My activism and sexual revolution in New York was a factor.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I got more and more politically active and just followed the course of feminism and sexual liberation.
Finally, fighting for gay rights, speaking out in various places and making friends, men and women, was great.
I've been a very effective leader in the gay rights movement, though at times I've been controversial.
As my audience grew more diverse, I started interjecting social justice advocacy and commentaries about LGBT equality, and it just kept growing more.
I came to N.Y.C. in 1988 and got very involved with Act Up. I also started making movies, including two very gay shorts, 'Vaudeville' and 'Lady.' It was the height of the AIDS epidemic, and New York City was both dying and very alive at the same time.
I think the Civil Rights Movement changed that trajectory for me. The first thing I did was leave school. I was suspended for my participation in Movement demonstrations in my hometown, December, 1961.
I was raised in a very activist household so that I grew up surrounded by people who were activists.
I was involved in the anti-war movement.
The uproar of the late '60s - the antiwar movement, black riots, angry women. It was a wonderful time.
My activism did not spring from my being gay, or, for that matter, from my being black. Rather, it is rooted fundamentally in my Quaker upbringing and the values that were instilled in me by my grandparents who reared me.