Self-oppression and self-publication

Between April 1973 and April 1974, when I was a maths student in London, I worked with the artist David Hutter on writing a pamphlet on the concept of self-oppression which had earlier been promulgated in the Gay Liberation Front Manifesto (1971). We collaborated very closely in the writing, and then we published it ourselves, under the name of Pomegranate Press. We launched it at Great Malvern, Worcestershire, where the conference of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality took place in May 1974.

We sold 3000 copies at 20p, and then reprinted it in April 1975. But in 1977 we passed it on to Pink Triangle Press in Toronto. The pamphlet had received a particularly keen response in the Toronto gay journal Body Politic. See the review. About 12000 copies were printed in all, roughly half circulating in Britain and half in North America. On the whole it got quite a welcome in the gay activist world of that time. It might even be true to say, as the Queer Resources Directory listing now does, that it was a seminal text. Thanks, QRD! (But in my mind's ear I can hear David laughing at the metaphor). It was translated into French and German, and excerpts also appeared in Swedish and Italian magazines.

With Downcast Gays has been out of print since about 1981. David and I talked about the possibility of it being republished with a new introduction in 1984, but nothing came of it.

In 1995 I returned to our original spirit of nonprofit self-publication, by putting the text on the World Wide Web. Of course, the references now read like ancient history — but some of the issues are alive today.

The Columbia Reader

So after twenty-five years I have become respectable. It is a bit of a shock. Incidentally, I have always been impressed by the way that amazon.com has listed With Downcast Gays itself, on this page, as an out-of-print text. Amazon's unprompted attention to a non-profit-making and self-published work is one reason why I am happy to be an Amazon Associate now.

The experience of writing With Downcast Gays was an important element in deciding me in 1977 to find out about Alan Turing, the founder of computer science and chief codebreaker of the Second World War. He was an open and unashamed gay man who was driven to his death by persecution and punishment. It was in fact through David Hutter that I first learnt of his story, and in an extraordinary coincidence, it transpired that David's long-term partner, James Atkins, had been Alan Turing's first lover from 1933 to 1937. I wrote a long biography of him as a contribution to gay history. My book Alan Turing: the Enigma appeared in 1983 and was later the basis for a play Breaking the Code. It was republished in the United States in 2000 (Amazon.com page here).

Continue to With Downcast Gays: Introduction | Preface and Links | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 out gay

Copyright

Other Links: John Lauritsen recalls The First Gay Liberation Demonstration, 1969 Rick Bébout's telling of the story of his body politic from 1969 to 2000. Paul Halsall's Online Guide a historical list of resources and texts Hall-Carpenter Archives the major British lesbian and gay historical centre John Harnick's lesbian and gay history page Der Kreis, 1943-1967 Heinrich Ulrichs' 175th birthday Gay's The Word Bookshop, London Glad Day Books, Toronto the first bookstore to promote the text

I am always grateful for feedback and suggestions for new links:

email andrew/AT/synth.co.uk