„Schwul gleich links?“ Konservative Strömungen in der Schwulenbewegung in Westdeutschland und den USA in den 1970er Jahren ("Gay Equals Left?": Conservatism in Male Homosexual Politics in 1970s West Germany and the United States)

Griffiths, Craig ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3910-5267 (2023) „Schwul gleich links?“ Konservative Strömungen in der Schwulenbewegung in Westdeutschland und den USA in den 1970er Jahren ("Gay Equals Left?": Conservatism in Male Homosexual Politics in 1970s West Germany and the United States). Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte, 71 (3). pp. 557-597. ISSN 0042-5702

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Abstract

The history of gay liberation in the 1970s has primarily been told through the prism of radical or left-alternative activists, focusing on groups like the Gay Liberation Front in New York or the Homosexual Action West Berlin. Complicating this narrative, this article analyses cultures of conservatism in male homosexual politics, comparing the Federal Republic with the United States in the 1970s. Craig Griffiths zooms in on discourses of responsibility and caution while focusing on the identifications of some gay men as ordinary and sensible and their rejection of confrontation and flamboyance. In doing so, he shows that concepts such as liberation, emancipation or even gay power have no fixed meanings, far less meanings that are inherently radical or conservative.