July 8, 2013.
I accidentally found a paperback booklet, from The Scholarship Committee of the Gay Academic Union, New York City, 1983, by Jim Levin (afterword by Wayne Dynes), titled Reflections On The American Homosexual Rights Movement.
I will try to glance at it but hope that we have a copy too at CSUN. I don’t know Jim Levin, and little about GAC.
To this, Stephanie Donald replied:
I found a little background on Jim Levin. He was a gay, Jewish historian from New York City. He was apparently part of Act-Up. You can find the reference here. You need to scroll down the page and look under the list of names that do not have pictures next to them.
Then I found an article in The Bilerico Project that refers to the same Jim Levin being part of a current organization called Americans for Democratic Action. I found a reference to a Dr. James Levin of City College in New York City (not sure if this is the same person but it is doubtful there would be two LGBT historians in NYC with the same name! Levin is listed as a 1993 honoree of the Light Bar Legal Award for Greater New York here.
There are plenty more references to him on the web, but I could spend all day listing them. I believe I remember Jack Nichols mentioning that Levin and George Weinberg (the originator of the theory of “homophobia”) were colleagues and friends, and Jack knew him as well. I could get in touch with Randy Wicker who might know a good deal more about him than I do, as Randy lives in Hoboken, New Jersey, so I included him on the thread. He might take a few weeks to a month to answer (if he doesn’t just click “Trash,” which he’s also known to do!), LOL!
I hope this helps some, Billy.
