FAN FAVORITE: Stonewall | Evolutionary, Not Revolutionary | 1

0:00Audible subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. We're hard at work on our 100th season of American History Tellers coming up. But in the meantime, we're revisiting a fan favorite. Our season about the Stonewall Uprising, a pivotal moment in America's gay rights movement. In 1969, a police raid on a Greenwich Village gay bar called the Stonewall Inn sparked a series of riots and protests that brought LGBTQ activism out of the closet. And for listeners who would like to learn more about queer history, we recommend the new Audible original, The Pansy Craze.

0:41In this six-part, live-recorded podcast variety show, co-creator and host Mason Alexander Parr transports audiences through time to tell raucous stories of queer history that none of us learned in school. From Elizabethan England to Prohibition-era Broadway, Mason and their special guests used stories, songs, and sketches to explore times throughout history when queerness was celebrated, commodified, and then criminalized. You can listen to the Pansy Craze right now, only on Audible. And now, here's our series on Stonewall, which originally aired in 2020.

1:19Imagine it's June 28th, 1969, a hot, humid Friday night in New York City. It's your birthday, and you're waiting to meet a friend at the Stonewall Bar in Greenwich Village. You're turning 20, and tonight you're celebrating. You head to the bar and manage to get the attention of the bartender. What can I get for you? But we're out of vodka. More's on the way. Tequila soda, double please. You scan the faces in the crowd looking for your friend. The bar is darkly lit and pretty rough around the edges. Drinks are overpriced and watered down. The windows in the front are all blacked out, the stools rickety, and the bathrooms always flooded.

1:55But tonight the place is jam-packed, as it always is. It's a Friday night, and Stonewall is the only gay bar around where dancing is legal. Your friend Maxine finally arrives, sees you, and pushes her way through the crowd. Well, look who thinks he's special. I am special. It's my birthday. She enveloped you in a hug. Your birthday right now or yesterday? It's one in the morning. These distinctions matter. Yesterday, actually. Yesterday. Maxine is wearing makeup, along with a miniskirt, a peasant blouse and high heels. She looks terrific. You admire Maxine's bravery. You know she's been beat up more than once.

2:30Dressing like she does is illegal in New York. She's risking arrest, and frankly, so are you. Just by being here in this bar, police keep tabs on all the gay bars in the village. You think the cops will make an appearance tonight? They wouldn't dare. Besides, I wouldn't let them. Not on your birthday. Still, you're suddenly hit by a wave of sadness. All these people around you, laughing, dancing, just being themselves, trying to live their lives. When the rest of America would rather just have them arrested and thrown in jail. Oh, don't spiral on me now. I know that look you get when you're thinking too much.

3:05Maxine, you know what your problem is? You're too perceptive. Ah, you got me. Now tell me what's on your mind. It's just the cops, the people. I don't know. It's just like no one wants us anywhere. Don't let it get you down. Nobody gives a damn whether we live or die. Most people feel our very existence is the problem. Maxine has a funny way of trying to cheer you up, but she has a point. There's the outside world, the straight world. And then there's this world happening right alongside it. It's here that you feel most comfortable. And Stonewall is an important part of this world. But suddenly, there's a lot of commotion by the front door.

3:43The bar's house lights go up, leaving you blinking in the stark brightness. All right, everyone, this is a raid. I want ID cards out. Everyone stand up against the wall. Maxine only looks annoyed, like she's seen all this before. They just raided this place Tuesday night. Don't give them your ID. Don't give them anything. That's easy for her to say. You're starting to panic. No one except the people in this room knows the real you. If they print your name in the paper tomorrow, you could lose your job at the hardware store. Your parents would probably kick you out of the house. This isn't right.

4:15The constant harassment, the danger, the fear, all for just being you. It's enough to make you want to do something. It's enough to make you want to fight back.

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5:17From Audible Originals, I'm Lindsey Graham and this is American History Tellers, our history, your story.

5:39On our show, we'll take you to the events, the times, and the people that shaped America and Americans, our values, our struggles, and our dreams. We'll put you in the shoes of everyday citizens as history was being made. And we'll show you how the events of the times affected them, their families, and affects you now. The police raid at New York's Stonewall Inn on a busy Friday night in 1969 unleashed a series of riots and demonstrations that lasted six days. It proved a turning point in the budding gay rights movement, and it inspired people across the country to join a larger fight for social and political equality, a battle that's still being fought today.

6:17But Stonewall was also controversial, even within what would come to be called the LGBTQ community. community. By 1969, the gay rights movement had already been building for decades. Some activists who advocated a more gradual, incremental approach to equality worried that this spontaneous uprising threatened to undo decades of careful work. Only in hindsight would it become clear that Stonewall wasn't a setback, but an important step forward. But in the years following World War II, members of the LGBTQ community were still largely invisible in mainstream society. They also faced broad discrimination.

6:51They were harassed by police, oppressed by the government, and dismissed by the courts and medical profession. But slowly, incrementally, small groups of people started to come together and seek a way forward. A note to listeners. As our understanding of sexuality and identity has deepened and evolved, so has our language. The terms used throughout history, both by LGBTQ people to refer to themselves and by others, have changed over time. In this series, will generally use LGBTQ, but at times we may use older terminology in order to accurately capture the attitudes and ideas of the past. And lastly, the gay rights movement in the United States was an effort as diverse and complex as the LGBTQ community today.

7:31Though we've tried to capture that breadth in this four-part series, the stories we're presenting here are not comprehensive. They follow strands of the gay rights movement in America from 1950 until 1970, but they were just the beginning of a history that asks difficult questions about gender, race, and identity, and demonstrates how some groups push for change in the face of daunting obstacles. This is Episode 1, Evolutionary, Not Revolutionary.

7:59In 1950, America was roaring. Back from the war against Germany and its allies, the economy grew at a rapid pace, and the country emerged as a global leader in politics and culture. But for Harry Hay, a 38-year-old actor and music teacher living in Los Angeles, The brilliant sheen of all that success only served to hide something underneath. Hay was a gay man. He'd known this most of his life. It was neither an attitude nor a choice. He'd simply been born that way. Hay had been raised by a wealthy family, and growing up, his sexuality was mostly ignored. But when he came out as gay in college at Stanford, many of his friends shunned him.

8:35Hay was shocked and hurt by their reaction, and began to realize he'd been living in an insulated reality. As Hayes saw this painful experience play out for other gay friends, he began to take note of the dangers people like himself faced. Nationwide, states were passing new laws that targeted LGBTQ people, using new categories to criminalize behavior that would otherwise be passed over. In California, the name of anyone caught loitering in a public toilet would be registered with the state. In New York, any person wearing less than three pieces of clothing that corresponded to their legal sex could be arrested and imprisoned.

9:10So-called sodomy laws impose dire penalties, including a declaration of status as a sex offender. And in Pennsylvania and California, anyone classified as a sex offender could be locked up in a mental institution permanently. In seven states, they could even be castrated. In short, while never outlawing homosexuality itself, an entire body of laws and policies made just being gay a de facto crime, with far-reaching consequences.

9:40But despite the fear and danger, gay people still manage to find each other. On the streets or in bars that cater to gay clientele. Whether for love, sex, or companionship, couples and small groups join together while nearly always having to disguise their activities. Jim Kepner, a contemporary of Hayes, recalled meeting other men through ads in magazines, through what were known as pen pal groups. He would court these men long distance using what he described as a hinting process. He wrote, Over two or three letters, you would say that you were interested in philosophy, poetry, biographies, but not very interested in sports, except walking or swimming.

10:16You didn't start with Oscar Wilde or Walt Whitman, but you could include some writers who were less specifically identified. Then you brought it up. Of course, gay people were everywhere. They were simply too afraid to speak openly. And they were facing an America, the land of freedom and democracy that was forcing them to lie, to stay quiet, or to deny their own existence. In 1948, Dr. Alfred Kinsey, a biologist at Indiana University, released a landmark study of human sexuality. The report, called Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, was covered broadly in the press. And for the first time, Americans began to talk publicly about their own sexuality.

10:53But in Los Angeles, Harry Hay noticed something in the fine print. The study found that homosexuality was far more widespread than Hay had ever guessed. Nearly 40 % of men had experienced what the report characterized as homosexual relations. Not only that, but it reported that gay men were proven capable of being happy, healthy individuals, not sick or abnormal. The Kinsey report galvanized Hay's thinking, but he took it a step forward. 37 % of the population seemed like a sizable minority that could be organized. Hay felt it was high time to form a pro-gay organization of his own. Hay was not the first to come up with the idea for a gay group.

11:31An accountant named Merton Bird had started a small group called the Knights of the Clock in Los Angeles in the late 40s. Hay knew of this group and knew it had disbanded, but he also knew an opportunity when he saw one. To Hay's thinking, gay people were a minority in America. Not an ethnic minority, certainly, but a minority just the same. And Hay believed that gay people should have the same organizational rights that other minority groups had. So with a close-knit circle of friends, Hay formed the Mattachine Society and began holding meetings in living rooms and apartments across the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles.

12:04The name Mattachine came from a medieval secret society of masked men who used their anonymity to criticize the monarchy of the time. Because Hay and the other members still feared being publicly outed as gay, they stayed anonymous at Mattachine gatherings. No one knew whose house they were at, and except for a chosen few, no members even knew who was in charge. Society meetings were a cross between a fraternal order and a support group. discussions focused on members coming to terms with their own sexuality, and about how to best spread awareness through the straight community. Early goals included job placement and legal help, retirement homes for elderly gay people, and centers for gay street kids.

12:42At one early meeting, 150 people showed up, usually though gatherings numbered a couple dozen. Most of the members were white males in their mid-30s or younger. No one underage was allowed, and the meeting stayed anonymous and secretive. The secrecy was integral to Hayes' approach. With the Cold War just gearing up, conservative politicians had begun the systemic purging of real and imagined communist sympathizers from every level of government. But they didn't stop with communists. Prominent senators and congressmen also targeted gay government workers by spreading the fear that they were highly susceptible to Russian blackmail.

13:17A subcommittee chaired by North Carolina Senator Clyde Hoey came to the conclusion that one homosexual can pollute an entire office. Quickly, the cause of eradicating gay people from the workforce was taken up by private companies and eventually became standard for all businesses across the country. Anyone even suspected of being gay could lose their job instantly. Nevertheless, word spread throughout Los Angeles about a secretive new group for gay people, and Mattachine Group. Hay even took to combing the known gay beaches in Malibu and the Palisades, carefully sizing up sunbathers and using a petition as a way to spread the word.

13:53But despite the group's caution, their secrecy was threatened in 1952 when Amatichin founder Dale Jennings was arrested on charges of soliciting a police officer for sex. That the officer himself had pretended to be gay to make the arrest, a method called entrapment, didn't matter in the eyes of the law. A fundraising drive was held for attorney fees after a lawyer named George Shibley agreed to take the case. Jennings' trial, by the standards of the time, should have been open and shut. But something surprising happened. Shibley caught the arresting officer in a lie on the witness stand, and after deliberating for 40 hours, 11 members of the jury voted to acquit.

14:31Only one juror claimed that he would vote guilty until hell froze over. Having reached a deadlock, the trial was dismissed. Jennings could walk free. The dismissal was momentous, but no newspapers covered the story. For most Americans, Mattachine's first victory in the courts might as well have never happened. Still, a growing number of Mattachine members felt it was urgent to get more exposure for their cause. For Jennings, he had already been outed in public by his trial. So what more did he have to lose? By 1953, Jennings and another member, Hal Call, had grown tired of the theatrics and the subterfuge of Mattachine meetings.

15:07They wanted a real organization with a constitution and a voting body, instead of anonymous decisions passed down from on a high as Hayes had structured it. They felt that a broader, less exclusive approach would attract more people to the cause. On the eve of Mattachine's first convention, the members, jostling for power, came up with a plan. They would put the matter of leadership to a vote.

15:32Imagine it's May 1953, just after lunch in Southern California. You're one of the founding members of the Mattachine Society. While the rest of the city goes back to work after their lunch break, You've managed to convince Harry Hay to drive you out to the beach, just south of Malibu. So what do you think, Harry? I thought it'd be nice to be back out here, on the sand. Back to where it all started. Two years, just flown by. I remember tromping up and down all day with my clipboard and pen. You're both still in your street clothes, but the sand feels good on your bare feet, and the sky is clear and calm.

16:04I remember being nervous. Nervous of what? What if one of those people we approached turned us in? For what? Asking people to sign a petition? I turned us in for being queer. Well, I wasn't worried. The beach spots we picked were safe enough. It was pretty easy to tell, just go up to a blanket of young men reading books. I was right much more often than I wasn't. You both have made it down to the beach, to the edge of the water. I'm going to tell you something, Harry, and I don't want you to get upset. Okay, tell me then. But I'll decide whether or not to get upset. At the convention this weekend, how Call and some others are going to advocate that you step down as the head of Mattachine.

16:43But I'm not the head. Mattachine is an organization with no leader. That's what's so great about it. Yeah, maybe you think that, but it's plain as day to everyone else that you're running things. And with the accusations about you being a communist in the paper and all. So what's the problem? That I have a leadership-style personality or that I'm a communist? The Senate is investigating nonprofits on the East Coast right now. They're due to come West, and you're too high-profile. Harry, you're an easy target. And what if I don't step down? They're going to call for an up or down vote. The feeling is that you lose.

17:17And if I make a fuss about it, I could endanger Mattachine moving forward. Is that what you're implying? Yes. Yeah, so many words. You know, people hate us. They call us aberrations. Child molesting monsters. Don't you want to try and change that? I do. And that's why Mattachine should be out in the open, not hiding behind masks and pseudonyms and secret meetings. Ah, I see. I get it. They sent you to soften me up. You look down at the sand, at the water being pulled into the ocean, only to come crashing back onto the beach. You wonder if things will be trapped in this suspended loop forever, or if anything will actually change.

17:51You want to be a part of it, and you hope Harry will be there too. Harry speaks softly. This group should do whatever it feels necessary. Although I'm going to give Hal a piece of my mind at the convention. He's more of a sales manager than an organizer. I'm sorry to dump all this on you at once. Well, you're lucky, because I'm big enough to still give you a ride back across town. As the two of you make your way back to his car, you hope that he'll understand that Mattachine has grown bigger than any one person. But you also hope the new leaders will make the right choices themselves.

18:26At the Mattachine convention that weekend, Hay and Deed stepped down without a fuss. Into his place rose Hal Call, who would continue to run Mattachine on the West Coast. Members coined a new activist term for themselves, the homophile movement. Taking what was called an evolutionary, not revolutionary approach, the group took their first careful steps towards expanding the organization, opening chapters in San Francisco and New York. Dale Jennings helped start the magazine One, which would be the first long-running magazine focused solely on issues in gay life. Although One magazine had many female contributors, the homophile movement itself was still overwhelmingly male.

19:04So in 1955, a group of lesbians in San Francisco took the cue for Mattachine and formed their own all-female group. The eight women were a mix of blue and white-collar workers. They were mostly white, along with one Chicana and one Filipina. Eventually, they settled on a name for themselves, the Daughters Abilitas. The name, like Mattachine's, was deliberately secretive. It was a reference to a fictional woman who'd lived alongside the Greek poet Sappho on the island of Lesbos. As founders Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin later recalled, its obscurity was part of the appeal. We thought the Daughters of Bilitis would sound like any other women's lodge, like the Daughters of the Nile or the DAR.

19:44Bilitis would mean something to us, but not to any outsider. If anyone asked, we could always say we belong to a poetry club. Martin and Lyon took up the group's leadership after the original corps disbanded. They started up a magazine of their own called The Ladder, devoted exclusively to issues in the lesbian community. The DOB, as the shorthand went, slowly began to grow. Despite having trouble attracting new members in the numbers that Mattachine could, the DOB pressed on, creating a lecture series in San Francisco. There, lesbians, whether out or in the closet, could come and hear from a range of speakers, including lawyers, employment counselors, and psychologists.

20:21Slowly, the gay movement was beginning to emerge. But there were still huge obstacles to overcome. One of the biggest was the harmful and powerful influence that the medical establishment wielded. Most doctors and psychologists still considered gay people deviants, capable of criminal behavior if not treated. They issued unfounded diagnoses and promoted damaging conversion therapies. And their theories underpinned restrictive public policy and government laws. If gay people were to have a chance at achieving personal freedom, this would have to change. But the change the movement needed was about to come from a very unlikely place.

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22:37In the 1950s, doctors and psychologists across the country were treating gay people as if they were diseased, using a barrage of invasive and dangerous techniques to try and change their behavior. In 1952, the American psychological profession called homosexuality a sociopathic personality disturbance and directed its doctors to use aggressive conversion techniques to cure their patients. Doctors used electric shock, emotional manipulation, and in many cases, lobotomies on thousands of patients. Psychologists grouped homosexuality along with other mental disorders in a book called The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or the DSM for short.