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Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation
Filled with Joyous self-affirmation, angry manifestos, and searching personal reflections, this classic work provides a close look at the individuals and ideologies of this important social movement. In the tradition of Sisterhood is Powerful, Out of the Closets presents , in their own words, the views, values attitudes, aspirations, and circumstances of the early generation of gay and lesbian liberationists. Highlighting both how much and how little has changed since Stonewall, this work is essential reading for anyone concerned with the history of sexuality and the legal and social status of lesbians and gays in contemporary America.
416 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1972
About the author
Karla Jay
21 books24 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Karla Jay is a professor of English and the director of the Women's and Gender Studies program at Pace University. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, she is widely published. Jay was born Karla Jayne Berlin in Brooklyn, New York, to a conservative Jewish family. She attended the Berkeley Institute, a private girls' school in Brooklyn now called the Berkeley Carroll School. Later she attended Barnard College, where she majored in French, and graduated in 1968 after having taken part in the student demonstrations at Columbia University. While she shared many of the goals of the radical left-wing of the late 1960s, Jay was uncomfortable with the male-supremacist behavior of many of the movement’s leaders. In 1969, she became a member of Redstockings. At around the same time she began using the name Karla Jay to reflect her feminist principles.
Karla Jay is a professor of English and the director of the Women's and Gender Studies program at Pace University. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, she is widely published. Jay was born Karla Jayne Berlin in Brooklyn, New York, to a conservative Jewish family. She attended the Berkeley Institute, a private girls' school in Brooklyn now called the Berkeley Carroll School. Later she attended Barnard College, where she majored in French, and graduated in 1968 after having taken part in the student demonstrations at Columbia University. While she shared many of the goals of the radical left-wing of the late 1960s, Jay was uncomfortable with the male-supremacist behavior of many of the movement’s leaders. In 1969, she became a member of Redstockings. At around the same time she began using the name Karla Jay to reflect her feminist principles.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 21, 2026
From Allen young, "Out of the Closets, Into the Streets"
"Most male homosexuals are still trapped by notions of masculinity. It is a familiar story--the oppressed worships the oppressor." (11)
"The gay man's quest for masculinity, or exaggerated masculinity, cannot be dismissed as mere evidence of his sexism. Beyond that, it is evidence of oppression, evidence of how a minority is overwhelmed by the values and style of the majority. Some additional observations about gay bars are necessary. On one level, these gathering places are products of a system we are striving to eliminate. First, they perpetuate male supremacy; second, most of them are owned by greedy gay capitalists or greedier criminal syndicates. It is impossible, however, to escape a crucial fact: aside from the meetings of gay organizations, these bars are the only places where large numbers of gay people get together. [...] As congregating places for gay people (particularly gay men, although there are a handful of lesbian bars in the biggest cities), the gay bars are the focal points of conflict between our new spirit of liberation and the forces which would keep us in our place." (11)
Gay bars (11) are "we will continue to preserve the bars as temporary gay turf where there is at least minimal freedom for gay people." (13)
"Repression by police power is a day-to-day fact for all homosexuals. Every "practicing" homosexual is an outlaw, for gay love (under the legal category of "sodomy") is a crime in all but two states (Connecticut and Illinois)." (13)
"Transvestites [sic] (only some of whom are homosexual) are frequently arrested for wearing "the clothing of the opposite sex." Transvestites find it almost impossible to obtain employment, a situation which often drives them to prostitution. They are frequently arrested for prostitution, impersonation, solicitation, loitering, harassment, disorderly conduct, etc., or are carted off to mental hospitals." (14)
On Marriage
"As for gay marriages, most gay liberationists se this as an imitation of a bad heterosexual institution. While many of us relate in couples, we are working toward a goal of communal love." (15)
Communist homophobia
"The traditional left, both Old Left and New Left, has been as oppressive to homosexuals as has establishment America. I grew up in a Communist Party household, and I learned at an early age about socialism, about how the workers are unjustly exploited by the bosses, about the beautiful system known as socialism. I also quickly learned that socialism wasn't for fairies, because my parents and their friends would occasionally make jokes about fairies. I also knew that I was a fairy. (I didn't want to be one, of course, but that's what they called me in school) In any case, it was much easier to identify with socialism than with being a fairy. (The communist Party is probably the most vicious anti-homosexual group on the left today. It's paper, the Daily World, has published at least one anti-homosexual cartoon, and CP picket captains in New York physically assaulted gay people who wanted to march with gay banners in support of Angela Davis.)" (22-23)
"I used to sneak away from the LNS office, and from my "comrades" in SDS, to meet other homosexuals." (22)
"The "pro-gay" segment of the straight movement is telling us, "Now you don't have to hide any more, so everything is OK." We are saying in return, "Everything is not OK. Not hiding is only the beginning. You have to stop holding on to your straight identity. [...]"" (23)
"The traditional birthday of Gay Liberation is June 1969, when gay people fought back against a police raid at the Stonewall Inn. The police invaded the bar, forcing people out onto the street. But instead of running away, the gay people, led by transvestites, [sic] locked the police inside the bar, set the place afire, and then threw coins and bottles when the police worked their way out of the place. Participants in the incident, along with others in the gay community, got together to plan an on-going political group for gay people. The gay militants chose the name Gay Liberation Front, in homage to the Vietnamese guerillas." (25)
"We do have a common enemy in U.S. imperialism; that is true and that provides us with a certain sense of unity." (24)
Young admits a left-wing or bottom-up unity which is unstable because it is segregated by gay and straight movement,
"[...] by the sexist mentality of the left [...] I am constantly being coerced, gently or arrogantly, to provide a class analysis of homosexuality, to answer allegations about "bourgeois decadence"--and more often than not I yield to this coercion. But this is just one of the ways that so-called Marxists have put down homosexuals. We don't have to answer any of these questions; the onus is on the straight movement to deal with its sexism." (24)
"Gay liberation also has a perspective for revolution based on the unity of all oppressed people--that is, there can be no freedom for gays in a society which enslaves others through male supremacy, racism and economic exploitation (capitalism)." (25-26)
"Gay, in its most far-reaching sense, means not homosexual, but sexually free." (28)
Straightness entails "rejection of homosexuality" which "is the accomplice of the policeman [...]" (8)
From Martha Shelley, "Gay is Good"
"Here come the gays, [...] embarrassing the liberals, [...] by refusing to pass for straight anymore." (31)
"And I am personally sick of liberals who say they don't care who sleeps with whom, it's what you do outside the bed that counts. This is what homosexuals have been trying to get straights to understand for years. Well, it's too late for liberalism. Because what I do outside of bed may have nothing to do with what I do inside--but my consciousness is branded, is permeated with homosexuality. For years I have been branded with your label for me. The result is that when I am among gays or in bed with another woman, I am a person, not a lesbian. When I am observable to the straight world, I become gay." (31)
"We want something more now, something more than the tolerance you never gave us." (31)
"Liberalism isn't good enough for us. And we are just beginning to discover it. Your friendly smile of acceptance--from the safe position of heterosexuality--isn't enough. As long as you cherish the secret belief that you are a little bit better because you sleep with the opposite sex, you are still asleep in your cradle and we will be the nightmare that awakens you." (32)
"Understand this--that the worst part of being a homosexual is having to keep it secret. Not the occasional murders by police or teenage queer-beaters, not the loss of jobs or expulsion from schools or dishonorable discharges--but the daily knowledge that what you are is so awful that it cannot be revealed. The violence against us is sporadic. Most of us are not affected. But the internal violence of being made to carry--or choosing to carry--the load of your straight society's unconscious guilt--this is what tears us apart, what makes us want to stand up in the offices, in the factories and schools and shout out our true identities.
"[...] we are the sort of people everyone was taught to despise--and now we are shaking off the chains of self-hatred and marching on your citadels of repression." (32)
Advice for gay people trying to heal from self-hatred into a livable form of self-understanding: "Get in touch with the reasons that made you reject straight society as a kid [...] and realize that you were right. Straight roles stink." (32)
From Konstantin Berlandt, "My Soul Vanished From Sight: A California Saga of Gay Liberation"
""Wear your gown all year around!" We screamed and chanted and picketed and danced in a chorus line in Market Street in protest of the Beaux Arts drag queen ball. Why only once a year? Why only on Halloween? Why not whenever you want to do it? The streets belong to the people, we sang. I came in drag. I didn't have to shave my beard or my legs: I looked very sexy. At one point, however, the whole acting troupe disappeared into Fosters while I was eating an orange and talking to a spectator. When I looked around I was alone--I became paranoid about being beaten up on my way home." (Berlandt, 54)
"Outside on the street the men from the bar separate, no touching, they walk off passing as straight men. The bedroom is a closet, the bar is a closet, the closet is a jail cell." (Berlandt, page 55)
The Venceremos Brigade to Cuba (208)
The name of Marxist (216)
Youth rebellion of the epoch (226, 228)
"Most male homosexuals are still trapped by notions of masculinity. It is a familiar story--the oppressed worships the oppressor." (11)
"The gay man's quest for masculinity, or exaggerated masculinity, cannot be dismissed as mere evidence of his sexism. Beyond that, it is evidence of oppression, evidence of how a minority is overwhelmed by the values and style of the majority. Some additional observations about gay bars are necessary. On one level, these gathering places are products of a system we are striving to eliminate. First, they perpetuate male supremacy; second, most of them are owned by greedy gay capitalists or greedier criminal syndicates. It is impossible, however, to escape a crucial fact: aside from the meetings of gay organizations, these bars are the only places where large numbers of gay people get together. [...] As congregating places for gay people (particularly gay men, although there are a handful of lesbian bars in the biggest cities), the gay bars are the focal points of conflict between our new spirit of liberation and the forces which would keep us in our place." (11)
Gay bars (11) are "we will continue to preserve the bars as temporary gay turf where there is at least minimal freedom for gay people." (13)
"Repression by police power is a day-to-day fact for all homosexuals. Every "practicing" homosexual is an outlaw, for gay love (under the legal category of "sodomy") is a crime in all but two states (Connecticut and Illinois)." (13)
"Transvestites [sic] (only some of whom are homosexual) are frequently arrested for wearing "the clothing of the opposite sex." Transvestites find it almost impossible to obtain employment, a situation which often drives them to prostitution. They are frequently arrested for prostitution, impersonation, solicitation, loitering, harassment, disorderly conduct, etc., or are carted off to mental hospitals." (14)
On Marriage
"As for gay marriages, most gay liberationists se this as an imitation of a bad heterosexual institution. While many of us relate in couples, we are working toward a goal of communal love." (15)
Communist homophobia
"The traditional left, both Old Left and New Left, has been as oppressive to homosexuals as has establishment America. I grew up in a Communist Party household, and I learned at an early age about socialism, about how the workers are unjustly exploited by the bosses, about the beautiful system known as socialism. I also quickly learned that socialism wasn't for fairies, because my parents and their friends would occasionally make jokes about fairies. I also knew that I was a fairy. (I didn't want to be one, of course, but that's what they called me in school) In any case, it was much easier to identify with socialism than with being a fairy. (The communist Party is probably the most vicious anti-homosexual group on the left today. It's paper, the Daily World, has published at least one anti-homosexual cartoon, and CP picket captains in New York physically assaulted gay people who wanted to march with gay banners in support of Angela Davis.)" (22-23)
"I used to sneak away from the LNS office, and from my "comrades" in SDS, to meet other homosexuals." (22)
"The "pro-gay" segment of the straight movement is telling us, "Now you don't have to hide any more, so everything is OK." We are saying in return, "Everything is not OK. Not hiding is only the beginning. You have to stop holding on to your straight identity. [...]"" (23)
"The traditional birthday of Gay Liberation is June 1969, when gay people fought back against a police raid at the Stonewall Inn. The police invaded the bar, forcing people out onto the street. But instead of running away, the gay people, led by transvestites, [sic] locked the police inside the bar, set the place afire, and then threw coins and bottles when the police worked their way out of the place. Participants in the incident, along with others in the gay community, got together to plan an on-going political group for gay people. The gay militants chose the name Gay Liberation Front, in homage to the Vietnamese guerillas." (25)
"We do have a common enemy in U.S. imperialism; that is true and that provides us with a certain sense of unity." (24)
Young admits a left-wing or bottom-up unity which is unstable because it is segregated by gay and straight movement,
"[...] by the sexist mentality of the left [...] I am constantly being coerced, gently or arrogantly, to provide a class analysis of homosexuality, to answer allegations about "bourgeois decadence"--and more often than not I yield to this coercion. But this is just one of the ways that so-called Marxists have put down homosexuals. We don't have to answer any of these questions; the onus is on the straight movement to deal with its sexism." (24)
"Gay liberation also has a perspective for revolution based on the unity of all oppressed people--that is, there can be no freedom for gays in a society which enslaves others through male supremacy, racism and economic exploitation (capitalism)." (25-26)
"Gay, in its most far-reaching sense, means not homosexual, but sexually free." (28)
Straightness entails "rejection of homosexuality" which "is the accomplice of the policeman [...]" (8)
From Martha Shelley, "Gay is Good"
"Here come the gays, [...] embarrassing the liberals, [...] by refusing to pass for straight anymore." (31)
"And I am personally sick of liberals who say they don't care who sleeps with whom, it's what you do outside the bed that counts. This is what homosexuals have been trying to get straights to understand for years. Well, it's too late for liberalism. Because what I do outside of bed may have nothing to do with what I do inside--but my consciousness is branded, is permeated with homosexuality. For years I have been branded with your label for me. The result is that when I am among gays or in bed with another woman, I am a person, not a lesbian. When I am observable to the straight world, I become gay." (31)
"We want something more now, something more than the tolerance you never gave us." (31)
"Liberalism isn't good enough for us. And we are just beginning to discover it. Your friendly smile of acceptance--from the safe position of heterosexuality--isn't enough. As long as you cherish the secret belief that you are a little bit better because you sleep with the opposite sex, you are still asleep in your cradle and we will be the nightmare that awakens you." (32)
"Understand this--that the worst part of being a homosexual is having to keep it secret. Not the occasional murders by police or teenage queer-beaters, not the loss of jobs or expulsion from schools or dishonorable discharges--but the daily knowledge that what you are is so awful that it cannot be revealed. The violence against us is sporadic. Most of us are not affected. But the internal violence of being made to carry--or choosing to carry--the load of your straight society's unconscious guilt--this is what tears us apart, what makes us want to stand up in the offices, in the factories and schools and shout out our true identities.
"[...] we are the sort of people everyone was taught to despise--and now we are shaking off the chains of self-hatred and marching on your citadels of repression." (32)
Advice for gay people trying to heal from self-hatred into a livable form of self-understanding: "Get in touch with the reasons that made you reject straight society as a kid [...] and realize that you were right. Straight roles stink." (32)
From Konstantin Berlandt, "My Soul Vanished From Sight: A California Saga of Gay Liberation"
""Wear your gown all year around!" We screamed and chanted and picketed and danced in a chorus line in Market Street in protest of the Beaux Arts drag queen ball. Why only once a year? Why only on Halloween? Why not whenever you want to do it? The streets belong to the people, we sang. I came in drag. I didn't have to shave my beard or my legs: I looked very sexy. At one point, however, the whole acting troupe disappeared into Fosters while I was eating an orange and talking to a spectator. When I looked around I was alone--I became paranoid about being beaten up on my way home." (Berlandt, 54)
"Outside on the street the men from the bar separate, no touching, they walk off passing as straight men. The bedroom is a closet, the bar is a closet, the closet is a jail cell." (Berlandt, page 55)
The Venceremos Brigade to Cuba (208)
The name of Marxist (216)
Youth rebellion of the epoch (226, 228)
April 8, 2008
An excellent snapshot of its time. Put another way, pretty dated. But fun!
March 27, 2019
A good history of the collective coming out. These days, it is easy to forget just how underground the movement for LGBT-lib once was. It's an older book, and as such lacks the trappings and pitfalls of many of the grievance studies and 'intersectional' orthodoxy perhaps loved overmuch in today's college classes.
Yet the reader can expect to get a good grounding in how 'we' went from invisible to proud.
Yet the reader can expect to get a good grounding in how 'we' went from invisible to proud.
June 2, 2014
totally and utterly necessary compilation of 60s and 70s radical queer stuff
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews