THE HOMOSEXUAL CULTURE

In a recent issue of ONE, Jeff Winters suggested that homosexuality is too omnipresent to warrant labeling every living (and dead) individual as being in or out of the category. He also questioned the present insistence that "homosexuals" constitute a minority. As tempest-maker, Mr. Winters has been highly successful in stimulating diverse opinion, itself often tempestuous. This stormy petrel has stirred the following petrol on troubled waters-which may itself be a typhoon in disguise. The decision, of course, is yours.

Webster defines "culture" in a variety of ways. Among the definitions it lists are these:

"The complex distinctive attainments, beliefs, traditions, etc., constituting the background of a racial, religious or social group.

"The trait complex mainfested by a tribe or a separate unit of mankind. . "The enlightenment and refinement of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training; the intellectual content of civilization; state of being cultivated." It is the last of these that Jeff Winters use in his article, and his tone would indicate he is unaware of the others.

When the Mattachine Foundation (for it is obviously the organization to which Mr. Winters mysteriously alludes) speaks of homosexual culture it has in mind the first of these definitions. And this is the definition, in reputable use by anthropologists and students of all the social sciences, which I have in mind in what follows.

What, exactly, do we mean when we talk about homosexual culture? Simply this: the manner of speaking and thinking, the beliefs, traditions and attainments of the homosexual minority. While it would be absurd to claim that this culture is a highly developed or "cultivated" one, it is equally inaccurate to protest its non-existence. The very fact of ONE'S existence and Mr. Winter's article, however misguided, are evidences of this culture. Were there no homosexual culture there would be no need for, no interest in, such a magazine as ONE. Not all cultural groups are aware of their existence as such, and until the development of the Mattachine movement there was little consciousness of the existence of our homosexual culture. The Mattachine movement, incidentally, is another manifestation of this culture and an expression of its impact on the dominant, heterosexual culture.

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