Editing Harry Hay (section)

===Youth: 1912 to 1929===
Hay was born in the coastal town of [[Worthing]] in Sussex, south-east England (at 1 Bath Road, then known as "Colwell"), on April 7, 1912.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=10}} Raised in an [[upper middle class]] American family, he was named after his father, Harry Hay, Sr. (1869-1938), a mining engineer who had been working for [[Cecil Rhodes]] first in [[Witwatersrand]], South Africa, and then in [[Tarkwa]], Ghana.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=6–8}}<ref name="loughery224">Loughery, p. 224</ref> His mother, Margaret Hay (née Neall),<ref>Shively, from Bronski, p. 171</ref> a [[Catholicism|Catholic]], had been raised in a wealthy family among American expatriates in [[Johannesburg]], South Africa, prior to her marriage in April 1911.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=9}}<ref name="loughery224" /> Hay Sr. was raised a Presbyterian<ref>{{cite web | url=https://static.library.ucla.edu/oralhistory/text/masters/21198-zz0008zfzz-7-master.html | title=Interview of Harry Hay,"We Are a Separate People," }}</ref> but converted to her religion on their marriage, and their children were brought up Catholic.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=9}} Harry Hay Jr.'s aunt took him to an Episcopal church<ref>{{cite web | url=https://static.library.ucla.edu/oralhistory/text/masters/21198-zz0008zfzz-7-master.html#p725 | title=Interview of Harry Hay,"We Are a Separate People," }}</ref> and later he would join [[First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bQMdAAAAYAAJ&q=%22harry+hay%22+%22joined+a+church%22 |title=The Trouble with Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement - Stuart Timmons - Google Books |date=2008-05-30 |isbn=9781555831752 |accessdate=2022-09-14|last1=Timmons |first1=Stuart |publisher=Alyson }}</ref>

Their second child, Margaret "Peggy" Caroline Hay, was born in February 1914, but following the outbreak of the First World War, the family moved to Northern Chile, where Hay Sr. had been offered a job managing a copper mine in [[Chuquicamata]] by the [[Guggenheim family]]'s [[Anaconda Company]].{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=11}}<ref name="loughery224" /><ref name="hay355">Hay/Roscoe, p. 355</ref>

In Chile, Hay Jr. contracted [[bronchial pneumonia]], resulting in permanent scar tissue damage to his lungs.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=14–15}}  In May 1916, his brother John "Jack" William was born.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=15}} In June 1916, Hay Sr. was involved in an industrial accident, resulting in the amputation of a leg. As a result, he resigned from his position and the family relocated to California in the United States.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=15–16}} In February 1919, they moved to 149 Kingsley Drive in Los Angeles, with Hay Sr. purchasing a 30-acre citrus farm in [[Covina, California|Covina]], also investing heavily in the stock market.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=18}}<ref name = hay355 /> Despite his wealth, Hay Sr. did not spoil his son, and made him work on the farm.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=19}} Hay had a strained relationship with his father, whom he labelled "tyrannical". Hay Sr. would beat his son for perceived transgressions, with Hay later suspecting that his father disliked him for having effeminate traits.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=8, 19–20}} He was particularly influenced on one occasion when he noted that his father had made a factual error: "If my father could be wrong, then the teacher could be wrong. And if the teacher could be wrong, then the priest could be wrong. And if the priest could be wrong, then maybe even God could be wrong."{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=23}}

[[File:Los Angeles High School Graduating Class of Summer 1940.png|thumb|250px|left |Los Angeles High School, where Hay studied]]
Hay was enrolled at [[Cahuenga Elementary School]], where he excelled at his studies but was bullied.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=19, 21–22}} He began experimenting with his sexuality, and aged nine took part in sexual activity with a twelve-year-old neighbour boy.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=22}} At the same time he developed an early love of the natural world and became a keen outdoorsman through walks in the wilderness around the city.{{Sfn|Timmons|1990|p=24}} Aged ten he was enrolled at [[Virgil Junior High School]], and soon after joined a boys' club known as the Western Rangers, through which he developed an interest in [[Native American Culture]]s, specifically the [[Hopi]] and the [[Sioux]].{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=25}}<ref name = hay355 /> Becoming a voracious reader, in 1923 he began to volunteer at a public library, where he discovered a copy of [[Edward Carpenter]]'s book ''[[The Intermediate Sex]]''. Reading it, he discovered the word ''homosexual'' for the first time and came to recognize that he was gay.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=27–28}} Aged twelve he enrolled at [[Los Angeles High School]], where he continued to be studious and developed a love of theater.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=30–31}} Coming to reject Catholicism,{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=36–37}} he remained at the school for three mandatory years before deciding to remain for a further two. In this period, he took part in the school's poetry group, became State President of the [[California Scholarship Federation]] and President of the school's debating and dramatic society, and competed in the Southern California Oratorical Society's Contest, as well as joining the [[Reserve Officers' Training Corps]].{{Sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=38–40}}

During the summer holidays, Hay's father sent him to work on his cousin's cattle ranch in [[Smith Valley, Nevada|Smith Valley]], Nevada. Here he was introduced to [[Marxism]] by fellow ranch hands who were members of the [[Industrial Workers of the World]] ("Wobblies"). They gave him books and pamphlets written by [[Karl Marx]], leading to his adoption of [[socialism]].{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=31–32}} He learned of [[Men who have sex with men|men having sex with other men]] through stories passed around by ranch hands, telling him of violent assaults on miners who attempted to touch men with whom they shared quarters.{{Sfn|Timmons|1990|p=33}}<ref name = loughery224 /> Hay often told a [[tall tale]] that, in 1925, he was invited to a local gathering of Natives, where he claimed to have met [[Wovoka]], the Paiute religious leader who revived the [[Ghost Dance]] movement, and that Wovoka had recognized him in some way.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=33–35}}<ref>Shively, from Bronski, p. 173</ref> However, Wovoka, as a well-known spiritual leader, led a well-documented life,<ref name = "Mooney">{{cite book |title= The ghost-dance religion and the Sioux outbreak of 1890|last=Mooney |first=James |year=1896 |publisher=G.P.O.  |page=[https://archive.org/details/ghostdancerelig01moongoog/page/n155 765] |isbn=9780585345642 |url=https://archive.org/details/ghostdancerelig01moongoog}}</ref><ref name=Hittman>Hittman,"Wovoka And The Ghost Dance:Expanded Edition" (Lincoln, Nebraska:University of Nebraska:Press 1997)</ref> and Hay's story does not line up with his activities and whereabouts during the time in question.<ref group="note">All of this makes the meeting and events Hay describes highly unlikely. As no one else ever confirmed the tale, it is probable it never happened.</ref> However, Hay's family did have an actual, documented, blood connection to Wovoka and the Ghost Dance movement. In 1890, a misinterpretation of the Ghost Dance ritual as a war dance by [[Indian agent]]s led to the [[Wounded Knee Massacre]]. Hay's great-uncle, Francis Hardie, carried the Third Cavalry flag at Wounded Knee.<ref>(Timmons, p. 7)</ref>

In 1926, at the end of the summer, Hay took his union card to a [[hiring hall]] in San Francisco, convinced the union officials he was 21, and got a job on a cargo ship to work his way back to Los Angeles. After an unloading at [[Monterey Bay]], the 14-year-old Hay met and had sex with a 25-year-old merchant-sailor named Matt, who introduced him to the idea of gay men as a global "secret brotherhood".{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=35–36}}<ref name = loughery224 /><ref name="hogan275">Hogan, et al., p. 275</ref> Hay would later build on this idea, in combination with a [[Stalinism|Stalinist]] definition of nationalist identity, to argue that homosexuals constituted a "cultural minority".<ref group="note">[[Joseph Stalin]] stated in ''Marxism and the National Question'' that a nation is "a historically-evolved, stable community of language, territory, economic life and psychological make-up manifested in a community of culture" (Stalin, quoted in Hay/Roscoe, p. 41). Hay asserted that homosexuals manifested two of the four criteria, language and a shared psychological make-up, and thus qualified as a cultural minority (Hay/Roscoe, p. 43).</ref>