Heroes of Stonewall: Craig Rodwell

Most of the people who were at the Stonewall uprising in 1969 are primarily known for their involvement with the riot — even though most of them went on to be heavily involved in activism in the following decades. Craig Rodwell is another story. Craig was so heavily involved in activism both before and after the riots that his presence there is basically a footnote.

Rodwell was born October 31, 1940 in Chicago. His parents separated before his first birthday, and for the beginning of his life he was sent away to for “day care” — this day care, however, made him start doing laundry and working in the kitchen as soon as he was old enough. When he was six, his mother realized that maybe this wasn’t the best arrangement if she wanted to keep custody of him and so she sent him to a Christian Science school for “problem boys” called Chicago Junior School. He attended that school for seven years, where he got a reputation for being rebellious — but also for being a “sissy.”

By all accounts, the “problem boys” there frequently fooled around sexually — though with nothing serious behind it. At fourteen, Rodwell pursued a relationship with an adult man. When the two were caught by police, who refused to believe Rodwell when he insisted he’d started the relationship and was at fault, the man was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison for having sex with a minor. The police tried to encourage him to lie in his testimony, asking him to say that the man had paid him money. Rodwell refused, and was threatened with juvenile detention — ultimately he was just ordered by the court to see a psychiatrist, but the experience colored his view of the legal system for the rest of his life.

Rodwell also fully believed the Christian Science teachings he was learning — particularly the idea that “truth is power and that truth is the greatest good.” As a result, after he graduated and began attending Sullivan High School, he enrolled himself in a Christian science Sunday school. It was in these classes he learned that Christian Science didn’t approve of homosexuality — something Rodwell determined he was going to have to change. After high school, Rodwell relocated to Boston to study ballet before moving to New York City in 1958 — intentionally moving to Greenwich Village, where he’d heard there was a large queer community. Rodwell was hoping to become involved in the Mattachine Society.

Unfortunately, the Mattachine Society required its members to be 21 or older. Rodwell also couldn’t get into any of the gay bars yet — so he spent his time in parks, connecting with the gay community on the streets. This made him pretty vulnerable to the police, and he was involved in more than one scrape with them. But this only made him more radical.

In 1962, Rodwell was dating Harvey Milk — who was still in the closet (and just, generally, had a lot of growing to do before he becomes the Milk we all know and love). This was Rodwell’s first serious relationship. Rodwell’s outspoken activism was unsettling for Milk, and he also blamed Rodwell for an STD that he contracted. (Not unreasonable, really.) In September, Rodwell was arrested for resisting the police when they swept through a popular cruising area of Jacob Riis Park. While in jail, Rodwell was physically abused by one of the guards. When he was released from jail, Milk dumped him. His self-confidence rattled, Rodwell tried to end his own life. Fortunately for the entire queer community, the attempt failed. He left New York to travel for a couple of years.

In 1964, Rodwell returned to New York and devoted himself to activism for the “homophile” community (as we called ourselves then — I am so glad we don’t use that term anymore). He was volunteering with the Mattachine Society — using his legal name, which was a rarity in that time — and even serving as their vice president. He founded the Mattachine Young Adults organization, and was an early member of the East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO) — which coordinated various homophile groups from around the eastern seaboard. On September 19, he and several other notable activists including Randy Wicker, Jefferson Poland, and Renee Cafiero staged a protest against the military’s exclusion of gay service members — and the practice of dishonorably discharging those who were found out. This is officially recognized as the first organized LGBTQ+ protest in United States history (though I suspect there were some before that we just don’t acknowledge).

In a coordinated protest with ECHO, Rodwell and Wicker led a protest at the United Nations Plaza in New York on April 18, 1965 — joined by Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, and roughly 25 other protesters. Days after this protest, the sit-in protest at Dewey’s began in Philadelphia. With the other leaders of ECHO, including Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings, it was decided they needed regular protests to remind the nation about the plight of the queer community — they could not afford to only protest when there was a crisis happening in Cuba or in Philadelphia. And so, on July 4, 1965, the first of the Annual Reminders was held at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

In 1966, Rodwell was ejected from a bar called Julius’ for wearing a pin that read “Equality for Homosexuals.” On April 21, with the help of John Timmons and Mattachine president Dick Leitsch, Rodwell held a “sip-in” at the bar. This was specifically to protest a rule by State Liquor Authority that prohibited homosexuals from gathering in places that served alcohol. Rodwell and his cohorts held that the rule encouraged bribery and corruption amongst the police. The publicity from this sit-in led directly to that particular rule ending.

In order to try make the Mattachine Society more accessible, Rodwell proposed they open a storefront. When the idea was rejected, he cut his ties with the organization. In November of 1967, Rodwell opened the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop — the country’s first store that focused on queer authors. The store was so named because Oscar Wilde was the most notable homosexual he could think of and he wanted absolutely not confusion about what the store was all about. The place functioned as more than just a store — Rodwell also envisioned it as a community center that didn’t have age restrictions and didn’t rely on alcohol (or the organized crime families that owned most of the gay bars in the city). To that end, he found the Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods (HYMN) out of the bookshop, and led their rallies in that year. In 1968, he started publishing their periodical HYMNAL. Harvey Milk — now friends with Rodwell — was a frequent customer of the store, and it would later be the inspiration his own shop/community center/campaign headquarters Castro Camera in San Francisco. Rodwell also met Fred Sargeant at his store. Sargeant became heavily involved in HYMN and a romantic relationship blossomed.

On June 28, 1969 police raided the Stonewall Inn. (Did you forget, in all of this, that this was coming up too?) Rodwell and Sargeant were walking through Greenwich Village when they happened to see a crowd gathering outside the bar — and caught the beginning of the riots. Rodwell was a leader in fighting back, and led the crowd in various “gay power” chants. He also had a camera with him, and tried to take pictures to document the event. Unfortunately, none of the pictures were successfully developed — which is extra sad because we have hardly any pictures from the first night of riots (even though Rodwell also used a pay phone to call the press and let them know what was happening). Nevertheless, he did share his account of the night — which he described as “one of those moments in history that, if you were there, you knew, this is it, this is what we’ve been waiting for.”

The next day, Rodwell created a flyer — which HYMN helped him to disseminate through Greenwich Village — that read “Get the Mafia and the Cops Out of Gay Bars.” The flyers helped encourage further protests the next several nights — protests Rodwell participated in as well.

After the annual reminder of that year — which took place a week after Stonewall — Rodwell decided that the needs of the community had been changed after the riots. He began writing a resolution in his store. In November, Rodwell, Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, and Linda Rhodes proposed the resolution at a Philadelphia meeting of ECHO to change the annual reminders. Instead of happening on July 4 in Philadelphia, they proposed, there would be simultaneous demonstrations in cities across the country on June 28. This would be called Christopher Street Liberation Day, and there would be no dress code (as the annual reminders had had) or age limitations. And so Pride began.

Craig Rodwell and his mother in the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop

Despite he tremendous work so far, Rodwell found he’d never really been able to address the homophobia in Christian Science. In 1970, he placed a biography of Mary Baker Eddy in a very visible place in his store in order to meet other gay Christian Scientists. Meanwhile, he was continuing to work on advocating for queer rights. He is often credited with inventing the word “heterosexism” in January of 1971, when he wrote “After a few years of this kind of ‘liberated’ existence such people become oblivious and completely unseeing of straight predjudice and – to coin a phrase – the ‘hetero-sexism’ surrounding them virtually 24 hours a day.” In 1973, the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop moved from its address on Mercer Street to the corner of Christopher Street and Gay Street.

In 1978 Rodwell formed Gay People in Christian Science (GPICS) with Ray Spitale, Bob McCullogh, and Bob Mackenroth. While they were not the only gay Christian Science organization in the country, they were the only one actively challenging the church’s policies — actively challenging the excommunication of three of their members. This quickly became Rodwell’s primary focus for his activism. GPICS created an eight-page pamphlet entitled “Gay People in Christian Science?” which they proceeded to mail to every Christian Science church, college organization, and practitioner that they could find. Overall, they mailed out 8,000 copies. They then made plans to hand out the pamphlets at the 1980 Annual Meeting of the Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston. To organize this in the least offensive way possible, Rodwell alerted security for the event of their intentions.

When they arrived, they discovered extremely heightened security and police presence. Undeterred, they set up their table and began distributing flyers. They were quickly informed that the booth was illegal and that they needed to leave. The group obeyed, though Rodwell and a handful of others remained on the premises and handed out their pamphlets more discreetly. Unfortunately, the pamphlet wasn’t enough to change the church’s minds and in 1981, the church fired Chris Madsen from the Christian Science Monitor for being a lesbian. GPICS returned to the annual meeting that year, this time fired up. Instead of simply handing out pamphlets, they engaged in loud and disruptive protests.

In the years that followed, queer activism within Christian Science moved to become primarily focused to areas in the Midwest. Although Rodwell remained involved, he took on a much less significant leadership role. He remained heavily involved in queer activism for the remainder of his life.

In 1992, Rodwell received the Lambda Literary Award for Publisher’s Service. In May of that year, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. In March of 1993, he sold the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop to Bill Offenbaker. He passed away on June 18 that year. It was not until 1999 that the Christian Science Church finally began to allow gay and lesbian members.

It’s honestly hard to think of anyone who, in our history, has been so devoted to our community and done so much for us. I find his name crop up in almost everything that happened for our community in New York in the late ’60s and early ’70s, and for some reason I’m always surprised. And given his influence on Harvey Milk, what he accomplished for us actually extended all the way to San Francisco.

Willem Arondeus

Willem Arondeus (1894 – 1943)

Willem Arondeus was an artist-turned-author and — most importantly — a member of the Dutch resistance to Nazi occupation. He was born on August 22, 1894 in Naarden, Netherlands. His parents, Hendrik Cornelis Arondeus and Catharina Wilhelmina de Vries, designed costumes for the theater. Despite being the child of two people in the theatre, and being one of six kids, apparently there was nothing remarkable about his entire childhood. I find that a little hard to believe, but there’s literally nothing written about the first seventeen years of his life. Whatever.

At seventeen years old, Arondeus fought with his parents over his homosexuality, left home, and severed all contact with his family. That part of his story is, unfortunately, all too familiar to too many LGBT+ people even to this day. (It would have been a lot worse, had Denmark not decriminalized homosexuality in 1811. Thanks Napoleon!) He began building a career for himself as an illustrator and painter, and was even hired to paint a mural for the Rotterdamn Town Hall in 1923. However, he never had much success as a painter and was living in abject poverty.

“Salome” by Willem Arondeus (1916)

(I’m including a picture of his drawing “Salome” which was completed in 1916. I’m not trying to say this explains, maybe, why he didn’t have a lot of success as a painter but like, y’know, form your own opinions. This piece, and other surviving pieces of his, are on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

In 1933, Willem met a man named Jan Tijssen, and the two lived together for the next seven years. In 1935 he decided that visual arts might not be for him, and turned to poetry and writing. This turned out to be a good move. In 1938 he published two novels, and in 1939 he published his most famous and, by all accounts, his best work “The Tragedy of the Dream” which is a biography of the artist Matthijs Maris.

And then the Nazis came, and his real work began. When the Nazis came to the Netherlands, they mostly took their time with their policies. There weren’t any immediate deportations, there were no strict curfews. They were trying a subtle approach to keep the Dutch from resisting. This mostly worked. Many of the Dutch were fooled into thinking the Nazis weren’t as bad as everyone was saying. But the Nazis didn’t hesitate when it came to criminalizing homosexuality — and the open and proud LGBT+ populace of the Netherlands was not having any of that. Like many others, Willem Arondeus joined the Dutch resistance almost immediately. (I hesitate to call him a founding member, because no one else seems to be calling him that, but from what I’m reading, he probably missed being a “founding member” by like a day or two.)

Willem’s primary job during the early days of the resistance was to forge fake identity papers for Dutch Jews. Also in his unit were a number of other openly homosexual people, including cellist and conductor Frieda Belinfante. Willem did more than that, however. He also began writing and publishing an illegal magazine encouraging more Dutch to join the resistance. He attempted to call the artistic community of the Netherlands to act against the Nazi regime, criticizing the Nazi’s cultural committee. (He also published another book that had nothing to do with resisting the Nazis. it was called “Figures and Problems of Monumental Painting in the Netherlands”, and he illustrated it himself.) In 1943, Willem’s publication joined forces with a publication run by other Dutch artists, reaching even more people.

By 1943, the Dutch Resistance had a vast underground network hiding Jews from the Nazis. The Nazis, however, were catching on. They began comparing identity papers to those in the Amsterdam Public Records Office. Willem Arondeus would not stand for this. The Dutch Resistance was mostly known for being a peaceful resistance — but this next action would become a symbol for the whole movement. Willem is credited in several places for having the idea.

He determined the only course of action was to blow up the Public Records Office. Joined by his unit, the attack was carefully planned out and executed on March 27. Thousands of files were destroyed. But the success was short-lived — a traitor within the resistance turned the unit in to the Gestapo just a few days later. That traitor’s identity remains unknown to this day. Willem and his cohorts were arrested. Willem took full responsibility for the attack — but the trial was a sham, and twelve people, including Willem, were held responsible and executed on July 1, 1943. The rest of Willem’s unit was forced to flee the country.

Willem’s final words were communicated by his lawyer. “Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards.”

Frieda Belinfante escaped execution. Most of her participation in the resistance was ignored for years — but more galling to her still, Willem’s role in the resistance was erased for decades. Credit for leading the unit was given to a heterosexual man. She insisted “[Arondeus] was the great hero who was most willing to give his life for the cause.”

In 1984, the Dutch government posthumously awarded Willem the Resistance Memorial Cross. On June 19, 1986, the state of Israel recognized Willem as Righteous Among the Nations (an honorific for non-Jews that risked their lives to protect Jews during the Holocaust). Despite this recognition, and his last words, Willem’s sexuality was not recognized until the 1990’s. Frieda Belinfante’s contribution to the resistance was officially recognized by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1994. She died one year later, at 90 years old.

Backtracking just for a second, if I may, I just want to touch on those last words. Because, if there was *ever* a theme for this whole site — it’s that. We’ve been here forever, and we have always been brave. If there’s a thread that connects the LGBTQ+ community together more than our gender identities or our sexualities, it’s courage. And, yeah, that’s mostly been out of necessity. It takes bravery to stand in front of a world that hates you and say “so what? I’m me.” But even in times and places where we weren’t hated, we still have that fire — like Osch-Tisch? She was an incredible bad ass, and she wasn’t battling bigotry (at the time, anyways).

Let it be known that LGBTQ+ people are not cowards.

(Adapted from a Facebook post.)

Mother Clap’s Molly House

Through the various posts I’ve shared, we’ve talked a fair amount about the legality of homosexuality in various countries. What we haven’t talked much about is how the LGBTQ+ community came together when its very existence was a criminal offense.

In England, at least, gay men came together in places called “molly houses” — which were essentially taverns, inns, etc — where gay men could socialize or have sexual encounters. Other activities common in molly houses included various toying with gender roles — everything from adopting “female dialect” (I don’t know what that is — talking like a girl?), cross-dressing, and adopting female personas to false wedding ceremonies and “mock birth rituals” (that doesn’t sound like fun to me but okay). Although “buggery” could be a capital offense in England until 1861, those caught were often placed in pillories — as a result, pillories were frequently built near known molly houses and even came to be a symbol of them.

Probably the most famous and most well-documented of these was Mother Clap’s molly house, a coffee house run by a woman named Margaret Clap. Not much is known about her, but Mother Clap’s molly house was open from 1724 to 1726. Margaret may have run the coffee house out of her own private home, and she was said to only leave the premises to purchase alcohol from the tavern across the street, which she would serve to her customers. Although she undoubtedly did make money from running the establishment, her primary goal seemed to be taking care of and supporting the men who stayed there. One man who was a boarder there for two years (which was like, the whole time it was open) was arrested for sodomy, and she provided false testimony in his defense.

In February of 1726, Mother Clap’s molly house was raided by law enforcement (Wikipedia says by the police, but I’m fairly certain there was no formalized police force in London yet?) at the behest of the Society for the Reformation of Manners. (Which would raid a number of molly houses in London before 1730.) The Society had turned a number of “mollies” into informants who had surveilled the molly house for at least a year prior to the raid. These informants were not prosecuted as thanks for their cooperation. (And this would not be the last time that this tactic was used against homosexual men — this would last into the 20th century.)

Mother Clap herself was sentenced to stand in the pillory at Smithfield Market, pay 20 marks, and then spend two years in prison. What became of her after this is unknown. Mother Clap is one of only two individuals recorded to have been formally charged with keeping a molly house and found guilty (although a large number of people were charged with sodomy who were probably keepers of a molly house).

Three men arrested in the raid on Mother Clap’s molly house were found guilty and hung on May 9, 1726. The trials of these men — Gabriel Lawrence (a 43-year old milkman), William Griffin (a 43-year old furniture upholsterer), and Thomas Wright (who may have helped Mother Clap run the house or had a molly house of his own) — provide much of the details of what we now know about the LGBT community of London in the early 18th century. Dozens of others were arrested in the raid, but they were fined, put in the pillory, and imprisoned — but not put to death. I honestly can’t find any details to explain why those three in particular were singled out for execution, but knowing what I do about British society at the time it seems likely these were just the lowest class people arrested or someone influential had a grudge.

These molly houses were the precursors to the bars that we still see as being a safe place, a sanctuary for our community. As far as I know, we’ve pretty much just done away with the mock birth rituals (which, personally, I’m completely okay with.)

(Adapted from this Facebook post.)

Alan Turing

This post is like SUPER long, but this man did a LOT of stuff that is really important even to this day and he deserves to have it all celebrated. Let’s get into it:

Alan Turing was born on June 23, 1912 in London. (He was one of a handful LGBT+ figures who were born on this day — the birthday is shared by Alfred Kinsey, and myself. 😛) Turing is often known as the father of theoretical computer science as well as artificial intelligence, and is known for his work in code-breaking. In truth, he accomplished a great deal more than that before his death on June 7, 1954. (And that’s why we’re doing his post today!)

Alan Turing displayed signs of genius early on in life, showing incredible gifts at science and math, which were recognized by his teachers. At the age of 13, he was sent to Sherborne boarding school — however, his aptitude for math and science was not appreciated by many of the staff there, who sought to create more well-rounded students. Nevertheless, Turing would find inspiration for much of his later work at the school — by working on advancing his own education alongside his “first love” (albeit unrequited) Christopher Morcom. On February 13 of 1930, Morcom died from complications related to bovine tuberculosis, which he had contracted several years earlier. To work through his grief, Alan dedicated himself even more fully to his studies of math.

Turing attended university at King’s College in Cambridge. (That’s Cambridge in England, not in Massachusetts, for the Bostonians reading this.) At this point, Turing began writing and publishing dissertations on things that I am truly not smart enough to explain, so I’m just going to tell you what they were and let you Google them. In 1935, Turing wrote a dissertation that proved the central limit theorem. He was elected a fellow of King’s College as a result, because neither Turing nor the committee realized that the theorem had already been proven in 1922. I guess that’s what happens when you go to university before the invention of the Internet. In 1936, Turing published a paper called “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.” (I’ll admit to copying and pasting that last word there because wtf Germany, is that word for real?) In this paper, Turing essentially planned out the devices that would be called Turing machines, and proved that the-then hypothetical machine would be able to solve any computation that could be solved by an algorithm — and also apparently proved that you couldn’t mathematically prove whether or not his hypothetical machine would ever stop, or something. I mentioned that this is way over my head, right?

Apparently, someone else also beat Turing to the punch with the things he was proving about the Entscheidungsproblem (seriously, Germany, wtf?) — but Turing’s answers were considered far more accessible than those provided by Alonzo Church. As a result, Turing machines became central to the science of computers and are apparently still studied as part of the theory of computation. Likely because of their common interest in developing machines that could compute literally anything, Turing began to study under Alonzo Church at Princeton University from 1936 to 1938. It was here that Turing began to study cryptology, or code breaking. After earning his PhD, Turing returned to Cambridge to give lectures, and he also joined the British code-breaking organization called the Government Code & Cipher School (GC&CS).

The day after Britain declared war on Germany in 1939, Turing reported for duty at Bletchley Park — which was the wartime headquarters for the GC&CS. He is credited with essentially five different code-breaking techniques, including the bombe which was the primary automated method used by the GC&CS during World War II. For a time, he led Hut 8 — the British group in charge of breaking German naval ciphers. Never one to stop being a scholar, Turing also published two papers on mathematical approaches to codebreaking — however, these papers contained such valuable information to the British codebreaking organization that they were not actually released until 2012.

Turing’s work is estimated to have saved thousands of lives during World War II, and is said to have shorted the war by as much as two years. In 1946, King George IV awarded Turing the Order of the British Empire even though Turing’s work remained secret for years to come.

In 1945, Turing began working on an Automatic Computing Engine (ACE). He also wrote and presented a paper on a hypothetical computer that could store programming — unheard of at the time. (Once again, Turing was beaten to the punch on the *idea* but the paper that preceded him was apparently too vague to be taken seriously.) On May 10, 1950 a pilot version of the ACE enacted its first program — although Turing was at Cambridge at the time and did not witness the event. Turing’s ACE would not be truly completed until after his death.

Turing also became interested in other, more obscure forms of mathematics at about this time. He developed what is known as the Turing test — a test to determine whether or not a machine had true intelligence. This test is still used today, and in fact every one of those CAPTCHA tests that drive us all nuts is a reverse Turing test. He also worked on creating a chess program for computers — even though computers capable of running the program did not exist. The algorithm was completed in 1953, but could only be demonstrated by Turing flipping through his work to play the game of chess out on and actual chessboard. He also became keenly interested in mathematical biology (which I frankly did not even know was a thing until I started researching him) and particularly in morphogenesis (I don’t know what that is either). Despite publishing his work on morphogenesis before DNA was discovered, his paper is still considered relevant by biologists to this day.

In December of 1951, Turing began a relationship with an unemployed nineteen year old named Arnold Murray. Shortly afterwards, a burglar broke into Turing’s house — Murray said he knew the man, and Turing reported the crime to the police. However, during the course of the investigation, the sexual relationship between the two men was discovered. Homosexual acts were still illegal in the United Kingdom at the time, considered “gross indecency” under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885. Both men were charged with the crime.

Turing pled guilty to the crime. The case Regina v. Turing and Murray went to trial on March 31, 1952. Turing was convicted, stripped of his security clearance, barred from doing anymore cryptographic consulting, and given a choice: imprisonment, or probation with a hormonal treatment to lower his libido for one year. He opted for probation. The hormonal treatment, however, rendered him impotent and caused gynaecomastia (the growth of breast tissue in men). As a result of the conviction, Turing was also denied entry in the United States of America.

On June 7, 1954 Alan Turing died of cyanide poisoning. His body was discovered by his housekeeper the next day. Because there was a half-eaten apple by his bed, it was assumed that he committed suicide by ingesting the cyanide with the apple. There are theories, however, that his death was actually an accident as he was keeping some lab equipment in his bedroom, which used cyanide to dissolve gold. Yet others believe he intentionally put the equipment in his room to make his suicide look more like an accident. Some are still calling for a renewed investigation into his death.

In 2014, Turing was officially posthumously pardoned for the crime of gross indecency by the Queen. His was only the fourth royal pardon since the end of World War II. As of 2016, in what is informally called the “Alan Turing Law”, others convicted of historical laws that outlawed homosexual acts are being pardoned in England and Wales.

On June 5, 2019 Alan Turing received an obituary from the New York Times as part of their “Overlooked” series.

(Adapted from this Facebook post.)