Gay Activists Alliance

The Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) was founded in New York City on December 21, 1969, almost six months after the Stonewall riots, by dissident members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). Some early members included Jim Owles, Marty Robinson, Kay Lahusen, Arthur Bell, Arthur Evans, Bill Bahlman, Vito Russo, Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Jim Coles, Brenda Howard, David Thorstad, Michael Giammetta and Morty Manford (son of Jeanne Manford). GAA's first president was Jim Owles.

The group was incorporated by Hal Weiner, Esq., of Coles & Weiner, a two-person firm, after Weiner defended Sylvia Rivera in a criminal court proceeding where she had been arrested in Times Square while obtaining signatures on a petition for the first proposed LGBTQ legislation in the New York City Council, Intro 472, and charged with soliciting for the purpose of sex, rather than exercising a civil right to petition. The corporate certificate was rejected by the New York State Division of Corporations and State Records, on the grounds that the name was not a fit name for a New York corporation because of the connotation in which the word "gay" was being used, and that the corporation was being formed to violate the sodomy laws of New York. It took five years to win the right to incorporate under that name.

The group wanted to form a "single issue, politically neutral [organization], whose goal would be to "secure basic human rights, dignity and freedom for all gay people."

GAA was most active from 1970 to 1974. They published the Gay Activist newspaper until 1980. GAA first met at the Church of the Holy Apostles (9th Ave. & 28th St.) Their next New York City headquarters, the Firehouse at 99 Wooster Street in Soho, was occupied in May 1971 and burned down by arsonists on October 15, 1974. "By 1980 GAA had begun to sound like the Gay Liberation Front in 1969. After Activists met to officially disband the Alliance a year later..."

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