On this day in queerstory: ONE Inc is born

Los Angeles, October 15, 1952 – In a modest living room somewhere in the sprawl of mid-century Los Angeles, a small group of gay men gathered with a radical idea: that queer people could, and should, have a voice. From that quiet conversation was born ONE, Inc., the first openly gay nonprofit organization in the United States, and the publisher of ONE Magazine, the country’s first widely distributed, pro-gay publication.

It was an era when queerness was criminalized, policed, and pathologized. Bars were raided, jobs lost, and silence enforced. But the founders of ONE – including W. Dorr Legg, Dale Jennings, and other members of the early Mattachine Society – refused to stay invisible. They believed that education, communication, and representation were the tools of liberation. And so they set out to build something no one had dared before: a legitimate publishing house for the homosexual community.

In January 1953, ONE Magazine hit the streets of Los Angeles with the tagline “For homosexuals and those who insist on being fair-minded.” Its content was bold and unapologetic – essays, stories, and political analysis that treated gay life as worthy of dignity and discussion. It tackled police entrapment, censorship, and the emotional realities of queer existence. For a community used to being discussed only as scandal or pathology, this was revolutionary.

The magazine quickly grew, reaching readers across the country. Copies circulated discreetly, often mailed in brown envelopes to avoid suspicion. But the U.S. government noticed. In 1954, the U.S. Post Office declared ONE “obscene” and refused to deliver it. That censorship attempt sparked a legal battle that would change history: ONE, Inc. v. Olesen (1958), the first U.S. Supreme Court case to affirm the right to publish homosexual content. In a landmark decision, the Court sided with ONE, declaring that gay writing was protected under the First Amendment. It was a quiet but powerful victory – a foundational moment in queer media and free speech.

The timing of ONE’s founding was no accident. In the early 1950s, McCarthyism and the “Lavender Scare” were in full swing. Thousands of queer federal employees were fired under the claim that their sexuality made them security risks. Simply existing as gay or lesbian was enough to lose one’s career, reputation, or freedom. Against that backdrop, publishing a gay magazine wasn’t just brave – it was subversive.

ONE, Inc. continued to operate throughout the 1950s and 1960s, producing educational material, sponsoring lectures, and supporting early research into homosexuality and social justice. Its success inspired others: The Ladder, launched in 1956 by the Daughters of Bilitis, became the first lesbian magazine in the U.S., following in ONE’s footsteps. Together, they laid the groundwork for what we now recognize as queer media – an entire ecosystem of representation, advocacy, and cultural critique.

But October 15 offers more than just the story of ONE. It’s also the birthday of Michel Foucault, born in 1926, the French philosopher whose writings on sexuality, power, and identity later shaped the very language of queer theory. And it marks the birth of Clark Philip Polak (1937), editor of DRUM magazine, a 1960s publication that pushed even further toward open sexual liberation.

On the same date in 1970, Jet Magazine – a staple of Black American media – published photos of two women, Edna Knowles and Peaches Stevens, “married” in Chicago. Though their union had no legal status, the feature boldly portrayed queer love in a mainstream Black publication, challenging readers to confront what visibility looked like in their own communities.

Seventy-three years after that night in Los Angeles, queer media thrives in countless forms: podcasts, zines, substack newsletters, YouTube channels, TikToks. But the struggle for visibility and voice – for the right to be heard without fear – remains deeply relevant.