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xxii INTRODUCTION isle of Lesbos. Chapters of DOB were established in major cities around the coun- try and in Australia. They produced a newsletter called The Ladder . DOB was well connected with the Mattachine Society and other early gay rights organizations. The early 1960s was a turning point for the homophile movement. The Mat- tachine Society and DOB were conservative in their actions and avoided direct politics. For example, when they were involved in offi cial business, they required members to dress conservatively—suits and ties for men, dresses and heels for women. They excluded members who were overly effeminate or ultramasculine. They wrote polite letters, planned scholarly publications, and invited experts to lecture on “sexual variation” before serious audiences in respectable halls. Most members were secretive, and even the leaders often used pseudonyms. Because of the fears and inhibitions of these organizations, few members were attracted. As such, many homosexuals felt left out and resented professionals who told them they were deviants and immoral. They wanted an organization that would take direct political action to reduce police harassment and to change laws. Frank Kameny, Harvard astronomer, was an activist who took direct political action. He was dismissed from his army post in 1957 for being a homosexual. He contested the dismissal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court would not review the case and let stand his dismissal. The betrayal he felt toward a legal system that denied his right to employment led him to form the Mattachine Soci- ety of Washington (MSW). He wanted the group to take direct political action. He rejected the deviancy label and coined the phrase “Gay Is Good” to paraphrase African American militants whose motto was “Black Is Beautiful.” He argued that discrimination was squarely to blame for the homosexual’s problems and that boldly challenging discriminatory policies was the most effective way to make prog- ress . . . [and we should take] a militant homophile approach to gay political activity. (Marotta 1981, 25) The activist approach for MSW threatened Mattachine leadership in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles who wrote that Mattachine cannot pursue any path but the educational and research. . . . Our char- ter is placed in jeopardy whenever we try to infl uence legislation through any other means publicly. . . . We can endorse the action of other agencies working in this fi eld, and “ride on their shirttails,” so to speak, with relative safety. But we cannot lobby on our own, and must be careful how we recommend changes of law so that our charter and the right to solicit funds through the mail is not in danger. (“Letter from Hall Call” 1956) Other groups formed outside of Mattachine were more activist oriented. In 1964, 10 participants from the Homosexual League of New York and the League for Sexual Freedom picketed along the street in front of the Army Induction Center on Whitehall Street. In this “fi rst” gay demonstration, they protested the army’s dishonorable discharges of gay soldiers. The next year, 1965, the Mattachine Society held its fi rst public demon- stration in front of the White House to protest government discriminatory