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Harry Hay (1912 - )
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 Radically
Gay : Gay Liberation in the Words of Its Founder by
Harry Hay, Will Roscoe (Editor)
Activist, author, teacher, and visionary Harry
Hay is an American original. He has left his mark on some of the
most significant social and cultural movements of the twentieth
century, from trade unionism to New Age spirituality. But it is
Harry Hay's role in launching the Lesbian / Gay liberation
movement that has earned him a place in history.
As early as 1948 Harry Hay began pursuing his
vision of forming an organization, the Mattachine Society, devoted
to the welfare of Gay people. Hay was the first to propose the
idea of Gay men and Lesbians as a cultural minority, the very
basis of the Gay movement today. For the last fifty years, he has
grappled with each new wave of cultural and political thought and
synthesized agonizing contradictions from spirituality to Marxism,
from art to politics.
This first collection of Hay's own words --
speeches, papers, and interviews -- offers invaluable insight into
the vision of one man who made it possible for millions to live in
freedom and with self-respect.
"This exciting book presents the ideas of
the most innovative and visionary gay thinker in our movement.
Harry Hay challenges the gay movement to see itself
historically--as a social change movement integrally engaged in
human liberation for all people. Hay also challenges us to value
gay and lesbian experience spiritually--arguing that gayness
serves the human family in redemptive, healing and transformative
ways. This is essential and provocative reading for anyone trying
to understand what it means to be gay, bisexual, transgender or
straight." -- Uravashi Vaid, author of Virtual
Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation
"What a life! What a person! What a story!
Harry Hay and his writings impel the gay community out of the mire
of defensiveness and mere survival into a realm of dignity and
creativity. In contrast to academic and political forces that
would dissolve the notion of gay identity, Hay reaffirms it with
vision, inspiration and hope." -- Richard D. Mohr, author of Gay
Ideas
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This site maintained by CorBeau,
and is dedicated to the founder of the Radical Faerie Movement.
Site Includes:
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From GayGate.com
Excerpt:
In May, 1955, Hay was called to testify before
the dread House Un-American Activities Committee, with the result
that the Mattachine Society distanced itself even further from its
founder. The 1960's saw Hay's continued activity in the struggle
for gay rights: he helped organize the first Gay Pride parade in
Los Angeles (and perhaps in the nation), and in 1966 was chair of
the LA Committee to Fight the Exclusion of Homosexuals from the
Armed Forces (though as the war deepened, the pacifist Hay would
become a draft counselor). Perhaps as a sign of the times he
opened a kaleidoscope factory with his lover John Burnside, whom
he had met in 1963 and with whom he formed "The Circle of
Loving Companions..."
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Passages from the book hosted at the unofficial
Industrial Workers of the World web site:
Excerpt
It was while living this idyllic, rustic
existence that Harry woke up in the middle of the night in his
tent with a sudden insight. Though he had always felt shoved to
the edge of the socialist utopia because of the anti-homosexual
threats of the wobblies, he realized that if the teams were
entirely "temperamental," it would not matter: "If
we cared about each other, we could be unbeatable as a work team,
and no one could criticize us when they'd see what we could
produce." Like reading Edward Carpenter when he was eleven,
this insight sparked a gay communal vision that survived through
Hay's life...
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This page lists important websites about faerie
culture, rural queer culture, with bibliographies, and more.
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By Paul D. Cain, Gay
Today
Excerpt:
Earlier, Harry had requested that people write down
what they wanted inscribed in their books, and I wrote, "To
Paul--Best of luck on your book. Harry Hay."
At first he was confused, thinking I meant best
of luck on his book, but we soon straightened that out. I briefly
explained as he wrote the dedication that I was writing a book of
profiles on American gay men and lesbians. As he finished the
inscribing, he looked at me and asked, "You won't be
including bisexuals, now, will you?"
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Harry Hay recalls the heady days when the modern
Gay movement was born and the "Golden Dream of Brotherhood
was enveloping us all."
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By Sky Gilbert, eye.net
Excerpt:
I've never been too fond of the idea of gay
marriage, but I wasn't sure why. As an out-of-the-closet slutty
fag, I always felt it was a step backward. At any rate, getting
married was never high on my "to do" list.
Then I met Harry Hay.
You've probably never heard of Harry Hay. That's
because people don't talk about him much these days. Harry Hay,
the founder of the modern gay movement, has been conveniently
bypassed by gay and lesbian historians lately because queer
culture has moved to the right -- socially and politically...
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From The Knitting Circle
Excerpt:
One of the earliest gay movement organisations
in the USA. It began in Los Angeles in 1950-51. Its name was given
by the pioneer activist Harry Hay in commemoration of the
French medieval and Renaissance Société Mattachine, a musical
masque group which he had studied while preparing a course on the
history of popular music for a workers' education project. The
name was meant to symbolise the fact that "gays were a masked
people, unknown and anonymous", and the word, also spelled matachin
or matachine, has been derived from the Arabic of Moorish
Spain, in which mutawajjihin, relates to masking oneself.
Such an opaque name is typical of the homophile movement of the
time in which open proclamation of the purposes of the group
through a revealing name was regarded as imprudent...
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By K. Mark Demma,
© 1998
Excerpt:
In 1950, Harry Hay started what they believed to
be the first gay rights group ever in existence, the Mattachine
Society, named after a group of Renaissance French clerics whose
annual festivals satirised the church. Mr. Hay is a genuinely warm
and funny individual. The first time I met Mr. Hay, I remarked
that I didn't know whether to bow or curtsey, to which he
responded, "perhaps we should both curtsey" and he
grabbed my hand and we both curtseyed and laughed. He told me that
the original Mattachine Society served both social and political
functions and related to me that at the dances they organised, one
partner would wear a hanky in his pocket so they would know who
should lead. He also related how paranoid they were in the early
days, arranging it so people only knew a few others in the
organisation's structure so that they could not be coerced into
revealing the entire leadership structure. Mr. Hay was quite an
unconventional man back in the day, and I guess he still is now. A
member of the communist party and a devotee of avant-garde acting,
he was perhaps the only person at that time to have the chutzpah
to pull off forming such a group...
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Names Index:
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G H
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