angry at having to devote time and energy to “reminding” men of their existence. Many lesbians suspected that gay men would be happy to accept the place befitting their sex and class while leaving the system of male domination intact. As Marie Robertson stated to the Canadian National Gay Rights Coalition, “Gay liberation, when we get right down to it, is the struggle for gay men to achieve approval for the only thing that separates them from the ‘Man”—their sexual preference”(Robertson 1982, 177). The paradox of the 1970s was that gay and lesbian liberation did not produce the gender-free world it envisioned, but faced an unprecedented growth of gay capitalism and a new masculinity. While debates raged inside the movement, the actions of gay liberationists and lesbian feminist entered a larger political field, which transformed and expanded the gay world in unexpected directions. Another paradoxical outcome of gay liberation was the expansion of the gay ghetto. The success of the movement in beating back state management and repression; gay places allowed for a new generation on businesses oriented to a gay market. Within a decade, every major city in North America and Western Europe had a new range of bars and saunas, restaurants and discos, travel agents and boutiques, lawyers and life insurers, social services and physicians, who catered specifically to a gay clientele (Altman, 1980). One of these areas is Greenwich Village in New York City, where one can witness openly gay and lesbian people in a setting that is accepting of them and their choices. Take a walk down Christopher Street from Sixth Avenue to the West Side Highway and you will encounter every resource that a “normal” neighborhood has. Here, men and women feel free to express themselves in ways that they are comfortable with, without being afraid of oppression or adverse reaction from others who a...
