NControlofU
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It's important when talking about "Old Guard" to think of it in some historical context. Those who are referred to as Old Guard didn't go around calling themselves Old Guard, just as the "Founding Fathers" didn't go around calling themselves the Founding Fathers. These terms were coined later on as a way to speak about these particular groups of men who had some shared characteristics, activities, etc. The term Old Guard came into being to contrast the "New Guard" that was forming in the gay community.
It's also important to remember that during and after WWII, there wasn't the open acceptance of homosexuals in American society, as there is today. It was before Gay Lib and before the sexual revolution and "free love" and homosexuals were kept in the closet, as much as possible. The American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a "sociopathic personality disturbance" in its official list of mental disorders. Sodomy was a felony, police harrassed and raided the few gay bars that existed, and McCarthyism resulted in the federal government firing more workers for suspicion of homosexuality than for suspicion of communism. Servicemen were being outed with dishonorable "Blue Discharges" with the stigmatization of being "sexual deviants". Large numbers of these veterans were congregating in S.F., NYC, and other large cities, where they started forming gay brotherhoods and "Motorcycle Clubs" and they had a social network that they hadn't known before and were able to gain strength in numbers and become more visible and "open" in their homosexuality and started becoming more militant. It was a different era. So, even if the term Old Guard might sound cliche to some now, it had its place in history and in helping to make alternative lifestylers more visible and more accepted in society and in getting some archaic and oppresive laws overturned.
Some books, if interested: Bérubé, Allan: Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women during World War II. (New York: Free Press, 1990)Katz, Jonathan Ned: Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A.: A Documentary History. (Rev. ed. New York: Meridian, 1992)Harris, Daniel: The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture (Hyperion, 1997)Townsend, Larry: The Leatherman's Handbook (1972) and The Leatherman's Handbook II (Carlyle Communications, 1983 &1989)Randy Shilts and William Greider: And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic. (St. Martin's Press, 1987)Thompson, Mark, editor: Leatherfolk -- Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice (Alyson, 1991)
Baldwin, Guy: Ties That Bind (Daedalus, 1993):
Califia, Pat, and Robin Sweeney, editors: The Second Coming -- A Leatherdyke Reader (Alyson, 1996)
Bean, Joseph: Leathersex (Daedalus, 1994) and Leathersex Q&A (Daedalus, 1996)
Johnson, V. M.: To Love, To Obey, To Serve - Diary of an Old Guard Slave (Mystic Rose Press, 1999)
Essays:
Old Guard vs. New Guard VANGUARD by Joseph Stanley http://www.sc-lock.com/editorials/oldguard_newguard.htm
Old Guard? If You say so., by Joseph W. Bean http://www.iron-rose.com/IR/docs/old_guard.htm
Old Guard New Guard http://www.iron-rose.com/vijohnson/docs/blic1197.htm
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