Remnants of Resistance: Power, Policing, and Perverts on Parade—Moral Panic in 1976 Los Angeles

November 24, 2023

As part of the One Institute's Circa Queer Histories Festival, CSUN's University Library and Queer Studies Program have partnered to produce a limited podcast series called Remnants of Resistance. Episodes will be hosted by Queer Studies faculty, and will delve into the unique and hidden stories in queer history contained within the Vern and Bonnie Bullough Collection on Sex and Gender and beyond.

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About the Episode

On April 10, 1976, the LAPD executed a raid on a “slave auction” with 120 officers, two helicopters, and invited videographers and photographers. LAPD arrested 39 men and one woman that night, including Aristide Laurent, who requested a copy of the police report after his release. Part of the Aristide Laurent Collection, it paints a specific picture of that night. In this episode, Heidi Schumacher and CSUN students Kate Ridgewell and Loreal Wimberly explore historical context and deploy the lens of queer theory as they deconstruct this police report, which does not focus on the fact that the auction was a charity event raising money for the Gay and Lesbian Community Service Center, that it was private and attended by consenting adults, or that the raid was predicated on a postal inspector joining the mailing lists of private groups to read their correspondence. They link the efforts of the police chief to historical trends of backlash following advances in LGBTQ+ rights, ask questions about policing practices with/in marginalized communities, and explore the ways LAPD culture and leadership aimed to incite a moral panic with their public documentation of the raid. Discussing the resonance of these themes with politics and policing today, they ask questions about what we learn from history regarding resistance and power, and the extent to which our application of those lessons learned is effective, inclusive, and liberatory.

About the Host

Heidi Schumacher is the Director of the Graduate Resource and Academic Development Center at California State University, Northridge and teaches in the Queer Studies, Gender & Women’s Studies, and English departments. Her work focuses on feminist and queer theory, and on approaches to student success rooted in equity, inclusion, and justice frameworks.

Kate Ridgewell is an undergraduate student in the Honors in English option at CSUN. Her undergraduate work has focused on queer theory, transcription, and metadata. She plans to pursue her MLIS with an emphasis in archival studies. As a future archivist, she hopes to continue to work on projects that utilize the archives as a site of restorative justice and uplift queer voices.

Born in Chicago, IL, Loreal Wimberly grew up in the small village of Robbins, Illinois. She attended Pasadena City College before transferring to California State University, Northridge, where she is currently pursuing her degree in English Literature. Her research interests include psychoanalysis, postfeminism, gender and sexuality, and the horror genre, and she hopes to earn her Ph.D. in Literature focused on applying critical theory through horror.