Voices of GLF Members
This section is reserved for people who were members of GLF to post their thoughts on a variety of issues related to GLF history. Members who wish to submit their writing for publication here should send their piece by email to board@glf-foundation.org where it will be reviewed by an editor for content moderation.
The ideas and opinions expressed here are solely those of each author and do not represent an official opinion or position of the Gay Liberation Front Foundation.
The Day Marsha & Sylvia Came to a Gay Youth Meeting
By Mark Horn
After Mark Segal left Gay Youth, I was elected the group chair. Gay Youth was probably more diverse than GLF, with pretty much equal representation between black and white members, along with a not-small group of Latinx members. Our members ranged from those whose families lived on Central Park West to those members who had been thrown out by their families and were living on the street. Long before the phrase “non-binary” entered the vocabulary, we had members who identified across a wide spectrum of gender identity. So the day Marsha and Sylvia came to a meeting, the only reason they stood out from the rest of our membership was that they were over the age of 21.
CHRISTOPHER ST. LIBERATION DAY, JUNE 28, 1970
Poem by Fran Winant
with our banners and our smiles
we're being photographed
by tourists police and leering men
we fill their cameras
with 10,000 faces
bearing witness
to our own existence
in sunlight
GLF and the United Nations July 1970
By John Knoebel
In July of 1970, New York’s Gay Liberation Front was invited to participate in the first “United Nations World Youth Assembly.” This event was a weeklong gathering organized by the UN as part of its 25th-anniversary observance in which they brought over 600 youth…
The Founding of the Gay Liberation Front
by John Knoebel
(An excerpt from his memoir “50 Years from Stonewall: A Gay American Life in a Time of Change”)
It may surprise many people that only a few of the founders of the Gay Liberation Front were actually present at the iconic Stonewall Uprising. Unless they happened to be in the bar late that Saturday night—or lived close enough to get a call from a nearby phone booth at…
What the Gay Liberation Front Means to Me
By Perry Brass
The essence of my feelings about GLF were in the first words that Bob Kohler, one of the “elder states-people in GLF, said at the outset of my first meeting in November of 1969. He stood up in front of the community room at Holy Apostles Church in Chelsea where…
9 Historic Contributions of the Gay Liberation Front
by Perry Brass
The Gay Liberation Front made many important, life-changing contributions to the struggle for LGBTQ equality and the safety and lives of our community.