ABSTRACT
During the early 1970s a flourishing gay liberation movement inspired NYC high school students to organize a number of school-based gay liberation groups. In December 1972, students at George Washington High School, located on Audubon Avenue and 193rd Street in Manhattan’s Washington Heights section north of Harlem, formed a group they would later call the Gay International Youth Society. The very existence of 1970s high school gay liberation groups has been overlooked in present-day Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) literature, yet much like contemporary GSAs, the George Washington group sought to transform the school environment; it was student led and its members were gay, bisexual, and straight.1 It advocated public visibility, the creation of social space, and political activism.2 The club’s membership was representative of the multi-ethnic student body at the overcrowded school.3
