Welcome to HIC’s

Rogues Gallery

of Homosexual Rights Activists

What else would you call a pioneer of the homophile movement but a “rogue”?

In the days when many of these people entered in to activism, sodomy was illegal in every state, and to be branded a “homosexual” was to become as great a threat to national security as a Communist. To be a known homosexual was to be a pariah; to defend one legally, publicly, or scientifically could mark the end of a career.

These are some of the men and women who changed the course of history by launching a movement in defense of homosexual rights circa 1950. Many called themselves “homophiles”; others preferred “homosexuals” or “Mattachinos.” Some loathed all labels. Very few — Jim Kepner and Harry Hay being notable exceptions — anticipated or survived the post-Stonewall transition into LGBT activism.

Nevertheless, the contributions of these pioneering heroes and their more rebellious progeny laid the foundation for the many institutions built and victories won since the second-wave of the movement, for Gay and Lesbian Liberation, was established in the wake of that famous 1969 rebellion at Stonewall. These pages will to help to contextualize and situate their place history.

This section of Tangents online is dedicated to one of the greatest Rogues of all, Don Slater, Founder of ONE, ISHR, and HIC; Editor of ONE and Tangents magazines; and Founder of the ONE Library (now the Blanche M. Baker Memorial Library), the oldest ongoing organizational archives in the U.S. dedicated to homosexual issues.