LOCAL FEATURE

An Army of Ex-Lovers … on Deadline!
Amy Hoffman’s memoir recounts the historic weekly publication Gay Community News.

By Dustin Fitzharris
Thursday, March 06, 2008

“The AIDS epidemic was still in the future. ‘Homosexuality’ appeared in the headlines only when it was related to scandal or crime. And coming out could mean losing your job, your home and your family—with no legal recourse.”

That’s how Amy Hoffman recalls the time period she reflects on in her memoir, “An Army of Ex-Lovers.” The book is a detailed account of Gay Community News, the first national gay publication. In its 19 years as a weekly paper, only a blizzard in 1978 stopped the paper from meeting deadline. 

Founded in 1973, GCN was a way for the many new gay organizations that popped up after Stonewall to keep in touch with each other—for only 50 cents a copy! The paper ceased producing its weekly format in 1992 before finally closing its doors in 1999. 

“I can’t count the number of people who have told me that buying a copy was their first step toward coming out, their first inkling that a gay life could be whole and satisfying and could include friendship, community and love,” said Hoffman, who will discuss the book Nov. 13 at The LGBT Center.

Comedian Kate Clinton can still remember the time she picked up her first copy.
“I got it through the Syracuse Peace Council [an antiwar/social justice organization]. It was scraggly and opinioned and long—it was fabulous!” Clinton said. 

Copies were mailed in a plain, brown envelope. Subscribers were always concerned that nothing on the envelope revealed that it was a gay paper. In fact, when Hoffman first began at the paper, subscribers’ addresses were kept it in a safe deposit box in a bank down the street.

GCN didn’t have a specialty. It offered humor, personal stories, gay history and political analysis, gossip, even crossword puzzles and a recipe or two.

The paper also reviewed gay films, books and plays. “There were few enough of these that we could cover them all,” Hoffman said.”

Hard-hitting content is what distinguished GCN from the few other gay publications at the time, which Hoffman said “focused on happenings at bars that could be illustrated with photographs of sexy guys and puff pieces about celebrities and local heroes.” 

GCN covered major events. As papers around the country snubbed the first gay and lesbian march on the nation’s capital in October 1979—reporting it as if it were a little demonstration—GCN delivered its usual, in-depth reporting.

Interestingly, no one at the paper had journalism experience.  Their mission was “explicitly activist.” They wanted to encourage people to come out of the closet and get involved with the community. 

“The people who worked at Gay Community News were also the people who would organize protests and demonstrations,” recalled Richard Burns, director of New York’s LGBT Center. He should know about GCN’s staff—he was an editor from 1978-1980.

In the book, Hoffman reveals the underlying truth about GCN.

“We often claimed that GCN was neutral and that we were open to all perspectives, including conservative ones, but that was ridiculous. We supported the most radical expressions of the gay liberation movement.”

Hoffman can see the changes in the gay newspapers of today compared to GCN.

“The role of gay papers at that time was very different,” Hoffman said. “There was no other place to exchange information with other LGBT people. That’s not true anymore.  I can find out the facts if I look in the Boston Globe or The New York Times.”

Another change Hoffman sees is the lack of coverage within stories. 

“There is a lack of debate, political exchange and personal exchange that we had in early gay papers,” Hoffman said. “People really were able to delve into some of the more complicated issues.  Sometimes they never reached a resolution, but at least they were able to continue thinking in complicated ways.”

Kate Clinton, who wrote the intro to Hoffman’s book, misses the in-depth reports that graced GCN.

Penning the story of GCN has been a labor of love for Hoffman.  She began working on it in 1985; first as a novel, not a memoir. 

“I had this feeling that writing a novel would be more imaginative,” Hoffman said. “But I realized I had enough real material. I wanted to write about what it all meant to me, in my life. When I walked into the ‘GCN’ office at age 26, in the fall of 1978, my life changed forever.”

Clinton has kept a close eye on Hoffman’s progress with the book. Perhaps it’s because Clinton met her partner of 20 years, Urvashi Vaid, through Hoffman. At the time, Vaid was Hoffman’s former lover.

“It’s an ex. You know what I’m saying?” Clinton said. “I have to pay attention! 
Many in the gay community can relate to ex-lovers sharing an endearing friendship with new lovers.

“Once you’ve been around for a while, everybody you know has slept with everybody you know and you become an army of ex-lovers,” Burns said. “That is how we build our queer family.”

“An Army of Ex-Lovers” is a parody on a 1970s joke about the gay liberation slogan, “An army of lovers cannot fail.” Writer Rita Mae Brown coined the slogan in her poem “Sappho’s Reply.” Hoffman explained that ancient philosophers imagined that an army made up of gay male couples would be invincible because of the strength of the lovers’ loyalty and desire to prove their courage to one and other. 

Responses to the book often surprise Hoffman. “People have expressed nostalgia for the kind of community that we had at GCN. If that’s the case, then I think we’ve got to start thinking about how to create it.”

Clinton can understand why today’s generation may have that feeling of being shut out.
“Gay Community News was actually a physical place you went to,” Clinton said. “You worked like crazy. Then you went out, drank cheap wine, ate lasagna and went dancing like crazy. Now we have the Internet and the illusion of community. I read Amy’s book missing that time; it had tastes and smells and heat.”

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