A Campy History of Queer Media in the 1940s

Mainstream news outlets regularly cover LGBTQ stories, reporting on everything from queer culture and the arts to political and legal struggles for equality around the world. But that’s a relatively recent phenomenon. Until the 1990s, most news organizations paid little attention to LGBTQ news beyond coverage of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. 

In the decade after Stonewall, most news about the gay and lesbian community was covered by a few local LGBTQ newspapers, such as Gay Community News in Boston and the Bay Area Reporter in San Francisco.

But who covered queer news in the bad old days, the pre-Stonewall era, when most LGBTQ people were closeted? It turns out, it all started with a few brave soldiers stationed in the American South during World War II and a young lesbian who worked in the entertainment industry in Hollywood. They published what are believed to be the first gay and lesbian newsletters in the United States — in the 1940s.

David Hunt got the scoop from a pioneering gay historian, Allan Bérubé, at the 1983 convention of the Gay and Lesbian Press Association in San Francisco. 

An edited version of this featured aired on This Way Out: The International LGBTQ Radio Magazine.

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David Hunt is an Emmy-winning journalist and documentary producer who has reported on America's culture wars since the 1970s. Explore his blog, Tell Me, David.