Biography

Henry "Harry" Hay Jr. (April 7, 1912 – October 24, 2002) was an American gay rights activist, communist, and labor advocate. He was a co-founder of the Mattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States, as well as the Radical Faeries, a loosely affiliated gay spiritual movement.

Born to an upper middle class family in England, Hay was raised in Chile and California. From an early age, he acknowledged his same-sex sexual attraction, and an interest in Marxism. Briefly studying at Stanford University, he subsequently became a professional actor in Los Angeles, where he joined the Communist Party USA, becoming a committed labor activist. As a result of societal pressure, he married Party activist Anita Platky in 1938, with whom he adopted two children. Recognizing that he remained homosexual, his marriage ended and in 1950 he founded the Mattachine Society. Although involved in campaigns for gay rights, he resigned from the Society in 1953.

Hay's developing understanding of the social and political marginalization of gay people led him to take a stand against the assimilationism advocated by the majority of gay rights campaigners. He subsequently became a co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of the Gay Liberation Front in 1969, although in 1970 he moved to New Mexico with his longtime partner John Burnside. Hay's ongoing interest in Native American religions led the couple to co-found the Radical Faeries in 1979 with Don Kilhefner and Mitchell L. Walker. Returning to Los Angeles, Hay remained involved in an array of activist causes throughout his life, and became a well-known, albeit controversial, elder statesman within the country's gay community. Hay has been described as "the Founder of the Modern Gay Movement" and "the father of gay liberation".Controversially, Hay was an active supporter of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), a pedophile advocacy organization. He protested the group being banned from Pride parades, wearing a sign protesting the banning during the 1986 Los Angeles Pride, and boycotting New York Pride in 1994 for their refusal to include NAMBLA. He spoke out in support of relationships between adult men and boys as young as thirteen, and spoke at several NAMBLA meetings, including panels in 1984 and 1986, and another in 1994 about helping the group strategize a name change to help with their public image.