Along the way, he described how things used to be. “You know, the guys there were so beautiful—they’ve lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago.”

But Stonewall, Compton, and Dewey’s all have one thing in common: drag queens and street kids.

think Focus was next. This is a pretty conservative gay group from extremely conservative Orange County. The Focus group carried a large sign reading “Homosexuals for Ronald Reagan.” I heard one woman spectator on the sidewalk say, “I can forgive them for being homosexuals, but not for being for Ronald Reagan.”

In a paradoxical sense, once I accepted my position as different from the larger society as well as from any single sub-society—Black or gay—I felt I didn’t have to try so hard. To be accepted. To look femme. To be straight. To look straight. To be proper. To look “nice.” To be liked. To be loved. To be approved. What I didn’t realize was how much

am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and constitutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered, and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance als

The stories of the participants make it clear that it marked the convergence of homophile-era activism with the energy and vision of the civil rights, antiwar, and counterculture movements that were transforming the country.

But this is all about how very difficult it is at times for people to see who or what they are looking at, particularly when they don’t want to.

Isn’t every minority group fucked over by the values of the majority culture?

We say that homosexuality is a perfectly natural state, a fact, a way of life, and that we enjoy our sexuality, without feelings of inferiority or guilt. We seek and find love, and approach love, as a feeling of loving mutuality.