BEFORE STONEWALL

BEFORE STONEWALL

The postwar period was characterized by a savage, state-sponsored witch-hunt against homosexuals. Fearing exposure and arrest, most homosexuals became “invisible men.” But demonstrations and political lobbying eventually began to result in legal changes in the civil rights of gay men and lesbians. Gays pioneered the Peacock Revolution in menswear. Designer Rudi Gernreich, a founding member of the gay liberation group, the Mattachine Society, explored the liberation of the body and the possibilities of uni-sex clothes.