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David Thorstad

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David Thorstad
Born(1941-10-15)October 15, 1941
Thief River Falls, Minnesota, United States
DiedAugust 1, 2021(2021-08-01) (aged 79)
Fargo, North Dakota, United States
Known forPro-pedophile activism with NAMBLA

David Thorstad (October 15, 1941 – August 1, 2021)[1][2] was an American political activist who co-founded or ran a number of homosexual rights groups following the Stonewall riots in 1969, including as a former president of New York's Gay Activists Alliance.[3] He later engaged in pedophilia and pederasty activism with the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), of which he was a founding member.[4]

Early activism

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Thorstad was active in Trotskyist politics for some years. For more than six years, he was a member of the Upper West Side branch of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and a staff writer for its newspaper, The Militant. He left the SWP in December 1973, citing the organization's lack of enthusiasm for the gay liberation movement and failure to develop a "Marxist materialist analysis" of it. In 1976 he self-published a collection of internal party documents relating to its discussion of the gay liberation movement under the title Gay Liberation and Socialism: Documents from the Discussions on Gay Liberation Inside the Socialist Workers Party (1970-1973).[5]

In the early 1970s, Thorstad was president of the Gay Activists Alliance, a leading gay liberation group in New York.[6]

In June 1973, Thorstad and John Lauritsen published "The Early Homosexual Rights Movement (1864-1935)" in the SWP internal Discussion Bulletin, attempting to prove that the gay liberation movement had a long and substantial history, particularly in Germany.[7] This 14-page historical survey was expanded the next year into a 92-page book of the same name published by Times Change Press, a New York publishing house specializing in feminist and politically progressive books.[8] The book was translated into Spanish[9] and German.[10]

In 1977, Thorstad founded the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights.[11]

Pedophilia and pederasty activism

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Thorstad described himself as a bisexual pederast and atheist (a "recovered" Pentecostal) who had "never been charged with violating any sex laws".[12]

In 1978, he became a co-founder of NAMBLA, and "served as a member of the Steering Committee from some undetermined time until September 1996". He was one of a group of NAMBLA members who were sued in 2000 for the wrongful death of a ten-year-old boy in a long-running court case Curley v. NAMBLA in Boston.[13]

Thorstad claimed that "pederasty is probably historically the most common form of homosexuality in Western culture, as well as many other cultures",[14][15] and that "child abuse hysteria is an industry of insanity aimed at homosexuals [which] ... plays on the impression people have always had of homosexuals as being child molesters." He described opposition to NAMBLA as "... [similar] to one waged by 'lesbian feminists who jumped right on the bandwagon' of what he called the anti-gay male/child pornography scare", according to The Advocate.[16] He also likened being a pederast in the United States to being "a Jew in Nazi Germany" and criticized the mainstream LGBT community for its assimilationist approach towards capitalist and heterocentric society.[15] He said that the label LGBT is "the most absurd one of all" and is "far too fixed an identity, eliding the fluidity of sexuality and sexual behavior ... in that sense[,] Kinsey's scale is valid."[14] He also maintained that "assimilationist homosexual groups[,] ... the psychiatric profession and the bourgeois media, such as the New York Times ... all nowadays blur distinctions by lumping everything under the rubric 'pedophilia,' an absurdity apparently intended to criminalize love and force very different behaviors into one negative pigeonhole."[14]

Summaries of Thorstad's views appear in his essays "Man/Boy Love and the American Gay Movement"[17] and "Homosexuality and the American Left: The Impact of Stonewall".[18]

Later views and legacy

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With the turn of the millennium, Thorstad became a critic of the way in which the sexual liberationist goals of gay politics were replaced by the identity politics that came to dominate the movement.[19] In example, he came to oppose pursuing same-sex marriage and the inclusion of transgender people in the gay rights movement.[2]

David Thorstad's archival papers are now held at the University of Minnesota.

Writings

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References

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  1. ^ Guy Hocquenghem (1980). Le Gay voyage: Guide et regard homosexuels sur les grandes métropoles. Albin Michel. ISBN 978-2-226-01040-7.
  2. ^ a b Osborne, Duncan (August 6, 2021). "Former Gay Activists Alliance President David Thorstad Dies at 79". Gay City News. Retrieved July 30, 2023.
  3. ^ Duncan Osborne, 'Former Gay Activists Alliance President David Thorstad Dies at 79', Gay City News, 6 August 2021 [1]
  4. ^ Kennedy, Hubert (1991). "Sexual Hysteria—Then and Now". OurStories. Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California. pp. 17–18. A former president of New York's Gay Activists Alliance and a founding member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), Thorstad is uniquely qualified to write on this topic.
  5. ^ Gay Liberation and Socialism: Documents from the Discussions on Gay Liberation Inside the Socialist Workers Party (1970-1973) p.1, 11
  6. ^ "Historical Note". Gay Activists Alliance Records, 1970-1983. New York Public Library Digital Library Collections. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved October 7, 2013.
  7. ^ John Lauritsen; David Thorstad (1973). The Homosexual Rights Movement (1864-1935). J. Lauritsen and D. Thorstad.
  8. ^ John Lauritsen; David Thorstad (1995). The Early Homosexual Rights Movement: (1864-1935). Times Change Press. pp. 94–96. ISBN 978-0-87810-041-5.
  9. ^ John Lauritsen; David Thorstad (1977). Los Primeros movimientos en favor de los derechos homosexuales: 1864-1935 (in Spanish). Tusquets Editor. ISBN 978-84-7223-578-6.
  10. ^ John Lauritsen; David Thorstad (1984). Die frühe Homosexuellenbewegung: 1864-1935 (in German). Frühlings-Erwachen. ISBN 978-3-925393-06-8.
  11. ^ Bernadicou, August. "David Thorstad". August Nation. The LGBTQ History Project. Archived from the original on 27 June 2019. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  12. ^ Matt C. Abbott (August 12, 2010). "Admitted pederast accuses me of spreading a lie; 'Theology of the Body' debate rages". Renew America. Retrieved August 29, 2015. What gives you the right to spread the lie that I am a 'convicted pederast'? Why haven't you checked your facts? I will acknowledge that I am a pederast (among many other things, including recovered Pentecostal and now atheist and bisexual and human being), but I have never been charged with violating any sex laws, let alone been 'convicted' of violating any of them.
  13. ^ Barbara Curley, et al., Plaintiffs v. North American Man Boy Love Association, et. al., Defendants, O'Toole, D.J. Memorandum and Order on Motions to Dismiss, Civil Action No. 00-10956-GAO (United States District Court of Massachusetts March 31, 2003), archived from the original.
  14. ^ a b c Matt C. Abbott (August 22, 2010). "The mind of a pederast". RenewAmerica. Retrieved September 1, 2015.
  15. ^ a b Pederasty and Homosexuality by David Thorstad (archived at WebCite)
  16. ^ Here Publishing (23 August 1994). "The Advocate". The Advocate: The National Gay & Lesbian Newsmagazine. Here Publishing: 37. ISSN 0001-8996.
  17. ^ In Male Intergenerational Intimacy: Historical, Socio-Psychological and Legal Perspectives, ed. Theo Sandfort, Edward Brongersma, and Alex van Naerssen (Routledge, 1990).
  18. ^ In Gay Men and the Sexual History of the Political Left; ED: Gert Hekma, Harry Oosterhuis, and James Steakley (Haworth Press, 1995).
  19. ^ Thorstad, David 'Can the LGBTQ+ Coalition Survive?', The Gay And Lesbian Review, March–April 2019. [2]
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