Tag Archives: activist

PRIDE Month - Remembering Malcolm Michaels Jr. aka Marsha P. Johnson: The Original Drag Queen Trans Activist (1945 - 1992)

PRIDE Month – Remembering Malcolm Michaels Jr. aka Marsha P. Johnson: The Original Drag Queen Trans Activist (1945 – 1992)

Malcolm Michaels, Jr. aka. Marsha P. Johnson was an African-American self-identified gay man and drag queen who advocated for “trans rights”  in New York City’s gay scene from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Malcolm Michaels, Jr. was born on August 24, 1945, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Johnson experienced a difficult childhood due to her Christian upbringing. 

He engaged in cross-dressing behavior at an early age but was quickly reprimanded. Johnson moved to Greenwich Village in New York City after graduating from high school. In New York, he struggled to make ends meet. He was homeless and prostituted himself and engaged in petty theft to make ends meet. However, he found joy as a drag queen amidst the nightlife of Christopher Street. And Marsha Johnson was born. He designed all of his costumes (mostly from thrift shops) and quickly became a prominent fixture in the gay community serving as a “drag mother” by helping homeless and struggling LGBT youth.

One of the city’s oldest and best-known “drag queens”, (which is what Marsha proudly referred to herself as) Johnson participated in clashes with the police amid the Stonewall Riots along with her friend Sylvia Rivera and hundreds of others. (After wrongly being credited for stating it.)) and both became co-founders, of the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.) in the early 1970s.   Marsha and Sylvia became the mothers of  S.T.A.R House and together gathered food and clothing to help support the young queens. Sometimes legally.  Most times not.

STAR opened its first STAR House in a parked trailer truck in a Greenwich Village parking lot later that year. It functioned as a shelter and social space for drag/trans sex workers and other LGBT street youth. However, the pair arrived one day to find the trailer was being towed, with as many as 20 youths still sleeping inside. This experience made them decide to find a more permanent home for STAR House. “Marsha and I decided to get a building,” Rivera told Leslie Feinberg in 1998. “We were trying to get away from the Mafia’s control at the bars. We got a building at 213 Second Avenue.”

Marsha was one of a kind.  Once, appearing in a court the judge asked Marsha, “What does the ‘P’ stand for?”,  Johnson gave his customary response “Pay it No Mind.” and the judge laughed and let him go.  This phrase became her trademark. In 1974 Marsha P. Johnson was photographed by famed artist Andy Warhol, as part of a “ladies and gentlemen” series of Polaroids featuring drag queens.

Masha P. Johnson was as tough, crazy, and as gritty as New York City itself.  But as kind and as loving as any mother could be to her “children”

In July of 1992 that came to an abrupt end when Johnson’s body was found floating in the Hudson River off the West Village Piers shortly after the 1992 Pride March. Police ruled the death a suicide. Johnson’s friends and supporters said she was not suicidal, and a people’s postering campaign later declared that Johnson had earlier been harassed near the spot where her body was found.  Attempts to get the police to investigate the cause of death were unsuccessful but many today believe that Johnson was murdered.

Marsha P. Johnson was an original, an activist, and a martyr.

May he be at peace and never be forgotten and finally be remembered correctly

Listen to Marsha P. Johnson Talk About the Stonewall Riots In Her Own Words – “We didn’t start the rebellion.” [RARE AUDIO]

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PAYPAL will@back2stonewall.com – VENMO @Will-Kohler-1 

Gay History - April 21, 1966: NYC Gay Rights Activist Stage "Sip-In" Protesting Over Refusal To Serve Homosexuals.

Gay History – April 21, 1966: NYC Gay Rights Activist Stage “Sip-In” Protesting Over Refusal To Serve Homosexuals.

On this date a little-known but a very important milestone in gay history took place at Julius’ bar on West 10th Street in NYC that helped pave the way for the Stonewall uprising and gay rights. 

On April 21, 1966, The Mattachine Society “staged” the first civil rights “sip-in.”

“At the time, being homosexual was in itself seen as a disorder,” said Dick Leitsch, an original member of the group. It was also “illegal” to serve a homosexual liquor by order of the New York State Liquor Authority.

The Mattachine Society activists invited four newspaper reporters along, including Thomas A. Johnson of The New York Times. The plan was to convene at noon at the Ukrainian-American Village Hall, a bar on St. Marks Place. The Times reporter tipped off the owners, who shut the bar for the day.  A sign in the window made the establishment’s attitude clear: “If you are gay, please stay away.”

So the group of men then moved across the street to The Dom, a club that, by night hosted concerts by the Velvet Underground. It had a sign just as unwelcoming as the one at the Ukrainian Hall. The Dom, too, was closed.

After going to a Howard Johnson’s, at Eighth Street and the Avenue of the Americas which served them. The men then advanced to a Mafia-owned tiki bar, The Waikiki. The  amused manager told them: “How do I know you’re homosexuals? Give these guys a drink on us.”

In desperation, the troupe trudged over to Julius’ on West 10th Street.  It was established in 1864 and is now known for being one of the oldest gay bars in New York City “It was a rather dull, neighborhood place which was about three-quarters gay,” said Randy Wicker, 78, who joined the action at that stop. “I called it a closet queen bar.”

The activists knew Julius’ had to refuse them, because the night before, a man who had been served there had later been entrapped by an officer for “gay activity,” meaning the bar was in jeopardy of having its liquor license revoked. As they entered, the men spied a sign that read “Patrons Must Face the Bar While Drinking,” an instruction used to thwart cruising.  

As soon as they approached, the bartender put a glass in front of him. When the men announced they were gay, the bartender put his hand over the glass; it was captured in a photograph by Fred McDarrah for The Village Voice.

The next day’s New York Times featured an article about the event with the headline “3 Deviates Invite Exclusion by Bars.” Two weeks later, a far more sympathetic piece appeared in The Village Voice. The publicity prompted a response from the State Liquor Authority chairman, Donald S. Hostetter, who denied that his organization ever threatened the liquor licenses of bars that served gays. The decision to serve was up to individual bartenders, he said.

At that point, the Commission on Human Rights became involved. It’s chairman, William H. Booth, told The Times in a later article: “We have jurisdiction over discrimination based on sex. Denial of bar service to a homosexual solely for that reason would come within those bounds.”

From that moment on gay men could not be refused service in any New York State Liquor Authority  licensed establishment.

In 2016, Julius Bar was designated as a New York City landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, recognizing its significance as a site of cultural and historical importance.

 It is one of only eleven sites in New York City listed on the National Register specifically for LGBT associations.

The small grill within the bar also makes one helluva cheeseburger .

READ: Carl Wittman's "Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto" (1970)

READ: Carl Wittman’s “Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto” (1970)

In 1969, Peace and Gay activist Carl Wittman wrote Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto published by The Red Butterfly cell of the Gay Liberation Front January 1970.[ It is considered one of the most influential gay liberation writings of the 1970s.

The document stemmed from a particular social and cultural background where aspirations toward equality and justice were constantly clashing with discrimination, marginalization, and harassment. This paper focuses on the historical context, through analyzing the coeval American society, highlighting the leading role played by the city of San Francisco and commenting on some of the key events that marked that epoch.

Wittmann offers a sharp criticism of the patriarchal and intrinsically intolerant society. He describes the oppression and the condition in the ghetto where they live, where mafia and corrupted law enforcement exploit gays and lesbians (Wittmann, 1970). The author discloses concepts about homosexuality, analyses the conditions of women, and opens new perspectives on how to live sexuality. Perhaps, the most significant contribution to the history of the LGBT movement is the invitation to come out and stop pretending to be straight sexually and socially 

“Exclusive heterosexuality is fucked up. It reflects a fear of people of the same sex, it’s anti-homosexual, and it is fraught with frustration. Heterosexual sex is fucked up too; ask women’s liberation about what straight guys are like in bed. Sex is aggression for the male chauvinist; sex is obligation for the traditional woman.” — Amerika: A Gay Manifesto

Wittmann’s Manifesto is an iconic text within the movement for LGBT liberation. The document, published in the heyday of the gay activism of the 1960s and 1970s, offers a 360° perspective on the homosexual world.

You can read the entire 10 page “Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Maifesto” by CLICKING HERE.

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*WHILE WE HAVE YOU HERE CAN YOU PLEASE HELP?

For the past 15years Back2Stonewall has brought independent news, LGBT History, and media from across the globe. We have paid for all hosting, research and postings all those years and no one draws a salary. But now dur to severe medical issues I have suffered and overwhelming medical bills we are very close to closing. If you can afford to DONATE ANY AMOUNT to keep us going , please do. It means hundreds of thousands will be able to access the only Library of Congress indexed LGBT History & Independent News website and we would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you in advance – Will Kohler

PAYPAL will@back2stonewall.com  + VENMO @Will-Kohler-1

Gay Leather History – December 11, 1945: John Preston; Journalist, Activist, and Father of S&M Gay Erotica Is Born

John Preston the award-winning writer, essayist, and journalist is born on this day in 1945.

Preston best known for his Leather S&M gay erotica was proud of his work believed it made him a better, more honest writer. As he explained in his 1993, Harvard lecture, which he titled “My Life as a Pornographer” (and which he later published in an essay compilation by the same name) “Pornography has made me be honest, about myself and some of the most intimate details of my life and my fantasies. … Once I had exposed my own sexual fantasies, my most intimate desires, I feared little else about self-exposure as a writer.”

Continue reading Gay Leather History – December 11, 1945: John Preston; Journalist, Activist, and Father of S&M Gay Erotica Is Born

5 Gay Celebrities and Heroes We Lost in 2018

Gay Rights Pioneer Dick Leitsch Whose Famous ‘Sip-In’ Helped Change NYC , Dies at 83

Dick Leitsch, a leading gay rights activist in 1960’s New York, where he helped end police entrapment of gays and organized the first major act of civil disobedience by a gay rights group — a  Sip-In at Julius’ bar — died June 22 at a hospice center in Manhattan. He was 83.

In 1966 being homosexual was, in itself, seen as a disorder, It was also “illegal” to serve a homosexual liquor by order of the New York State Liquor Authority. Leitsch who was president of the Mattachine Society’s New York chapter in 1965, took the group in a aggressive direction, taking on the city’s police chief and newly elected mayor, John V. Lindsay.

On April 21, 1966 Dick Leitsch along with two other Mattachine Society members invited along four newspaper reporters, including Thomas A. Johnson of The New York Times. The plan was to convene at noon at the Ukrainian-American Village Hall, a bar on St. Marks Place. “ The Times reporter tipped off the owners, who shut the place. A sign in the window made the establishment’s attitude clear: “If you are gay, please stay away.”

So the men moved across the street to The Dom, a club that, by night, hosted concerts by the Velvet Underground. It had a sign just as unwelcoming as the one at the Ukrainian Hall. The Dom, too, was closed.

After going to a Howard Johnson’s, at Eighth Street and the Avenue of the Americas which served them. The men then advanced to a Mafia-owned tiki bar, The Waikiki. The  amused manager told them: “How do I know you’re homosexuals? Give these guys a drink on us.”

In desperation, the troupe trudged over to Julius’ on West 10th Street. “It was a rather dull, neighborhood place which was about three-quarters gay,” said Randy Wicker, 78, who joined the action at that stop. “I called it a closet queen bar.”

The activists knew Julius’ had to refuse them, because the night before, a man who had been served there had later been entrapped by an officer for “gay activity,” meaning the bar was in jeopardy of having its liquor license revoked. As they entered, the men spied a sign that read “Patrons Must Face the Bar While Drinking,” an instruction used to thwart cruising. (They enforced that rule well into the 1980’s)  

As soon as they approached, the bartender put a glass in front of them. Dick Lietsch announced they were gay and the bartender put his hand over the glass; it was captured in a photograph by Fred McDarrah for The Village Voice.

The next day’s New York Times featured an article about the event with the headline “3 Deviates Invite Exclusion by Bars.” Two weeks later, a far more sympathetic piece appeared in The Voice. The publicity prompted a response from the State Liquor Authority chairman, Donald S. Hostetter, who denied that his organization ever threatened the liquor licenses of bars that served gays. The decision to serve was up to individual bartenders, he said.

Dick Leitsch’s Sip-In led to a growing acceptance of gays at bars in New York and across the country. Perhaps most significantly, the publicity resulted in a Mattachine lawsuit in New Jersey, where in 1967 the state Supreme Court ruled that “well-behaved homosexuals” could not be barred from a drink.

Richard Joseph Leitsch, who often used the family name Valentine as his middle name, was born in Louisville on May 11, 1935. Survivors include a brother and sister. His partner of 17 years, Timothy Scoffield, was diagnosed with AIDS and died in 1989.

Russia’s Straight Alliance for LGBT Equality Holds Protests In St. Petersburg – Video

Russia anti-gay

Russia’s Straight Alliance for LGBT Equality held a series of  brave protests in solidarity with other groups around the world this past week against Russia’s extreme discrimination against its LGBT citizens   The Straight Alliance for LGBT Equality  participated in the #Russia4Love – Day of Action despite being stalked and filmed by police, and harassed by anti-gay Russian extremist.

We, Russian LGBT people and their allies, would like to thank all the people around the world who support us and express their concern about the events in our country in hope of making a difference and pulling Russia out of a tightening medieval darkness,’ the organizers said in an official statement.

About 30 Straight Alliance for LGBT Equality members gathered near the city’s statue of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg but soon attracted a police attention who refused to let protesters take photographs of themselves with their signs so the activists moved to St Isaac’s Square.  Police filmed the whole action and demanded the IDs of those involved.

In another part of the city Daniel Grachev,  picketed at the Olympic clock in the Little Stables and was attacked by Russian nationalists who approached him and shoved a cake in his face and said “Welcome to the Soviet Union.  Welcome to Russia”.

Grachev was wearing a T-shirt with a pink triangle, which served as a pretext for an attack, as well as a poster, on which was written ” The Nuremberg Trials, and not the Olympics. ”

“I wanted to convey the idea that Russia is going to fascism, and it is not a place for the Olympic Games and the space for the Nuremberg trials,” – he said.

The two men who attacked Daniel were arrested but while at the police station the St. Petersberg police also checked into Grachev extremism. “I was amused by it.” said Daniel.  “If I am am arrested for calling Russia a facist state then Russia proves that it is indeed a fascist state, “- he concluded. (Loosely translated from Russian text)

Video of Daniel’s attack can be seen below:

Falcon Video Founder Documentary In The Works – Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story – Video

 

The upcoming documentary, Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story shines a spotlight on one of the most unlikely and overlooked gay heros of the past 40 years.

Chuck Holmes was the 1970’s gay porn version of Hugh Hefner, a charmer, an unrivaled businessman, and a man with a taste for the finest things in life.

Holmes founded the world famous Falcon studios and with the extraordinary amount of money that he made from it he wanted to give back to the gay community that made him rich, only to find that while his money was more than welcome,  he was not because of his profession.

Chuck gave millions to organizations like the HRC, the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund in their early days, and to politicians like Barney Frank and Bill Clinton, and donated heavily to the AIDS Memorial Grove.  But despite all the money and donations Chuck never quite fit in. He always feared that his ‘dirty money’ as some called it would be returned.  And sometimes it was. But in most cases it was accepted, quietly and without proper recognition of its donor.

Michael Stabile the documentary’s writer and director is in the final stages of getting the documentary ready for a late 2013 release. The independent documentary has been funded by individuals through Kickstarter and other fundraising venues but they still have a bit further to go. If anyone is interested in in sending donations to help Mr. Stabile finish up what will be a fascinating documentary piece of LGBT history, he can be reached at michael@fauxjob.com

Perhaps the Human Rights Campaign should think about helping this project especially since if it wasn’t for Chuck Holmes’s backing  in its beginning HRC wouldn’t be around to be throwing the gala cocktail parties it does today.

WARNING: Although NOT X-Rated the following promo reel is NWSF.

NBA Legend Magic Johnson Lovingly Supports His Gay Son

Former NBA player for the LA Lakers turned activist Earvin “Magic” Johnson recently was asked about his 20 year old son, Earvin (also called EJ3) who was seen out in public with his boyfriend. The response from Magic Johnson is what we all hope our parents would have, complete love and support. Here’s more:

Earvin Johnson III, one of Magic’s three children, stepped out hand-in-hand with his unidentified boyfriend on Los Angeles’s Sunset Strip on Monday night, TMZ reports.

Although this is reportedly the first time Earvin, also known as EJ, and his boyfriend have been seen together publicly, there is nothing to suggest that he was not open about his sexuality prior to this.

EJ is a 20-year-old student at New York University and Magic and his wife, Earlitha “Cookie” Kelly, couldn’t be prouder of him. “Cookie and I love EJ and support him in every way,” Magic told TMZ. “We’re very proud of him.”

When Magic revealed he was HIV-positive in 1991, rumors about his sexuality arose. Instead of recoiling from the spotlight and the speculation, the former Los Angeles Lakers player used his celebrity to spread awareness and tolerance.

Back in 2008, Magic opposed California’s Proposition 8 — a clause that banned same-sex marriage in the state.

Prop 8 singles out one group of Californians to be treated differently — including members of our family, our friends, and our coworkers,” he said in a recorded telephone message sent to California voters. “That is not what California is about. So this Tuesday, vote no on Proposition 8. It is unfair and wrong. Thanks.”

For over two decades Johnson has set out to challenge and defy the stereotypes of HIV. Not only has this man showed a great example of being an involved activist in promoting awareness, prevention and treatment, he is also a devoted and loving father.

77 Year Old Transgender Activist Honored By The Queen of England

77 year old transgender activist April Ashley has been awarded an MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire)

The recognition in the Queen’s Birthday Honours has thrilled the 77-year-old. “It’s unbelievable and wonderful and especially fantastic to receive it in the year of Her Majesty’s Jubilee,” she said yesterday, at home in Fulham, south-west London. She declined to speak until she had finished watching the Trooping of the Colour. Duncan Fallowell, her biographer, said: “It makes me proud to be British. Proud of an establishment that can make such an award, perhaps a rather eccentric award.”

The MBE is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom.  The Order’s motto is For God and the Empire. It is the most junior of the British orders of chivalry, and the largest, with over 100,000 living members worldwide