Will Roscoe

Activist, writer

• Born: February 8, 1955
• Birthplace: Seattle, Washington

Significance: Will Roscoe is an award-winning author and LGBTQ+ activist who founded Lambda, Montana’s first gay rights organization in 1975.

Background

Will Roscoe was born in Seattle, Washington, on February 8, 1955, and raised in Missoula, Montana. His father was a chemistry professor and his mother was a pharmacist. Roscoe began his lifelong work in LGBTQ+ rights in 1975 when he was an undergraduate student at the University of Montana. He and several others in a class called “The Gay Americans: An Introduction to Gay Studies” founded the organization Lambda at the University (in 1989 the group changed its name to the Lambda Alliance). The Lambda Alliance is a college campus organization that seeks to increase the visibility and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community through education, advocacy, and the promotion of social acceptance. The Lambda Alliance was the University of Montana’s first openly gay organization and is still active today, hosting events such as Pride Week celebrations, queer film festivals, and National Coming Out Day celebrations.

Life’s Work

In 1976, as a newly minted gay rights activist, Roscoe went to work as an intern at the National Gay Task Force, a progressive social justice non-profit focused on LGBTQ+ advocacy that had been started in 1973 by Bruce Voeller. By 1977, Roscoe was working as the coordinator of the Gay People’s Alliance at the University of Oregon, where he led the formation of the Oregon Gay Alliance, a statewide coalition of gay and lesbian advocacy groups.

After relocating to San Francisco in 1978, Roscoe completed an internship at the Pacific Center for Human Growth in Berkeley. The Pacific Center is a mental health services and community center for LGBTQ+ residents that was founded in 1973 in response to an incident of violence against a member of the LGBTQ+ community in Oakland. In 1976, Roscoe worked with Harvey Milk, the first openly gay city supervisor of San Francisco, to organize a campaign that won United Way funding for the Pacific Center. The Pacific Center was the first LGBTQ+ social service agency in the country to obtain such funding from the United Way.

In 1978 Roscoe served as the voter registration coordinator for the “No on 6” campaign in San Francisco, registering more than 10,000 new voters. Proposition 6, a referendum orchestrated by Republican Senator John Briggs, was ultimately defeated; if it had been carried, it would have banned gay people from being employed in any capacity in the California school system.

Roscoe attended the Spiritual Conference for Radical Faeries in Arizona in 1979, where he met Harry Hay, co-founder of both the Radical Faeries movement and the Mattachine Society. The Radical Faeries are a loosely affiliated global network that incorporates elements of Paganism, anarchism, and environmentalism to create a secular spirituality for the gay community. Due to their shared interest in alternative spirituality, Roscoe and Hay became involved in efforts that led to the founding of the Church of Nomenus, a non-profit religious corporation, which today operates a retreat in southern Oregon. It was Hay who sparked Roscoe’s interest in studying the social role of the two-spirit individual in Native American communities (known as a “berdache” at the time).

In 1984, Roscoe began seeking out Native Americans who might share his interest in berdaches. He met activists from Gay American Indians at a political rally and they began collaborating. In 1984, under the direction of the Board of Gay American Indians, he coordinated the Gay American Indian History Project and helped edit the subsequent book, Living the Spirit: A Gay American Indian Anthology. Roscoe’s first book, The Zuni Man-Woman, published in 1991 by the University of New Mexico Press, received the Margaret Mead Award of the American Anthropological Association and a Lambda Literary Award for best nonfiction. The book explores the two-spirit tradition among the Zuni people of New Mexico and delves into the historical and cultural significance of gender diversity within Native American communities, challenging Western notions of gender and sexuality. Roscoe’s interest in these topics would persist throughout his career as a writer. In such books as Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America he examined the various indigenous cultures of North America and their recognition of third and fourth gender roles.

Roscoe has taught in Anthropology, Native American Studies, and American Studies at University of California Santa Cruz, San Francisco State University, University of California Berkeley, the California Institute of Integral Studies, and the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology.

Impact

Roscoe has made significant contributions to the fields of LGBTQ+ studies, Native American studies, and spirituality, offering unique perspectives and insights into marginalized communities’ experiences and struggles. Aside from the Lambda Literary Award, Roscoe was granted the Monette-Horwitz Trust Award in 2003 for contributions in combating homophobia through scholarship and writing. The award is given annually to individuals and organizations for their contribution to eradicating homophobia through their literary, scholarly, archival, or activist work.

Roscoe’s work has raised awareness and promoted understanding of LGBTQ+ issues among the wider public. By challenging stereotypes, sharing personal stories, and organizing educational events, his activism has contributed to greater visibility and acceptance of LGBTQ+ identities and lives on in the organizations that he founded.

Personal Life

Roscoe received his Bachelor of Science in Community Service and Public Affairs from the University of Oregon and a doctorate from the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Principal Works

The Zuni Man-Woman, 1991

Queer Spirits: A Gay Men’s Myth Book, 1995

Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America, 1998

Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love, 2004

Bibliography

Cerna, Antonio Gonzalez. “17th Annual Lambda Literary Awards.” Lambda Literary, 9 July 2005, lambdaliterary.org/2005/07/lambda-literary-awards-2004/. Accessed 27 June 2023.

Connor, Mike. “Missoulian: Gender Historian Documents Lambda.” Old Man’s Lavender World, 3 May 2008. lavenderworldrc.blogspot.com/2008/05/missoulian-gender-historian-documents.html. Accessed 27 June 2023.

Ferrannini, John. “Online Extra: LGBTQ Agenda: Pride Month to See Second Season of ‘Queer Serial’ Podcast.” Bay Area Reporter, 19 May 2020, ebar.com/story.php?ch=news&sc=latest‗news&id=292390&online‗extra:‗lgbtq‗agenda:‗pride‗month‗to‗see‗second‗season‗of‗queer‗serial‗podcast. Accessed 27 June 2023.

Roscoe, Will. “Who is Will Roscoe.” Will’s World, willsworld.org/whois.html. Accessed 27 June 2023.

“Visiting Queer Historian to Pay Tribute to Native American Women Leaders.” Freedom Socialist Party, Summer/Autumn 2000, socialism.com/fsb-article/visiting-queer-historian-to-pay-tribute-to-native-american-women-leaders/. Accessed 27 June 2023.

“Will Roscoe.” Public Advocates, 2022, publicadvocates.org/team/senior-grants-manager/. Accessed 27 June 2023.

“Will Roscoe Papers and Gay American Indians Records.” Online Archive of California, 2023,

oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c85d8sd4/entire‗text/. Accessed 27 June 2023.