catron's recent belated rsponse made me go back and read a thread i'd ignored.
a read of _Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers_ and _Gay New York_ would reveal that the "gay milieu" was always rather conformist. The arguments about capitalism giving rise to gay _identity_ is not an argument about the anti-establishment militancy of gay identity. indeed, the argument is _not_ that a concept of fluid sexual identity emerged with capitalism but, rather, that capitalism gave rise to social practices which created rigid sexual identities - when they were once not so rigid! the idea that you are either straight OR gay and that there's a solid line between those identities emerged and was normalized with the rise of capitalism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattachine_Society Harry Hay was a communist.
the Daughters of Bilitis was formed when more and more middle class women lesbians wanted to ahve a social life but didn't like hanging out in bars. They also rejected the butch /femme that they associated with working class lesbians, often looking for something more androgynous - to assimilate more, and be more "classy".
queer theory and a queer militancy based on the concept of a fluid sexual/gender identity was born in the 1980s, in reaction to the rigid identity politics that too often emerged out of the gay, feminist, and civil rights struggles.
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)