434 ChaPter^8
sweeps to rid neighborhoods, bars and beaches of people accused of being gay.
Some areas prohibited people from wearing clothing of the opposite sex.
Companies and universities fired workers suspected of homosexuality. And
thousands of gays and lesbians, or people accused of being such, were physi-
cally assaulted or put into mental hospitals. The American Psychiatric Associate
in 1952 even ruled that homosexuality was a mental disorder. To be gay was
akin to being a Communist and brought similar results.
While most gays stayed in the closet, others fought back. Beat poets like
Ginsberg and William Burroughs were openly gay. In 1950, gays in Los
Angeles formed the Mattachine Society to bring homosexuals together politi-
cally and socially, educate them, and provide legal assistance if needed. Just a
few years later, they began a campaign, like other groups outside of power, for
assimilation, to be accepted into American society without exception, like
heterosexuals. In San Francisco, lesbians created the Daughters of Bilitis, ini-
tially to create a safe space for the women involved to socialize and dance but
then taking on a larger public role for assimilation, like the Mattachines. In
1953, a gay organization even went to court. Publishers of ONE, a gay
magazine sued because the post office considered it obscene and refused to
deliver it, and in 1958 the Supreme Court ruled that letter carriers could not
withhold it from subscribers. Soon gay organizations appeared elsewhere,
especially on the East Coast. In 1965, a man fired from the U.S. Army Map
Service picketed the White House to protest employment discrimination.
Still, the repression continued, as police arrested or violently attacked gays,
transsexuals, and transgendered people. To organize against such assaults, gays
in 1968 formed the National Transsexual Counseling Unit to provide psycho-
logical and medical aid. Public officials were not sympathetic, however, and
New York became the center of gay resistance. Undercover police officers
were entrapping as many gay men as possible, acting as if they were homo-
sexual and then arresting the men if they responded to the cops’ invitations.
While the Mayor of New York in the later 1960s, John Lindsay, ended the
entrapment policies, the state liquor board continued to refuse licenses to
serve alcohol to bars, mostly owned by the mafia, that were known to have a
largely gay clientele. In 1969, the repression and police intimidation erupted
at a gay bar in New York, the Stonewall Inn.
The Stonewall was owned by the Genovese crime family, and a mix of
Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics were frequently there. The New York police