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Document Type

Article

Abstract

[First paragraph]

This essay focuses on The Advocate, the long-running newspaper (later magazine) that was founded by Dick Michaels and Bill Rau in the late 1960s as the newsletter for the homophile organization to which they both belonged (Personal Rights in Defense and Education, or PRIDE). This publication circulated throughout the United States, particularly after 1970, and quickly acquired a reputation as the “newspaper of record” for the lesbian and gay (and to a lesser extent bisexual and transgender) community. But The Advocate was also barraged with complaints about its politics (too conservative for gay radicals), the explicitly sexual ads in its “Trader Dick” section, and the lack of diversity in its pages, particularly in relation to people of color and women. It is the latter complaint that this essay takes up, and explores The Advocate’s content during the 1970s. This era merits special consideration for two reasons. First, this decade saw the sale of The Advocate from its original owners to an individual with a vastly different perspective on gay life, gay rights, and journalism; the influence of this new owner, David B. Goodstein, would prove to have a lasting effect on The Advocate, shaping its form and tone what would characterize the publication for years to come. Second, the 1970s were a period in which sexism, gender equality, and feminism were very much on the public radar, kicking off with Roe v. Wade and continuing with the re-animated Equal Rights Amendment’s battle for ratification. The high visibility of the women’s liberation movement (and its radical offshoots), coupled with its popularity with lesbian/bisexual women of the time, meant that The Advocate could hardly claim ignorance of its efforts as a reason for not reporting on them.

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