ANTEBELLUM BLOG: GAY PRIDE

Showing posts with label GAY PRIDE. Show all posts

2/2/19

ELLEN PAGE TELLS IT LIKE IT IS

6/10/18

GAY POWER- CIRCA 1973

GAY POWER- CIRCA 1973-

On June 28th, 1969, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera led the Stonewall riots, which were the catapult for the contemporary LGBT rights movement.

Four years later, Sylvia and Marsha were pushed out of the movement and had to fight for the right to have space in Gay Pride parades. Sylvia fought her way on stage at the 1973 Gay Pride march in NYC to deliver a speech that denounces the liberal white gay rights "revolution" and demanded and ACTUAL revolution, one in which QTPOC, specifically, Trans women of color, were centered.
I think of this today, and anytime we talk about Pride

™️: how far have we really come when Queer and/or Trans People of Color still have to fight to be heard in greater LGBT spaces?

*********************************************************

The upload deleted the captions so here's the transcript:

[crowd noise: booing and yelling]

Sylvia: Yall better quiet down!
I've been trying to get up here ALL day for your gay brothers and your gay sisters in jail! that write me every motherfuckin week and ask for your help. and you all don't do a goddamn thing for them. Have you ever been beaten up? And raped? and jailed?
Now think about it.
They've been beaten up and raped
And so they have to spend much of their money in jail to get their self home and try to get their sex change. The women have tried to fight for their sex changes, or to become women, of the women's liberation.
And they write S.T.A.R., not the women's group.
They do not write women.
They do not write men.
They write to S.T.A.R., because we're trying to do something for them.
I have been to jail!
I have been r*ped!
And beaten. Many times!
By men!
Heterosexual men, that do not belong in the homosexual shelter.
But: do you do anything for them?
No! You all tell me to go and hide my tail between my legs.

I will not no longer put up with this shit.

I have been beaten, I have had my nose broken,
I have been thrown in jail, I have lost my job,
I have lost my apartment,
for gay liberation.

And you all treat me this way??
What the fuck's wrong with you all??

Think about that!

[crowd noise: applause]

I do not believe in a revolution, but you all do.
I believe in the gay...power.
I believe in us getting our rights
or else I would not be out there fighting for our rights.

That's all I wanted to say to you all people.

If you all want to know about the people that are in jail, and do not forget Bambi L'Amour, Andora Marks, Kenny Messner, and other gay people are in jail, come and see the people at S.T.A.R. house on 12th street on 640 E. 12th Street, between B and C, Apartment 14. The people there are trying to do something, for ALL of us, and not men and women that belong to a white middle class white club!

And that's what you all belong to!
REVOLUTION NOWWWWW!!
Gimme a G! [crowd: G!]
Gimme an A! [crowd: A!]
Gimme a Y! [crowd: Y!]
Gimme a P! [crowd: P!]
Gimme a O! [crowd: O!]
Gimme a W! [crowd: W!]
Gimme a E! [crowd: E!]
Gimme a R! [crowd: R!]
Gay... [voice cracks] [more quietly] Gay power.
[crowd noise: applause]
Sylvia: Louder GAY POWER!!
[crowd noise: whistling]

6/9/18

QUEER BIENNIAL @ TOM HOUSE

ARTIST- PETER BERLIN

ARTIST- RICK CASTRO

ARTIST- DON BACHARDY

ARTIST- ANDY WARHOL

ARTIST- TOM OF FINLAND

ARTIST- ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE

6/3/18

QUEER BIENNIAL 2018 @ TOM OF FINLAND FOUNDATION

Queer Biennial 2018 at Tom of Finland Foundation

TOM HOUSE EXHIBITION

featuring the work of

TOM OF FINLAND

ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE

DON BACHARDY

PETER BERLIN

RICK CASTRO

ANDY WARHOL

JUNE 9TH

6PM- 10PM

TOM OF FINLAND FOUNDATION

1421 Laveta Ter, Los Angeles, California 90026

Films -Free Jazz by Brontez Purnell (23 mins)

Boys in the Sand by Wakefield Poole (90 mins)

introduced by Jim Tushinki, writer, filmmaker, and friend of Wakefield.

$10 suggested donation at the door

Limited street parking is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Public transportation or ride share suggested.

TOM OF FINLAND

ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE

DON BACHARDY

PETER BERLIN

RICK CASTRO

ANDY WARHOL

6/25/17

BILLY HAINES: WISCRACKER

June is Gay History Month.

Actor William 'Billy' Haines (Charles William Haines

)

was born in Staunton, Virginia on January 2, 1900. His father was a cigar maker, and Billy had four younger siblings. He sang in the choir of the Trinity Episcopal Church, became interested in performing and obsessed over watching movies. At 14 years old, he ran away from home with a young boyfriend to Hopewell where they worked at the DuPont factory and opened a dance hall that catered to gays. His parents sent the police for him, but he refused to return home. In 1915, he moved to New York City.

His father suffered a mental breakdown, and Billy returned home to help the family until his dad recovered.

In 1919, Billy moved back to New York City and settled into gay friendly Greenwich Village. He took odd jobs, worked as a "model" and was kept by a rich older woman for a time. A talent scout found him in Samuel Goldwyn Company's "New Faces of 1922." He was offered a studio contract and moved to Hollywood in 1922. He worked at several studios before ending up at MGM. The first of his 51 films was Brothers Under the Skin, in 1922. His early silent films include Souls for Sale, Three Wise Fools, The Desert Outlaw, The Gaiety Girl, A Fool and His Money, Little Annie Rooney, Sally Irene and Mary, Show People, and Mike. Brown of Harvard (1926) made him a star. He played the handsome, arrogant, wise-cracking young man - which became the character he would play for most of his career. Billy became one of the biggest and most popular leading men in films. Hits continued with Tell It to the Marines, Spring Fever, and West Point. He successfully transitioned to talking pictures in Alias Jimmy Valentine and Navy Blues in 1928/29.

Billy was "openly" gay. On a trip to NYC in 1926, he met a young man named James "Jimmy" Shields. He brought Jimmy back with him to Hollywood and the two shared Billy's house. In 1933, Billy was arrested for having sex in the Los Angeles YMCA with a sailor he had picked up on the street. MGM covered up the scandal, but studio boss Louis Mayer demanded Billy enter into an arrange "lavender marriage" or give up his lover, Jimmy Shields. Billy refused, and was fired. He made several more films for small, "poverty row" studies before retiring from acting in 1934. His final films included Young and Beautiful, and The Marines Are Coming.

Billy and Jimmy began a successful interior design and antique business. Billy was a popular figure in Hollywood, and many Hollywood stars engaged his services to redecorate their homes. The business prospered (Billy served during WWII), and the couple moved to Brentwood. The men were favorites within the rich social circles of Los Angeles and Hollywood, and lived in comfort.

On December 26, 1973, Billy died in Los Angeles after a short battle with lung cancer. Billy Haines was 73 years old. A short time later, his lifelong partner, Jimmy, committed suicide. His suicide note famously read, "Goodbye to all of you who have tried so hard to comfort me in my loss of William Haines, whom I have been with since 1926. I now find it impossible to go it alone, I am much too lonely." Billy and Jimmy are buried side by side at the Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica.

Joan Crawford, Billy's close friend and decorating client, said Billy and Jimmy were "the happiest married couple in Hollywood."

repost courtesy- Michael Michaud

6/11/17

RESIST MARCH LOS ANGELES- 6/11/17

9/4/16

BEING GAY CHICANO IN THE 1970S LOS ANGELES

this was my youth.
i grew up in this area, went to ALL the clubs mentioned here, and knew/know the writer- james rojas.
we even went to the paradise ballroom together.
his memory of those days is spot on-RC

From the Eastside to Hollywood: Chicano Queer Trailblazers in 1970s L.A
by- James Rojas

In order to find our identity, we had to leave the Eastside.

The Chicano Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Stonewall uprising had empowered queer Chicano youth like myself to embrace our newfound sexual freedom.

The Chicano student movement, especially,

had instilled in us a sense of pride. In the wake of these heady events, we had the confidence to access another Los Angeles, a city our parents couldn’t.

East Los Angeles during the mid-1970s offered few safe spaces for people like us. But Hollywood did.

From 1975 to 1982 were the explosive, underground disco years in L.A., and for the first time in the city’s history predominantly gay and straight Chicano youth flooded Hollywood’s dance floors.

Being “out” back than was to learn how to negotiate the physical and social landscape in order to find safety – unlike today where people come “out” to their families, friends, coworkers, or even in cyberspace. To meet the demands of LA’s queer youth, 18-and-over dance bars opened up in underutilized retail stores fronts, mini-malls, or warehouses in commercial zones. Many of these places were small – on the order of 3,000 square feet – which created an intimate, social atmosphere.

The dance floors of such Hollywood and North Hollywood clubs as the Outer Limits, Other Side, Paradise Ballroom, Sugar Shack, After Dark, Gino’s II, and, ultimately, Circus were where we communicated with our bodies – an essential, enduring part of our queer development and identity. Many of these clubs and bars were intimate venues located in mini-malls, occupying retail store fronts less 3,000 square feet in size.
READ MORE-

8/12/16

MARK THOMPSON- RIP

Sad news to report today, of the death author, photographer, writer and former editor of the advocate- Mark Thompson.

This photo was snapped in New York at the opening of an exhibition of his photographs,

"Fellow Travelers: Liberation Portraits."

At left is Mark's photo of his beloved Malcolm Boyd, and at right the late Paul Monette.

Author-activist Mark Thompson was born and raised on the scenic Monterey Peninsula, California, during the Fifties and Sixties.

In 1973, Thompson was a founding member of the Bay Area-wide Gay Students Coalition started at San Francisco State University, where he was a journalism student.

He has worked for gay causes since that time.

He began his writing career at the national gay and lesbian newsmagazine The Advocate in 1975, reporting on culture and politics in Europe. Thompson continued to serve the publication during the next two decades in a number of capacities--

as a feature writer, photographer, and Senior Editor.

In 1994, he completed his tenure at the magazine by editing Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Movement (St. Martin's Press), a massive volume of half a million words and over seven hundred images documenting the gay and lesbian struggle for civil rights. The book was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards.

Thompson is best known, however, for his influential trilogy of books dealing with gay spirituality. The first in the series, Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning (Lethe Press) was published in 1987. The anthology has been acclaimed around the world and was recently included on a list compiled by the Lambda Book Report of the "100 Lesbian and Gay Books That Changed Our Lives." The Los Angeles Times called Gay Spirit an

"exciting challenge to conventional thinking."

Gay Soul: Finding the Heart of Gay Spirit and Nature (HarperSan Francisco) followed in 1994. The Lambda Literary Award-nominated book consists of in-depth conversations and photographs with sixteen prominent writers, teachers, and visionaries. "Gay Soul is an outpouring of much-needed love--from new kinds of 'fathers'," commented poet Judy Grahn. Christine Downing, author of Myths and Mysteries of Same-Sex Love,described the book as "a wake-up call to gay souls." Robert Goss, author of Jesus Acted Up said,

"I came away with a great deal of hope, for gay spiritualities have the potentiality for profound cultural transformation."

The trilogy was completed in 1997 with the publication of Gay Body: A Journey Through Shadow to Self (St. Martin's Press), an autobiography combining elements of Jungian archetypes, gay history and mythology, and New Age spirituality. The Washington Post said "the road Thompson travels is fascinating, as he unlocks closets within closets."

Library Journal called the Lambda Literary Award-nominated book "a provocative work, seamlessly woven."

Thompson's other work includes Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People,Politics and Practice (Daedalus Publishing), a 1991 anthology that has been widely cited as a classic volume on the shelf of books dealing with human sexuality and identity.

He has also contributed to a variety of other collections, including:

Hometowns: Gay Men Write About Where They Belong (Dutton),

Out in All Directions(Warner Books),

Positively Gay: New Approaches to Gay and Lesbian Life (Celestial Arts),

Out in Culture (Duke University Press), Gay Men at the Millennium (Tarcher),

and In Times Like These: How We Pray (Seabury Books).