"[5] After his parents' divorce in 1953, when he was seven years old, Donaldson's mother suffered from acute porphyria (a rare genetic disease), and his father gained custody of Robert and his two brothers.

So on a school expedition to the "wicked city," I slipped away, visited their office, and became a member (swearing I was 21, since Mattachine was deathly afraid of dealing with minors), thus giving my new identity official status.

"When Lois discovered young Robert was having an affair with a Cuban man, she decided to punish her son by outing him in letters to her ex-husband and to Columbia University, which Donaldson had planned to attend in the fall.

Donaldson later wrote: Frank gave me a complete education both in homosexuality and in the homophile movement, instructing me also in how to respond to attacks from psychiatry, religion, the law, etc., etc.

"[5] That fall, Donaldson suggested to Millham "that they form a Mattachine-like organization on campus, what he envisioned as 'the first chapter of a spreading confederation of student homophile groups.

The group received little coverage until gay rights supporter Murray Schumach saw the Spectator piece and wrote an article, headlined "Columbia Charters Homosexual Group", which appeared on the front page of The New York Times on May 3, 1967:[5] The chairman, who used the pseudonym Stephen Donaldson, said in a telephone interview last night that the organization had been formed because "we wanted to get the academic community to support equal rights for homosexuals"....

In its declaration of principles, the leagues list 13 points, including ... that "the homosexual is being unjustly, inhumanely and savagely discriminated against by large segments of American society".

Within a week [of the New York Times story], media outlets across the country had homed in, with coverage ranging from favorable to neutral to The Gainesville Sun's 'Student Group Seeks Rights for Deviants.'".

[11] Brett Beemyn wrote about the backlash: The university was inundated with outraged letters, and the pages of the student newspaper, the Columbia Daily Spectator, were filled with criticism of the decision.

The dean of the college called the SHL "quite unnecessary," and the director of the counseling service expressed a concern that the group would promote "deviant behavior" among students.

The strong support of the league's advisor, the university chaplain, apparently prevented Columbia officials from revoking the group's charter, but "it was forbidden to serve a social function for fear that this would lead to violations of New York State's sodomy laws.

In a letter to Hogan, Leitsch wrote: The man using the pseudonym Stephen Donaldson is known to me and to the Mattachine Society as an irresponsible, publicity-seeking member of an extremist political group.

We have grave doubts as to his sincerity in his stated aim as helping homosexuals, and feel that he may be, instead, a bigoted extremist, interested upon wrecking the homophile movement.

[17]These supporters included six congressional representatives, including New York's Bella Abzug (who called his case a "witch-hunt") and Edward Koch; senators Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania and Sam Ervin of North Carolina; the president of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), Judd Marmor (who had been "influential in having homosexuality removed from the APA's official list of clinical disorders"[18]); Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr.; and the American Civil Liberties Union, which provided a staff attorney to represent him.

"[5]According to Eisenbach: Martin's groundbreaking public battle against the Navy kicked off a series of well-publicized challenges to military discharges that harnessed and directed the energy of the gay rights movement in the 1970s.

[5]Donaldson later summarized his military experience and the subsequent transition in his life: After nearly two years as a sailor, I got kicked out for "homosexual involvement," a charge I received shortly after becoming a Buddhist Quaker and thus a pacifist.

Contemplating that question, I organized an impromptu workshop on bisexuality and was astonished to find 130 Quakers, one of every ten General Conference attendees, overflowing into five meeting rooms and an auditorium for two days of lively discussion based more on experience than on abstract theories.

Thus identity led me to activism.Donaldson wrote about his experience at the conference later that summer: The lack of reliable information about bisexuality, homosexuality and sexuality in general was a concern of many of these Friends.

[22][23][24][25][26][27] After being discharged from the Navy in 1972, Donaldson moved to Washington, D.C., where he "worked as Pentagon correspondent for the Overseas Weekly, a privately owned newspaper distributed to American servicemen stationed in Europe".

[4] Donaldson considered himself a Quaker and took part in the Langley Hill Monthly Meeting, where he was part of a group influenced by "a series of pray-ins at the White House sponsored by the Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV)" who felt a call to "hold a memorial meeting for worship at the White House to commemorate the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki [on its 28th anniversary] and for the victims of all wars and violence" on August 9, 1973.

[28] On August 14 Donaldson was one of 66 demonstrators (including Daniel Berrigan) who took part in a CCNV-sponsored pray-in at the White House protesting the bombing of Cambodia, where he was again arrested.

In a 1974 account under the pseudonym Donald Tucker, he explained: I also was protesting against the bail system, under which the privileged, the white, the middle class escape the pre-trial confinements which go automatically to the poor and black.

"[28] On August 28 Donaldson met with attorney William Schaffer, who agreed to represent him in a possible civil suit against the D.C. Department of Corrections with the goal of pressuring officials to make major improvements to the jail system.

[28] Donaldson wrote the following year about this "time of agony": I was faced with an awful decision: to cooperate in the prosecution of the two young inmates who had led the rapes, to bring suit against the Corrections Department, or to drop out of the legal process.

Yet many who were working to change the penal system felt that the first prosecution of a prison rape case would set a significant precedent and have a real deterrent effect on such situations in the future.

[28] Donaldson and the rest of the White House Seven defended themselves against the August 9 charge of illegal entry; they were found guilty and sentenced on September 26 to "the choice of $25 or five days in jail or a one-year unsupervised probation conditional on a promise not to violate any local, state or federal law during that period".

[37] While traveling to Florida for his mother's funeral in late 1976, Donaldson was arrested after urinating in a motel parking lot, then was charged with possession after the police searched his hotel room and found cannabis.

During the 1980s-90s, Donaldson volunteered as a counselor to male victims of sexual assault, and spoke out publicly in a wide variety of forums on the issue of prisoner rape.

For the first twenty-four hours, [he] was beaten, gang-raped and otherwise tortured", allegedly as part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) due to Cahill's anti-Vietnam War activity.

Among other active members of the APRC were WFMU-FM DJ Pat Duncan, Maximumrocknroll columnist Mykel Board and Jersey Beat editor Jim Testa.