Charles Thorpe, the SF State Gay Liberation Front, and the National Student Gay Liberation Conference
In 1970, SF State student Charles Thorpe (1949/50-94) took the lead in founding SF State’s Gay Liberation Front (GLF). He did so after participating in the SF State strikes of 1968 and 1969 and Committee for Homosexual Freedom (CHF) demonstrations in 1969. In April 1969, the Barb reported that “gays previously active in other battles,” including the SF State strikes, were participating in CHF protests against States Steamship, which had fired one of their workers after he came out as gay in the Barb. To illustrate this point, the Barb turned to SF State creative writing student Charles Thorpe, from Redwood City, who was quoted as saying, “It’s a matter of survival and pride in my people…. Homosexuals are stepping out of their ghetto-bars and double lives and into the power struggle.” In an early sign of his militant politics, Thorpe told the Barb, “We will take our freedom…. We will burn our faces with tears and cover our hands with blood, but we will get our freedom…. We will fight until our bodies no longer give blood, ‘till we no longer exist, or until we can freely grow to our capacities without intervention by this murderous society.”[1] Shortly thereafter Thorpe appeared in a photograph of a Mission District Safeway store demonstration in support of the United Farmworkers grape boycott.[2]
In August, Thorpe’s radical politics were evident in a poem he wrote about the Stonewall Riots, “Go to Christopher Street,” where the riots had taken place earlier that summer. Published in the Committee for Homosexual Freedom Newsletter, one stanza observed that “we brothers and sisters” have homes that are “built in rising light,” but “straight” people “do not realize their / house is easily burnt / to the ground.” The poem concluded, “Come brothers and sisters / to Christopher Street / holding bricks and hands / till not one of us / cries at dawn / that others can’t understand.”[3] Shortly thereafter the Los Angeles Advocate published a letter from Thorpe that criticized the paper’s cautious coverage of the riots and offered his poem as an alternative.[4]
Thorpe discussed his politicization and radicalization at a Council on Religion and the Homosexual symposium in 1970. His presentation was published as “A Teenager Talks about Being Young and Gay” in the November issue of Vector. Thorpe began by talking about the many challenges that gay teens experienced, which were made worse by the fact that gay groups such as the Society for Individual Rights denied membership to people under twenty-one years of age and only supported the legalization of private sexual acts between consenting adults (defined as those over twenty-one). After discussing the media stereotypes he had encountered and the religious oppression he had experienced in his youth, Thorpe turned to his realization that he was gay at age fifteen, the support he found in the theater world, and the sexual relationships he pursued with straight males and females. He also wrote about identifying with African American struggles and becoming a “white Negro,” claiming that the oppression he had experienced as a gay youth had led him to understand “what it was like to have a skin color that people couldn’t love.” Thorpe’s language problematically equated anti-black oppression and anti-gay oppression; it also failed to recognize that many African Americans (and many other people) loved their skin color. Thorpe’s conclusion then shifted from past to present. “As a teenager,” he announced, “I want to question the homosexual community. The Negroes are saying, ‘I’m black and I’m proud,’ and ‘Black is beautiful.’ Well, what are our people saying? Inside I know I’m saying, ‘I’m homosexual and I’m proud,’ and ‘Male is beautiful.’ What is the rest of the community saying? Our community seems to agree with society that we’re losers, or else they’re just too scared to make noise. I have made a promise: I will add my force and declare battle upon the oppressors. I must be free.”[5]
In March 1970, Thorpe announced the first meeting of SF State’s Gay Liberation Front (GLF), a name that reflected the influence of New York’s GLF, which had been founded in the aftermath of the Stonewall Riots. All three terms in the groups’ names were meaningful: gay (not homosexual or homophile); liberation (not rights); and front (not association, committee, or society). Together the three terms signaled political affinities with global anti-colonial movements in general and the National Liberation Fronts of Algeria and Vietnam in particular. Campus newspapers announced the first meeting, which took place on March 6 in the Behavioral and Social Sciences Building; only Thorpe and one other student attended.[6] To publicize the second meeting, which took place in the library, Thorpe wrote an article for the Daily Gater. Headlined “An Army of Lovers,” the article was signed “Gay-Sister Charles P. Thorp.” Thorpe’s essay provocatively declared, “San Francisco State can not sit on the chests of Gay students anymore unless it wants its balls bitten off. We WERE a people who sat quietly accepting genocide as did the Jews under Hitler. We WERE good queers who accepted and expected our oppression. But this is WHERE it all ends and this is WHEN it all ends.” Thorpe concluded by announcing the next GLF meeting and declaring, “AN ARMY OF LOVERS CAN NOT LOSE. Show your love and be there. Seize the time!”[7] The final three words suggest the influence of the Oakland-based Black Panther Party. Elaine Brown, a member and later leader of the Panthers, used the phrase as the title of her 1969 record album; Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale later authored a 1970 book with the same title.
A few days after the second meeting, the Phoenix reported that SF State’s GLF, chaired by Thorpe, had been established and was seeking official recognition by Associated Students, the SF State student government. The results were by no means guaranteed since “recognition of a GLF chapter at San Jose State College was denied last semester.” Twenty-six students, including seven women, attended the second meeting. According to the Phoenix, Thorpe commented in reference to the struggle for official recognition that “GLF members could threaten to seize the men’s restrooms until favorable action is taken.” He may have gotten this idea from sociologist Sherri Cavan, who as noted in a previous section had suggested this strategy when speaking about Pacific Telephone. Thorpe also wanted a “study of the campus from the gay point of view” to determine “what has to be changed to accommodate homosexuals.” One specific goal was the establishment of “a Gay Studies Department.” A few weeks later, the Barb and Gay Power, a New York gay newspaper, repeated much of the information contained in the Phoenix’s articles about GLF, spreading word about its formation and its politics to audiences beyond SF State.[8]
As it turns out, the first officially recognized LGBTQ student group at SF State was not GLF. In June 1970, Vectorreported that after a six month process the college had recognized Continuum, a group for people of all “sexual persuasions.” Vector indicated that “the main impetus of the group” was gay, but Continuum hoped to “break down barriers between people of different sexual orientations and bring new respect and understanding between gays, bi’s and straights.” According to Vector, Continuum was “the first gay-oriented student group to receive official recognition on the California State College campuses.” Two months later, Thorpe complained in a letter to Vector about the magazine’s focus on Continuum rather than GLF, claiming that the latter would “make the bigger mark.”[9]
Thorpe’s prediction came true. There is little evidence that Continuum remained active, but in October the Phoenixpublished an article on the GLF, “Gays to Grow Muscles,” with a photograph of Thorpe sitting in a tree. According to the article, SF State’s GLF, still not officially recognized, now had thirty members—two-thirds male and one-third female—and was co-chaired by Thorpe and Betty Kaplowitz, a creative writing student originally from New York. The student paper described Thorpe as a revolutionary who wanted “passive pansies” to become “violent fairies.” The former, he believed, were typified by “over-30 homosexuals” who “traded their ‘ethno-sexual’ identity for straight . . . respectability.” The latter were “under-30 gays” who “admit their identity with pride and, if necessary, with guns.” The Phoenix described Kaplowitz very differently, noting that she was “wearing jeans, work shirt, and work boots” and that she wanted it known that she was “not violent,” did not believe in “killing for peace,” and just wanted to “get our people together enough so we won’t be oppressed.” Notwithstanding their different political philosophies and Kaplowitz’s contention that GLF men were “often condescending and chauvinistic,” the two student leaders agreed on “the need for a Gay Studies department”; they were working together on a “Gay Rap” project for “young gay people”; and they were critical of the administration’s failure to recognize GLF as an official student group.[10]
SF State’s non-recognition of GLF in 1970 did not stop the group and its leaders from working to promote social change on and off campus. In March, Thorpe delivered a statement of GLF support when two men were temporarily banned from the University of California, Berkeley, campus after expressing affection in public.[11] In April, SF State’s GLF was listed as a supporter of a proposal to organize a summer “camp-in” at a California state park. After the U.S. Forest Service, citing “indecent conduct,” revoked the organizers’ permit for Sequoia National Forest, the Gay Liberation Camp-In ultimately took place in August and September at Yokut Group Camp on the Kern River.[12] In September, SF State’s GLF was one of sixteen Bay Area LGBTQ groups that participated in “a rap about our organizations and directions” at Glide Memorial Church in the Tenderloin.[13]
By the time that SF State’s GLF participated in the discussion at Glide, it already had begun to play more of a leadership role in national LGBTQ activism. In April, the group announced that it was organizing a National Student Gay Liberation Conference. The three-day event took place in August, just before the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations met in San Francisco.[14] Approximately seventy participants from a dozen states attended the student gathering, which was held at the Society for Individual Rights community center at 6th and Market in the South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Thorpe, “a militant, long-haired young homosexual man,” opened the conference with “a new battle slogan,” which was “blatant is beautiful.” He explained the slogan by praising “the fairies, faggots, queens’” who were “the first to challenge the system.” He also criticized “straight people who discriminate,” “older homosexuals who decline to be militantly overt,” and supporters of same-sex marriage, which he called “the bastard child of straight respectability.” Citing James Baldwin, Mao Tse-tung, Jean Paul Sartre, and Frantz Fanon, Thorpe declared, “I see little choice but revolution.”[15]
A few weeks later, the Advocate reported that some gay leaders were condemning Thorpe’s speech for endorsing revolutionary violence. According to the Advocate, Thorpe had stated that “as violence shall oppress us, so shall it liberate us.” He specifically had endorsed “revenge” for the police “murders” of Frank Bartley in Berkeley and Laverne Turner in Los Angeles. (Bartley was a white gay man who was sexually entrapped and then killed by Berkeley police in 1969; Turner was an African American trans woman killed by Los Angeles police in 1970.) “I will not stand by and watch our people die,” Thorpe emphasized. “There needs to be revenge committed against the enemy for the dead and living both. Frank Bartley and Larry Turner were not martyred; they were murdered.”[16] Later in the year, the San Francisco Gay Free Press, now edited by Thorpe, published his fiery conference speech with footnotes and a byline that included his name and a reference to himself as a “Bold Soul Sister.” The article was accompanied by two photographs of a nude man, who possibly was Thorpe. Though the text may have been a revised version of the conference speech, it included the provocative statements attributed to Thorpe by the Chronicle and the Advocate.[17]
Thorpe’s evolving views about violence in general, and violent self-defense in particular, were expressed in the next issue of the San Francisco Gay Free Press, which described two recent incidents in which he had been attacked on San Francisco’s Polk Street while selling gay newspapers—first Gay Sunshine and then San Francisco Gay Free Press. In the first, he fled on foot after a man threatened to kill him. In the second, he and his partner Brian were physically attacked, with Thorpe suffering injuries on his lip and eye, but the two fought back, knocking their attacker to the ground and kicking him before running away. Beyond reporting on the details, Thorpe expressed anger and frustration that “about 20 street-sissies” who were standing nearby when the second incident occurred did not offer any assistance. “My dreams, my fantasies, were CRUSHED,” Thorpe wrote. “There is no Gay Community in San Francisco.”[18]
Dennis Altman, an influential Australian writer about liberation in the United States, shared his impressions of Thorpe in several gay periodicals. According to Altman, the student conference “affirm[ed] a new style for the movement, a style that sharply sets apart Gay Lib from the older and more staid progenitors” in groups such as Mattachine and the Society for Individual Rights. Gay Lib had more in common, according to Altman, with the radical movement, youth movement, and Black Panthers than it did with the homophile movement. For Altman, this new style was exemplified by Thorpe, whom he described as “an attractive-ugly boy with long black hair and the build of a little hustler.” According to Altman, Thorpe “directed and dominated” the conference, and while one older activist called him “mad,” Altman thought he was “perfectly sane in the context of the new counterculture.”[19]
Thorpe’s radicalism soon led him to embrace gay nationalism. In December 1970, Vector reported that he was the founder of Bay Area Gays for Unification and Nationalism, whose thirty members were supporters of Stonewall Nation, a well-publicized but ultimately unsuccessful project to encourage mass gay migration to, and the political takeover of, California’s lightly-populated Alpine County.[20] Closer to home, Thorpe and Kaplowitz started the “Gay Rap” group referenced above to “provide individual psyche and soul growth (especially for the young).”[21] Shortly thereafter, Thorpe asked for community support in establishing a “gay community house” that would provide “food, shelter, clothing, and medical help” to those in need. As he expained in the Tribe, “It is to be all Gay and an alternative to hunger, prostitution, mental anguish.”[22] Thorpe’s prominence and notoriety only grew when Donn Teal featured him in a chapter of his 1971 book The Gay Militants and when Karla Jay and Allen Young reprinted his conference speech in their 1972 book Out of the Closets.[23]
In November 1970, Thorpe announced in the San Francisco Gay Free Press that SF State finally had granted recognition to GLF as a student group. “At one time even being Gay could get a person thrown off campus,” Thorpe remarked. “Now they not only recognize us but they recognize us as a power base for the Gay people on campus.” Thorpe asserted that “this is another victory on our road to more liberation” and announced that “in celebration a thousand lavender bunnies will be freed on campus within the next two weeks.”[24] In February 1971, The Phoenix profiled the group’s new bisexual president, history graduate student Gerald Jacks, who was quoted as saying, “Being ‘bisexual’ doesn’t create any turmoil for me. If I’m attracted to people, I feel their sex does not matter.” According to the Phoenix, Jacks hoped to “become a college history instructor” and did not think his “private life” would be “a concern when he applies for a position.” “I have yet to see a form that ever asked,” he explained.”[25] In April, the GLF celebrated its official recognition with a “gay liberation dance” at SF State’s Gallery Lounge.[26] Several months later, another dance sponsored by the group exploded in conflict.
Notes
[1] “Gay Strike Turns Grim,” Berkeley Barb, 25 Apr. 1969, 7.
[2] “Gays Join Boycott,” Berkeley Barb, 16 May 1969, 9.
[3] C. Thorp, “Go to Christopher Street,” Committee for Homosexual Freedom Newsletter, 25 Aug. 1969, 3. Thorpe seems to have spelled his name without the e in some contexts and with a period replacing the e in others.
[4] Charles P. Thorp, letter to the editor, The Advocate, Nov. 1969, 20. For more on Thorpe, see the Charles Thorpe Papers at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco.
[5] “A Teenager Talks about Being Young and Gay,” Vector, Nov. 1970, 39, 43–44. Thorpe’s essay, retitled “What It’s Like to be a Teenage Homosexual,” was later published as a small booklet by Prosperos, which described itself as a nonprofit religio-educational institution in Hollywood. See the GLBTHS Ephemera Collection. I thank David Reichard for calling this to my attention. For more on Thorpe’s ideas about race and gender and his use of language commonly regarded as offensive today, see Charles P. Thorp, “A Faggot’s Semantic Impressions of: Chick, Female, Woman,” San Francisco Gay Free Press, Nov. 1970, 13.
[6] See “Gay Liberation Meets,” Phoenix, 5 Mar. 1970, 8; “Today At State,” Daily Gater (Alt), 10 Mar. 1970, 1; “Today At State,” Daily Gater (Alt), 13 Mar. 1970, 1.
[7] Charles P. Thorp, “An Army of Lovers,” Daily Gater (Alt), 13 Mar. 1970, 1.
[8] “Gay Liberation Front Formed,” Phoenix, 19 Mar. 1970, 10. See also Don Jackson, “Sieze [sic] the Cans!!” Berkeley Barb, 3 Apr. 1970, 5; “Gays Threaten S. F. State,” Gay Power (1.19), c. Apr. 1970, 20.
![Don Jackson, “Sieze [sic] the Cans!!” Berkeley Barb, 3 Apr. 1970, 5](https://outhistory.org/files/original/089078eec2a17f35f47e8d5a93991bfd.png){kind=link}
[9] “S.F. State Group Gets Official Approval,” Vector, June 1970, 35; Charles P. Thorp, letter to the editor, Vector, Aug. 1970, 9.
[10] Loretta Manill, “Gays to Grow Muscles,” Phoenix, 22 Oct. 1970. See also “Gay Lib. Takes Hold in San Jose,” Vector, June 1970, 11; “National News Shorts,” Gay Liberator, Aug. 1970, 3; “Activities Fair Brightens Campus for Three Days,” Phoenix, 22 Oct. 1970, 1; “HELLO…,” Phoenix, 22 Oct. 1970, 1; “Gay Liberation Front State,” Phoenix, 22 Oct. 1970, 7.
[11] Konstantin Berlandt, “Cheek to Cheek,” Berkeley Tribe, 27 Mar. 1970, 10.
[12] Don Jackson, “Camp-In Progress Report,” Gay Power (1.16), c. Apr. 1970, 8; “Come Out!” Berkeley Tribe, 19 June 1970, 27. See also “Gay Camp In,” Los Angeles Free Press, 24 Apr. 1970, 28; “Gay Lib Camp-In,” Berkeley Barb, 5 June 1970, 7; “Gay Lib ‘Camp-In’ Permit Is Revoked,” San Francisco Chronicle, 27 June 1970, 3; “Gay Power News: West Coast,” Gay Power (1.19), c. June 1970, 6; “Gays’ Camp Banned,” Berkeley Barb, 3 July 1970, 7; “Gays Camp On,” Berkeley Barb, 28 Aug. 1970, 9; “National News Shorts,” Gay Liberator, Aug. 1970, 3.
[13] “Gay Groups Come Together Sort Of…,” Sisters, Nov. 1970, 7.
[14] Don Jackson, “National Student Conference,” Gay Power (1.16), c. Apr. 1970, 8; “Gay Student Confab Called,” The Advocate, 19 Aug. 1970, 12; “Gay Lib.: Proposed Conference Schedule,” Vector, Aug. 1970, 41.
[15] “Homosexual Call for Militancy,” San Francisco Chronicle, 22 Aug. 1970, 5. See also Leo Laurence, “Strait Gays Badrap Blacks,” Berkeley Barb, 28 Aug. 1970, 9.
[16] “No Support for Thorpe ‘Violence’ Speech, Kight Says,” The Advocate, 16 Sept. 1970, 2. See also Charles P. Thorp, letter to the editor, The Advocate, 8 July 1970, 19. On the murders, see Marc Stein, “Queer Rage: Police Violence and the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969,” Process: A Blog for American History, June 3, 2019, processhistory.org/stein-stonewall.
[17] Charles P. Thorp, “I.D., Leadership and Violence,” San Francisco Gay Free Press, Nov. 1970, 4-5, 12. For other works by Thorpe in the San Francisco Gay Free Press, see Charles P. Thorp, “Capt. Cruch(s) Cockettes, or Beefheart Needs a Head Job and Blow Job,” San Francisco Gay Free Press, Nov. 1970, 3; Charles P. Thorp, “The Night I Heard,” San Francisco Gay Free Press, Nov. 1970, 8-9; Charles P. Thorp, “A Faggot’s Semantic Impressions of: Chick, Female, Woman,” San Francisco Gay Free Press, Nov. 1970, 13; Charles P. Thorp, “Power Hot Sex,” San Francisco Gay Free Press, Nov. 1970, 15; Charles P. Thorp, “Trilogy for Brian,” San Francisco Gay Free Press, Dec. 1970, 3.
[18] Charles P. Thorp, “Editor-Vendor Attacked by Closet,” San Francisco Gay Free Press, Dec. 1970, 5.
[19] Dennis Altman, “A Young Australian Speaks His Mind about Gay Liberation,” Vector, Oct. 1970, 38. See also Dennis Altman, “One Man’s Gay Liberation,” Come Out, Dec. 1970, 20; Nick Benton, “His-Story of the Gay Lib Movement,” Berkeley Barb, 30 Apr. 1971, 8 (which referred to the discussion of Thorpe in Donn Teal’s book The Gay Militants); Craig Rodwell, “Hanging in Together,” Queen's Quarterly, Apr. 1971, 5, 45. For other references to Thorpe, see “Two Papers,” Homosexuals Intransigent!, Mar. 1971, 6; “Quickie” and “Jeanne Barney,” Homosexuals Intransigent!, Oct. 1971, 24-25.
[20] Don Collins, “Vector Visits Alpine County,” Vector, Dec. 1970, 18-19. See also Manill, “Gays to Grow Muscles”; “San Francisco GLF Affirms Alpine Support,” The Advocate, 9 Dec. 1970, 3; Don Jackson, “Alpine News Roundup,” San Francisco Gay Free Press, Dec. 1970, 3.
[21] “Gay Rap Expanding to Become Gay Community House,” San Francisco Gay Free Press, Nov. 1970, 13.
[22] Charles P. Thorp, “Gay Community House,” Berkeley Tribe, 6 Nov. 1970, 9.
[23] Donn Teal, The Gay Militants (New York: Stein and Day, 1971), 302-33; Charles P. Thorp, “I.D., Leadership and Violence,” in Karla Jay and Allen Young, eds., Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation (New York: Douglas, 1972), 352-362.
[24] “A Thousand Lavender Bunnys Will Be Freed,” San Francisco Gay Free Press, Nov. 1970, 6.
[25] “Looking at Students: ‘Sex Does Not Matter,’” Phoenix, 25 Feb. 1971, 6. See also Gerald Jacks and Dorothy Dillon, letter to the editor, The Advocate, 5 Jan. 1972, 32.
[26] “Gay Liberation Dance Time,” Berkeley Barb, 15 Apr. 1971, 12; calendar listing for Gay Liberation Dance at SF State, Berkeley Tribe, 17 Apr. 1971, 16; “San Francisco,” Vector, June 1971, 22.