Gay Liberation Organization (GLO)

In the aftermath of the Stonewall Riots of June 1969, gay and lesbian students across the country began organizing for civil rights and liberation.  Milwaukee seems to have been an early center of activism, as Marquette students began meeting informally in fall 1969.  By early 1970, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students began organizing what would become a progressive series of gay liberation groups.

In February 1970, the UWM Post announced the formation of the Homosexual Freedom League (HFL.) The group had been organized by about a dozen male students who said they were tired of facing persecution under what they considered unjust and restrictive laws. They planned to advocate for repeal of discriminatory laws, educate the broader community about homosexuality, and promote pride in gay culture as a means of advancing human and civil rights.

The HFL held its organizational meeting on March 5, 1970, drawing approximately 75 people. At the meeting, members adopted a new name: Gay Liberation Organization at UWM (GLO-UWM). From the beginning, however, the organization contained competing visions of how gay liberation should be pursued. Some members favored working for civil rights through education, advocacy, and social change, while others embraced a more radical and revolutionary approach.

Those differences became increasingly apparent in May 1970, when more militant members of GLO-UWM joined thousands of students, activists, and others protesting U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The demonstrations contributed to the shutdown of UWM and prompted Chancellor J. Martin Klotsche to declare a state of emergency. Some GLO-UWM members supported the action as part of a broader struggle against oppression, while others believed the organization should focus specifically on issues affecting gay people.

Later in 1970, the more militant members broke away and formed the Milwaukee Gay Liberation Front, adopting the name of the New York organization that had helped inspire Milwaukee's gay liberation movement.

With the more radical faction gone, the remaining members of GLO-UWM took a different direction. In February 1971, they renamed the organization the Gay Peoples Union at UWM. The campus organization itself did not last much longer. 

By September 1971, it had evolved into Gay Peoples Union, an independent, community-based organization that would become one of the most influential forces in Milwaukee's LGBTQ history during the 1970s and early 1980s.