July 24, 1969: Founding of the Gay Liberation Front

By Zane McNeill, Riley Clare Valentine, and Blu Buchanan

On July 24, 1969, the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was founded. It had developed out of the Mattachine Society of New York, which had adopted very respectable and legal techniques to advance equality for gay men and lesbians. After the Stonewall riots, a group of gay men and lesbians who were tired of police abuse and frustrated with the Mattachine Society’s tactics formed the Gay Liberation Front.

Gay Liberation Front by Caroline Paquita-Kern. Source: Justseeds

One of the GLF’s first acts was to organize a march in response to Stonewall and demand an end to the persecution of gay men and lesbians, which became New York’s first Pride parade, held on June 28, 1970.

The GLF had an expansive leftist political platform. They denounced racism and supported various anti-imperialist causes and the Black Panther Party. They were publicly anticapitalist and attacked the nuclear family as well as gender roles. Nonetheless, their focus was solidly on gay rights. The members fought against mainstream attitudes and values, in direct contrast to the Mattachine Society.

GLF members also openly claimed the word gay, which had previously been avoided by generations of gay and lesbian activists. Previous activist organizations used names such as the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis. The GLF contended that they would demand rights as gay men and lesbians first and foremost.

They called for LGBTQ+ people to come “out of the closet and into the streets,” while fighting against assimilation as the answer for anti-queer violence. In 1970, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson would join the GLF. The Gay Liberation Front sought to create a society free not only from sexism and homophobia but also from sexual labels entirely.

Learn more about the GLF at the Gay Liberation Front Foundation.

This post is taken from Be Gay, Do Crime: Everyday Acts of Queer Resistance and Rebellion, edited by Zane McNeill, Riley Clare Valentine, and Blu Buchanan, and published by PM Press and Working Class History.

Packed with daily snapshots of radical queer history, this book celebrates the bold, the brave, and the beautifully defiant moments that have shaped the fight for justice. By situating readers within a larger pattern of struggle, these everyday acts counter the erasure of queer people from history and serve as a reminder that our struggles are part of a broader fight against systemic violence and dehumanization. [Adapted from publishers’ description.]