nnifnmhnr 1 “OfT J— t
IM R T iT T new s
enry “Harry” Hay, known as the
founder of the modem gay move
ment in the United States, has
died at age 90.
He had been diagnosed
weeks earlier with lung cancer. Despite his ill
ness, he remained lucid and died peacefully in
his sleep in the early hours of Oct. 24.
Hay is listed in histories of the U.S. gay
movement as first in applying the term “minor
ity” to homosexuals. A n uncompromising radi
cal, he easily dismissed “the heteros” and never
rested from challenging the status quo, includ
ing within the gay community.
Because of the pervasive homophobia of his
times— it was illegal for more than two homo
sexuals to congregate in California during the
1950s— he and his colleagues took an oath of
anonymity that lasted a quarter-century until
Jonathan Ned Katz interviewed him for the
groundbreaking book Gay American History.
Countless researchers subsequently sought him
out; in recent years, Hay became the subject of
a biography, an anthology of his own writings
and the documentary Hope Along the Wind by
Portland filmmaker Eric Slade.
Previous attempts to create gay groups in the
United States had fizzled— or been stamped out.
Hay’s first organizational conception was Bach
elors Anonymous, formed to both support and
leverage the 1948 presidential candidacy of Pro
gressive Party leader Henry Wallace.
He wrote and discreetly circulated a prospec
tus calling for “the androgynous minority” to
organize as a political entity. His call for an “inter
national bachelors fraternal order for peace and
social dignity" did not bear results until 1950.
That year, his love affair with Viennese
immigrant Rudi Gernreich— whose fashion
F ather F igure
civil rights gains after
1969s Stonewall riots in
New York City.
Hay was bom in
Harry Hay paved the w ay for modern gay activism England in 1912, the
by Stu art Tim m ons, M artin D uberm an, Jo ey C ain and Sally H ay day the Titanic sank.
His father worked as a
mining engineer in
South
Africa
and
Chile, but the family
settled in Southern
California.
After
graduating
from Los Angeles High
School, Hay briefly
attended Stanford but
dropped
out
and
returned to the City of
Angels. He understood
from childhood that he
was a sissy— different in
behavior from boys or
girls— and that he was
attracted to men. His
same-sex affairs began
Harry Hay (left) brushes the cheek of his partner of 39 years, John
when he was a teen
Burnside, with his hand July 19 at their home in San Francisco
ager, not long after he
designs eventually made him a Time cover began reading 19th century scholar Edward C ar
man— brought Hay into gay circles where a crit penter, whose essays on “homogenic love”
ical mass of daring souls could be found to begin
strongly influenced his thinking.
sustained meetings. On Nov. 11, 1950, at Hays
A tall and muscular young man, Hay worked
home in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles,
as both an extra and ghostwriter in 1930s Hol
a group of gay men founded the Mattachinc
lywood. He developed a passion for theater and
Society.
performed on Los Angeles stages with Anthony
Though some criticized the movement as Quinn in the 1930s and with Will Geer, who
insular, it grew to include thousands of members became his lover.
in chapters from Berkeley, Calif., to Buffalo, N.Y.,
Geer took Hay to the San Francisco Gener
and created a lasting national framework for gay al Strike of 1935 and indoctrinated him into the
organizing. Mattachine laid the ground for rapid
American Communist Party. Hay became an
active trade unionist. A blend of Marxist analy
sis and stagecraft strongly influenced Hay’s later
gay organizing.
Despite a decade of gay life, in 1938 Hay
married the late Anita Platky, also a Communist
Party member. The couple were stalwarts of the
Los Angeles left; Hay taught at the California
Labor School and campaigned for Ed Roybal,
the first Latino elected in Los Angeles.
When he felt compelled to go public with
the Mattachine Society in 1951, the Hays
divorced. After a burst of activity lasting three
years, the growing Mattachine rejected Hay as a
liability because of his Communist beliefs.
In 1955, when he was called before the
House Un-American Activities Committee, he
had trouble finding a progressive attorney to
represent him, he felt, because of homophobia
on the left. (He ultimately was dismissed after
his curt testimony.) Hay felt exiled from the left
for nearly 50 years, until he received the life
achievement award of a Los Angeles library pre
serving progressive movements.
A second wind of activism came in 1979
when Hay founded, with Don Kilhefher, the
Radical Faeries, a movement affirming gayness
as a form of spiritual calling. This pagan-inspired
group continues internationally based on the
principle that the consciousness of gays differs
from that of heterosexuals.
Hay’s occasional exhortations that gays
should “maximize the differences" between
themselves and heterosexuals remained contro
versial. Academics tended to reject his ideas as
much as they respected his historic stature.
Despite his often combative nature, Hay
became an increasingly beloved figure to younger
generations of gay activists. He often was referred
to as the “Father of Gay Liberation.” j H
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