Harry Hay Quotes

• Give yourself permission to enjoy being gay. You do have to give yourself permission. You have been told you may not. Give yourself permission to be free.

  Harry Hay

  Gay, Giving, May

  Source: progressive.org

  34 Copy quote

• I always say to people, "If you share my dream, why don't we walk together?" And that's my only organizing tool.

  Harry Hay

  Dream, People, Together

  Source: progressive.org

  36 Copy quote

• I knew that I was gay in every bone of my body. So I did the only thing I could do. I started the movement.

  Harry Hay

  Gay, Movement, Body

  Source: www.progressive.org

  38 Copy quote

• When we begin to love and respect Great Mother Nature's gift to us of gayness, we'll discover that the bondage of our childhood and adolescence in the trials and tribulations of neitherness was actually an apprenticeship for teaching her children new cutting edges of consciousness and social change. In stunning paradox, our neitherness is our talisman, our fairie wand, our gift we bring to the hetero world to....transform their pain into healings; ...transform their tears to laughter: ...transform their hand-me-downs to visions of loveliness.

  Harry Hay

  Mother, Pain, Laughter

  43 Copy quote

• With the full realization that, in order to earn for ourselves any place in the sun, we must with perseverance and self-discipline work collectively for the full first-class citizenship participation of Minorities everywhere, including ourselves.

  Harry Hay

  Perseverance, Class, Self

  32 Copy quote

• Out of the mists of our long oppression, / We bring love for ourselves and each other, / And love for the gifts we bear, /So heavy and so painful the fashioning of them, /So long the road given us to travel them. A separate people, /We bring a gift to celebrate each other, /’Tis a gift to be gay! / Feel the pride of it!

  Harry Hay

  Gay, Pride, Long

  31 Copy quote

• The moment you say, "We are proud. I'm proud to be this, and I'm proud to be that," what you're saying is we're almost as good as the others. "Almost" always means not quite.

  Harry Hay

  Mean, Proud, Moments

  Source: progressive.org

  19 Copy quote

• Underneath that facade, I'm a terrified little sissy, just like everybody else. But I never let it show.

  Harry Hay

  Littles, Facade, Sissy

  Source: www.progressive.org

  11 Copy quote

• Up until I was eleven years old, I thought I was the only one of my kind in the world. I couldn't find anybody else who felt as I did.

  Harry Hay

  Years, World, Kind

  Source: www.progressive.org

  27 Copy quote

• I was accustomed to walking alone. I'd find other people who agreed with me, but they also said, "I wouldn't dare mention it." I was the only one who would say, "We've got to stand." And they said, "Well, yes. And after you make it safe, then I'll stand, too. But you have to make it safe."

  Harry Hay

  People, Safe, Walking Alone

  Source: www.progressive.org

  19 Copy quote

• The assimilationist movement is running us into the ground.

  Harry Hay

  Running, Movement

  "Ever the Warrior / Gay rights icon Harry Hay has no patience for assimilation" by Dan Levy, www.sfgate.com. June 23, 2000.

  19 Copy quote

• I've always felt I carried a golden secret, a wonderful secret. Every time I thought about it, it made me feel warm inside and good.

  Harry Hay

  Secret, Golden, Wonderful

  Source: www.progressive.org

  18 Copy quote

• I'm not looking for a boyish girl. I'm looking for a boy. And I'm not looking for a girlish boy either.

  Harry Hay

  Girl, Boys, Boyish

  Source: www.progressive.org

  57 Copy quote

• Ostracism means you don't exist at all. And that's a very difficult situation to live with. As gay people, we had been chasing ostracism by that point for probably 300 years. You just knew that you should have dropped into your black hole.

  Harry Hay

  Mean, Gay, Difficult Situations

  Source: www.progressive.org

  12 Copy quote

• Assimilation is the way you excuse yourself. It absolutely never worked at all. You may not think you are noticeable. But they know who you are. They know you're a degenerate, and they've never forgotten that.

  Harry Hay

  Thinking, Degenerates, May

  Source: www.progressive.org

  14 Copy quote

• I condemn the national gay press for its emphasis on consumerism.

  Harry Hay

  Gay, Emphasis, Consumerism

  11 Copy quote

• Giving votes in exchange for ideological support. To wit: identity politics for homosexuals.

  Harry Hay

  Identity Politics, Giving, Support

  13 Copy quote

• The police had a practice of entrapping people. This was done all over the country, but we had a particularly vicious group here in Southern California because of the Hollywood situation. They knew they could get a lot of them. They were shaking down people for thousands in blackmail.

  Harry Hay

  Country, Practice, California

  Source: www.progressive.org

  11 Copy quote

• A law is a law. It can be voted in. It can be voted out. It can be voted in and stay in as long as you have the majority. And where do you have the majority? You kid yourself.

  Harry Hay

  Kids, Law, Long

  Source: www.progressive.org

  10 Copy quote

• Confronted with the loving-sharing Consensus of subject-SUBJECT relationships all Authoritarianism must vanish. The Fairy Family Circle, co-joined in the shared vision of non-possessive love - which is the granting to any other and all others that total space wherein each may grow and soar to his own freely-selected, full potential - reaching out to one another subject-to-SUBJECT, becomes for the first time in history the true working model of a Sharing Consensus!

  Harry Hay

  Space, Circles, Vision

  13 Copy quote

• I was an older brother. So I had to do a lot of things first. My father was a self-made man, and he would beat me senseless. But he was a Scotsman, and stubborn. I'm his son, and I'm stubborn, too. I go on being stubborn.

  Harry Hay

  Brother, Father, Son

  Source: www.progressive.org

  10 Copy quote

• If you look into the history of fashion, you'll discover that Gernreich was the leading name for years and the leading fashion designer both here in the United States and internationally.

  Harry Hay

  Fashion, Years, Names

  Source: www.progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

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