Gay liberation in 1970s Kansas: How one brave student group set a national example

Histories of the gay rights movement often focus on coastal cities like New York and San Francisco. But as author Katherine Rose-Mockry points out in her new book, “Liberating Lawrence,” the University of Kansas and its home of Lawrence were hotbeds of LGBTQ+ activism throughout the 1970s.

Mockry and I spoke last month about the example set by these civil rights activists and what they have to teach us today.

“You can’t sit back and wait to see what’s out there,” she told me during our conversation for the Kansas Reflector podcast. “You, as they say, take the bull by the horns, and you say, ‘What’s needed?’ ‘What do we need to do to make a change for better for us?’ So that, I think, was really important. They were very visible at a time where it was very frightening to be visible. You could be expelled. There were people on campus who were followed by administrators. I have been told this. I’m not making it up. And how terrifying. It would be easy to say, ‘Oh, I’ve got to shut up now, because somebody’s watching me.’ But they did it anyways.”

What a powerful message to consider when facing a nation seemingly hellbent on turning backward. You can forge forward through bravery and determination.

The Lawrence Gay Liberation Front began with KU students. David Stout, who was studying social work, founded the group in 1970, but it arose from a wider hotbed of progressive activism. Fellow student Michael Stubbs played a critical role, as did other members of an eclectic group profiled by Rose-Mockry. And while you might expect that Lawrence, of all places in Kansas, would support such an organization, that was far from the truth.

“There were those people that were conservative and really didn’t want all these ‘infiltrators'” in Lawrence, she said. “There were lots of issues with excluding African Americans, there was a big deal with the swimming pool where African American people were not allowed to use the swimming pool, and many people in Lawrence were up in arms about that. And I mean, just that’s one issue to think of in how split the city was.”

Folks like Stout and Stubbs and the LGLF were seen as hippies — a term with nebulous definition then and now. Whatever the case, they were on the outside, and the rest of the God-fearing, white men of the campus and community were on the inside.

Rose-Mockry’s work on this book and my own history overlap a bit. More than two decades ago, I attended KU and joined Queers and Allies, the LGBTQ+ student group that had descended from the Lawrence Gay Liberation Front. I served as historian for a time, and attempted to write a short history of the group. For years, as I lived in Florida and New Hampshire, I hoped that someone — anyone — would mine the rich history of gay activism in Lawrence.

Imagine my surprise and delight when, having returned to Kansas and journalism (and having lunch with Stubbs) I learned that Rose-Mockry had taken on the task. As longtime director of the school’s Emily Taylor Center for Women and Gender Equity, she was the perfect author.

It took a bit of persuasion, though, she told me.

After doing a dissertation on the subject and interviewing some 30 people, she said, “I talked to David Stout, one of the primary people I mentioned in the book, and he was saying, ‘Are you thinking about a book?’ And I said, ‘Well, I sort of was. I don’t know if there’s enough interest that people would be interested in me writing a book.’ He said, ‘Give it a try.’ And I talked to my adviser, who said, independently, ‘I think this would make a good book.’ And I just need some reassurance that there would be an interest in me pursuing it.”

It took her a few years after retirement — and an additional 36 interviews — to complete the book.

Taken as a whole, the volume offers incredible insight into a tumultuous period and the remarkable people who made change happen. The LGLF didn’t just organize, but it fought the university in court for recognition as an official student organization. It lost the battle, but won public recognition and support. The group went on to grow and thrive by doing far more than similar organizations.

“I use the word revolutionary a lot,” Rose-Mockry said.

Similar LBGTQ+ groups were primarily social, she told me, “but few went the whole umbrella. For instance, they had a peer call-in line. … People within the group who take a call and provide support. That was very important. People from all over called, not just Lawrence, but across the country. They found out through some network that that existed, and they had numbers of resources, like attorneys, health care providers.”

Most importantly for our current moment, perhaps, was the Lawrence Gay Liberation Front’s approach to the community. It welcomed others. The group’s famed dances attracted hundreds from across the campus, community and region. And that made folks more willing to listen to their message.

“Right now, I’ll just say, from my perspective, there’s a lot to be angry about, and it would be easy to look at people who in your age group think differently than you do and not want to have anything to do with them,” she said. “But by doing that, you there’s no room for a bridge. I get the anger, I really do, but I also think if there’s no way to extend a bridge, there’s never going to be any coming together of any sort.”

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.