Gay Liberation Front

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The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was a political lesbian and gay group that "came into being shortly after midnight on June 28 [1969] in response to the Stonewall uprising." The name was chosen as an allusion to the South Vietnamese Liberation Front Viet Cong .

As the first organization that was ready to stand up for the liberation of gays and lesbians in open confrontation, the GLF marked a completely new quality. By making lesbians and gays visible, she laid a foundation for all subsequent liberalization, although her goals went beyond the integration of a minority.

GLF activists in the UK (2010)

Beginnings of the gay liberation

In the fall of 1969, the conservative San Francisco Examiner published anti-gay articles, and on October 31, some homosexuals demonstrated in front of the newspaper's building. The newspaper people finally spilled magenta paint out of the window on the demonstrators. They wiped the paint off with their hands and stamped the building with their handprints.

The Purple Hand , an allusion to the "Black Hand", the name of a New York mafia gang, then became a symbol of gay liberation , but did not prevail in the end and was forgotten.

Development of the GLF New York

Very early on, a split became apparent over the question of whether the GLF had other militant left organizations such as the B. should support the Black Panther Party . In 1970 Jim Owles and Marty Robinson founded a new organization outside the GLF: the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), which saw itself as "a militant (although non-violent) homosexual civil rights organization" and, unlike the GLF, "any participation in an action program that does not obvious homosexual relationship has “wanted to avoid.

After the moderate activists left, the GLF openly saw itself as a revolutionary organization. In an interview with members of the GLF New York published in the San Francisco Free Press , when asked what the Gay Liberation Front was:

“We are a revolutionary homosexual group of men and women that was formed with the realization that complete sexual liberation for all human beings cannot be achieved unless the existing social institutions are abolished. We reject the attempt by society to impose sexual roles and definitions of our nature on us. We step out of these roles and simplistic myths. We will be who we are. At the same time, we are creating new social forms and relationships, that is, relationships based on brotherhood, cooperation, human love and unimpeded sexuality. Babylon forced us to commit to one thing ... the revolution. "

One year old, in addition to the plenary meetings on Sunday evening, which were attended by around seventy to eighty people, the GLF comprised 19 cells or action groups, twelve groups for awareness-raising, a meeting on Wednesday evening for men, a women's meeting on the Sunday evening before the plenary assembly, three Residential communities and a Radical Study Group. There was also the GLF newspaper Come Out! and GLF Commune's magazine on 17th Street, Gay Flames .

The “more moderate” organization, the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), is also criticized in more recent works because in 1973 all people were excluded who did not clearly identify themselves sexually and sexually, especially trans * persons, such as the important activist the fighting for the Stonewall Inn Sylvia Rivera .

GLF Cologne

Event notice Cologne from May 19, 1979

Following the example of the New York group, organizations called the Gay Liberation Front were founded in other cities such as San Francisco and London . The London GLF - founded by Aubrey Walter and Bob Mellors - later expanded its activities across the country.

In 1971 the Gay Liberation Front was founded in Cologne on three evenings (December 2nd, 9th and 16th), inspired by discussions about the film "It is not the homosexual that is perverse, but the situation in which he lives " by Rosa von Praunheim , which was shown in what was then “City” on November 26th and 27th. One year later, on November 2, 1972, the entry in the register of associations takes place.

Further processes:

  • 1974: Opening of the first glf center with an opening party on September 13th in Dasselstrasse. On November 11th, the first talks about setting up a counseling center for the glf-Sozialwerk follow. With the start of the advisory activity, an application for non-profit status was submitted.
  • End of 1975: For the first time the information table of the glf and the SAK (Schwule Aktion Köln) on the largest pedestrian zone in Germany in Schildergasse. The intention is to make homosexuals publicly visible.
  • 1976: Relocation to the new glf center on Marienplatz, Cologne representatives of the Bundestag parties are invited to discuss the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, then colleagues in other Cologne gay groups are sought. Discussion with the director Wolfgang Petersen about his television film “The Consequence”.
  • 1978: The first woman is elected to the glf board. Despite parties, excursions, games and film evenings in the center, which is open every day, despite the advisory team and center service, rather conservative members jump out or switch to the HUK (homosexuals and church).
  • Beginning of 1979: The glf moves to a basement shop in Roonstrasse, cooperation with the Liberal Center in the neighborhood. Two-monthly publication of a free, approximately twenty-page information sheet “glf-Journal”, which is later continued as the monthly sheet “Raus In Köln”.
  • Mid-1980: Militant sections of the pedagogical movement in Bonn's Beethoven Hall with continuous whistling concerts and subsequent occupation of the podium on July 12th, disrupting a party poll on the Bundestag election. The organizer was the German gay movement, represented u. a. from the Allgemeine Homosexuelle Arbeitsgemeinschaft e. V. (AHA Berlin), Gay Liberation Front e. V. (glf Cologne), Schwule Aktion Köln (SAK), Schwule Aktion Bremen (Schwab), Hagener Schwuleninitiative and the Homosexual Initiative Essen. Reinhard Münchenhagen (WDR) was the moderator . The demonstration previously carried out, with over a thousand gays in downtown Bonn, however, is peaceful. The German daily press reported on this event.
  • 1981: First Pink Culture Weeks in Cologne (April 5-18), organized by the glf and the Liberal Center as well as other Cologne homosexual groups with u. a .: Art exhibition in the Liberal Center with book table , graphics and paintings in the glf center, film screening in the cinematheque "It is not the homosexual who is perverted, but ..." and discussion with the director Rosa von Praunheim , cultural parties in the ESG with the new glf- Cabaret "Warmer Kappes", HUK wreath laying at the Hansaring at the memorial for Nazi victims (the speaker who remembered the "Men with the Pink Angle" "was later dismissed from church service after the nationwide TV broadcast) -Annual celebration of the glf on October 24th in the Evangelical Student Community of Cologne, ten gays and two lesbians dare to make the leap to the public with their political cabaret called "Warmer Kappes" after several successful performances in front of a gay / lesbian audience becomes an invitation from the FDP to a party event in Melsungen in front of a heterosexual bourgeois audience.
  • Mid-1982: First parade of the Gay Freedom Day organized by the glf (forerunner of Christopher Street Day ) (June 30, 1979 in Cologne, Bremen, Berlin and Stuttgart) to the rally at the Altermarkt with 500 participants. With over 30,000 participants, the Cologne CSD in 1993 becomes the largest gay and lesbian demonstration in Germany. glf book table on Schildergasse.
  • Mid-1983: First information sheet from the glf-Sozialwerk and the University Dermatology Clinic on AIDS. The glf welfare organization is included in the German Parity Welfare Association. The glf becomes a member of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (now ILGA).
  • 1984: The Center for Gay History e. V. (CSG) is founded in Cologne. The eleven and eleven of the then sixteen lesbian and gay groups in Cologne founded the “Emanzipation e. V. “as an umbrella organization for a large and efficient common center.
  • 1985: Aids-Hilfe Köln was founded. Opening of the "SCHULZ" gay and lesbian center in Bismarckstrasse.
  • Mid-1987: "ILGA World Conference" in Cologne (International Lesbian and Gay Association).
  • 1991: Establishment of the "Cologne Lesbian and Gay Day" (KLUST) as a municipal political umbrella organization, u. a. for the organization of a Cologne lesbian and gay day from which the CSD developed.
  • 1993: The long smoldering name crisis is ended and the glf is finally renamed lglf (lesbian and gay liberation front e.V.).
  • 1994: Reopening of the "SCHULZ" with municipal support on Kartäuserwall with a café, event hall, advice services and library. The ILGA working group is planning another ILGA world conference in Cologne for 1997.
  • Mid-1997: Around 250 participants from 48 countries on all continents accepted the lglf's invitation. The 18th ILGA World Conference will be a complete success in terms of content, organization and finance. Afterwards, numerous participants celebrate the Cologne CSD.
  • 2001: On August 1st, the first gay couples in Cologne were promoted to the status of registered civil partnership by the then district president (and later Cologne mayor) Jürgen Roters .
  • 2002: The “ Europride ”, Europe's largest gay and lesbian event, takes place in Cologne this year, with the motto “Cologne celebrates diversity”. The highlight of the extensive program of events is the CSD parade on July 7th with over 750,000 visitors.
  • End of 2008: The board of directors decides to dissolve lglf e. V.
  • 2009: A broad majority of the council decides to set up a "department for lesbians, gays and transgender" in the Cologne city administration.
  • 2010: The VIII. Gay Games Cologne 2010, the big international sports and culture festival for gays, lesbians, bisexual, trans- and heterosexuals, take place in Cologne. The games will be opened by Guido Westerwelle , Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany.
  • 2012: For the twelfth time, the NRW gay network awards its compass needle for special services to the community, with the exception of Martin Dannecker , the 80-year-old Alfred Schiefer and Ludwig Rubruck, a couple since 1956 and co-founders of the Cologne glf in 1971.

See also

literature

  • Donn Teal: The Gay Militants: How Gay Liberation Began in America, 1969-1971. New York 1971. ISBN 0-312-11279-3 .
  • Lisa Power: "No Bath But Plenty Of Bubbles - An Oral History of the Gay Liberation Front 1970-73"; Cassel plc, 1995; 340 pages.
  • Salih Alexander Wolter: Stonewall revisited: A little history of movement. In: Heinz-Jürgen Voss / Salih Alexander Wolter: Queer and (anti) capitalism. Stuttgart 2013: Schmetterling Verlag. ISBN 3-89657-668-2

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fred Lawrence Guiles: Andy Warhol. Voyeur of life . 1st edition. Paul List Verlag, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-471-77655-9 , p. 320 (Original title: Andy Warhol - Loner at the Ball . London 1989. Translated by Bernhard Schmidt, first edition: 1989).
  2. ^ Salih Alexander Wolter: Stonewall revisited: A little history of movement. In: Heinz-Jürgen Voss / Salih Alexander Wolter: Queer and (anti) capitalism. Stuttgart 2013: Schmetterling Verlag, p. 31ff. ISBN 3-89657-668-2
  3. ↑ Working group: Homosexuals for the Bundestag election. Parties to the test. Gays and lesbians question the parties. Ed .: Beethoven Project. Self-published, Berlin 1980, p. 2 .

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