Learn About Our 1985 Interview with Denver Mattachine Society Founder

In an unearthed gem that gives a glimpse into the history of Denver’s LGBTQ+ community beginning in the 1940s, Elver Baker, one of the founders of the Denver Area Mattachine Society, was interviewed by OFM in 1985. Thanks to David Duffield, the History Program Coordinator for the Colorado LGBTQ History Project, the interview has been digitized, giving us a rare, first-hand account of what it was like to be queer in 1940s-1950s Denver. 

Elver was born in Newcastle, Wyoming but moved to the Denver area at a young age. He was first aware of his homosexuality in 1926 when he was in the first grade and proudly states he had his first orgasm with another boy at the age of 14.

When asked when he learned about what homosexuality was, Elver describes going to the news stand with another gay boy to check out magazines that featured Magnus Hirschfeld, the famous sexologist and LGBTQ+ advocate, learning that sexuality is “inborn and unchangeable.” Elver accepted this until he attended college when he began fighting with his sexuality.

“I had been converted to the superstition that (homosexuality) was a mental illness that could be cured through literature,” Elver recalled. After graduating the University of Denver in 1943, Elver abstained from homosexual acts, visiting psychiatrists and clergy asking for help to “cure” his homosexuality.

In 1948, Elver fell in love with a woman and became engaged. However, the woman broke off the engagement. Elver describes being heartbroken but understood that, “She fell in love with me because I unconsciously resembled her mother, and I fell in love with her because she unconsciously resembled mine.” He goes on to say that because of her family trauma, she was often attracted to feminine men, Elver being the fourth in a series of failed relationships.  

Elver fought his sexuality for two more years by trying to date women. “Finally, at the age of 30, I gave up,” Elver recalls. “I went to the YMCA sundeck, which was a gay cruising ground … The men would bathe nude in those days because there were no skyscrapers.” In a spicy encounter with another man, Elver learned about some gay places to visit such as the Snake Pit, “the only gay bar. In the basement of the Drexel Hotel.” 

Elver then went on to learn about San Francisco’s Mattachine Society through One publication. After reading a story about a lesbian who was discharged from the military for being “mentally ill” due to her homosexuality, Elver moved to the Bay area city to be a part of the activist group via the Editorial Board of the Mattachine Review. 

After four years, Elver came back to Denver to create its own chapter of the Mattachine Society. He and a small group of other activists started their own publication, held casual meetings where members could air personal grievances, formal meetings with guest speakers, and even publicized the group at conventions.

“Between 1956-60, Mattachine was very active in Denver,” Elver recalls. In 1959, the group held its national convention in Denver. The event brought positive and negative attention to the LGBTQ+ community through media coverage that included a police and FBI investigation into the Denver Mattachine Society and its national organization. 

In the late 1960s, the national Mattachine Society began to shift, especially after the Stonewall riots, when more radical approaches to liberation came to the forefront. Many community members believed the movement needed to endorse a larger agenda as the Civil Rights Movement developed. 

Elver Baker and the Denver Mattachine Society helped pave the way for queer liberation. Along with other queer activist groups in history (including the Daughter’s of Bilitis and ACT UP) the Mattachine Society created safe spaces for the LGBTQ+ community and catered to the needs of their respective times before passing the torch to the next generation’s activist groups.

Photos courtesy social media