Date of Graduation

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

History

Advisor/Mentor

Daily, Ruby Ray

Committee Member

McGowan, Brian

Second Committee Member

Corrigan, Lisa

Abstract

In this thesis I explore historical misconceptions about the homophile movement that was active during the sixties and 1950s. Scholarly narratives have borrowed Gay Liberation’s perspective that narrowly defined homophiles as conservative, respectable, and tied to gendered roles. This representation only reflects the ideas of leadership, rather than the membership. Homophiles were a highly diverse group of people, both intellectually and demographically. Assumptions about their politics and practices began in straight society but did come to be repeated by their critics. In truth, homophiles included radicals and conservatives and their publications served as the stage on which to debate the fine details of their methods. Marriage was a common example of homophiles’ tendency to import oppressive gender roles into their relationships, but this is founded on a pervasive heteronormative myth, rather than reflecting practice. Instead, homophiles were more likely to become involved in long term relationships than their peers, but those relationships were informal, private, and did not feature a ceremony or other traditional performances. The later years of homophile activism, 1960 to 1969, was characterized by a shift in the publicity of militant politics, but not the emergence of those politics. Frank Kameny’s Washington Mattachine Society was one of the first homophile organizations to push for a radical approach at the leadership level, but much of their politics matched the homophile platform to that point. This is counter to the argument presented by the oversimplified historical narrative, which held that East Coast militancy presented a break in tradition for the movement. Instead, it existed as an iteration of the homophile practice of extensive internal debate. The incremental decline of homophile relevance in the late 1960s and immediately following the Stonewall Riots of 1969 signaled the beginning of a different era of politics. To establish their new movement, early writers like Wittman used the political memory of the homophiles to define their bounds. That is where this account ends, as the relationship between homophile politics and Gay Liberation’s politics is a subject too extensive to be fully covered here. I suggest that future research can resolve some of these enduring questions and further explore the rich intellectual culture of the homophiles.

Keywords

Homophile; gay liberation; activism; sixties; United States of America; conservatism

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