John D'emilio Ch.4--- The Mattachine Society.

D'emilio's account of the founding of the Mattachine movement from Henry Hay on was quite something. Through Hay's life from a performance driven youth to a Communist party member, he met with repression from party superiors when Stalin changed his stance on homosexuality. Then, after going under cover and marrying a fellow Communist party member, how Hay eventually met Bob Hull and Chuck Rowland was yet another turn in the tale. The mysteriously named "R" and Jennings were other additions before the formation of the homosexual rights group on "a Saturday afternoon in November 1950." This was the first of many meetings the narrative says, of the Mattachine Society. The way D'emilio rolls all of this off is just fantastic as it is just such a quick, fluent reading experience. That the Mattachine's took some aspects from the Communist party in America's organization is understandable. Following the arrival of James Gruber and Konrad Stevens, the name was actually formulated. That people could come out now with this semblance of a support group seems like a very good thing for homosexuals. However, the make-up of the group even when it was starting is interesting. You would think that all peoples coming out would want a group no matter the gender but for some reason the society was largely male dominated. That's an aspect that I'd like to investigate further. Were lesbians unwelcome? Was the information not uniformly dispersed? Did they have their own groups?