Kay Tobin Lahusen

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Daring to Find Our Names by James Vinson Carmichael (Editor)

Outlines theoretical and methodological problems in documenting lesbigay history generally (and specifically, the history of lesbigay professionals, particularly those in the "feminized" professions like librarianship). This book will appeal especially to historians of traditionally underrepresented populations (women, Native Americans, African Americans, lesbigays). In particular, chapters on methodological problems in lesbigay research, separatism, and biases created by gender bias will pull together for the first time integrated feminist/radical perspectives on library history. The authors call for more responsible treatment of such subjects as the "outing" of historical figures, and conversely, a more open approach to research on "gender outlaws" in the workplace.

This text includes:   A Personal Task Force Scrapbook: "Incunabula," 1971-1972 and After Photographs by Kay Tobin Lahusen with captions by Barbara Gittings.

Gay Crusaders (Homosexuality : Lesbians and Gay Men in Society, History and Literature) by Kay Tobin, Randy Wicker

This first-and so far only-collection of biographical sketches of American Gay activists vividly communicates, through their personal stories, a sense of the concerns, ideas, and feelings motivating a variety of Gay liberationists between 1955 and 1972; it is an important source on seventeen years of Gay movement history. The accounts are derived from tape-recorded interviews conducted in 1971-72 with eleven male and four female homosexuals, supplemented by quotes from published materials by and about them. The authors, themselves long-time activists, chose their interviewees "for their record of accomplishment in advancing the Gay cause, and for the diversity of their contributions and viewpoints." Each of the fifteen crusaders reveals what in his or her own experience led to a commitment to change the conditions of life for Gay people. The men interviewed are Troy Perry, Jim Owles, Craig Rodwell, Dick Michaels, Frank Kameny, Jack Baker, Michael McConnell, Marty Robinson, Lige Clark, Jack Nichols, and Arthur Evans. The women are Phyllis Lyon, Del Martin, Ruth Simpson, and Barbara Gittings. The book includes sixteen pages of photos and a "Symposium" section of comments by the interviewees on such topics as psychiatry and "cure," revolution versus reform, Gays in old age, confrontation tactics, Gays in politics. The Gay Crusaders, issued originally as a paperback original, is now first offered in a library edition.

The Gay Crusaders Today

By Jesse Monteagudo for gaytoday.badpuppy.com

Excerpt:

This was a surprise to me, since Wicker had already made a name for himself as author of "The Wicker Basket", one of the first columns written from a gay activist perspective. Even so, Wicker and Tobin will always be linked as "authors" of The Gay Crusaders.

Though long out of print, The Gay Crusaders endures as a basic resource for anyone who is interested in the early days of the gay and lesbian movement. It was part of the Arno Press series of gay classics in 1975 and was number 55 in my list of the Top 100 Gay Books of the 20th Century...

Jim Owles

By Kay Tobin

"Restrictive institutions have always drawn my fire," Jim Owles exclaims, as he looks back over his 25 years as a rebel. He is still firing away at restrictive institutions from his position in Gay Activists Alliance. At the time of this interview Jim is now serving his second term as president of GAA of New York.

This pioneer Gay Activist Alliance (now there are others around the country) grew from a membership of 12 men and women meeting in an apartment in January 1970, to a membership of around 300 by the summer of 1971. Not bad for a year and a half, Jim feels. He likes to recall that, even in its early months, GAA was called by a Boston admirer "the hottest little gay group on the East Coast." Now the New York organization has a center of its own, a four story, 10,000 square-foot renovated firehouse--"The GAA firehouse" as it's called--located just below Greenwich Village proper. And Jim Owles is one of those at the heart of the GAA success story.

Jim was born October 9, 1946, in Chicago. The eldest of six children, Jim has two younger sisters and three younger brothers. His father was a professional man, and both his parents were "middle class, liberal Republicans." They sent Jim to both public and private schools, and in both settings he remained completely consistent: he was a known underachiever...

Marty Robinson

By Kay Tobin

Excerpt:

Sassy! That's how Marty Robinson sees the gay liberation movement. "It's sassy, arrogant, determined, head strong, gonna win! There are lots of gays who think that way now. We're growing!"

Marty is well known as a supermilitant who has given hard zaps to Mayor Lindsay, Governor Rockefeller, and others. He sees himself as a political theoretician as well. Catch him bounding down Bleecker Street toward his tub-in-the-kitchen apartment, and chances are he's in work clothes and coming either from his job or from the Gay Activists Alliance Center.

"I love my work," be says. "I work in the construction trade. I'm a hard-hat, a journeyman carpenter." Marty's kind of skill is so much in demand in the New York area that he can work when he wants to and take time off when there's movement work to be done. Consequently, he's usually in the thick of any GAA zap action. Over Italian coffee he talks about the sassier side of gay liberation...

The Story of Emergence:  Kay Lahusen

by Bruce Stores for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Christian Scientists

This is the second in a continuing series of articles chronicling the advancement and progression of the gay movement among Christian Scientists.

One of the earliest workers in the gay movement was Kay Lahusen, who, like Craig Rodwell, was a pre-eminent activist before and after the watershed events at Stonewall. Kay's sexual awakening came in the 1940's when she began a lover relationship with another woman she met at college. Both were active on the Christian Science college organization. It was a close relationship, yet Kay's partner couldn't endure the universal condemnation of their love. Two years after graduation, the relationship ended.

Kay was devastated. Worse, she knew no other lesbians or gays anywhere...

Names Index:
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