The Astrology of The Gay Liberation Front

Hey! Welcome back to Star Gays. Last month we spent time breaking down the history of the Venus and Mars retrogrades in the Spring and Summer of 1969, which coincided with queer activism leading up to the Stonewall Riots. This month we’re going to take a look at the Gay Liberation Front, one of the groups that was formed in the weeks following Stonewall and the astrology of the group.

In the aftermath of almost a week of nightly scuffles between gay youth and police, a number of meetings were held to figure out what to do next. The Mattachine Society, a more assimilationist homophile group, was one of the first to organize a meeting, which ended up being very contentious. Old guard members of Mattachine wanted to hold a candlelight vigil against police violence but at this meeting of about 400 people, there were calls to radicalize and hold a protest march instead.

The Gay Liberation Front

On July 24, 1969 a small group of activists met to plan the march which was held on July 27, 1969, just one month after the Stonewall uprising. Around 2-300 people marched from Washington Square Park to the Stonewall Inn with organizers like Martha Shelley and Marty Robinson encouraging people to continue the fight. From this protest, a group of organizers met on July 31, 1969 and officially formed a new organization - the Gay Liberation Front or GLF. Martha Shelley is the person credited for bringing the name to the meeting though as she recalls, someone behind her said it at the July 24th meeting and she just said it louder. Regardless, on July 31, 1969 between 6 and 6:30 PM, The Gay Liberation Front was born.^[1][2]

The Gay Liberation Front marked a turning point in queer organizing. For one, the name claimed openly that they were gay, where previous homophile groups often used cryptic names like Mattachine or Janus. They demanded liberation and fought to dismantle the systems of power, where homophile groups sought to assimilate and be accepted within the system. Their name, Gay Liberation Front was also an allusion to other socialist Fronts of the time (like the Viet Cong) and spoke to the GLF as a coalition of people across difference. Their initial statement of purpose was published by the Rat, a New York underground newspaper and read,

“We are a revolutionary group of men and women formed with the realization that complete sexual liberation for all people cannot come about unless existing social institutions are abolished. We reject society’s attempt to impose sexual roles and definitions of our nature.”

Their struggle was tied in with anti-capitalist, anti-war, anti-racist, and feminist struggles.

The Gay Liberation Front held weekly protests at the Women’s House of Detention and protested the coverage of gay people by The Village Voice. They had a periodical which they published regularly for several years. And of course, they were central to creating the Christopher Street Liberation Day March - what we now know as the Pride Parade. From GLF, several affinity groups were born including Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), Gay Youth, and Third World Gay Revolution which attended to the specific experiences and needs of people in multiply-marginalized identities.

The Astrology of GLF

The chart for the GLF has Capricorn rising, ruled by Saturn in Taurus in the fifth house. Capricorn is interested in building foundations. As the cardinal earth sign, it surveys the land, creates blueprints, and build something new. Being ruled by Saturn, there is an interest in the rules and laws, understanding the limits of possibility, but as we see in their statement of purpose, understanding the rules doesn’t mean you need to follow them. Understanding the existing social structures also creates the possibility for abolishing them.

Saturn is in Taurus. Here we see Saturn, planet of rules of limitations in the slow moving, value focused, earthy domicile of Venus. This first decan of Taurus in particular is associated with the plow, which is used to break the soil and prepare it for planting. This first decan then is associated with the labor necessary to maintain the beauty that Taurus seeks, labor which Saturn is well-suited to toil in. Saturn in Venus’s sign as well as its placement in the fifth house both point to the core of the group being about sexuality, its creative and generative forces. Saturn in Taurus lends a weight, and a seriousness to the fifth house. Sexuality is not seen as frivolous here but a critical site for changing the structure of society.

Saturn is also receiving an exact square from the Sun at 8° Leo. The Sun, which is the sect light of the chart, is at home in Leo, the fixed fire sign. The Sun here is easily able to generate the self, to maintain who one is, to play and perform the self. But the Sun, in a square to Saturn, suggests some rules and limitations to that creative self-generation. The Sun has to fight with Saturn to be seen, and Saturn is in the superior position, which gives those limits the upper hand. Then take into consideration that the Sun is in the eighth house, one of the dark houses, unable to see the ascendant. The Sun is in particularly rough condition because it is besieged by the malefics. While the square to Saturn is tightly applying, the Sun’s last aspect was to Mars at 5° Sagittarius. Mars in Sagittarius was one of the key players in the Stonewall chart, representing the need to fight for what they believed in. Mars is certainly acting as a malefic planet here, with Stonewall arising out of police violence and dangerous living conditions for queer people but because Mars is in a trine to the Sun, there is a strong supportive relationship between what needs to be fought for and an authentic sense of self.

COME OUT!

Despite being in domicile, the Sun is up against a number of factors in order to be seen. The Sun-Saturn square reads to me as one of the main rallying cries of the GLF: come out of the closet! The newspaper for the GLF was called “COME OUT!”^[3] and the cover page for their first edition read,

“COME OUT FOR FREEDOM! COME OUT NOW!…COME OUT OF THE CLOSET BEFORE THE DOOR IS NAILED SHUT!”

The Sun in Leo represents the authentic self, and GLF’s Sun in Leo says Come Out, don’t hide your truth, be your authentic self in all areas of life. But, the square to Saturn represents all the things which get in the way of one coming out, the hostile repression of gay people.

The eighth house acts as the closet, a tucked away place that is not easily seen as it does not aspect the ascendant, and the Sun in domicile here indicates that there is something critical to ones authenticity that is getting tucked away in that dark place. But with a square there is a requirement for motion, these two forces, in this case, the Sun and Saturn, are in a relationship that is uneasy, and requires change. Without the square, the Sun in Leo might enjoy keeping that authenticity in a private space, but the square to Saturn says there are consequences, the door will be nailed shut if you don’t act.

It’s worth noting that the first issue of Come Out was published on November 14, 1969, with the Sun in Scorpio, at the opposition point to this Saturn in Taurus.

Martha Shelley

This poem from Martha Shelley, GLF founding member, published in the initial newsletter captures the Saturnian nature of GLF and that square to the Sun. The denial of growth, the images of rigid cages and imprisionment exemplify Saturn’s malefic nature. The line, “we are not what we would become.” speaks to the Sun’s desire to be authentic and the final line “our voice has been unheard.” reiterates the Sun’s desire but also brings in Mercury, the planet of communication, co-present with the Sun in Leo.

While we don’t have a timed birth for Shelley, its worth noting that she was born on a New Moon in Capricorn which might help to explain her role in the founding of the GLF and her own Saturnian disposition.

Concluding Thoughts

The founding of the Gay Liberation Front marked a major turning point in organizing around gay issues. Where the homophile groups of the 50s and 60s were focused on assimilation and single issue organizing, the GLF and the groups that spawned from it were interested in fighting for liberation and drawing connections between the oppression faced by gay people, trans people, people of color and all oppressed people of the world.

1. I'm choosing to use July 31 as the date for the founding of the GLF because that is when the name was officially taken on and the group was officially formed. Although the name was mentioned at the July 24th meeting, it was not adopted until the 31st. There is more to be said here about inception and conception charts - but that's for another blog post!
2. The time of the meeting comes from this clip of Jerry Hoose who says the first meeting started at 6 or 6:30 pm. The rising sign does not change between these times.
3. Read the full first edition of COME OUT! here.