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Description
LGBTQ+ historical scholarship is a relatively recent field, and most of what has been written follows a common narrative arc: though early homophile gay rights groups such as the Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Society formed and were active on the west coast as early as the 1950s, it was not until the June 1969 uprising at the Stonewall Inn, on Christopher Street in New York City, that the concept of gay liberation truly took shape. With the subsequent founding, again in New York, of the Gay Liberation Front (and soon thereafter the Gay Activists Alliance), the east coast is often seen as the place of genesis for contemporary gay rights activism—an “out” and unabashed social movement that would eventually spread around the world and come to be known almost universally as “Pride.” This thesis adds to the growing body of scholarship that complicates the traditional historical narrative of gay liberation in the late 1960s and 1970s. An in-depth examination of primary source documents and oral histories reveals that gay rights activism in San Diego was focused on and inspired by local and regional issues, rather than national events. While gay rights activists in San Diego were undoubtedly allied with and supportive of groups on the east coast, it was their desire to serve and support the gay community in their own city that led to such local activism as the creation of the San Diego Gay Liberation Front at San Diego State, the founding of The Gay Center for Social Services, and the evolution of San Diego Pride. Additionally, in the gay rights movement of 1970s San Diego white men from middle class backgrounds generally served as the presumed subject of “gay” activism, often obscuring the contributions of other activists. By examining the ways in which women, people of color, transgender individuals, and the poor and working class pushed back against their own marginalization, this thesis expands the historical narrative of San Diego’s LGBTQ+ communities to include the contributions of those whose work has often gone unrecognized
