Girls, Gays, and Theys:
The Influence of Queer Photographers in LGBTQ Rights
When I first moved to New York City, my cousin, Mark, and his partner, Brian, graciously let me crash with them until I found my own place. Their apartment greeted me with mesmerizing relics of gay rights movements — pieces, not only of revolutions, but also of activists. Mark and Brian are avid art collectors. Their statement piece is a three-panel painting by George Towne that consumes nearly half of the living room wall. It depicts the first ACT UP New York march in 1987 and the activists working to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The work radiates the anguish and social turmoil of the time.
By the end of my first week, Mark had shown me seven books on Andy Warhol, another about Dorothea Lange, and many more. Each night, we scoured a book while he told stories about the artists at hand. Eventually, we went on a field trip to the West Village, where he gave me a brief history of important gay liberation sites, places he had been, and the shoebox apartment where he used to live. The infamous Stonewall Inn was the highlight of our journey. Though Mark didn’t move to the city until the 1980s, some of his friends could recount the events of that famous June night in 1969. As we sat in the park across the street, he told me everything he knew about the Stonewall Riots. But, more importantly, he could show me through collections of old photographs he uploaded to his phone.
There’s something about visual representation that strikes us more than the droning of written language. Words don’t quite connect us to the friction of the past, but photographs take us there; make us feel the fear, resentment, and exhaustion. Photography has always been a powerful platform for exposing injustice and discrimination against minorities. Historically, heteronormative societies rejected LGBTQ+ individuals, thus making them feel “unseen.” Photography offered a censored community the support to spread visibility. A kaleidoscope of photographs offered views into queer life, from political marches to everyday moments of tender love.
Before the first World War, many photographers partook in the Pictorialism tradition of photography. The main goal of this mindset was a celebration of aesthetics but not fact. The tradition considered sharpness and visual accuracy limitations to artistic freedom.
The devastation inflicted by World War I broke the ideals of Pictorialism and surged in favor of frank humanism. The foundation of frank humanism stems from documentary photography but gears toward a preoccupation with everyday life rather than historical significance. This focus on frank humanism encouraged budding photographers of the 1950s to reinvent documentary photography to promote social change. The documentary tradition created a domino effect of photography as evidence.
Inspired by Lisette Model’s frank humanism in street photography, Diane Arbus’ work deepened rapidly in the late 1950s. Arbus’s muse, Model, encouraged her to develop her innate understanding of the world to create photography with unsettling psychological sharpness. Arbus’s style has a distinctive ability to evoke human emotion without overwhelming the subject.
The 1960s and 70s marked a time of political activism for a variety of underrepresented communities. Public spaces could refuse service to LGBTQ individuals, who were considered “criminal clientele.” Police regularly raided gay bars based on claims these institutions were operating without a proper liquor license, but patrons rarely resisted. LGBTQ+ people caught touching, kissing, or dancing could be arrested for disorderly conduct. The media photographed and published the full names of those detained in their newspapers. Such public outings created dire consequences such as eviction, job loss, and familial rejection.
Exhausted by dehumanization, guests at the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969, fought back against a routine raid. The protest stirred the attention of people in the streets who were quick to join. Though not nearly the first protest, the Stonewall Riots became a turning point for gay liberation. Photography became crucial to cataloging the unrest of movements that were ignored or tyrannized.
Photography gave testament to LGBTQ+ lives paralleled by protests, violence, and love. Artists captured LGBTQ+ people’s daily lives to promote gay visibility and earn access to public spaces. Photographers used their skills to showcase hope over hardship by shifting out of their comfort zones towards intimacy with their subjects rather than detachment. Sharing these moments of tenderness reinvented how love was treated in society. This artistic legacy established queer identity and growing public acceptance.
Unconventional photographs captured the genuine tenderness of lovers and boundless self-expression, breaking taboos and opening doors to an oppressed group of society. Recording these moments became a form of celebrating queer life for political movements. The artwork encouraged people to be themselves rather than assimilate to heteronormativity. As a result, more artists felt empowered to voice their sexual identity through their art rather than clandestine motifs.
“My experience is that there’s an enormous hunger among people to be able to see themselves.” (JEB)
LGBT publications traditionally used images shot from behind or in silhouette to depict the person while protecting their identity. At the time, homosexuality was condemned to at minimum three months in prison or placement in an institution (likely with electroshock treatment). Many “representations” of queer life in pop culture depicted incarcerated, unhappy, or otherwise damned individuals. Queer artists broke through community censorship with artworks that emphasized equality and understanding amongst an oppressed part of society.
Photojournalists such as Kay Tobin, JEB, and Diana Davies brought this movement to public attention through their revolutionary photography based on Arbus’s groundbreaking realism style. Those photographed, including Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, were brave enough to expose their identity to the populace for the betterment of their compatriots. Marsha and Sylvia later created the Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries, a group dedicated to helping homeless LGBT youth and sex workers.
Kay “Tobin” Lahusen started her career photographing for The Ladder, one of the first lesbian magazines. As was customary, the magazine mainly featured people with cartoons or silhouette photographs. Kay was one of the original twelve members of the Gay Activists Alliance. She also reported and photographed for the GAY newspaper and co-authored the book The Gay Crusaders.
One of her photographs under the name “Kay Tobin” was the first photo of a “real-life” lesbian to appear on the cover of The Ladder publication in September 1964. The first full-face portrait of a lesbian on the cover featured D.C. activist Lilli Vincenz in January 1966. Members of the Gay Liberation Front frequently ridiculed her and her life partner Barbara Gittings (also a known activist), so the couple carried two stuffed dinosaurs to meetings and events as a quip.
Diana Davies found her calling by documenting many human and civil rights movements. The Stonewall Riots encouraged her to join the Gay Liberation Front. She participated in and photographed some of the most significant actions of the American gay rights movement post-stonewall period, including the picket of Time, Inc., Christopher St. Liberation Day, and the Lavender Menace demonstration.
Davies began capturing the heat of social movements when LGBT individuals were most likely closeted or assimilated to social norms. To participate in a gay rights demonstration and be photographed was equal to a public coming out. Some of her most empowering photographs document the Gay Liberation Front’s activism.
Traveling one day, Joan E. Biren stumbled across a street sign pointing to the town of Dyke, Virginia. JEB reclaimed the slur “dyke” with a self-portrait of herself standing next to the road sign. She considered herself a propagandist rather than an artist, as she wanted to bring “queerness out of the shadows.” Needing representation for herself and finding none, she created artwork to support herself and other lesbians.
“I wanted to be a photographer in large part because I needed to see images of lesbians, and it was a visceral thing.” — JEB.
Publicity was vital in creating tolerance for equality and human rights, but exposure came with its setbacks. Visibility never ensured LGBTQ people their safety and, more often than not, correlated to increased rates of violence — especially for transgender women of color. Transgender activist Miss Major warns against romanticized narratives of LGBTQ rights movements: “What does it really mean to be seen?”.
Photography improved overall social attitudes towards minorities, but the people photographed could still be harmed individually as backlash for exposing their personal lives. At the minimum, those exposed could lose their jobs, families, and friends. Many were attacked in hate crimes, and others were arrested.
“You can hardly turn around in a gallery without bumping into a photo that was either snapped by a queer person or uses one for a subject” (The Advocate). Throughout history, society condemned queer art as blasphemy or even pornography. Though obligated to hide their identity, artists desired visibility. How have they affected the course of LGBTQ History?
Art created a vehicle to affirm minorities without access to political power. LGBTQ individuals were targeted and criminalized for their sexuality or gender expression and hid in the shadows to avoid attention. Photographic documentation acknowledged dehumanization, influencing outsiders to act for LGBTQ+ rights.
LGBT artists challenged the stereotypes of sexuality and gender, establishing their roles in a continuous fight for change and equality. Though the Stonewall uprising encouraged artists to speak out against discrimination, many were already using their images to promote LGBTQ rights. After all, self-expression in LGBTQ photography connected an oppressed community with their peers by opening their daily lives.
References
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