1970s gay males

The Stonewall uprising ignites an explosion of protests and organizing that transforms a small, often tentative homophile movement into a newly assertive national force that demands gay liberation and equality. In a Puerto Rico hotel pool, year-old Eric experiences a transformation of his own.

Learn more about some of the topics and people discussed in the episode by exploring the links below. Getting here was my first trip on an airplane. A with a smoke-filled piano bar at the back of the plane.

Coming of Age During the 1970s — Chapter One: A Surge of Energy

Can you imagine? Coach 1970s gay males air travel in the early s. My father has been dead for just four months. I think of this trip as something of a consolation prize. For a little over a week—I think it was 10 days. My older sister, younger brother, and me.

And mostly empty. I stay close to the steps at the shallow end. I can hardly float. Any body fat I may have is hiding. Over and over again, I lean back, kick my feet off the floor of the pool, hover for a second at the surface, but then my concave chest collapses.

I sink like a rock and come up sputtering. My flailing routine—sinking, almost drowning, catch my breath, repeat—is interrupted when a teenager wades over to me. A halo of blond curls backlit by vacation sun. Maybe 15 or He places one hand at the base of my spine and another between my shoulder blades.

A surge of energy like nothing I have ever felt before. Not a lightning bolt or an electric shock, but a liquid bliss that spreads up and down my spine between his hands. The back of my head in the water and my ears below the surface, I can hear the inside of each breath.

Instead of sinking and flailing, I am so alive. And I have no idea what this feeling means for the life stretching out ahead of me, as I stare at the sky, all at once an electric blue. Chanting Crowd: Gay Power! Gay is proud! Gay Power! Say it loud, gay is proud!

Breck Ardery: June 28, They represented the mood of growing militancy in the United States gay community. Chanting Crowd: Gay, gay power to the gay, gay people! All power to the people!