Barbara Gittings and Randy Wicker in 1994. Photo courtesy of Mark Segal______________
Under an alter ego, gay-rights pioneer 'Randy' Wicker has battled LGBT injustices lurking everywhere from bars to airwaves from the 1950s to present. Here is his take on the journey from quiet, closeted kid to outspoken, unabashed advocate.
As a teenager during the 1950s, I knew I was homosexual. I heard others talking about 'queers.' When someone explained what 'queer' meant, I realized I was one. 'Queer' wasn't 'catchy' and 'in' then. 'Queer' was a hateful epithet that caused pain. In high school, some of the local rednecks called me 'Que-bo' behind my back.
I secretly prowled library shelves devouring every book on the subject. Collected 'case studies' bore titles like 'Sex Deviants.' The 'patient' sexual histories dated back to the late 19th century, generally beginning with a student being seduced by a piano teacher. Lesbians were never even discussed. At 17, I read a paperback novel, Rodney Garland's Heart in Exile. The protagonist describes following an attractive sailor into a gay bar. There were actual bars where homosexuals gathered and socialized? I was ecstatic!
In the 1950s, newspapers and magazines only covered homosexual scandals: Child killers Leopold and Loeb; Burgess and McLean, British spies who'd defected to the Soviet Union; Sen. Joseph McCarthy's 'hunt' for homosexuals working for the government; and police round-ups of 'perverts' usually featuring photos of drag queens, make-up askew, sitting in a Paddy wagon.
Only pulp publications like Los Angeles Confidential Magazine covered 'all the news unfit to print'—about celebrities who engaged in real or alleged homosexual activity.
In 1956, I found gay life in Greenwich Village, a world I'd never dreamed existed one year earlier. 'Gay' was an in-group term in those days, a word you'd drop as bait to test another person's reaction.
In bars, some talked about a 'Mattachine Society.' No one could answer my questions about it. I discovered The Mattachine Review and One Magazine on a local newsstand, bought copies and subscribed. I read them eagerly during my next year at college.
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