Tulsa Gay Alliance-1973

[Ronnie Lowe]

Tulsa Gay Alliance 1973

It was 1973 and developments of great consequence were everywhere to be found.  The Vietnam War was ending, the Watergate Scandal broke, the American Indian Movement seized a trading post and a church at historic Wounded Knee in South Dakota and minorities throughout the United States were encouraged by the progress of American Blacks.

Here in Tulsa, a small but determined group of gay people organized to secure our right to be equal to our heterosexual counterparts.

But in 1973 the tide had not yet turned for gay people.  The medical profession had still to declare us fit.  Hoover's FBI routinely kept files on all "known" homosexuals.   It was Boys in the Band times and while the coasts were closeted the atmosphere in Tulsa was doubly onerous.

For most gay people there was the palpable fear of being beaten, fired from our jobs and driven out of our neighborhoods.  Sometimes petty enemies, jealous neighbors or toxic co-workers who learned of our circumstance would blackmail us.  Even discussion of homosexuality was considered inappropriate.

The Tulsa Police Department would regularly bust gay bars simply because they catered to gay people.  The TPD would back a paddy wagon up to the front of a bar, take the patrons down to the station, book and release them and the next day the Tulsa World and the Tulsa Tribune would print their names and more often than not they would be fired from their jobs.

If we were dancing to Motown downtown at the Taj Mahal Bar and the lights flickered the men on the dance floor would separate because that was a signal that the police had arrived.  It was illegal for men to dance together.  It was illegal for men to dress in women's clothing.  It was illegal for two people of the same sex that loved each other, that wanted to have consensual sexual relations, to do so.

Meanwhile homosexuality was as common then as it is today.  Roughly ten percent of every demographic in Tulsa was homosexual -- living in denial or living in secret.

It was in this oppressive Soviet-like atmosphere that I became a founding member of Tulsa Gay Alliance.  I was 19 years old.

Formation of Tulsa Gay Alliance

That summer, I had read about and written to a new gay group at Oklahoma University in Norman and a man there named Denis put me in touch with a religious man, as I recall a seminarian, here in Tulsa who was forming a gay liberation group.  

So there we were in the late summer of 1973:  A group of gay men and my feminist friend Jan, spread around the living room of this seminarian's apartment at London Square, inventing our first gay political group.  To my surprise my eighth grade English teacher, Gary Durst, was there with his friend.  

The energy was incredible as we addressed issues like -- what to call ourselves.  Were we homosexuals, gays or the more radical moniker -- queers?  We would avoid a rigid hierarchy and take turns leading meetings, we could reserve a room at the Tulsa Library, we would post notice and let everyone know that gay people would be gathering openly.  We would tell the world who we were.  Tulsa Gay Alliance was taking shape as we brainstormed.

We accepted ourselves and that was the seminal spark.

Tulsa Central Library Meetings

There weren't a large number of us at those first public meetings.  As I recall there were only a handful, maybe seven or eight folks.  I recall a Germanic dark-haired lesbian named Tay, the seminarian, a former Tulsa policeman, an older man who managed a gay bar and his friend, me and my straight friend Susan with her baby Jasmine in tow.  There were just two or three more young men involved.

I suppose we were trying to present ourselves as a public service when we scheduled our first guest speaker:  A man from the Tulsa Health Department who lectured us on Sexually Transmitted Disease.

I recall a drag show fundraiser at a gay bar named The Eighth Day at the intersection of 11th Street and Lewis.  Barbara Streisand, Diana Ross and Judy Garland showed up.

And I remember going to Southroads Mall with my friend Jan to canvas political candidates appearing there and asking them about their stance on gay rights.

Tulsa Junior College

Meanwhile, I was planning to attend Oklahoma University and wanted to complete some credits here at the new downtown Tulsa Junior College.  Registration day arrived and I remember being pulled out of line by a security guard at TJC who told me I would be allowed to attend only if I promised not to organize a gay group at Tulsa Junior College.  Apparently news of the free speech movement had not yet reached Tulsa.

And just as now, many folks in power in Tulsa were gay and their hypocrisy was staggering.

Generation Rap

I'm not sure how many meetings occurred or how large Tulsa Gay Alliance became or what finally happened.  I transferred to Oklahoma University early in that group's life.  At OU I joined the gay group and participated in consciousness raising presentations for heterosexual students.  Not long after I arrived in Norman, Tulsa Gay Alliance arranged a show on a Tulsa TV show named Generation Rap.  I volunteered for the show and traveled back to Tulsa with another gay man named Richard.  A lesbian from the OU group also joined us.

The show went very well.  The psychologist twins who hosted Generation Rap asked me when I became gay and I immediately responded that I had been gay from the beginning.  I never experienced a so-called conversion and that seemed to confuse the twins who asked me to repeat myself.  Now I would respond that nature made me.  I am a part of nature's grand plan.

Tulsa buffs will want to note that following the show the lone cameraman, Mazeppa Pompazoidi, stepped out from behind the camera and told me, "Man, that was good."

My dear mother had her sympathetic friends the Van Dusen's over to our house to watch Generation Rap with her.  I know that my public coming out was not easy for her.  But as always my mother held her head high and supported me.

Finally

Today, gay politics is not central to my life.  Our progress has allowed me to take that stance.  But as hokey and flawed as our little gay group was, it was an important step for Tulsa.  It was a genuine highpoint in the history of Gay People in Tulsa.  We were the group that was not afraid to say our name.  Way back in 1973 we did not hesitate to say we are Gay and we are proud.

I would very much appreciate hearing from anyone who has memory of Tulsa Gay Alliance.