So, was Richard Nixon a hero of the queer movement? This, and associated topics, was the subject matter of this year’s annual Stonewall lecture delivered by Professor John D’Emilio of the University of Illinois at Chicago, at Dartmouth on Thursday, October 29th.
In his speech, “Queering the Past or: Richard Nixon: Gay Liberationist?” D’Emilio suggests that forces beyond gay and lesbian groups helped to end Chicago police raids on gay bars.
D’Emilio began with an overview of the current literature on LGBT history. The LGBT movement has been described as being primarily grassroots in recent history. As D’Emilio said, most stories in the literature are about “gays and lesbians… taking control of their own destinies” and working against the theme of silence associated with homosexuality, which largely fosters invisibility and isolation. Essentially, D’Emilio states that LGBT history constitutes stories of resistance, initiated and conducted by gay and lesbian people.
He points specifically to homophile groups in the 1950’s who sought to improve life for gay and lesbian Americans. While these homophile groups focused more on cultural privacy rather than visibility, they did help to break the silence about homosexuality.
The two major homophile groups, The Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, began publishing magazines, holding demonstrations, and creating slogans such as “Gay is Good” and “Gay Power.” There was some visibility, but it was limited. However, these were not the only groups working towards early gay and lesbian rights. D’Emilio also describes a large social network among butch lesbians in Buffalo, NY during World War II. These women wanted to dance in bars with other women or hold their girlfriend’s hand in public, and were very aware of their oppressive lifestyle.
These stories, in addition to the Stonewall Riots, helped to write this history of resistance. But D’Emilio takes issue with retelling all of the stories to fit this history.
Most historians look to Chicago to explain trends in major cities. LGBT historians, however, have largely ignored Chicago in favor of studying San Francisco or New York. D’Emilio, having lived in Chicago, discovered evidence of an LGBT community in the 70’s, but also a different kind of history.
D’Emilio explains, “The 50’s and 60’s were the worst time for gays and lesbians.” During this time, McCarthyism targeted not only potential communists and Hollywood-types, but also the supposed “sexual deviants,” i.e. homosexuals. The Chicago Tribune, a somewhat conservative publication, referred to gay and lesbian Americans as “nests of perverts” and “moral degenerates.” In the city, women could not wear pants with the zipper in front without risking some penalty for dressing as men and gay men were arrested for cruising for sex.
But the worst of these grim times, and what D’Emilio focused on, was the gay bar raids. Gay bars were meant to be a safe haven at a time when it was dangerous to be out of the closet. When gay bars were raided and forced to close, gays and lesbians found it more difficult to meet gay and lesbian friends and sexual partners.
D’Emilio would like to say that pressure from gay and lesbian groups helped to end the raids and constant harassment on gay bars in the early 70’s. However, upon further analysis, he could not find compelling evidence for this view. Instead, it was a change in government—specifically, the election of the Nixon administration—that solved the problem.
To understand how this occurred, one must understand that Mayor Richard Daley ran Chicago at the time. Daley, a Democrat, established a corrupt political machine where other Democrats (police chiefs and city attorneys, for example) bribed Daley to obtain certain political positions. Because they were a part of the corruption, they saw no reason to end it.
When Richard Nixon, a Republican, was elected in 1968, he appointed Jim Thompson as U.S. Attorney to investigate corruption in Chicago. The Justice Department inevitably found evidence of police corruption; for six weeks, there was continuous news about the investigation of Chicago police officers. Over 30 police officers were eventually found guilty of using their power to illicitly raid bars.
When the bar raids and harassment stopped in the early 70’s, change occurred quickly. Out gay entrepreneurs opened their businesses with at least partial success. D’Emilio explains that knowing this story, we should be cognizant of a new kind of a history, what he calls “top-down history.” While I mostly agree with D’Emilio, I find problems with his approach and some of his speech’s implications.
Firstly, D’Emilio finds only one instance of top-down history in earlier LGBT history. He says that we must be aware that these kind of stories happened too, and he does a fair job of elucidating this kind of history.
However, it seems almost too random. D’Emilio admits that the title of the lecture, in which he calls Nixon a potential “gay liberationist” was in jest. Nixon, like his Democratic opponent, did not support gay and lesbian rights. Ending corrupt police raids of gay bars was simply a bi-product of larger political strategy.
While this top-down history might have taken place, it does not mean it is worth noting. If we are to learn from history, then this suggests that gay and lesbians are powerless to a larger political system.
But this is not true. Gays and lesbians had to get people thinking about homosexuality by breaking the silence. Had they not, gay bars wouldn’t have formed in the first place. If we took D’Emilio’s account as a typical scenario, this would suggest that gays and lesbians must simply passively wait for political opportunity instead of acting independently; protests and grassroots activism are worthless.
D’Emilio claims that this is the opposite of what he wants to happen. Top-down and bottom-up histories should both be seen equally and gays and lesbians should feel as if they have power as part of a larger political context. However, I think isolating this random occurrence helps no one. When it comes to obtaining fair and equal law (i.e. achieving marriage equality, eliminating Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell), a random political occurrence will not help the LGBT community.
Someone or some group will have to spearhead a movement to change the current discriminatory laws and most politicians require pressure from LGBT groups to make change.
Top-down history might have been true for this one instance, but I don’t see it becoming the main history of the LGBT movement. If LGBT people are to ever achieve equality, it will be a story of resistance and not one of random fortuitous events miraculously handing us equal rights on a silver platter.
