Chapters of the Mattachine Society in the eastern United States were free to return to their more radical roots and pave the way to necessary reform.Īccording to Samuel Morris Steward, oft a collaborator with Alfred Kinsey, while there was a bar scene during the 1950s, it was a tricky business. Accommodating for a heterosexual and largely homophobic (public?) would result in a drastic decline in membership.
This shift would later be a source of regret for prominent founding member Harry Hay (born April 7th, 1912 in Worthing, England-October 24, 2002).
This was likely in part due to the fact that many gay activists still believed that homosexuality was a disease and being secretive wasn't a political liability. In 1953 there was a split amongst founding members and the new Mattachine Society took on a more conservative stance, advocating that homosexuals adjust to and adopt heterosexual social and cultural mores. Its original incarnation held views similar to that of groups of the 1960s and '70s, consisting of a militant stance driving for drastic reform. The Mattachine Society's founding in 1951 marked the nation's 'first' gay rights organization prior to the Stonewall Riots of 1969.
