LGBTQ Studies Research and Scholarship
SF State’s mission emphasized teaching and learning but encompassed research, scholarship, and creative activities, which also can be understood as serving teaching and learning functions. Indeed, many LGBTQ studies faculty and students at SF State, like their counterparts elsewhere, “taught” more people through their papers, performances, presentations, and publications than they did through their courses. As discussed in a previous section, for example, sociology professor Sheri Cavan conducted groundbreaking research and published innovative scholarship on gay bars in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1970, SF State psychology graduate student Tom Baldwin shared his research on same-sex relationship break-ups in Vector, published by San Francisco’s gay-oriented Society for Individual Rights.[1]
SF State researchers responded and contributed to the LGBTQ movement’s growing participation in electoral politics in the 1970s. In 1971, Bay Area Reporter columnist William Beardemphl discussed an “extensive” survey of San Francisco voters that he had commissioned SF State social scientist Lois Flynne to complete. The results suggested that four out of five voters would not support openly gay candidates, “irrespective of qualifications,” even though many might support gay rights. According to Beardemphl, this helped explain Dianne Feinstein’s recent election “surprise” in her successful run for the Board of Supervisors: while voters were not generally ready to support gay candidates, heterosexuals could benefit from taking pro-gay positions. Beardemphl interpreted Flynne’s data to mean that “a heterosexual candidate must be a damned fool to be anti-homosexual in San Francisco today.” As for future gay candidates, “two years from now, a qualified homosexual CAN be elected to the Board of Supervisors,” but “this will take some basic changes in our political activities and attitudes.” Six years before the election of openly gay candidate Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, Beardemphl concluded that “it is only when the homosexual community has its representative on the Board of Supervisors that homosexuals can start securing their rights in San Francisco.”[2]
SF State researchers also were interested in students attitudes about homosexuality; at least one surveyed SF State students on this issue. In 1972, the Advocate reported on a research study conducted by former SF State psychology instructor John Newmeyer, who had analyzed SF State student attitudes on homosexuality. Newmeyer later became a well-known AIDS epidemiologist and a leader in the struggle for needle exchange programs, but according to one of his earliest research studies, an “overwhelming majority” of forty-eight SF State students surveyed said they would vote for an openly gay candidate and would not mind having a close friend, neighbor, or work colleague who was gay. Three-quarters acknowledged having at least one close friend who was gay. Two-thirds had been propositioned by a member of the same sex; nine had had a post-adolescent homosexual experience. Approximately half were supportive of gay and lesbian adoption. Asked about the percentage of U.S. men who were more homosexual than heterosexual, the median reply was 15%. A narrow majority believed that gay men were more sexually active than straight men. On average the student respondents thought (with great optimism) that “it would be 15 years before Gays could live as openly and freely as straights in the United States.”[3]
Survey research also was the focus of a 1972 Phoenix article that reviewed a method developed by Lois Flynne “to give students a cheap technique for research papers.” In a pilot project, eight men from the Society for Individual Rights called 371 randomly selected telephone numbers and asked if they had reached the Society for Black Rights, the Society for Mexican-American Rights, the Society for Homosexual Rights, the Society for Women’s Rights, or the Society for Sexual Rights. Hang-up times were compared to calls asking for the San Francisco Gardening Society and Mrs. Mary Tatham. The times recorded were taken to be a measure of positive attitudes toward each group. For the ethnoracial and control groups, fifty percent of the people surveyed remained on the phone for thirty-five seconds or more. The figures were lower for the Society for Women’s Rights (twenty-seven percent), the Society for Sexual Rights (twenty-five percent), and the Society for Homosexual Rights (seventeen percent).[4]
In 1974, psychology professor John P. De Cecco completed a collaborative project on “interpersonal, group, and institutional conflicts involving homosexual men & women, sometimes in conflict with heterosexuals.” The research team, which included two SF State psychology students, interviewed 125 people. The results were published in De Cecco’s coauthored book Growing Pains: Uses of School Conflict in 1974 and a coauthored Homosexual Counseling Journal article in 1975.[5] In the latter year, De Cecco co-founded SF State’s Center for Homosexual Education, Evaluation and Research (CHEER), which he directed until 1997 (it later was renamed the Center for Research & Education on Sexuality and then the Center for Research & Education on Gender and Sexuality). He also served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Homosexuality from 1975 to 2009.
Some of the most provocative LGBTQ-oriented research at SF State was conducted by students, not faculty, and was published in student newspapers, not in academic journals or books. In October 1973, the Phoenix (which had won two recent national awards for best college weekly newspaper) published the first part of Judith Nielsen’s investigative report on sexual relationships between faculty and students at SF State. Nielsen had distributed 600 questionnaires to faculty and 100 to students; she followed up by interviewing some of the respondents. Of the 150 faculty who filled out the questionnaires, “one-fourth indicated they had been intimately involved with one or more students and another one-fourth replied that although they had never been involved, they would consider an affair with a student if the opportunity arose.” While the report focused primarily on relationships between male professors and female students, it quoted a 25-year-old male English major who described himself as gay and referenced “transient homosexual acts that improved my standing with the teacher.”[6]
After the San Francisco Chronicle and other regional media reported on Nielsen’s article, university administrators pressured the Journalism Department (publisher of the Phoenix ) to censor the second part of Nielsen’s article, which it did.[7] Since the Journalism Department’s criticisms focused primarily on the methods Nielsen had used to analyze the questionnaires, she revised her second article to draw exclusively from the interviews, which the Phoenix then published. The second article quoted a female faculty member who described “beautiful” and “fulfilling” relationships with two female students, neither of whom expressed any regrets (as far as she know). It also quoted a female student who said she preferred sexual relationships with female faculty over sexual relationships with male faculty because the women returned her feelings. In contrast, a gay male student claimed that “the student-professor affair is doomed” because “it is the teacher who calls the rules and names the game.” A paid advertisement signed by more than forty Phoenix editors and reporters, published on the same page, denounced the Journalism Department’s censorship of the original version of the second article.[8]
In 1974, the Phoenix reported on another provocative student research project. Gus Colgain had been incarcerated for six years at Washington State Prison for second degree assault with intent to kill and for another six years at San Quentin for armed robbery. While at San Quentin, he had participated in a prison broadcasting program led by SF State Broadcast and Communication Arts (BCA) professor Stuart Hyde. After his release, Colgain enrolled in SF State’s BCA program. In the 1974 Phoenix article, Colgain explained that he been annoyed, while still in prison in 1972, by a group of visiting Stanford journalism students who had claimed, “with all the smug blitheness of overeducated assholes,” that 95% of male prisoners were homosexual. Colgain then spent a year interviewing fellow inmates and circulating anonymous questionnaires. His report, “Sex in San Quentin: Fact vs. Fiction,” found that 28% of male prisoners were engaging in homosexual acts at any given point in time. It also claimed that there was “almost a total acceptance of homosexuality by the staff and prisoners” and that many men formed “temporary liaisons while in prison, returning to normal heterosexual behavior once freed.” According to Colgain, “overtly feminine homosexuals” and “gay prisoners” were “tolerated as the lowest on the prison ladder as long as they confine themselves to these roles.” Colgain’s report also discussed ethnoracial differences, noting that black prisoners were “more freely indulgent and outgoing” and Mexican American prisoners “don’t consider an aggressively performed act of homosexuality degrading to manhood while a passive one is.” Prison administrators and mainstream magazines declined to publish Colgain’s report, but at SF State he had the opportunity to share his findings with the Phoenix.[9]
[1] Tom Baldwin, “Separating,” Vector, Nov. 1970, 4, 50.
[2] William E. Beardemphl, “William Edward Beardemphl Comments,” Bay Area Reporter, 15 Aug. 1971, 18, 19.
[3] “A Gay President? Why Not!” The Advocate, 15 Mar. 1972, 29, 30. For other references to Newmeyer in this period, see “Mental Health Group Appoints Two Gays,” The Advocate, 6 Jan. 1971, 6; Donovan Bess, “The S.F. Gay Bar Route—Looking for the Leathers,” San Francisco Chronicle, 7 Dec. 1971, 4; John Newmeyer, “Quaaludes: Super Downers,” Gay Sunshine, Sept. 1973, 5; “New Gay Role Felt as Psychologists Convene,” The Advocate, 10 Oct. 1973, 5.
[4] Clifford Souza, “They Study Hang-Ups,” Phoenix, 20 Apr. 1972, 7.
[5] “Dr. John P. De Cecco,” Gapoo, 16 Oct. 1974, 5. See also John De Cecco and Arlene Richards, Growing Pains: Uses of School Conflict (New York: Aberdeen, 1974); John De Cecco and M. Freedman, “A Study of Interpersonal Conflict in Homosexual Relations,” Homosexual Counseling Journal 2.4 (1975): 146-49.
[6] Judith Nielsen, “Student-Professor Affairs at SF State,” Phoenix, 25 Oct. 1973, 3.
[7] Ron Moskowitz, “Faculty-Student Sex at S.F. State,” San Francisco Chronicle, 27 Oct. 1973, 3. See also Donovan Bess, “S.F. State Administration: Faculty Sex Story Killed,” San Francisco Chronicle, 1 Nov. 1973, 4; B. H. Liebes, “Regrets,” Phoenix, 1 Nov. 1973, 3; “New Try on S.F. State Sex Article,” San Francisco Chronicle, 2 Nov. 1973, 21; “ACLU Threat to Sue Over Sex Article,” San Francisco Chronicle, 3 Nov. 1973, 10; “SF State Faculty-Student Sex,” San Francisco Examiner, 4 Nov. 1973, 142; Herb Caen, “Monday-Go-Round,” San Francisco Chronicle, 5 Nov. 1973, 31.
[8] Judith Nielsen, “Student-Faculty Sex, A Pleasure, A Curse,” Phoenix, 8 Nov. 1973, 3; Advertisement, “Outrage,” Phoenix, 8 Nov. 1973, 3. See also Martin Hickel, “ACLU: No Case for Phoenix Suit,” Phoenix, 8 Nov. 1973, 2, 16; “‘Sex Is the Price for High Grades,’” Phoenix, 8 Nov. 1973, 3; “No Response to Phoenix Flap,” Phoenix, 8 Nov. 1973, 3; Joseph Illick, letter to the editor, Phoenix, 8 Nov. 1973, 4; Herb Caen, “These Fuelish Things,” San Francisco Chronicle, 23 Nov. 1973, 29; Barbara Egbert, “Not Our Affair,” Phoenix, 29 Nov. 1973, 4; Charles Cain, letter to the editor, Phoenix, 6 Dec. 1973, 4; Steve Peckler, “Teacher Quits Over Censorship,” Phoenix, 13 Dec. 1973, 2.
[9] David Cawley, “Former Inmate’s Report on Sex in San Quentin,” Phoenix, 3 Oct. 1974, 1, 16. See also George Schroeder, letter to the editor, Phoenix, 7 Nov. 1974, 7; Classified advertisement, “Men and Women Needed for Research on ‘Being Gay in San Francisco in the 60’s,’” Phoenix, 7 Nov. 1974, 4.
