James "John" Finley Gruber (August 21, 1928 – February 27, 2011) was an American teacher and early

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

rights activist.

Biography

James Gruber was born August 21, 1928 in

Des Moines, Iowa Des Moines () is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small part of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines, ...

. Growing up he considered himself

bisexual Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...

and was involved with both men and women. His father, a former vaudevillian turned music teacher, relocated the family to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

in 1936. Gruber enlisted in the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

in 1946 at the age of 18 and was

honorably discharged A military discharge is given when a member of the armed forces is released from their obligation to serve. Each country's military has different types of discharge. They are generally based on whether the persons completed their training and the ...

in 1949. Using his

G.I. Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

benefits, Gruber studied English literature at

Occidental College Occidental College (informally Oxy) is a private liberal arts college in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887 as a coeducational college by clergy and members of the Presbyterian Church, it became non-sectarian in 1910. It is one of the oldes ...

in Los Angeles.James Gruber, last original Mattachine member, dies
/ref> Gruber met and began a relationship with photographer Konrad Stevens. The couple attended a meeting of an early

homophile Terms used to describe homosexuality have gone through many changes since the emergence of the first terms in the mid-19th century. In English, some terms in widespread use have been sodomite, Achillean, Sapphic, Uranian, homophile, lesbian, g ...

organization then called the "Society of Fools". Gruber and Stevens joined the group in April 1951 and became part of the "Fifth Order", the group's central leadership. Both men were eager to join despite not having been previously politically involved and not having backgrounds in the

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

philosophy that informed the group. That lack of familiarity led the group to restate its ideas in ways that those without a Marxist background could understand. Founding member Chuck Rowland recalled the energy the two brought to the group. "It was like magic when they joined. Suddenly everything started to happen." Following a conversation with co-founder

Harry Hay Henry "Harry" Hay Jr. (April 7, 1912 – October 24, 2002) was an American gay rights activist, communist, and labor advocate. He was a co-founder of the Mattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States, as well as ...

about Medieval

masque The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A masque ...

troops known as "mattachines", Gruber suggested changing the group's name from "Society of Fools" to

Mattachine Society The Mattachine Society (), founded in 1950, was an early national gay rights organization in the United States, perhaps preceded only by Chicago's Society for Human Rights. Communist and labor activist Harry Hay formed the group with a collection ...

. Gruber attributed Mattachine's success to the feeling of acceptance that it fostered. "All of us had known a whole lifetime of not talking, of repression. Just the freedom to open up...really, that's what it was all about. We had found a sense of belonging, of camaraderie, of openness in an atmosphere of tension and distrust....Such a great deal of it was a social climate. A family feeling came out of it, a great nonsexual emphasis....It was a brand new idea." In 1953, the Communist ties of several of the Fifth Order led the leadership, including Gruber, to resign. Through his studies at Occidental, Gruber met the author

Christopher Isherwood Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...

, who in turn introduced him to

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...

. Isherwood also introduced Gruber to his landlady,

Evelyn Hooker Evelyn Hooker (née Gentry, September 2, 1907 – November 18, 1996) was an American psychologist most notable for her 1956 paper "The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual" in which she administered several psychological tests to groups of sel ...

. Hooker, a psychologist, pioneered research into sexual orientation that contributed to the removal of homosexuality as a mental illness from the

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders The ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'' (DSM; latest edition: DSM-5-TR, published in March 2022) is a publication by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for the classification of mental disorders using a common langua ...

. Growing increasingly disillusioned with life in Los Angeles, Gruber moved to

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

in 1960 and changed his first name to John. He pursued a teaching career at

Foothill College Foothill College is a public community college in Los Altos Hills, California. It is part of the Foothill–De Anza Community College District. It was founded on January 15, 1957, and offers 79 Associate degree programs, 1 Bachelor's degree pr ...

and

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...

and also taught or tutored at Cubberly High School, Milpitas High School and de Anza College. Gruber helped to document the early LGBT movement through interviews with historians, participating in a panel discussion in San Francisco in 2000 commemorating the 50th anniversary of the founding of Mattachine and appearing in the 2001

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

'' Hope Along the Wind'' about the life of Harry Hay.

Death

The final surviving member of the original Mattachine Society, Gruber suffered increasingly ill health for several years before his death on February 27, 2011, at his home in Santa Clara.

References

Bibliography

* Bullough, Vern L. "Harry Hay". Collected in Bullough, Vern L. (ed.) (2002). ''Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context''. Routledge. * D'Emilio, John (1983). ''Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970''. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. * Faderman, Lillian and

Stuart Timmons Stuart Timmons (January 14, 1957 – January 28, 2017) was an American journalist, activist, historian, and award-winning author specializing in LGBT history based in Los Angeles, California. He was the author of ''The Trouble With Harry Hay: F ...

(2006). ''Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians''. Basic Books. * Johansson, Warren, and William A. Percy (1994). ''Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence''. Psychology Press. * Sears, James Thomas (2006). ''Behind the Mask of the Mattachine: The Hal Call Chronicles and the Early Movement for Homosexual Emancipation''. Routledge. {{DEFAULTSORT:Gruber, James 1928 births 2011 deaths American educators American LGBT military personnel Bisexual men LGBT rights activists from the United States LGBT people from Iowa Occidental College alumni People from Palo Alto, California Activists from California Bisexual military personnel