{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-article-tsx","path":"/primedonaldkilhefner","result":{"data":{"primeArticle":{"slug":"prime.donaldkilhefner","excerpt":"Decades after helping ignite UCLA’s early LGBTQ+ liberation movement, Donald Kilhefner reflects on the early setbacks and triumphs in the fight for visibility.","headline":"Liberation Left Untold","author":"CAITLIN BROCKENBROW","authorbio":"","authoremail":"","authortwitter":"","coverimg":"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/prime.donaldkilhefner/prime.donkilhefner.BC_5-59603f756d62086e8f309fdf9e5f7c83.jpg","covercred":"Brianna Carlson","coveralt":"An image depicting Kilhefner sitting on a couch in his home, hands clasped on his lap.","articleType":"article","updated":"","content":[{"type":"text","value":"“The definition of bravery is, ‘you do it even though there’s fear.’”"},{"type":"text","value":"Donald Kilhefner’s voice is calm when he says this, but there’s a weight beneath the words. At 87 years old, he has had a lifetime to measure what bravery really means – the kind that does not come from acceptance or applause but from doing something when no one else dares. His voice is steady, almost amused, like a man who has spent 60 years watching the world try to soften what was never meant to be soft."},{"type":"text","value":"That steadiness also defined the path he chose when stepping into the earliest waves of organizing queer liberation in Los Angeles. He entered the movement as organizers were laying the groundwork for what would become a broader push for visibility."},{"type":"text","value":"Kilhefner’s story traces the origins of a movement and, over time, became that of a lifelong organizer challenging complacency, revealing how bravery – once born of necessity – continues to evolve in a community still defining what liberation means."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"The definition of bravery is, ‘You do it even though there’s fear.’\\\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"Looking back on it all, Kilhefner said he had three pivotal events in his life. The first was joining the Peace Corps and working in Ethiopia from 1962 to 1965, which he said gave him a much larger view of the expansive possibilities available to him. The second was receiving his master’s degree in African studies from Howard University, a historically Black university. He said he wanted to be taught Black history by Black professors, describing it as one of the best educations he ever had."},{"type":"text","value":"The third was going to UCLA."},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"A picture of Donald Kilhefner speaking to photographers while sitting on a coach in his home.\",\"url\":\"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/prime.donaldkilhefner/prime.donkilhefner.BC_3-80b25b3ebbe5f9cc004a7bb8b02780b5.jpg\",\"credit\":\"Brianna Carlson/Daily Bruin staff\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"Kilhefner’s organizing on campus reflected a broader wave of queer activism emerging across the country, as students and community members began linking their struggles to the era’s wider movements for queer liberation. The Stonewall rebellion erupted in New York in June 1969, sending shockwaves through a country already roiling with protests against the Vietnam War and cries for civil rights and women’s liberation. California had its own battlegrounds, from police raids on gay bars to the newly formed LA Gay Liberation Front, which Kilhefner became deeply involved with."},{"type":"text","value":"The then-doctoral student in African and Islamic studies started a chapter of the Gay Liberation Front at UCLA alongside fellow students Rand Schrader and Steve McGrew. They had been inspired by the Columbia and UC Berkeley students organizing gay student unions. After reading the requirements to form a campus organization, Kilhefner said the three thought the process would be very easy and quickly wrote a mission statement. They were about to finish the process when they ran into a final problem."},{"type":"text","value":"It was not widespread student opposition or campus-wide discrimination – it was finding a faculty advisor."},{"type":"text","value":"He said the three were certain one of a handful of faculty members would be on board. However, they all declined, saying it was too risky and could cost them their careers. While wondering what to do with all the other pieces in place, a fellow graduate student suggested they talk to a sociology professor – known for being a Marxist, anti-Vietnam War, pro-feminist and supporter of the Civil Rights Movement – who they were inclined to think would be on board. The sociology professor agreed on the one condition – that he never had to attend their meetings or in any way be involved afterward. They just had to keep him informed about what was happening so he would not be caught by surprise."},{"type":"text","value":"Kilhefner said he could not remember the professor’s name because he only talked to him twice. Once to ask if he would be their sponsor and then again when he signed the organization’s official founding document. At the time, Kilhefner said LGBTQ+ people were not seen on campus, and they certainly were not supposed to be heard. But that invisibility did not last long."},{"type":"text","value":"In October 1969, the UCLA chapter of the Gay Liberation Front held its first meeting, initially in Campbell Hall, with around 10 people in attendance. By their second meeting, they started planning an LGBTQ+ dance in Ackerman Union for the following quarter. The dance ultimately had 200 attendees, which included about 150 LGBTQ+ students and 50 allies, with the group only growing from there."},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"An image of Donald Kilhefner sitting on a couch in his home.\",\"url\":\"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/prime.donaldkilhefner/prime.donkilhefner.BC.0-c59929a56230d49760156d81d5384e94.jpg\",\"credit\":\"Brianna Carlson/Daily Bruin staff\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"The rapid growth of those first gatherings placed the UCLA chapter within a larger lineage of queer activism that took shape in LA over the previous decades, Kilhefner said. The Gay Liberation Front emerged from a long and complicated lineage of organizing in LA, he added. One of the earliest gay rights organizations in the United States was founded in 1950. The Mattachine Society operated quietly in Los Angeles under a liberal but cautious agenda, seeking gradual social acceptance rather than open confrontation. The group saw a decline in membership only three years later."},{"type":"text","value":"\"In 1953, that (Mattachine Society) fell apart because Harry Hay, one of the founders, was outed as a former member of the Communist Party,\" Kilhefner said. \"People fled fearing the Red Scare was happening, fearing that they would be raided.\""},{"type":"text","value":"What followed, Kilhefner said, was the homophile movement, a starkly different effort that sought respectability and restraint. Led largely by conservatives and moral reformists, he said its leaders urged LGBTQ+ people to behave and not rock the boat in the hope that quiet conformity might lead to acceptance, something more akin to assimilation than revolution."},{"type":"text","value":"When the Gay Liberation Front movement rose in 1969, he said it shattered the mold by taking power back through civil disobedience. The goal was not to fit in but to fight back and claim space, voice and power in a society that had long denied their existence. As Kilhefner put it, gay liberation was not a plea for tolerance but a political awakening – a demand to be seen and heard on their own terms. Today, Kilhefner still speaks with the same clarity and conviction that drove him all those decades ago."},{"type":"text","value":"\"Fuck acceptance, who wants that?\" he said."},{"type":"text","value":"Unlike the homophile organizations of the 1950s and early ‘60s, which sought quiet acceptance through respectability and assimilation, the Gay Liberation Front embraced confrontation and visibility as tools of liberation. Its members rejected the notion that queer identity needed to be justified or hidden to earn legitimacy."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"We were a political movement.\\\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"\"They weren’t going to accept us anyway,\" Kilhefner said. \"We put the emphasis on gay people developing self-respect, self-acceptance and it worked, and we developed a political strategy. We were no longer arguing whether we’re sick or not, but we were a political movement.\""},{"type":"text","value":"By winter 1970, he had taken a leave of absence from UCLA and was working as the Gay Liberation Front of LA’s live-in office manager. He spent his days organizing off campus and his nights sleeping on the office’s sofa in a sleeping bag, having had no place to live. His fellowship had been paused until his return, leaving him without any income."},{"type":"text","value":"Schrader and McGrew stayed primarily involved with the UCLA chapter, focusing on building a visible and sustainable presence for LGBTQ+ students on campus. After its first few meetings, the student organization had been swamped. Kilhefner said it was like the LGBTQ+ student population was ready, just needing someone to open the door. As he shifted focus off campus, he said liberation organizing brought him to life in a way that his doctoral program did not."},{"type":"text","value":"Kilhefner went on to co-found the Gay Community Services Center, now known as the Los Angeles LGBT Center, in 1971 to advocate for and provide health services for the community. In the years that followed, he helped launch and support numerous other organizations and initiatives alongside his work as a psychotherapist. In the present day, Kilhefner still writes and actively engages in LGBTQ+ activism."},{"type":"text","value":"As the years went by, the lives of the UCLA Gay Liberation Front’s founders took different paths. Schrader, who was a second-year law student at the time of the group’s founding, later became a municipal court judge in LA. McGrew returned to San Bernardino County with his partner and retained contact with Kilhefner throughout the 1970s and ’80s. Yet, like so many, their stories were forever marked by the AIDS crisis."},{"type":"text","value":"\"In those days, many times the AIDS diagnosis was a death sentence, and then I stopped hearing from him (McGrew), and my phone calls and emails were not answered,\" Kilhefner said. \"Those days, we knew what that meant.\""},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"An image of Donald Kilhefner sitting on the couch inside his home.\",\"url\":\"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/prime.donaldkilhefner/prime.donkilhefner.BC_8-888faa0401b16c38e1cb4179d765a3d4.jpg\",\"credit\":\"Brianna Carlson/Daily Bruin staff\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"More than half a century later, the movement that began in those early campus meetings continues to ripple through UCLA’s history. The legacy of that early organizing at UCLA continues to take tangible shape on campus with the UCLA LGBTQ Campus Resource Center, whose foundation draws back to LGBTQ+ activism on campus such as that of the original Gay Liberation Front chapter."},{"type":"text","value":"Paul Moore, executive director of the David Bohnett Foundation, said the foundation has been supporting the now-named UCLA LGBTQ Campus Resource Center for over two decades, most notably through the David Bohnett Cyber Center, a computer lab located inside the center. Established in 2004, the program was one of the foundation’s earliest campus partnerships, created to ensure that queer students had both access to technology and a shared physical space. The foundation also hosts the Judge Rand Schrader Pro Bono Program at the UCLA School of Law, honoring Schrader, Bohnett’s late partner."},{"type":"text","value":"The spirit that drove his early organizing still defines him today. To those who know him – like his newsletter collaborator Danny Battista – his dedication has never wavered."},{"type":"text","value":"\"He has a lot of gravity to what he knows,\" Battista said. \"He’s seen how much things have changed and evolved and has firsthand experience having lived through and participated and led a lot of the efforts that have led to our present reality.\""},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"Gay, lesbian and trans people have evolved and I don’t expect them to be the same people they were in 1969.\\\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"But Kilhefner said the world around him has changed, that the power structure in the LGBTQ+ community has been taken over by elite, wealthy people, largely white men. There is a big difference between gay liberation of the 1970s and what is going on today. In his eyes, a gay movement does not exist anymore. Instead, people have become spectators of their own movement. Recent legal challenges to LGBTQ+ rights also make the present a very dangerous time for the LGBTQ+ community, in which the advancement of the last 60 years could be wiped away, Kilhefner said. However, new challenges are expected. For Kilhefner, what matters most is finding new solutions."},{"type":"text","value":"\"Gay, lesbian, trans people have evolved, and I don’t expect them to be the same people they were in 1969,\" Kilhefner said. \"I’m interested in moving it forward. What is the struggle now? What do we need to do now?\""}]}},"pageContext":{"term":"fall25","slug":"prime.donaldkilhefner"}},"staticQueryHashes":[]}