Prof. Karen B. Hanna (Connecticut College) will discuss her research, featured in CUNY FORUM Volume 6:1, into the KDP (Katipunan ng mga Demokratikong Pilipino) organization, from 1973 to 1986, and the exploration and views of sexuality during that era by its members.

The KDP was arguably the most militant anti-imperialist national organization in the Filipina/o American community during the 1970s, fighting for civil rights and antiwar movements in the United States and democracy and national liberation in the Philippines and beyond. The KDP was also unique compared to other groups in the Third World Left in that its LGBT members occupied leadership positions. In fact, it was the only Asian American organization in the 1970s that allowed gay or lesbian members.

But what was it like to be LGBT in the KDP? How did LGBT members navigate homophobia and heteropatriarchy in the Third World Left, racism in the gay liberation movement, and the emerging AIDS crisis? Through original oral histories conducted with KDP members from 2015-2018, Hanna offers a glimpse of how activists negotiated and expressed emerging sexual identities while maintaining revolutionary political commitments in the KDP.

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