San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington · 1967–1976
Gay and lesbian alcoholics started groups of their own, then asked AA to list them like any other group.
“…I resent the tendency of all too many AAs to make me suffer at your expense through the way you put down homosexuals.”
The Twelve and Twelve, in 1953, told of a newcomer in AA’s second year with “another addiction even worse stigmatized than alcoholism,” and of how the group let him in (A mile long tells it). In New York, the history written for AA’s office says, some groups in Greenwich Village and on the East Side were mostly gay from the late 1940s on, though they weren’t listed as gay groups.
In San Francisco, about 1968 as one of them remembered it, ten or so gay men met in an apartment in the Haight-Ashbury to start a meeting of their own, and rented space on Fell Street. The city’s AA office “was not comfortable about gay meetings,” he wrote. “We therefore did not list this meeting in their directory.” They listed it instead in the newsletter of the Society for Individual Rights, a gay rights group. The 1985 history dates the city’s first all-gay group to about 1967, at an Episcopal church on Fell Street.
In Los Angeles in 1969, seven gay alcoholics started a meeting and asked to be listed in the local AA directory. By the account kept with their records, AA there wouldn’t recognize a meeting closed to all but gay and lesbian members, and asked them not to use its name. They called themselves Alcoholics Together, and in 1971 opened a center of their own. The 1985 history calls AT religious in origin, patterned on AA but “not A.A.”
In Washington, on December 8, 1971, four alcoholics, two gay men and two lesbians, met in a private home. The next summer two members asked Fr. Goodrich of St. James Episcopal Church for a room, and he gave them one.
In 1973 the question reached AA’s General Service Conference: should gay groups go in AA’s directories? By the account of GaL-AA, the gay members’ own service organization, the argument ran so hot that the question was put off a year. In April 1974, at a special session, the Conference agreed “that all AA groups should be listed,” as one delegate reported home, by the definition of a group printed in the directory. Two years later, in June 1976, gay members in Northern California held a roundup in San Francisco, the Gay AAs Western Roundup. About 200 came.
It’s about 1968, in San Francisco. Ten or so gay men crowd into an apartment in the Haight-Ashbury. They want an AA meeting of their own, and they’ve rented a room on Fell Street. But the city’s AA office isn’t comfortable with gay meetings. So they leave themselves out of its directory, and list the meeting in a gay rights newsletter instead.
In Los Angeles, a new gay group is asked not to use AA’s name. In Washington, two gay men and two lesbians meet in a private home.
The question goes all the way to AA’s General Service Conference in New York: should groups like these be listed with the rest? In 1974 the Conference gives its answer. Every AA group gets listed, and nothing sets these apart.
One step at a time
Six steps, from a meeting left out of San Francisco’s directory to one AA listed like every other group.
Members are named as the sources name them, by first name and initial. The 1985 history was written for AA’s office by Bob P. and never published; it is quoted from a transcription.
1967–1968 · San Francisco
The city’s AA office “was not comfortable about gay meetings,” one of them wrote, so the group kept out of its directory and listed its meeting in the Society for Individual Rights’ newsletter.
Listed somewhere else
Conrad G., 2007; Bob P., 1985
1969 · Los Angeles
Seven gay alcoholics asked to be listed in the Los Angeles directory. AA there wouldn’t recognize a meeting closed to all but gay and lesbian members, and asked them not to use its name.
Alcoholics Together, with a center of its own from 1971
ONE Archives, 2008
1971–1972 · Washington
Four alcoholics, two gay men and two lesbians, met in a private home on December 8, 1971. The next summer Fr. Goodrich of St. James Episcopal Church gave them a room.
A gay and lesbian group
Bob P., 1985
1973 · New York
Whether to list gay groups in AA’s directories reached the General Service Conference. The argument ran so hot, by the gay members’ own account, that the question was tabled.
Tabled, by one account
GaL-AA
April 1974 · New York
At a special session, the Conference agreed “that all AA groups should be listed,” a delegate told his area that summer. From then on gay groups were listed “without special designation.”
Listed, by Conference action
North Florida Area minutes, 1974; Bob P., 1985
June 1976 · San Francisco
An ad hoc group of gay members in Northern California put on the Gay AAs Western Roundup, June 25 to 27.
About 200 came
Box 4-5-9, June–July 1976; Bob P., 1985
For a closer look
Two tellings of San Francisco’s first gay meeting; what Bill W. said, and what he is only said to have said; and how AA’s pamphlets caught up.
The 1985 history dates San Francisco’s first all-gay meeting to about 1967, at the Episcopal church on Fell Street. GaL-AA says 1967, at an Episcopal church.
Conrad G., who was there, wrote in 2007 that it was “around 1968,” when about ten gay men met in Gordon T.’s apartment on Central Avenue. They rented space at 261 Fell Street, “in the building in the rose garden,” but couldn’t use it the first night, so the first meeting was at two members’ place in the Haight-Ashbury. Whether 261 Fell was the church, the accounts don’t say.
Before that, Conrad G. wrote, the 35-and-under group that met Thursday nights at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi in North Beach had been “S.F.’s unofficial gay group.”
The Twelve and Twelve never names the newcomer’s other addiction. GaL-AA says that in a 1968 talk at an AA dinner before the General Service Conference, Bill revealed that the man was a “sexual deviant.” GaL-AA gives no source for the talk.
In AA’s own printing of Bill’s last talks, he tells the story again in 1969, and the man tells Dr. Bob he also has “this other ‘complication.’” The 1985 history adds that Bill, in a letter of 1958, expressed “deep sympathy and concern.”
In 1976 AA’s pamphlet Do You Think You’re Different? included a gay man and a gay woman among its case histories. In 1984 the Conference voted “that a pamphlet for the homosexual alcoholic not be developed.” In 1988 it asked for a draft, and in 1989 it approved one.
A list of AA’s pamphlets at silkworth.net gives its 1989 title as AA and the Gay/Lesbian Alcoholic. In 2018 AA revised it under the same number as LGBTQ Alcoholics in A.A., which gives the original title as A.A. for the Gay/Lesbian Alcoholic.
The International Advisory Council that gay members formed in 1981 goes on today as GaL-AA.