropolitan Community Church, headquartered in Los Angeles and including 80 congregations throughout the U.S. In Boston, the Homophile Community Health Service provides psychological counseling for gays who fear that straight doctors will tell them that the source of all gays' problems is their homosexuality.
Despite these new forms of support, gays still often feel isolated and persecuted. There are now three homosexual bathhouses in Milwaukee, a sign in a way of how far the movement has come. But there has been a price to pay: since last year, police have arrested 36 men on charges of disorderly conduct, though the police found enough evidence to arraign only four. Says Milwaukee District Attorney E. Michael McCann: "I view the homosexual community as a quiet but suppurating sore on the body politic."
Even in cities or states that have freedom-of-sex laws, the gays are often in danger of losing jobs, or their apartments, if they come out. Says Gay Boston Attorney John P. Ward, speaking of Massachusetts, whose highest court has handed down two notably liberal decisions: "What the law really is is what happens in the little district courts, and between you and the police officer-and the law has to change considerably before the message goes out to places like Fitchburg and Leominster that it is not open season on homosexuals."
As a result, while the gay rights movement is definitely moving ahead, the life-styles of homosexuals vary widely throughout the nation. Some examples:
> In Mankato, Minn. (pop. 32,000), Jim Chalgren, 27, and five other men were thrown out of the Trader and Trapper Discotheque in 1976 for dancing together. Now Chalgren occasionally dances with other men in bars and encounters nothing worse than name-calling. In fact, he has organized gay dances that are held every three or four months in hotel ballrooms, drawing crowds of as many as 130. But, he says, "there are people who meet at our dances who will avoid each other if they cross paths in a hardware store. It can still be a disaster to be identified as gay in Mankato."
> In Macon, Ga. (pop. 150,000), two gay bars compete for customers with no police harassment. But the only proclaimed homosexual in town is Disc Jockey Johnny Fambro, who came out last fall to help organize opposition to an Anita Bryant rally. "Susan," a lesbian who works at nearby Robins Air Force Base, attended the anti-Bryant demonstration but would not carry a picket sign because she feared she would not get a security clearance; nor will she take her roommate "Doris" to parties.
> In Cambridge, Mass., the Harvard -Radcliffe Gay Student Association meets openly every Wednesday night to hear speeches and play readings, and has thrown parties that attracted as many as 300 students from the area. At Harvard Law School, gays have acquired considerable clout; the school now will not allow any law firms that discriminate against homosexuals to use its placement service for employment interviews. But gay students at Harvard Business School still keep their homosexuality a deep secret for fear that it will hurt their employment prospects with major corporations when they graduate. The chairwoman of the Radcliffe Lesbians Association asks that her name not be printed in TIME because "I would just as soon my relations in California did not know."
Among the gays, there is a basic split between those who flaunt a defiant lifestyle and the closeted, who grant that "drag queens" and "flaming fags" have called attention to the gays' plight by marching in the streets, yet would never dream of emulating them. There are other divisions. Black homosexuals charge, with some justice, that the gay rights movement is dominated by whites who are often no less racist than straight society. At the same time they are rejected, and vehemently, by heterosexual blacks. Says Terri Clark, a Washington lesbian activist: "The black community is extremely homophobic, because it feels that the [homosexual] person has been corrupted by the white man's perversions."
Lesbians often feel themselves to be the most persecuted minority of all. One reason is economic: working at low-paying jobs, they usually do not have as much money as gay males, who are often successful in the straight world. Nor do homosexual men usually have children to support, as do a fair number of lesbians who have finally admitted their sexual orientation. Many female homosexuals think they have less in common with gay men than with heterosexual feminists, who have now largely accepted them after some early misgivings.
The males are also far more visible than the females in performing one of the most fascinating roles of the gay rights movement: influencing straight culture. Male homosexuals have long been particularly active in the world of the arts, where they often can work openly with no fear of losing their livelihood if they have the talent; Novelist Truman Capote and Playwright Tennessee Williams are two notable examples. But the new influence of homosexuals is something quite different: their dress, tastes and speech are being adopted by many straights who would be stunned if they knew the origins of the latest fashions or fads.
The extent of this influence is difficult to pin down since there is no readily identifiable "gay aesthetic." For every flamboyant gay male who parades about in tight-fitting Levi's and bomber jacket (one current uniform), there are others who wear three-piece pinstripe suits, and even the strollers in New Town and Castro Street will affect one look today and another tomorrow. What does seem to be true, however, is that some open gays, feeling themselves to be rebels against conventional society, search restlessly for new fashions that run counter to the straight taste of the moment. Then fashion designers and music executives, some of whom are themselves gay, introduce to straight audiences whatever new look or sound catches on at Fire Island or other gathering places for gays. Says David Rothenberg, a gay who used to be a publicist on Broadway: "If I were a businessman, I'd walk Christopher Street la gay parade ground in Manhattan's Greenwich Village] because that's what they'll be selling at Lamston's next year."
The outstanding example of gay taste going straight is the popularity of disco lights, dancing and music, which swept the homosexual clubs of Fire Island and Manhattan long before they caught on among straights. Some gays feel that homosexuals especially long to lose themselves in the kind of glittery, dream-fantasy world created by discos. Says one gay editor: "To me, Studio 54 is the epitome of the gay aesthetic"-a sentiment that might startle many of that watering hole's patrons.
Music executives know that the songs and performers that most excite gay audiences have the best chance of selling nationally. Music indeed is one field in which being gay can be a benefit. Marc Paul Simon, vice president of Casablanca Record and Filmworks in Los Angeles, told a boss about his homosexuality his second day on an earlier job at Twentieth Century Fox Records. Says Simon: "I made it a selling point. I told him that I would be an advantage, since the best clubs are gay."
A male homosexual model, acclaimed as one of the world's best-dressed men, cites examples of fashion takeovers. "The first time I saw men wearing Adidas running shoes as part of casual wear was in the homosexual community on Fire Island several years ago. Now it has become a fashion staple in the straight world." Gays were among the first to wear baggy white painters' pants, though such garments are now being bought by heterosexual men and women. In more elegant ensembles, the wearing of silk scarves with sport coats or suits began among gays and is now catching on with dressy straights.
More generally, homosexuals adopted long hair before it became de rigueur for young males of all persuasions; once long hair was in, the gays led the swing to short back and sides. There is, in fact, a saying among homosexuals that straights will adopt a fashion just as avante-garde gays are turning to something new.
If the gays are split over fashions and lifestyles, they are splintered in matters of politics and strategy. Last February delegates to a national conference sponsored by a coalition of gay male and lesbian organizations in Philadelphia voted to stage a march on Washington on Oct. 14 to urge passage of gay-rights legislation across the country. But many gays shudder at the prospect of more militant and flamboyant homosexuals besieging Capitol Hill in full view of the TV cameras. The opponents of the march fear it will cause a damaging backlash. Says Doug Wright, a Washington, D.C., editor: "That's like handing Anita Bryant a victory she can't get anywhere else."
The movement is also split on ultimate goals. Most gays want only to be allowed to live openly and freely without suffering any penalty from society. But the radical fringe is agitating for the repeal of laws making sexual contact between adult gays and young boys a crime. The idea horrifies many homosexuals, who are well aware of the deep-seated fear among many parents that gays are out to seduce or enthrall straight children, a view homosexual leaders hotly deny.
Whatever course the organized gay movement may take, and whatever its victories or defeats, the outlook is for more and more homosexuals to come at least partly out of the closet. Says Chicago Psychologist Jon lost: "Ten or 15 years ago, homosexuality was just not discussed, and many people suffered because they simply did not know that there have always been people like themselves. Everything that has happened in the past few years has reduced the potential for that isolation. Just hearing the word gay, reading it in a newspaper, seeing a gay person, real or fictional, on television-any of those things make it easier for a person to come out."
Nor can heterosexual society again ignore the subject of homosexuality, as many straights devoutly wish it could. Says Eric Rofes, a gay teacher in a Cambridge, Mass., private school: "Ten years ago, few people knew that they knew a gay person. Today, most kids grow up knowing that they know someone who is gay." Knowledge, however, does not necessarily mean acceptance.
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