TMQH: The Lavender Panthers

This month we bring you the story of gay vigilantes from the 1970's! Armed with guns and bats, the Lavender Panthers patrolled the streets of San Francisco to protect LGBTQ+ people from homophobic hate crimes from 1973-74. 

Check out our show notes, linked below, for our sources, as well as articles, books, and documentaries in which you can learn more about the Lavender Panthers and other topics discussed in this episode. Thank you for listening!

(Content notes: homophobic slurs used in quotations within their historical context.)

 Show Notes:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16x_Ah46VIOT6asoc3CWeJwoccLcABEoa4siRJ1SxO0M/edit?usp=sharing

Follow CAMP Rehoboth:
fb.com/camprehobothcommunitycenter
camprehoboth.org
instagram.com/camprehoboth

Transcript

In the summer of 1973, the conflict between queer people and the homophobic and transphobic public was at a fever pitch in San Francisco. Despite its reputation as a gay city, even being dubbed the "gay capital of the USA" by life mag in 1964, San Francisco was not sans violence against its LGBTQ+ population. Its gay citizens faced frequent abuse from the police and from street gangs, usually consisting of young heterosexual and cisgender men, who would prowl the streets in gay-frequented districts like the Tenderloin or the Castro looking for victims to "fag-bash." 1973 took a turn for the worse, with multiple public gay bashings and murders, including the murder of David Hart Winters, a member of the Gay Activists Alliance. There were even violent attacks at gay-friendly community centers.

This was too much for Reverend Raymond "Ray" Broshears, a gay ex-Navy Pentecostal Evangelist priest, and founder of one such community center, Helping Hands, in the  "Meat Rack" area of the Tenderloin District, known for queer prostitution. In July of 1973, he was himself attacked by a group of teenagers outside Helping Hands,  which put him in the hospital. This was a turning point, and Reverend Ray decided that something needed to be done to combat the violence against LGBTQ+ people. While many of his fellow activists went the route of petitioning and protesting the government for better treatment by the police and persecution of hate crimes, Reverend Ray had a different idea: arming queer people. He gathered a small group of queer people and kitted them out with guns, bats, and improvised weapons like heavy chains and sawed off billiard cues. Reverend Ray himself carried around a shotgun, which he would rest on his shoulder during patrols. He dubbed his vigilante group the Lavender Panthers, an homage to the black civil rights group the Black Panthers, a group known for their militancy and direct approach to police violence against black people.

The Lavender Panthers had one goal: stop gay-bashings by force. They would patrol the Tenderloin and Castro districts of San Francisco, particularly gay bars and cruising spots, watching for street gangs and any sign of violence towards queer people.

Notable amongst queer organizations of the time, they also actively included transgender people and lesbians in their patrols, including two lesbians which Time Magazine reported in 1973 were the "toughest hombres in the lot." Reverend Ray's efforts were also focused primarily in the Tenderloin, which was largely inhabited by poor queer people, queer people of color, people experiencing addiction, sex workers, and transgender people, groups which were shunned by mainstream gay rights groups at the time.

Its unclear how much anti-gay violence they thwarted, but they kept significant records on the anti-gay violence occuring in the community, with over 300 incidents recorded in their logs. They were also committed to training the queer community in self-defense, trying publicly to push back on the common cultural conception that gay people were weak-willed, easy targets.

Regardless of their physical impact, they had a big cultural impact for gay San Franciscans, sparking great controversy within the queer community for their violent methods and Reverend Broshear's aggressive personal style. This was furthered by Reverend Ray's deliberate courting of the limelight, holding press conferences and giving interviews for magazines like Time and Coast, all while brandishing his shotgun. They faced strong pushback from middle-class, white, moderate gays, who viewed their forceful strategy as counter-productive to the cause of gay rights. Bar owners in the Castro, the district frequented by said middle class, white, moderate gays, also complained that the Lavender Panthers were unnecessary, saying their patrons could protect themselves. The police were also none too happy to see armed queer people roaming the streets, and in particular warned Reverend Ray that his shotgun was out of line. Reverend Ray reportedly rarely kept his gun loaded, but this did little to assuage the concerns of the police or other community members..”

It's hard to say how effective the Lavender Panthers would have been had they stuck around. The group disbanded in the spring of 1974, less than a year after they were formed, in part due to mounting pressure from the police and other members of the gay community. An incident of them threatening a group of teenagers who reported the threats to the police didn’t help. Their founder, Reverend Ray, would pass away less than 10 years later at the age of 46.

Regardless of one's perspective on the Lavender Panthers’ modus operandi, there can be no denying that they were an impassioned response to a real issue, one that continues to this day. It's no surprise that in a community as diverse as the queer community, there are different responses to violence and oppression. Now, I'm not recommending any queer folks listening pick up a shotgun and start prowling the streets, but we can certainly learn from Reverend Ray's radical inclusion of the most downtrodden in our community. For all that we've gained in the 50 years since the Lavender Panthers disbanded, we have a long way to go in uplifting and protecting the same groups that Reverend Ray was trying to protect.

Thank you for joining us for the fourth episode of This Month in Queer History. Take care, and join us next month for our fifth episode all about the landmark 2003 Supreme Court case Lawrence v Texas and how much of a disaster it would be for queer people if it was overturned.