Stand by Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation

by Jim Downs

From a prominent young historian, the untold story of the rich variety of gay life in America in the 1970s

Despite the tremendous gains of the LGBT movement in recent years, the history of gay life in this country remains poorly understood. According to conventional wisdom, gay liberation started with the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village in 1969. The 1970s represented a moment of triumph -- both political and sexual -- before the AIDS crisis in the subsequent decade, which, in the view of many, exposed the problems inherent in the so-called "gay lifestyle".

In Stand by Me , the acclaimed historian Jim Downs rewrites the history of gay life in the 1970s, arguing that the decade was about much more than sex and marching in the streets. Drawing on a vast trove of untapped records at LGBT community centers in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia, Downs tells moving, revelatory stories of gay people who stood together -- as friends, fellow believers, and colleagues -- to create a sense of community among people who felt alienated from mainstream American life.

As Downs shows, gay people found one another in the Metropolitan Community Church, a nationwide gay religious group; in the pages of the Body Politic , a newspaper that encouraged its readers to think of their sexuality as a political identity; at the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore, the hub of gay literary life in New York City; and at theaters putting on "Gay American History," a play that brought to the surface the enduring problem of gay oppression.

These and many other achievements would be largely forgotten after the arrival in the early 1980s of HIV/AIDS, which allowed critics to claim that sex was the defining feature of gay liberation. This reductive narrative set back the cause of gay rights and has shaped the identities of gay people for decades.

An essential act of historical recovery, Stand by Me shines a bright light on a triumphant moment, and will transform how we think about gay life in America from the 1970s into the present day.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, LGBT, Queer, Gay, Historical, American History

262 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2016

About the author

Jim Downs is Gilder Lehrman–National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Civil War Era Studies and History at Gettysburg College. He is the editor of Civil War History and author and editor of six other books, including Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Reviews

[George Ilsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are 7 chapters in this book: the first 5 are interesting, especially "The Biography of a Bookstore" which focusses on the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in New York.

However, the last two chapters I found to be muddled and confusing, and that detracted from my rating of this book.

The premise here is that certain elements of the gay community loom large in the popular imagination, and other segments are ignored or "forgotten". This premise only partly resonates: those of us who lived through the "history" in this book will have wide and varied memories. Overall, the takeaway from this book for those who need to hear it is this: the gay community is not monolithic, but is composed of various complicated (even contradictory) subgroups. It is diverse in the same way society as a whole is diverse.

Some chapters merit five shiny stars. However, in the last two chapters a fog of words obscured distant stars.

[Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting insight into various aspects of the LGBT+ community during the 1970s. Jim Downs uses a plethora of primary sources to map out relatively uncharted areas in the gay liberation movement. He breaks away from the one-dimensional narrative often employed by historians/author's/filmmakers concerning this subject, and offers a three dimensional understanding of the gay men (and women) of this decade. He explores religion, the press, prisons, and literary circles and comments on their impact to the formation of a gay culture. I very much enjoyed this work.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Stonewall Uprising was the cathartic moment that began the gay liberation movement in 1969. During the 70s activism for the LGBTQ community continued in the decade before the AIDS epidemic came to the forefront. Jim Downs provides 7 essays in Stand by Me that discuss various aspects of the gay liberation movement in the 70s. He begins by detailing a deadly fire the broke out in a gay bar in New Orleans in 1973. The fire resulted in the deaths of thirty-two people and is considered one of, if not the largest massacres of gays in American history. The discussion then turns to religion, specifically discussing the Metropolitan Community Church, founded by and for gays people. The MCC offered solace and understanding to a community shunned by most other religious organizations. Downs also discusses the usage of bookstores, print media, and poetry as resources for advocacy in the gay community. The book concludes with a discussion of the image of gay men in the 70s as many worked to shatter the stereotype of an effeminate man, proudly showing the world that you can be macho and be gay.

This was an engaging read that pulled the reader in from the beginning and tugged on your heartstrings reading about the fire at the Up Stairs Lounge in New Orleans. Such a tragic event eclipses more recent events that we have seen in the news, such as the Pulse shooting in Orlando, Florida in 2016. Advocacy for the LGBTQ community really took off in the 1970s and Stand by Me shares the beginning of the story for a subset of the community. Their work is far from done.

[Bob H · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a series of snapshots of LGBT history in the 1970s, looking at various parts of a community that was just emerging into public view and generating their own institutions: newspapers, bookstores, religious organizations, LGBT historians, social groupings in clubs and in prisons. It starts with an arson fire in a gay club/church in New Orleans, a horrific event that took 29 lives and was something of a catalyst. It's not a complete history of the period, but it fills in parts of the story at a pivotal time, and is a fast read.

[Dane Vannatter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent survey of the "hidden" gay history, mostly pre-Stonewall. Hidden because it tells the story of gay community rising: the bookstores, the publications, the politics, the prisons. Gay Community News, Fag Rag, early Advocate, Craig Rodwell, Jonathan Ned Katz, etc. Clear and insightful writing by Jim Downs. The last line of the book is fantastic and moving.

[David Lavis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw a clip of Downs talking about his book in an interview and was intrigued by his premise of the “untold stories” of gay culture post Stonewall, outside the mainstream narrative of a parade of muscled men in bathhouses, cruising parks and eventually the AIDS crisis. As a gay man myself born in the 90s in the south, I had very little access to a queer community growing up, let alone queer history that wasn’t a sad, often didactic depiction of a culture singularly shaped by an epidemic. Being in the moment we are now with our rights seemingly in retrograde and feeling the need for community outside of bars and sex, I was elated to read about many of the people, ideologies, and intellectual communities that flourished outside of “the scene” that used to be so prevalent that Downs “unearths” across the book from his research.

For instance, the prevalence of an organized queer religious movement was something I was unaware of and definitely would have never sought to look into myself. I loved the detailing of a gay “literati” and the culture of self published periodicals, book stores and the many intellectuals that were asking what a queer culture was outside of sex.

All that to say, Im giving three stars because I found the writing across some chapters to be a little hard to follow and his critique on certain cultural phenomena like “the clone” to be haphazard. Maybe that is just a limitation of his choice to tackle many different subjects in such a compartmentalized way. However for this gay millennial, I enjoyed learning a different side of my queer history and forefathers!

[Eugene Galt · Rating 2 out of 5]

While there is certainly room for a counter-narrative on the movement in the seventies, this book does not deliver on its promise. The author cherry-picks aspects of gay life and thought in the period and often presents a superficial analysis of even those. While he includes a chapter on gay religious organizations, he has little to say about the theological and exegitical issues involved, which were a major preoccupation of many people involved. He also treats gay political philosophy during the period as having begun and ended with socialism. However, it did not, and there is no reason why it should have. The chapter on the macho clone gave the author an opportunity, which he did not take, to discuss matters ranging from body dysmorphic disorder among gay men to conformity in the LGBT community, which often comes under scrutiny for celebrating diversity except insofar as it doesn't. At one point, in talking about objectivity and objectification, the author seems to think that the reader will be familiar with certain strains in feminist epistemology and will see nothing problematic with them.

[Kevin Fitzsimmons · Rating 4 out of 5]

The biggest problem with this book is that it promises a scope that it just can't deliver. If you approach this book believing the hype on the dust jacket you will be disappointed. As a comprehensive picture of LGBT life in the 1970's the book just doesn't deliver: it is focused on the lives and activities of a pretty select group of gay men.

If I were king I would revamp the way this book was marketed. As a collection of essays on various aspects of the gay liberation movement(s) in the 1970's this book works very well. The chapters on The Body Politics newspaper and Jonathan Natz Katz where particularly interesting to me.

There is a lot of good information in this book, and the research is impeccable. However, the book does not address the activities of lesbians and transfolk. Any comprehensive history of LGBT life in the seventies needs to include these groups. For instance, a chapter on Women's Music would have been perfectly suited for this book.

That said, for what it is, this book is worth having in your library.

[Monical · Rating 1 out of 5]

Why can't I give this book 10 black marks instead of a single star? Downs manages to totally discount ANY involvement of lesbians in his "Gay" movement, and to commit a major blunder in his analysis of the AIDS epidemic (in spite of his "training" in medical anthropology). I finished the book in one day, because turning each page made me more furious.

He states that his motivation for writing the book came from a viewing and reviews of a movie called "Gay Sex in the 70's." That movie documents the gay male sexual revolution in NYC in the 70's, which certainly was an era of excess. The author wanted to document a greater depth of the gay movement but goes on to deny any link between promiscuity and HIV transmission and the epidemic. Sorry, Downs, but actually promiscuity did advance the HIV epidemic. I thought the best explanation came from "And the Band Played On" when Shilts described promiscuity in the presence of a new sexually transmitted infectious agent as "playing on the freeway." If there are only a few cars on the freeway, you might escape and survive; but when the freeway is jammed (as the SF hepatitis cohort showed over 50% HIV infected by 1979, BMJ 301: 1183, 1990) it is hard to avoid getting hit/infected. The spread was so rapid due to promiscuity. If over 50% are infected, and the majority are asymptomatic, having 10+ sexual encounters a week translates to 5 opportunities (saying that 50% were infected) to become infected or infect partners, and having 10+ sexual encounters/week was well within the activities of many gay men. So let's not be coy about it-- promiscuity wasn't the cause of AIDS, but it was a major contributor to rapid spread of the virus, and the spread to different cities.

Then, the author goes on to "document" other aspects of the gay community. Ahem, the gay MALE community. The development of the lesbian community is almost completely absent. And it was a vibrant community sharing both similarities and differences with the male community. Due to the lack of support of the gay male community, lesbians mostly split away (and added the first additional letter to Gay liberation, becomes GL liberation.... with more letters to follow). By totally ignoring the history of the lesbian community, Downs continues the longstanding male tradition of discounting women. This behavior is sexist, arrogant, and blatant. Shame, shame on you for continuing this demeaning behavior, and relegating the lesbian community of the 1970's to the trash heap, never to be recognized. I guess you "forgot!!!!" to include lesbians in your "forgotten" history!

What is especially infuriating about this book is the squandered potential. I picked this book up from the new books shelf at my library and was looking forward to a discussion and documentation of the entire gay movement in the 1970s. Alas, not even close in this book.

I am reminded of the comments in the documentary about AIDS in SF "We were here" (strongly recommended) where one of the interviewees noted the contributions of lesbians in providing help during the epidemic. He states with some surprise how many and frequently lesbians helped, with the explanation that the gay (male) community had not supported the lesbians.

OK, Jim, you owe us. I hope you find a way to atone for this book.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Downs's counter-narrative to the 1970s gay liberation movement revisits some forgotten, and important, episodes and cultural threads. His accounts of the religious strands of the movement, the New Orleans arson episode that, sadly, until last month in Orlando, was the largest massacre of gay Americans in history, and the forgotten political wings of the movement, are enlightening, and help to re-shape the single classical narrative of gay liberation (repression --> sexual revolution --> AIDS -->rebuilding). The chapters are completely dedicated to male issues, though, and almost exclusively those of white men. While Downs addresses this in the introduction, and does call attention to the shade thrown on women and non-white gay Americans during the liberation narrative, it seems negligent to attempt to round the traditionally narrow and linear story of gay rights while still omitting any exploration of women, people of color, and trans persons. Disclaimer: I read an uncorrected proof/advanced copy, so take with a grain of salt, but Downs also reuses his references, pointing to the same events and sources sometimes multiple times within the book. Overall, I found the work important, interesting, and educational, but I wanted broader coverage and more research.

[Michael Kerr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series of loosely connected essays is a reclamation of 1970s gay history. Downs argues that the predominant narrative on gay liberation of this time focuses almost exclusively on promiscuity - which then led to the AIDS crisis. In this book, he points to other developments such as intellectual, spiritual, and even community achievements. A good corrective to the "Gay Sex in the 70s" shorthand.

[Ali Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are better gay histories. That said, it had some good stuff - the Oscar Wilde bookstore, the Body Politic newspaper, the chronicle of the fire in the Upstairs Lounge. The writing left something to be desired, and some of the content was pretty repetitive. But it tells of an important and underrepresented time in gay american history.

[Ken · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The premise is a bit over the top for those of us who lived through it "Gee, the 70s weren't all discos and Sex?"

No young man. They weren't. But otherwise the writing is good, and the research is solid.

[Mason · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cogent and readable exploration of the 1970s beyond the sexual revolution. Downs' account of the first gay bookstore and the rise of the "macho clone" as facilitated by patriarchy/white supremacy are particularly fascinating.

[Kris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I learned some history but overall thought the book was like reading a dissertation. I didn't feel much passion from the author.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

A look into queer history as a perspective by other than the typical angle that this history has been said. Looking into the height of the 70s, there is information on the first gay bookstore in the USA, The Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore. (damn, I would have loved to get a chance to go to that place when it was thriving). I loved the look in at the different aspects of the book. Loved it in fact, but I found a few issues.

Issue number one: focus more of the G of LGBT. It did show that woman helped with the movement but the main focus was on men in the movement. The T is only addressed when it was the obvious things (that we tend to hear about more at least in the books that I have read) is that people of color and trans/drag queens helped in the Stonewall raid in 1969. But sections like rape in prison was all male. Body Language chapter was all about the infusion of a more masculine male figure that owed up to be gay rather than being on the down low. The chapter about the building burning focus was on men because it was more men than women who attended the event. So gay men everywhere gay woman in the sidelines and trans hardly a mention.

Issue two: you have to admit that the 70s were full of sex. It was an aspect of the gay movement. Men were highly permissions. I don't know how much the woman was but it was a time where cruising and bathhouses was a thing. Religious shunned LGBT so LGBT people looked towards something else while some found community in the churches. AIDs and it transmission was main through gay sex (some of which were from men who didn't tell their wife that they were gay and then having relation with the wife who then becomes infected if her male gay- or bi- partner had HIV/AIDS. And that's also not to say about the intravenous drug users. To be able to have sex with a lover is exhilarating, even if it was illegal and to fight to get it equal is something as the major thing in LGBT history. You can't erase that sex was a big aspect (probably why it was a major thing recorded in history.)

But overall it was nice to see aspects not as highly looked into. A quick read too. Just about 197 pages and the rests were acknowledgment and notes.

[Olivia · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the most part, this is a pretty good introduction into what white gay men were doing in the 1970s outside of the stereotyped sex and parties. He discusses the gay religious movement, the establishment of the first gay bookshop, the significance of gay publications, queer people in prison, and the macho clone.

There are several places where Downs talks about the past while glazing over the intersectional issues that were going on (specifically in the chapter on incarceration) and there’s a lack of regard for WHY “The Body Politic” got raided in the first place.

There’s also something about the chapter on the macho clones that doesn’t sit well with me. Downs spends the rest of the book focusing on how “integrated” the gay movement was (though we know that’s not entirely true) before the macho clone and then only brings up queer people of color and queer women to justify his views on the macho clone. Add to it that he spent so much time in the introduction trying to distance himself from the way other historians blame gay men in the 70s for the dissolution of the gay movement and the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 80s…..and does precisely that with the discussion of the macho clone.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was let down by this. Somewhat dryly written; a decent dive into forgotten history of the 70s, but it would have been nice if queer women & POC hadn't been minimized. The author even mentions how they are often removed from the narrative but falls victim to it himself. Audre Lorde makes the barest of appearances during a chapter on the macho white male stereotype; lesbians in general show up tangential to gay men. I picked it up to learn more about my predecessors & am left feeling ignored. 2.5 stars.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the largest massacre of gay people in American history (until Pulse in Orlando last year), to the gay religious movement, the first gay and lesbian bookstore, prison poetry and reform, the birth of the "macho clone" and whitewashing of queer history after the Stonewall uprising... this book covers a lot of information. It gave me a broader perspective on gay liberation as well as advances in other civil rights movements.

[Bill Coyman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heard Jim's voice from a younger age and its now heard by a much larger audience, well researched! Story telling is a must, a gift! History is at times is sadly forgotten, brushed over, hidden, and at times it needs to be a refresher/a reminder, sometimes it sadly repeats. It was a great piece to reflect and learn from.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A history book that blew my mind. The gay liberation movement in the 70's was about more than drugs and sex... who knew?! I applaud this writer for his compassion and exhaustive research. Keeping on hand to read again.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Forgotten History of Cis Gay White Male Liberation, really. Women, persons of color, trans and non-binary folk - literally anyone who is not a cis white dude - are afterthoughts in this writer’s take on gay history. I’m tired.

[Ezra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed learning about the forgotten gay history from the 70s! First half of the book was great but the second half could use some editorializing (especially when it mentions pedophilia in the chapter about newspapers/magazines)…Loved the chapter on carceral system!

[Steven J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding read! Anyone who is continuing to do LGBTQ+ liberation should know the history of our work. There is so much I do not know and this text opened my eyes to a part of our history that is not commonly known but should be. I highly recommend this book!

[Virgowriter (Brad Windhauser) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting look at some aspects of gay mens’ lives in the 70s

[Audrey Doney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I especially liked the first two chapters on religion. As a previously religious person: wow. As a member of the community: wow. Good book, give it a read, and don't forget to call your senators.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Stand by Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation" by Jim Downs made me weep, made me sick to my stomach, made me proud, and made me grateful. There is no greater compliment that I can pay to this book. I didn't know any of the stories Downs shared. I had vague ideas of how we got from there to here, but I didn't know names or stories. The book is fascinating and well written. It's long, but the sections are grouped by topic. It's detailed, but no so much as to grow tiresome. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone LGBT or not. History, these people and their struggle should never be forgotten.

[Tim Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've read in a long time, Jim Downs's study of gay life in the 1970s offers a rich history of gay liberation as an intellectual phenomenon. Print, religion, community, ideology, and culture come together, showing that we've overlooked so much of the decade by focusing only on sex and sexual liberation.

[Bella · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for a high school paper on a topic of my choosing and this was such an intriguing and gut wrenching account of the casual prejudice and violence experienced towards LGBT+ people. Eye opening as a sophomore in high school.

[Nance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Necessary book in the gay history archives.