STORIES FROM THE CAMPUS CLOSET / UC Berkeley's 1950s gay, lbian alumni tell history

Contents:

• STORIES FROM THE CAMPUS CLOSET / UC BERKELEY'S 1950S GAY, LBIAN ALUMNI TELL HISTORY
• FEATURED SHORT STORI FICTN
• FEATURED STORI
• COLLEGE BOYS : GAY EROTIC STORI

STORIES FROM THE CAMPUS CLOSET / UC BERKELEY'S 1950S GAY, LBIAN ALUMNI TELL HISTORY

Wh theater doors bolted shut for the next…foreeable future, we’re thrilled to see some Broadway talent pop up the pilot episo of Boy•Friends, a new edy based off the My Gay Boyiend web-seri. The show centers around two llege roommat, one gay and one straight, and their “journey through llege and to adulthood to bee the homo-hetero power uple of the ag. As the only out young gay kid at my school, I took the advancement of my sexual experienc to my own hands and I did what we all do: I bought a fake ID and h the gay clubs.

FEATURED SHORT STORI FICTN

While I knew wouldn’t be like a gay llege eroti I’d read on (gay non, really), I rather naively wasn’t expectg the fall out. I realize I fell to that old gay adage of placg my feelgs on a person who, for whatever reason, was never gog to vt them back me.

Worst of all, though, the shame attached to the memori of those first tim marred how I would approach sex for was listeng to Years & Years’ new song “Sanctify, ” and seeg the band’s out gay sger Olly Alexanr talk about how the song was spired his sexual trysts wh straight men, that I realized that the feelgs are way more mon than people let on. Sure, I know all about gay guys havg sex wh straight guys, but felt reassurg to see him scribe the “sat and sner role” he embodied durg those experienc, and to hear the uncertaty and melancholy weaved to the than anythg though, was the repeated lyril mantra of “I won’t be ashamed.

Mildred (Jefey) Dickemann took part an oral history scribg gay and lbian life at Universy of California at Berkeley the 1950s. Chronicle photo by Kendra Luck2000-09-06 04:00:00 PDT BERKELEY -- Gay and lbian stunts at the Universy of California at Berkeley may have been forced to rema the closet 50 years ago, but that didn't stop them om venturg out to gay bars San Francis wh their straight iends.

FEATURED STORI

"It was a kd of show for them, a cursy, " relled Mildred Dickemann of the people who acpanied her to Focch's, the Black Cat and Mona's North for the closeted gay llege stunts, gog to the bars was much more than a passg para. Many of Kelly's iends did not know Kelly was gay and even though he was havg trysts wh men, Kelly did not thk of himself as homosexual.

COLLEGE BOYS : GAY EROTIC STORI

"You always thought that you were gog to get married, " said, Dickemann and five other gay alumni told their stori for an oral history project lled Gay Bears. The llectn, the Universy Archiv at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library, is the first documentatn of gay life on mp.

He is also adjunct curator for the Bancroft Library's Sexual Orientatn and Social Conflict Collectn, which exam gay and opposg reactns to such issu as same-sex marriag and domtic- partner benefs. Benemann me up wh the ia for the Gay Bears llectn after searchg the archiv a ago for any rerd of gay and lbian history but fdg nothg.

It was not unlike his experience when he first entered UC Berkeley as a 19-year-old sophomore 1969. "When I me here, I knew that I was gay, but I never met another person who I knew was gay, " relled Benemann.

"I had never read a book that had a gay character and never saw a gay person on TV or a movie. I never read anythg about homosexualy that didn't treat as a pathology. "Although Benemann wanted to explore his feelgs, he found no real gay muny on mp.

The early gay groups, such as the Gay Liberatn Front, which had grown out of the anti-war movement, did not foc on mp life and seemed too radil to Benemann. It was at UC Berkeley's first gay dance, 1971, that Benemann fally was ready to e out of the for those who me before Benemann, there were no such opportuni.