Hello and welcome to series two episode eight of Bad Gays, a podcast all about complicated and bad gay men from history.

My name's Hugh Lemmy.

I'm a writer and author.

And I'm Ben Miller, a writer, researcher, and member of the board of the Gay Museum in Berlin.

Last week we talked about the British neo-Nazi Nikki Crane.

Who we talking about this week, Ben?

This week we are taking a trip back into a very

different kind of group of 1970s subcultures in a very different location, the Bay Area of California.

And we're going to start with millions of right-thinking middle Americans who opened up their copy of Time magazine on November 2, 1970,

to see the following article under the headline, California, Gay Mecca Number One.

Quote, the remote and all but empty, population 430, county of Alpine California, is a pristine

wonderland of majestic peaks, verdant pine forests, and crystalline lakes nestled high in the rugged

Sierra Nevada. From their isolation, its residents have long gazed in amusement at the

doings of the urbanites below. Tough mountaineers, woodsmen, and fishermen all,

they have preserved the pioneer purity of their independent existence.

Now, that existence stands threatened,

and by as unlikely a forces could be imagined,

the militant homosexuals of the Gay Liberation Front.

End quote.

And the article went on to describe a, quote, caravan of homosexuals, unquote, who were planning

to arrive and to take over.

And these homosexuals had announced that because the county's population was only 400, 200 to

...