“Gay Liberation through Socialist Revolution": Anti-Capitalism and a Lesbian and Gay Left

Throughout the 1970s, many lesbian and gay activists in the U.S. embraced Marxist, Marxist-Leninist, and socialist-feminist ideas.  Though the left had long termed homosexuality “bourgeois,” lesbian and gay radicals began to insist that gay liberation could help overturn capitalism and that overturning capitalism was necessary for achieving sexual freedom. Emily Hobson explores the development of a gay and lesbian left propelled forward by the recession begun in 1973, as well as the broader left’s turn away from Mao in 1975-6.  She analyzes the work of both communist and socialist gay and lesbian groups (Lavender & Red Union, June 28th Union, and others), and of groups that were less ideologically defined, while notably more inclusive of people of color (including Wages Due Lesbians, Third World Gay Caucus, Bay Area Gay Liberation, and Stonewall ’76).  Hobson examines how lesbian and gay radicals used anti-capitalist language to challenge racial and class segregation within queer communities, as well as to integrate lesbian and gay politics into a broader progressive agenda against the Right Wing.