Earlier this year I visited Italy to mark the re-translation of my first book, Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation (published in 1972). An attempt to explain the emergence of gay liberation, the book grew out of my involvement in New York’s early gay movement, which exploded after a police raid on a gay bar, the Stonewall, in 1969.
There was something moving and humbling about talking to audiences, many of whom were not born when I wrote that book, more so because I do not speak Italian and was largely dependent on interpreters. In all four cities where I spoke, audiences ranged widely across age and sexual and gender identities. Some were veterans of the early Italian gay movement, others just discovering a queer milieu.
Reflecting on the world in which I wrote my book, and the changes that have occurred since, I turned to the words of the late civil rights activist Martin Luther King. “The arc of the moral universe is long,” said King, “but it bends towards justice.”
