Beyond the Gay Ghetto

Between 1969 and 1973, gay liberationists began to define radical alliances as central to sexual liberation. Gay men drew on Black radicalism, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and other causes to analyze anti-gay oppression and to draw analogies between sexuality and race. They pursued solidarity with the Black Panther Party and defined gayness as a means to resist U.S. militarism. They also distinguished leftist gay liberation from a different politics termed gay nationalism, as by opposing a gay nationalist scheme to colonize California's Alpine County — a project gay leftists argued would replicate capitalism, imperialism, and anti-gay oppression. In contrast to such proposals, Bay Area gay radicals organized gay solidarity with a multiracial and socialist left.