EMILYL. QUINT FREEMAN VALENTINE’S DAY, 1978. The Castro District of San Francisco was buzzing with an infectious, sexy energy. Since last November, the gay community has been on a high after Harvey Milk won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors—the first openly gay man to be elected in a major U.S. city. Like so many gay people, I was downcast and pessimistic during the Nixon years. Harvey changed all that. Nevertheless, ahead of us were considerable headwinds at the state level. I drove to the Castro District to meet my friend Steve and catch the special Valentine’s Day show at the Elephant Walk. This popular bar resembled an orange-and-whitestriped circus tent and was always jampacked with exotic night people. A pink flyer was taped on the front door: “SYLVESTER—ONE NIGHT ONLY!” and “NEED WE SAY MORE, GIRLS?” Steve was energetically waving at me from the bar. Threading my way through the crowd, I smiled at my friend with the impish eyes and well-groomed hair, cut short but not butch. Alongside him was blond spikyhaired Orvis, his current flame. I trailed after Steve and Orvis to a table near the stage. While downing a G&T, I scanned the room for other lesbians. Single again, I thought: who knows? Maybe tonight. After we ordered a second round, Steve grinned as three guys sat down behind us. I turned around, instantly recognizing the face. It was Harvey Milk! After Steve and Harvey gave each other a bear hug, Steve introduced me. Harvey smiled and tapped my shoulder: “Emily, please get out and vote this November. We’ll need everyone with us to stop Anita and the Briggs Initiative.” Totally apolitical, Orvis had a perplexed look, so I filled him in: “Briggs is a gaybashing California state legislator who’s sponsoring a ballot initiative that effectively bars us from teaching in public schools. Anita Bryant is the TV mouthpiece of Florida orange juice and the founding creep of this crusade to carve up our civil rights.” Harvey hoisted his beer bottle over his head, declaring: “California’s going to come out!” His table companions cheered, as did everyone at the surrounding tables. SANFRANCISCOGAYPRIDE was held on the last weekend of June in 1978. Unlike the previous year, it was not going to be just a naughty, fun affair. The Briggs Initiative loomed on the November ballot. Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk led the parade with the theme, “Come Out California.” I drove up early from my home south of the City. On Market Street, rainbow flags fluttered from every light standard from Castro Street to the Civic Center. Steve and Orvis met me on Spear Street. On the crowded streets, there was an infectious, loud energy, unlike anything I had ever witnessed for gay rights. Leading off the parade, Dykes on Bikes roared past. Behind them, guys in leather vests blew whistles and beat drums. A huge rainbow flag followed, held horizontally by over twenty people. Marchers hoisted clever homemade signs, reading: “Women love women, get over it!”; “This is brotherhood week, Briggs! Take a lesbian to lunch”; “Suck anything but orange juice!”; and “A day without human rights is like a day without sunshine.” As the crowd roared, a gold Cadillac convertible with its top down inched forward, with two men perched on top of the back seat. Mayor Moscone pivoted and waved to the four-deep crush of spectators. I caught a glimpse of his broad smile and husky Italian face. Beside him, Harvey Milk was wearing a rainbow T-shirt, dappled with political buttons. He held a sign on his lap: “I’m from Woodmere, N.Y.” Alongside the car, supporters shoved bumper stickers to the spectators that read: “CALIFORNIA COME OUT!” Steve, Orvis, and I waved toward Harvey. He spotted us and motioned for us to join the contingent behind his car. We happily jogged over to squeeze in alongside government workers, dressed in a drag parody of their workday garb. I loved the queens in doctor’s white coats. There were lots of news cameras and police. The parade proceeded down Market Street in fits and starts. All the way to the Civic Center, thousands clapped and held up clenched fists. That day, I knew we would never go back or hide in the shadows. Today was our West Coast Stonewall, November 1978: The Agony and the Irony HISTORY MEMO Deep affection remained long after there was any prospect of Stoddard’s helping to boost Noguchi’s writing career. THERE ARE TWO MORE STRANDSthat need to be added to this story. While staying briefly in New York City, Noguchi hired Léonie Gilmour as an editorial assistant to help him with a novel he was writing. In The American Diary of a Japanese Girl (1902), Noguchi took on the persona of a perceptive ingénue visiting the U.S. for the first time, filtering his personal observations through the voice of the female narrator. Sometime during the months they worked together on The Diary, the author and the editor began a sexual relationship, but when Gilmour later wrote to tell him she thought she might be pregnant with his child, Noguchi only scoffed at the announcement. He was uninterested in an entanglement, as he was by then engaged to a journalist for the Washington Post named Ethel Armes. For months the engagement to Armes was on again, off again. One of their problems was that Ethel’s sexuality was as unsettled as Noguchi’s. She cared deeply for Yone, but he was not quite the virile figure she craved. To her intimate friend Alice Wiggin she explained her dilemma: “Oh he is not big as I dream nor strong nor bravehearted nor practical nor—how could I say—protecting—if one could use that word—I feel so much that it is I who would have to be the husband—that is it—when I want to be the little one— and the wife.” It would be so much easier if two women could marry. “Really Alice if you were a man it would be ideal and I know I wouldn’t get into such a mess as I do with all of them. You’d manage me. (That’s what I want!).” In her letters she often addressed Alice as “my man.” Ethel broke off the engagement with Yone for good when she learned of Léonie’s pregnancy. In 1904, Yone Noguchi decided to return to Japan. As his ship sailed out of the Golden Gate, he left behind a trail of entanglements. Léonie Gilmour was seven months pregnant and living in Los Angeles. Their son, Isamu, would grow up to be a world-renowned sculptor, his fame far outstripping that of his father. Ethel Armes had returned to her family in Birmingham, Alabama. She never married but published several books of local history. Charles Warren Stoddard retired to an actual bungalow in Monterey, California, where he died in 1909, within sight of the Pacific but with no Kid by his side. In Japan, Noguchi was hailed as a major poet and a scholar of English literature, but in his absence the country had become 18 TheG&LR
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