ABSTRACT
New York City’s Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) was founded in December 1969 by disgruntled members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). Activists such as Donn Teal, Arthur Bell, Marty Robinson, Jim Owles, and Kay Tobin were unhappy with the GLF’s expansive, radical political agenda. The GLF, formed in the aftermath of the Stonewall riots, was a self-proclaimed “militant coalition of radical and revolutionary homosexual men and women.” In addition to pursuing gay and lesbian rights, the GLF supported the Black Panther Party, radical feminists, and the anti-Vietnam War movement. GLF broadsides called for the overthrow of patriarchy, racism, and capitalism-seeing each as constitutive elements in a “System” that oppressed sexual minorities. GAA members were put off by what journalist Ralph Hall called the “politically articulate dogmatists” who dominated GLF meetings. The break was not complete. While GAA members rejected the politics of the New Left, they embraced the counterculture’s atmosphere of social and sexual dissidence.
