VANGUARD
Adrian Ravarour is a complicated man. He is also a really good friend. We have talked on the phone several times a month for over five years. We laugh and catch up. Adrian is serious. He says what is on his mind. No filter. I enjoy this about him. Why sacrifice your thoughts? He is nearly 80 years old. Now is the time to get it all off of your chest. Sometimes he does not answer the questions I ask him. They are controversial, not crucial. I am curious.
Adrian was born in Los Angeles, California. It was World War II. In a 2024 interview with Adrian (this feature pieces together several interviews), Adrian said, “I was born during World War II, when honor and integrity were really important.”
In 1965, Adrian started the organization Vanguard. Vanguard was one of the first gay, youth liberation groups in America. Vanguard organized the “Street Sweep” demonstration, where its members cleaned up trash in the dirty streets. The group was also the catalyst behind the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot.
The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot was one of the earliest known LGBTQ+ uprisings in the U.S. The event occurred in August 1966 in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. Police harassment of LGBTQ+ individuals was rampant, and tensions peaked one night at Compton’s Cafeteria, a refuge for transgender people, drag queens, and others in the community. When a police officer tried to arrest a transgender woman, she resisted by throwing coffee in his face, igniting a rebellion as patrons defended her, threw dishes, and clashed with police outside. Although underreported, the riot became a pivotal moment in transgender activism, sparking collaboration between advocacy groups and city officials to address discrimination and laying crucial groundwork for future LGBTQ+ rights efforts.
Vanguard is an interesting chapter in the history of the LGBTQ+ movement. 1966 was a long time ago. We are now in 2024, and Adrian finds himself in an awkward, uncomfortable place. Many people know about Vanguard, but Adrian maintains that their knowledge is either inaccurate, incomplete, or both.
These alternative remembrances have deeply affected him. He has been referred to as a “hustler,” when in truth he was a Morman priest. Vanguard is also remembered as a primarily trans organization, which it wasn’t. We need to remember that in the mid-1960s, there were very few transgender people in urban areas, let alone in low-income and unsafe neighborhoods. It pains me that Adrian feels this way. In my most recent recorded interview with Adrian, he said, “Would I start Vanguard, knowing that around 2010 revisionists would revile me and insult me in the worst ways? Would I start Vanguard again? My answer is, no, absolutely not.”
Adrian, we are glad you founded Vanguard, and we have your back. We aren’t done telling your story. World, get ready!
—August Bernadicou, Executive Director of The LGBTQ History Project
“I realized in fourth grade that the morals of society are simply imposed by the prevalence of society. I had seen another kid who, like me, didn’t like girls, and they made fun of him for it. I thought, 'Wow, if they knew that about me, they’d be making fun of me too.' So I started reading encyclopedias and found the histories of Rome, Greece, and Persia, and stories of musicians and famous painters and figures like Michelangelo and Alexander the Great. I realized that different societies had different mores about what was acceptable. So, the 20th-century beliefs about gay people being evil, going to Hell, or deserving punishment were just societal constructs, and I didn’t believe in them.
I was out in 10th grade, and since I had already figured this out back in fourth grade, I stood my ground when people told me I should be ashamed for being gay. I’d say, 'Why?' and argue that it was natural. I used the word 'normal,' but they’d counter that normal meant the majority. I’d say, 'Fine, then it’s natural,' and I used historical precedents as examples of how other cultures had accepted it. I never backed down.
A teacher tried to insult me and told me that being gay was horrible. He called it 'pushy,' using a Greek term, and I stood up and said again that it was natural. The class applauded me. To me, being gay is like having blue or brown eyes and blonde or black hair—it just is. And when I used the term 'gay,' I didn’t mean it in the male-dominated sense it later took on; we used 'gay' more inclusively, much like 'queer' is used today. I have always been disappointed in that change. I was brought up the way most Mormons are. I went through all the training we go through in the church. I was ordained a deacon, then after two years, I was ordained a teacher. Two years later—in 1959—I was ordained a priest, and my parents had saved for me my mission fund, as most young Mormons are expected to go on missions funded by their parents. They had saved money all my life, keeping it in an annuity, a bank account, a tin at home, and another bank account.
When the annuity matured, my father told the bishop at church. Then they asked me if I wanted to be ordained an elder, as a Melchizedek priesthood elder who must go on a mission. I thought, 'Wait a minute—David O. McKay, the president of the Mormon church at the time, said that gay people were going to Hell, calling them Sons of Perdition. I thought, 'Do I want to convert people to join a church that would then say, oh, by the way, missionary, you're going to hell because you're gay?’ So, I decided to say no.
I talked my parents into allowing me to use the missionary fund money for something else. They asked what I wanted to do, and I chose to study the arts in San Francisco. That’s how I studied for two years at the San Francisco Ballet School. I also became a staff member at Intersection for the Arts, which hosted poetry readings, drawings, theater classes and performances, and music and dance performances, and showed experimental films on Sundays. Each evening focused on a different art. By working there for a year and a half, I was exposed to all the arts, which helped me decide which ones I wanted to invest in and study further at university to develop my career. I consider myself an artist, and the spiritual aspects are simply part of my nature—something instilled in me since childhood. I still do some priestly things on Sundays, mostly as a figurehead, but my main work is that of an artist.
At work at Intersection, I met a street youth named Joel Williams, who seemed like such an angelic soul. I liked him so much. He was the very first male I had sexual relations with. I asked him to be my mate, and he said, I will be your mate on two conditions.
The first condition was that he didn’t want to live out by the beach, out in the Avenues; instead, he wanted me to stay at the El Rosa Hotel in the Tenderloin, where he had a room. The second was that he wanted me to help with the discrimination the street youth experienced. Those were the two conditions for him to live in a monogamous relationship with me.
I then said, okay, but I told him I wouldn’t help the street youth—I wouldn’t help the hustlers or the prostitutes because, as a priest, I considered them immoral. Now, bear in mind that there are many sinful things in life, and that's just one of them. But anyway, I just didn't want to do that. He said, no, do that because everyone deserves your help, and he pointed out that the majority of the people who were working as sex workers did it because they had no other way to earn an income. They were homeless, and it was simply that or die. The very next day, he had me go out on the street, and we met the people, and I began to hear their stories about what had happened to them, how they'd been thrown out of their homes, or how they’d been disowned. I realized that, yes, they do; they deserve help.
In August of 1965, Reverend Cecil Williams gave me permission to hold ongoing Vanguard meetings at Glide Memorial Church because the street youth population was something that Reverend Cecil Williams and others were interested in. I wasn't charged rent for using their facilities. I was still a Mormon priest at 21 years old and a full-time staff member at Intersection. While I ran Vanguard, some kids had bad memories about churches and didn't want to come to Glide for Vanguard meetings.
I held ongoing meetings once a week for ten months teaching gay rights. I took the premise of the civil rights movement and simply applied it to LGBT. I used the Socratic method to teach people the principle of their rights to equality, citing social contact, human rights, and other examples of Dr. King, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, and the preamble to the Constitution.
It applied to them as citizens of the United States. I was trying to help the mostly teenage kids. I was trying to get them to realize that they shouldn't feel downtrodden by society for being homosexual.
As I ran the Vanguard meetings, they would not bring up stories about being hustlers because that always would rile me. My whole premise was that if I was able to help end the discrimination that was against the youth because they were gay—and that was the term we used then—they might be able to find work.
Even though there were all types of people, I realized that we had to have the same mindset. I wasn't a member of the street youth; I was a teacher, and I wanted all the members to have the mentality that they understood that they were entitled to equal treatment just as human beings because this is the way things should be. I used examples from history, from the cultures of Greece, earlier civilizations, Rome, and different writings about kings from the past—you can also look to Alexander the Great, etc.
Each hour-long Vanguard meeting was a training session where I asked them, 'What happened to you today?’ They would tell me something that I could address, and I would address it. I would then ask questions and ask someone else, and they would give an answer, and then I would say, 'What do you think?' Then they would start a dialogue and get to own the floor.”