Consider rule #4: “ Descriptions of experiences which become too explicit, i.e. The October 1954 issue of ONE featured six “You Can’t Print It!” rules, in an attempt to chill both the Post Office and readers who said the magazine was too tame. (Maybe someone politically powerful somewhere was missing their magazine.) That issue went out, but its delay caused a dip in finances that meant August and September 1954 were never printed, and subscriptions were extended. Come 1953, however, the Post Office froze an issue about homosexual marriage for three weeks before officials in Washington, D.C. Luckily, the employers largely ignored the notices, which surprised the FBI so much they shifted public attention elsewhere, for a while.
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Even so, within a few months of the first ONE, the FBI identified everyone and wrote their employers, calling all staff “deviants” and “security risks” in a middle-school-style attempt to destroy health and security. For safety and longevity, ONE’s all-gender board of editors often used pen names, and always depended on other jobs for food and rent. The magazine was mailed internationally in unmarked brown envelopes. It’s a record of endurance, legal and emotional labor, new and inherited trauma, tenderness, and joy.
GAY MEN MAGAZINE ARCHIVE
The digital archive of ONE, the monthly magazine published by ONE, Inc., reflects the contradictions of the time. So much was hopeful, but at times everything felt broken and hopeless too. The following year Dwight Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10450, which said gays and lesbians were perverts, criminals, mentally ill, and must be blocked from any kind of federal employment. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz hosted the show from the Cocoanut Grove Lounge. for the first time (before that, the awards just went to L.A. That same year, a 7.2 earthquake shook Southern California along the White Wolf Fault, and the Emmys were awarded to shows made across the U.S.
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groups like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, as well as Swiss magazine Der Kreis. It was founded in Los Angeles in 1952 with money and leadership from U.S. ONE, Inc., was one of the first gay rights organizations in the United States.