arthur evans - how to zap straights

Unlike many groups that use the name “Gay Liberation Front,” New York’s Gay Activists’ Alliance is a one-issue organization. This means that GAA is exclusively devoted to issues involving gay rights (for gay men and women both) and refuses to involve itself in any other issues (such as the end-the-war movement).

GAA also refuses to endorse any political party or candidates for public office, thus distinguishing itself from all reformist groups that attempt to work within the party system. GAA is an action-oriented group and shuns all ideological disputes. It believes that the major task of gay liberationists is to build a strong collective sense of gay pride, gay identity, and gay culture. It disdains the idea of assimilation into the overall straight culture. To accomplish these goals, GAA advocates the use of militant (though nonviolent) confrontation tactics, as described in the following article.

Straight oppressors, watch out—gays are gonna zap you! And if you’re zapped, it’ll be a long time before you forget it. You’re sure to be emotionally shaken. You’ll get lots of bad publicity. And you may even get involved in a lengthy court suit.

The “zap” is specifically designed to do just these things. And more—to rouse closet gays from their apathy, direct gay anger toward oppressive straight institutions, and create a widespread feeling of gay identity.

Use of the zap was perfected by New York’s Gay Activists’ Alliance. It is a unique tactic of confrontation politics, combining the somber principles of realpolitik with the theatrics of high camp.

One early GAA zap was occasioned by actions of the New York City police in 1970. At this time, a wave of police repression against gays developed. Bars and baths were raided or closed down. Cruising areas were heavily patrolled. Street gays, open transvestites and gay prostitutes were ridiculed by police, arrested, and in some cases beaten.

To the chagrin of gay people, this pattern of police harassment continued well into 1970, even though John Lindsay was mayor (he had been narrowly re-elected to a second term by a coalition which included black and gay voters). GAA made numerous complaints to the mayor’s office, all to no avail.

As a result of Lindsay’s indifference, GAA members voted to zap him whenever he appeared in public. The first zap occurred at the seasonal opening of the Metropolitan Opera. Disguised in suit-and-tie drag (some in tuxedos), members of GAA infiltrated the crowd, stationing themselves at strategic positions in the huge, ornate lobby.

When the mayor and his wife entered the lobby just before curtain time, they were stopped dead in their tracks. Gays leapt in front of them shouting, “END POLICE HARASSMENT!” and “GAY POWER!” The huge winding staircases were filled with “respectable” people waiting to catch a glimpse of His Honor. Instead they saw a little drama of gay liberation—the mayor and his wife nonplussed, the cavernous lobby booming with gay liberation chants. (The police were slow to eject the disruptors because of their “well-dressed” appearance.)

A few days later a similar scene occurred at the opening of the Broadway play Two by Two. Enter the mayor and his wife—only to meet with gay confrontation. This time there was a different twist, however; Mrs. Lindsay lost her temper. She charged into the demonstrators, punching and kicking (she punched me in the chest). The police threw us out.

This reaction by the mayor’s wife was a good thing. It meant the gays had gotten to the oppressors’ emotions. Previously, the gay demands had been only an abstract issue to the mayor (which he could easily ignore). Now they were forced into his private life; they were felt.

Within a few days, GAA officers were invited to meet with the deputy mayor. The police official who had originated the anti-gay activities (Seymour Pine) was transferred out of Manhattan to a petty post in Brooklyn. And the wave of police harassment subsided.

In June 1970 there was an outdoor zap directed against a member of the New York City Council. For nearly nine months, a bill that would outlaw discrimination against gays (in housing, employment, and public accommodations) had been languishing in a council committee. Its chairman, Saul Sharison, even refused to call a meeting of his committee, let alone openly push for the gay rights bill (“Intro. 475”). So GAA decided to zap Sharison hard—at his own home. Sharison lived in a huge luxury apartment building within walking distance of GAA headquarters (the latter in a rather less elegant part of town).

Every Saturday night GAA holds a huge gay dance. The weekend we decided to zap Sharison, the dance ended early so that everyone—well over a thousand—could march to Sharison’s home. Dozens of police had been called out. A small contingent of gay commandos tried to force the barricades, supported by chanting from the crowd. A sit-in was staged in the building’s lobby, and seven people were arrested.

All this activity produced an enormous amount of noise, which disturbed and frightened the well-to-do tenants. They turned against Sharison, deluging him with phone calls and letters and threatening to force him out of the building if anything like this occurred again. Within two weeks the harried chairman announced that his committee would meet for public hearings on Intro. 475.

Actually, the most intimidating type of zap requires far fewer people. This is the hit-and-run office disruption:

For several weeks in 1971, GAA of New York City and GAA of Long Island had been pressuring the district attorney to conduct an investigation of police harassment against gays in Suffolk County, Long Island. (For example, a solitary man had been arrested on Fire Island for “sodomy,” even though it takes two to sodomize; two drunken Suffolk police had raided a gay bar and beaten the manager; and gays had been beaten and maced at a recent anti-police demonstration.) The D.A. turned a deaf ear to the gays’ complaints.

The plan of the zap was to take over the office quickly, threaten the D.A. with a citizen’s arrest for malfeasance, subject the chief bureaucrats to a torrent of verbal abuse and noise, and then submit peacefully to arrest. All went according to play, except that the police didn’t want to arrest such a large number of people (about thirty). Instead, they shoved all the demonstrators downstairs and outside.

During the action inside, gay militants walked up to the oppressors, screaming in their faces. One militant rushed up to an assistant D.A., shouting, “Are you proud of yourself? Are you proud of yourself for oppressing homosexuals? We demand an end to police harassment! An end to entrapment! An end to sodomy laws!” The crowd of gays surrounded the oppressor, shouting with raised fists, “JUSTICE! JUSTICE! JUSTICE!” The demonstrators continued to run around the office, handing out leaflets to the employees. Sylvia, a male transvestite, took over the D.A.’s desk, answering the phone as the new county district attorney.

Zapping works. The noise, abuse and general camping-up demoralize the oppressors. Sometimes even top pigs are not too proud of the work they do. Activists can capitalize on this weakness and degrade high-ranking bureaucrats in front of their employees. The oppressors are usually taken off guard and come out looking either ridiculous or violent. When the scene is replayed on TV news, they look foolish and vulnerable.

Zaps present the oppressor with a dilemma: either capitulate, or win by resorting to violence. In either case, the Gay Liberation Movement wins—for violence against gays, especially when well-publicized, always politicizes more gays.

The ensuing publicity helped make a success of a zap that took place against New York’s “Inner Circle,” an exclusive, elitist collection of political reporters, press agents, politicians, and union leaders who meet from time to time to lampoon current political events. Learning that the Inner Circle planned to stage a play ridiculing the gay community and Intro. 475 at its April 1972 meeting, GAA members slipped into the ornate room in the Hilton Hotel where the Inner Circle gathers. They distributed a leaflet aimed at the press agents, criticizing them for their usually jaundiced statements and reports concerning gay news. One gay activist took over a microphone and began to speak.

At this point, several men in tuxedos (later identified as members of the Inner Circle or employees of the Hilton) attacked the gays, punching them in the face and kicking them in the groin. One member of the Uniformed Firefighters Association (and a National Golden Gloves heavyweight champion) assaulted at least two gays, knocking one unconscious (the victim later had six stitches taken around his eye). New York City policemen on the scene refused to stop the mayhem, and would not allow the gays to press charges against the attackers.

Even though the gays were beaten and thrown out, the Gay Liberation Movement won. The event subsequently received enormous publicity, even from the straight press. Private contributions poured into GAA’s treasury to fund a legal suit. Prominent civil rights lawyers offered to support GAA in legal action against the attackers. Most important of all, many closet gays learned of the assault and began to think about the nature of their oppression, and what they could do about it.

Zaps are thus a form of political theater for educating the gay masses. Gays who have as yet no sense of gay pride see a zap on television or read about it in the press. First they are vaguely disturbed at the demonstrators for “rocking the boat”; eventually, when they see how the straight establishment responds, they feel anger. This anger gradually focuses on the heterosexual oppressors, and the gays develop a sense of class-consciousness. And the no-longer-closeted gays realize that assimilation into the heterosexual mainstream is no answer: gays must unite among themselves, organize their common resources for collective action, and resist.

Gay people, unite! Organize! Resist!