Henry Hay Born April 7th

Henry (Harry) Hay, Jr. was born April 7th, 1912 in Sussex, England. Hays' father managed gold mines in West Africa and then for a Chilean copper company before returning home to America, specifically Los Angeles, in 1917. At seventeen, Hay seduced Champ Simmons, a man in his thirties, who was a horrified to learn Hay was a minor. Hay learned that Simmons himself had been seduced by a man belonging to the Chicago Society for Human Rights, which existed from 1924 -1925 and is the earliest documented gay rights group in the United States. Hay attended Stanford University and made the daring decision to come out in 1931. Hay related that the idea for a gay organization came one night at a beer bust at the University of Southern California and two years later in 1950 the Mattachine Society came into existence. Due to a Communist party affiliation, Hay resigned from the Mattachine Society, then later co-founded the Gay Liberation Front Los Angeles chapter. In 1970 Hay and his longtime lover John Burnside moved to New Mexico and founded the Radical Faeries.

Learn more about Hay here and here.