THE HOMOPHILE

MOVEMENT

“a candid year-end look at the national scene... the investigations of one observer and no apologies

offered if feelings get

hurt..."

DOES THE WEST LEAD US ALL?

AN INQUIRY

by Sidney Rothman

There is no one, single or married, mother, father or child who can afford not to be interested in what is going on in the Homophile Movement these days. For this Movement is part of a minority group so large that hardly any family is without its homophile contacts nor can any business or governmental agency fancy itself to be exempt.

During the past forty years the Homophile Movement has gradually come into being, to devote itself to the problems and general situation of those in this country having homosexual inclinations. The actions and attitudes of this Movement must therefore necessarily touch upon public interest as well as the lives of those millions of men and women who comprise the homophile minority itself.

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This article, representing the investigations of one observer, is offered at the year-end as an honest appraisal of the American Homophile Movement today. If some of its statements and conclusions should be bitterly resented or hotly debated no apologies are offered.

In preparation several persons able to supply information have been consulted. Also examined, primarily in the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library, have been bound volumes of Mattachine Review, The Ladder, ONE Magazine and ONE Institute Quarterly. Particularly helpful has been the book Homosexuals Today, 1956, published by ONE, Incorporated.

Other information sources have been Mattachine Newsletters (from numer-