Born from the prospect of wealth and prosperity, Denver proved to be a relative vanguard city for gay rights and liberation. After its inception in Los Angeles in 1950, The Mattachine Society from the French Société Mattachine, was embraced in Denver. This city, not quite part of the West and not quite part of the Midwest, witnessed many milestones in LGBT activism and liberation under the influence of the Society. Even before 1950 Denver had The Pit and Mary’s Tavern. The former was the city’s first openly gay bar and the latter a straight bar infiltrated by gay airmen after WWII. Bars prospered and city parks were deemed gay or at least gay friendly. Thus the geography of the gay community in Denver placed itself on the periphery of established society. Bars and parks would later give way to spas and swim clubs, all places that exist simultaneous within the cities they exist and slightly beyond. Not just places to get a drink or take a walk, bars like the Triangle and parks like Cheesman became and remain places to cruise for hookups.

Dark backrooms and city bathrooms served as the trenches from which the gay citizenry would launch their defensive for equal rights. Perhaps due to the powerful stories of Stonewall, the barricades built on bars and parks seemed like a natural step. While there is an equally present front in the struggle for equal rights from organizations like the Colorado AIDS Project (incorporated in 1983) and individuals like Tim Gill that often receive more attention in official channels, they represent a new chapter in the city’s largely political fight since the infamous passage of Amendment Two and the dubious honor of having Marilyn Musgrave represent our state in the House of Representatives while authoring the despicable Federal Marriage Amendment. The activist landscape found a new territory in the abstraction of political morality and the media. Nevertheless, as a community it is in the bars and parks that we gather. These are our monuments, our places of mourning, coupling, and celebration. The periphery of society serves as the gay community’s succor and scourge.

To force a hard segue from Denver to Hedwig, I return to the Mattachine Society. The itinerant players of late medieval France who unwittingly would represent gay liberation in America simultaneously speaks to one of the most basic dilemmas of activism in the LGBT community today. The Mattachine Society cited the traveling theatre troupe as a subversive group who brought society’s hidden masks to light through the use of theatre. Cameron-Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch, both on stage and screen, embraces this itinerant tradition as Hedwig and her band play at every Bilgewater Restaurant in the country following the illusive Tommy Gnosis. As Hedwig sings about his/her life throughout the show, the lyrics reveal a character who occupies perhaps the most peripheral position conceivable. In spite of shifting gendered pronouns used to address the singer, Hedwig is neither genitally male or female. She also is a curious creation of contemporary politics, being neither American nor German. Her past as a boy and an East German no longer exist. As Luther leaves Hedwig ostensibly for a younger boy, the T.V. mocks Hedwig with images of the collapse of the Wall. Similarly, as Tommy and Hedwig are on the cusp of consummating their relationship from the front, Tommy recoils as his hand discovers Hedwig’s angry inch. Hedwig’s explanation is simply, “It’s what I have to work with.” The physical line of demarcation between East/West, Man/Woman, Top/Bottom, Us/Them, or Center/Other was needed to maintain these clear dialectics from crumbling. As the opening song, “Tear Me Down” says “Since it [the Berlin Wall] fell we don’t know who we are anymore.” With such a gaping void where can we turn to locate our selves? Hedwig, in an act of sacrifice or martyrdom, assumes the role of the new wall. She sings “Ain’t much of a difference between a bridge and a wall/ You got me stuck in the middle of it.” Allowing himself to become a site of difference, Hedwig dares his audience to tear him down. Eventually he does fall and ironically is absorbed into the center. She has fame and recognition people can situate him as being a specific entity. However, Hedwig’s ultimate choice is to disappear again into a world of uncertainty. His/her identity is no longer dictated by social conventions/expectations of male/female. Is her refusal of social acceptance an expression of cowardice or transcendence?

Granted, the similarities between Denver, Colorado and Cameron-Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch are not many. However, the themes or identity and social position in Hedwig speak to what I believe to be a major point in LGBT activism in Denver and elsewhere. The traditional location of the gay community on the fringe of society allowed for an easy dialectical of gay/straight to exist. As Hedwig suggests such a delineation is needed to situate identity. This sense of identity must also have recourse to a geographical location. Where are we from? Hedwig was from East Berlin. The wall that clearly set geographical boundaries allowed Hedwig (nee Hansel) to identify himself as East German. Can such a clearly delineated identity be formed from the gay communities peripheral geography? Do we come from the bath houses and bars? I know fundamentally the answer is no. However, as I mentioned earlier these are the places we return to as landmarks and memorials. For better or for worse, these are also the places to which the public looks to understand the gay community. The efforts of political organizations like HRC and smaller grassroots groups are assumed to be representatives of this larger gay culture.

The difference between culture and community is integral. Community suggests a cohesive group of people with shared interests. Culture implies activities and ideology in which a community participates. Hedwig represents an individual with a distinct culture free from community. I believe the same rift exists in LGBT activism today. The community and culture attached to it do not wholly represent its constituency. What defines the contemporary LGBT individual? More so, does a young man coming out need to embrace the heritage of backrooms and nocturnal park wanderings to become truly gay, or can he move forward in his life without it, choosing new sites of memorial and activation? Without a reconciliation, or perhaps an amicable divorce, between LGBT community and culture, the efforts of activists can be manipulated and used against them.