Perry Brass & the Early Gay Liberation Movements in NYC -- XOTV Weekly
Last week we graced your inbox with the first half of an interview with Perry Brass, the man who saved the first radical gay publication in New York, who was part of the Gay Liberation Front and who started the Gay Men’s Health Project Clinic. This week, we have the final installment of the interview for you to read! And if you haven’t read it yet, you can find part one of the interview here.
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An Interview with Perry Brass, Part 2
So then when you moved to New York and joined the Gay Liberation Front and Stonewall happened right before it. Of course, now, everyone talks about [the] Stonewall [riots] as this big cultural shift, but at the time did it really feel that monumental, did you really feel that free?
Brass: We did. We were at the tip of a historical moment. And we were very aware of that. I mean I was aware of it. Several of the people who worked on Come Out! were aware of it, that what we were doing was of historical significance. And that is what really kept us going because there was no money. I made no money at all. I was kind of aided and abetted by New York real estate at that point. I had a rent-controlled apartment, it was a fourth floor walk-up. With a stall shower in the kitchen and a toilet in the hallway, which I thought was fabulous. All I cared about was that I didn’t have to worry about paying the rent and I could devote my life to the movement. And I did that for about three years, from 1969-1971. I went back to New York University in ‘72. And there was still some overlap between GLF and going to NYU. But there was an idea that yes what we were doing, there was a historic dimension, and every single day it felt like something was happening it was changing history. Something was happening that never happened before. So that was very exciting, it was just wonderful…read more.
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