The Gay Liberation Youth Movement in New York: “An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail”

Abstract

Stephan Cohen provides a unique comparative study of three queer youth groups that were active in New York City during the early 1970s, including Gay Youth, Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), and Gay International Youth Society at George Washington High School. Cohen focuses on these three groups due to the related characteristics that they possess, particularly their similar dates of establishment. In this study, Cohen discusses the reasons why youth were excluded from the queer liberation movement and suggests how this isolation forced them to create separate organizations with distinct identities, agendas, and ideologies from their adult counterparts.

KEYWORDS:

• Gay liberation movement
• history
• politics
• New York City
• youth groups