Although involved in campaigns for gay rights, he resigned from the Society in 1953. Recognizing that he remained homosexual, his marriage ended and in 1950 he founded the Mattachine Society. As a result of societal pressure, he attempted to become heterosexual by marrying a female Party activist in 1938, with whom he adopted two children.
Briefly studying at Stanford University, he subsequently became a professional actor in Los Angeles, where he joined the Communist Party USA, becoming a committed activist in left-wing labor. From an early age, he acknowledged his same-sex sexual attraction, and came under the influence of Marxism. He was a co-founder of the Mattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States, as well as the Radical Faeries, a loosely affiliated gay spiritual movement.īorn to an upper middle class family in England, Hay was raised in Chile and California. (Ap– October 24, 2002) was an American gay rights activist, communist, and labor advocate.
