Shoulders to Stand On

Empty Closet 40th Anniversary Celebration Is February 27

By Evelyn Bailey

The Empty Closet 40^th Anniversary Celebration is scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 27, in the Tea Room, fourth floor, Auditorium Center, 875 E. Main St.

This year the Empty Closet turns 40 – a milestone in anyone’s life, but an exceptional one especially today for any newspaper, let alone a gay newspaper!

Bob Osborne, Brian (Monday) Tangen, Debbie Lestz, Larry Fine, RJ Alcala, and Patricia Evers were the first six writers for The Empty Closet. Each put pen to paper and what they wrote was pretty radical even by today’s standards, and I quote,  “Gay Liberation is more than a group of oppressed people joined together to seek freedom and justice.  Gay Liberation is a call to power.” (Debbie Lestz, Empty Closet, January, 1971)

Gay Liberation Front

By Evelyn Bailey

Bob Osborne, Larry Fine, R.J. Alcala, Patti Evans, Karen Hagberg, Marshall Goldman. Who would you say these people are?

These men and women were the Shoulders on which the University of Rochester’s Gay Liberation Front was founded.

This October marks the 40^th Anniversary of the Gay Liberation Front. On the U of R campus the group has gone through many name changes, and is currently the Pride Network. The University of Rochester’s Meliora Weekend, Oct. 14–16, provides two opportunities to celebrate this extraordinary event where past meets the present: Pride Network 40th Anniversary After Hours, Friday, Oct. 15, 9 p.m.-12 midnight at Wilson Commons, Bridge Lounge; College Diversity Roundtable: Conversations about Diversity at the College, Saturday, October 16, 4:30 p.m.-6 p.m., Gleason Hall, Room 318/418. All are welcome!

What did the Gay Liberation Front do?

by Evelyn Bailey

In previous issues we looked at WHAT the Gay Liberation Front at the University of Rochester was.  We looked at WHO the driving force behind the organization was.  In this issue we want to look at WHAT  DID  THE  GLF  DO?

The accomplishments of the Gay Liberation Front at the University of Rochester can be summarized in one word – VISIBILITY.  The members of the GLF were naturally catapulted into the public arena.  Their commitment to educating the public and speaking out resulted in being OUT and VISIBLE themselves. 

Karen Hagberg, a student at the Eastman School of Music, came out publicly when she and two other students, R J Alcala and Jim Fishman, did a TV spot on WXXI channel 21, on July 14, 1971 on a talk show “Call 21.”  The show aired live so no copies were made at the station. 

Gay Liberation Front

by Evelyn Bailey

Over the next three months, Shoulders To Stand On will honor the Rochester Gay Liberation Front (hereafter referred to as the RGLF), forerunner to the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley.

Who or what - you might ask – was the Gay Liberation Front? To answer this question we need to take a trip back in our LGBT history.

The event that most authors seem to identify as having the most influence on the beginning of the gay liberation movement was the Stonewall riots of 1969. It would be a mistake to consider this event as the origin of the concept of gay liberation or the origin of a sense of community and gay pride.

The Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley's Coming Out Journey

by Evelyn Bailey

Imagine a fall October day.  The sun is shining, the trees glisten with color.  You are standing outside of Todd Union on the University of Rochester campus in the quadrangle.  You are listening to Bob Osborne and Larry Fine, both students at the U of R, discuss the meeting to be held that night to hear the invited speakers from Ithaca and Buffalo.   The conversation went something like this:

“Hopefully we will have a few people who will come to listen.  I really don’t expect more that a dozen or so” said Bob. 

“I know.  I have invited everyone I know. But people are afraid to be open and associated with any public activity involving homosexuality.  I just hope that we won’t be embarrassed by the poor turnout.” said Larry. 

“We did pass out flyers to the bars and coffee houses in the city – maybe some people from the city will come”  said Bob.  “I hope so – I’ve got to get to class – see you tonight” said Larry.

Larry Fine's Memories

Larry Fine was one of the founders of the Gay Liberation Front at the University of Rochester.  Larry now lives in Boston.  Shoulders to Stand On interviewed Larry for over two hours about the early days of the Gay Liberation Front at the University of Rochester.         

Larry gave us an April 22, 1971 University of Rochester Journal which included an article Larry had written titled "Feeling Gay."  Excerpts from that article appear below.

Dance Anyone?

Printed in the first edition of the Empty Closet, January 1971:

Dance Anyone? by Larry Fine and R. J. Alcala

On December 5, UR Gay Liberation and UR Women’s Liberation co-sponsored a Liberation Dance in the Lounge of the Frederick Douglass Building at the U of R.  The band was the Albatross.  They were going through their warm up while some of us went about putting candles in the windows, setting up the colored flashing lights, the incense, the beer counter, and trying to figure out where the change boxes were.

In Todd, Perry Brass, editor of “Come Out”, and two others from New York City Gay Liberation were speaking at the UR Gay Liberation Front meeting, while the preliminary blizzard of the evening raged outdoors.  Meanwhile, back at the FDB lounge, people started buying tickets.  The candle on the ticket table kept going out.  As the dance floor began to sprout writhing bodies of all kinds (MMMMMM!), we started to stop worrying about how much money we could conceivably lose.  The Albatross kept the sound flowing.