Stephen Donaldson (activist)

Donny the Punk, July 1995

Stephen Donaldson (July 27, 1946 – July 18, 1996), born Robert Anthony Martin, Jr, better known as Donny the Punk, was an American political activist. In the 1980s and 90s, he increasingly identified himself by his pseudonym Stephen Donaldson, although he never legally changed his name. He is best known for his work on prison reform and his participation in the punk subculture. He died from AIDS in 1996.

Childhood and adolescence

The son of a career naval officer, Donaldson's early childhood was spent in different seaport cities in the eastern United States and in Germany. After his parents' divorce when he was seven years old, his mother was diagnosed with the mental disorder porphyria. At age twelve, he was expelled from the Boy Scouts for consensual sexual behavior with other boys (who, as recipients, were not punished). "The disgrace triggered a family crisis, resolved by sending the boy to live in Germany, where he could be watched over by his stepmother's relatives." He continued homosexual activity, now understanding that such activity needed to be hidden from adults.

In April 1962, at the age of fifteen, Donny sailed back to the United States to live with his grandparents in West Long Branch, New Jersey. In high school he was news editor of the school paper, an actor, and a student government officer. He also became active in politics as a libertarian conservative, supporting Barry Goldwater for president."

Donaldson later wrote:

At 18, however, I fell in love with a baseball teammate, and my casual sexual play with boys was transformed into a very serious matter which could dominate my whole life. I talked with a few trusted adults about it, and learned that if I loved another boy I had to be a "homosexual"....I could only find two books on the subject, which confirmed this label, and mentioned the Mattachine Society in New York as an organization of "homosexuals." So on a school expedition to the "wicked city," I slipped away, visited their office, and became a member (swearing I was 21, since Mattachine was deathly afraid of dealing with minors), thus giving my new identity official status. Then my homosexuality became a family issue, and I ran away from home. The gays of New York welcomed me enthusiastically, offered hospitality, and "brought me out" as a "butch" homosexual (in contrast to the "queens") in 1965.

In 1966, he fell in love with a woman, Judith "JD" Jones (whom he later considered his "lifetime companion") and began to identify as a bisexual.

College years (1965-1970)

Leadership in early gay rights movement

Donaldson entered Columbia University in the fall of 1965 and moved off campus at the request of his suitemates who offered "great apologies and said they realized they shouldn't feel" unwilling to live with him. Historian Brett Beemyn later wrote:

Deeply affected by the experience, when he finally met other gay students the following school year he suggested that they form a Mattachine-like organization on campus, what he envisioned as "the first chapter of a spreading confederation of student homophile groups."

At first, Donaldson was unable to gain official recognition for the Student Homophile League (SHL), as Columbia required a membership list, and gay students wished to be anonymous. This prevented the group from receiving university funding or holding public events on campus until Donaldson realized that by "recruiting the most prominent student leaders to become pro forma members, he could satisfy the administration without compromising the anonymity of gay students, and Columbia officially chartered the country’s first student gay rights group on April 19, 1967."

On April 27, an article about the organization appeared in the student paper, the Columbia Spectator, which students "seemed to think ... was some sort of April Fool hoax." It soon became clear that it was not. The Spectator ran an editorial praising the chartering of the group and printed letters from students attacking and defending the decision. At this point, there was no apparent opposition from Columbia faculty or staff, and the fledgling group was advised by the university chaplain, the Rev. John D. Cannon, who gave permission for them to hold meetings in his office.

On May 3, 1967, The New York Times ran a front-page story, headlined "Columbia Charters Homosexual Group":

The chairman, who used the pseudonym Stephen Donaldson, said in a telephone interview last night that the organization had been formed because "we wanted to get the academic community to support equal rights for homosexuals"....

In its declaration of principles, the leagues list 13 points, including ... that "the homosexual is being unjustly, inhumanely and savagely discriminated against by large segments of American society".

The article also quotes Dr. Harold E. Love, the chairman of Columbia's Committee on Student Organizations, who said there was no reason to deny the request once they had determined it was a "bona fide student organization." The article notes that "[f]unds were said to have been supplied for the organization by some Columbia alumni who were reported to have learned about it from advertisements in magazines for homosexuals" and that Donaldson said that the group "maintains liaison" with, but is not controlled by, outside homosexual groups.

Historian David Eisenbach argued in Gay Power: An American Revolution that "much of the SHL's influence grew out of the media attention it attracted....Within a week [of the New York Times story], media outlets across the country had honed in, with coverage ranging from favorable to neutral to the Gainesville Sun's 'Student Group Seeks Rights for Deviants.'".

As a result of the publicity, there were "[s]harp [verbal] clashes" between Columbia officials and the SHL. Brett Beemyn wrote about the backlash:

The university was inundated with outraged letters, and the pages of the student newspaper, the Columbia Daily Spectator, were filled with criticism of the decision. The dean of the college called the SHL "quite unnecessary," and the director of the counseling service expressed a concern that the group would promote "deviant behavior" among students. The strong support of the league’s advisor, the university chaplain, apparently prevented Columbia officials from revoking the group’s charter, but "it was forbidden to serve a social function for fear that this would lead to violations of New York State’s sodomy laws."

The publicity also led students at other universities to contact Donaldson about starting chapters, and Donaldson certified the Cornell Student Homophile League in 1968. Donaldson was "heavily involved throughout the rest of the 1960s not only as national leader of the Student Homophile League but also as an elected officer of the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO) and of its Eastern Regional subsidiary".

Professional experience

Donaldson began his writing career in college by working summers "as a reporter for the Associated Press and Virginian Pilot" and writing "a regular column for the New York newsmagazine Gay Power and occasional reports for the Los Angeles Advocate".

He also worked summers "as a legislative intern in the offices of U.S. Representatives Howard H. Callaway(Republican, Georgia) and Donald E. Lukens (Republican, Ohio)."

In New York, Donaldson funded "his education by working as a hustler, first at the infamous intersection of Fifty-third Street and Third Avenue, then as a call boy through a house. He claimed to have serviced several famous clients, including Rock Hudson and Roy Cohn."

Discomfort with gay liberation movement

Donaldson wrote that he "took a lot of flak from the leaders of other homophile organizations for being bi", including creating a scandal by "having an affair with Martha Shelley, leader of the New York Daughters of Bilitis and later the Gay Liberation Front". His "growing feeling of discomfort with biphobia in the homophile/gay liberation movement was a major factor" in his deciding to quit the movement and enlist in the Navy after graduating from Columbia in 1970.

Military experience (1970-1972)

Using his birth name Robert Martin, he served as a radioman at a NATO base in Italy with an unblemished record until "he wrote to a former shipmate, Terry Fountain, about his latest sexual adventures [with both women and men] at his current home port of Naples, Italy". After Fountain left the letter unattended on his desk, someone turned it over to the Naval Investigative Service, which allegedly coerced Fountain into signing a statement that he had sex with Martin, which Fountain later recanted. In 1971, "the Navy announced its intention to release [Donaldson] by General Discharge on grounds of suspected homosexual involvement." As Randy Shilts wrote in Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military:

In the tens of thousands of hearings since World War II where comparable actions had been taken on the basis of comparable evidence, the matter ended there, with the sailor skulking away in disgrace. Petty Officer Martin, however, went public with what had happened to him and swore to fight for an honorable discharge. What was more, he enlisted some powerful support.

These supporters included New York congressional representatives Bella Abzug and Edward Koch, North Carolina senator Sam Ervin, and the ACLU, which provided a staff attorney to represent him. Despite their support, he was discharged in 1972. Donaldson continued to fight, and, in 1977, his discharge was upgraded to "honorable" as part of "President Carter's sweeping amnesty program for Vietnam-era draft evaders, deserters, and service members."

Quaker activism

Donaldson later summarized his military experience and the subsequent transition in his life:

After nearly two years as a sailor, I got kicked out for "homosexual involvement," a charge I received shortly after becoming a Buddhist Quaker and thus a pacifist. Bitter at this second homophobic] expulsion, which deprived me of the identity I loved more than any other—that of a sailor—and as a bisexual no longer feeling comfortable with the gay liberation movement, I found myself in June, 1972, attending the annual Friends (Quaker General Conference (FGC) in Ithaca, New York; its theme for the year was "Where Should Friends Be Pioneering Now?"

Jail experiences

After having been active in gay and student organizing at Columbia University, Donaldson became involved with activism in protests against the Vietnam War. In a 1973 Quaker peace rally at the White House, several demonstrators were arrested by police. Most of those arrested were released on $10 bail, but Donaldson refused to pay out of principle.

After seven days of refusing to pay bail, guard captain Clinton Cobb had Donaldson transferred to the most dangerous cellbock. That night, Donaldson was lured in a cell by a prisoner who claimed that he and his friends wanted to discuss pacifism with him. He was then anally and orally raped dozens of times by an estimated 45 African American male inmates. He suffered additional abuse a second night before reaching a guard's post where he was removed to safety by guards who allegedly told him he'd been deliberately set up by Captain Cobb. The following morning, a Quaker friend posted his bond. The injuries to his rectum were so severe that they required surgery, and he had to spend a week in the Washington D.C. Veteran's Hospital. In a 1994 interview, Donaldson said: "The government sewed up the tears in my rectum which the government occasioned." After his recovery, Donaldson became the first male prison rape survivor to call a press conference, recounting the gang rape to reporters. He was acquitted of all charges.

Donaldson went on to have severe emotional problems, landing back in jail several times. During his subsequent incarcerations, he would "hook up" with powerful male inmates to keep from being attacked again, which led to the word punk in his nickname. The term jailhouse punk refers to an inmate who trades sex for physical protection. As Donaldson explained in a pair of letters to Bo Lozoff:

Jail punks are more oppressed than any other group within the walls, living lives of abject slavery, sold and traded among the powerful, forced into prostitution, tossed about as footballs and prizes in racial and other power structures, tormented by conflicts over their sexual identity and role, isolated, humiliated, ashamed, and often suicidal....

Perhaps one reason why I work to help other punks in transcending their punk identity, is that the destructive results of assuming that identity are all too manifest in my own life -- where the identity has become so firmly attached as to be part of my own name, "Donny the Punk".

Activism and writing

Donaldson was president of Stop Prisoner Rape, Inc., an organization that helps prisoners deal with the psychological and physical trauma of rape, and works to prevent it from happening. He was perhaps the first activist against male rape with any amount of media attention in the United States. As Donny the Punk, he was a respected writer and personality in the punk and anti-racist skinhead subcultures, and was published in punk zines such as Maximum RocknRoll, Flipside and J.D.s. In the mid-1980s, Donny was the chief organizer of The Alternative Press & Radio Council (APRC), which brought together members of the punk community (such as fanzine editors and college radio DJs) of New York City, New Jersey, and Connecticut. This co-operative group met on Sundays before the weekly CBGB Sunday hardcore matinees and organized several benefit concerts. The group published a newsletter, and released a compilation LP on Mystic Records in 1986, which was entitled Mutiny On The Bowery. The compilation featured live recordings from the group's benefit concerts. Among other active members of the APRC were WFMU-FM DJ Pat Duncan, MaximumRockNRoll columnist Mykel Board and Jersey Beat editor Jim Testa. Donny was assistant editor of the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality (Garland Publishing, 1990), and was editor-in-chief of a concise edition of the encyclopedia, which remains unpublished as of 2007.

External links

• Stop Prisoner Rape, Inc.
• Writings by and about Stephen Donaldson at SPR website
• Stephen Donaldson papers at the New York Public Library (pdf)
• Goad, Jim (1994). "The Punk Who Wouldn't Shut Up" (PDF). Answer Me!: 26–30. (pdf)