THE HOMOSEXUAL CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

The homosexual culture in the 1950s was invested in protecting the "secret" of an individual's homosexuality and expressing it only in a symbolic or heavily coded way. Cultural resistance to the heterosexual norm was expressed through cross-gender performances and sex role-playing.

Instead of protecting "secrecy" as the right to privacy, the new gay liberationists gave political meaning to "coming out" by extending the psychological-personal process into public life. By placing "coming out" at the center of its political strategy, the gay liberation movement tended to mobilize those people who felt more emotionally committed to living a full-time life as homosexuals rather than those who experienced homosexual desire only sporadically or who experienced desire for both men and women.

The new freedom of the sexual revolution allowed gay men to create opportunities for easy sex in bathhouses and sex clubs. These venues provided safe spaces without fear of outsiders intruding or arrest, an ample supply of sexual partners, a physically comfortable space, and a socially structured environment that focused the interactions between participants.

Attempts to decriminalize homosexuality had failed in both 1962 and 1966, but were eventually ratified by an Act in 1967 that allowed homosexual acts between consenting adults, over the age of 21, in privacy.