Vector Magazine

The Society for Individual Rights (SIR), founded in San Francisco in 1964, published the magazine Vector and became within two years the largest homophile organization in the United States. SIR focused on community building, public identity and legal and social services. It challenged the prevailing idea that homosexuality should be kept secret when it hosted a public dance of 600 people at California Hall on Polk Street, attracting police harassment as well as support from local religious leaders.

Then operating out of a small office before a permanent center was established (early meetings were held at the Glide Memorial Fellowship Hall), SIR was founded at a time when the homophile organizations of the 1950s (ONE, the Mattachine Society, and the Daughters of Bilitis) were faced with diminished memberships, publishing revenue, community interest, and influence.

S.I.R. thus provided an important bridge between the waning non-activist philosophy of the homophile movement and the burgeoning gay liberation movement (by 1967, although remaining predominately regionalized, SIR. had become the largest homophile organization in the country). In addition, and probably more importantly, SIR was the first gay rights organization to actively court, with great and lasting success, local, county, and state political candidates in San Francisco County.

Front first printing until May 1699, the name of the magazine was Vector: Responsible Action by Responsible People in Responsible Ways, becoming Vector (without subtitle) until another title change in January 1968, becoming Vector: A Voice for the Homophile Community. "Homophile" was replaced by "Homosexual" in March 1969. In April 1974 the title was changed again to Vector: Celebrating the Gay Experience. Then another change of title to Vector: The Gay Experience in June 1975, and in its final issue Vector: The Gay Magazine of the Society for Individual Rights (June-July 1976).

Vector magazine remained a largely local political organ for most of its publishing history, however in later years it began to have increasing amounts of national interest features and photographic content, including artistic nude photography that can be classified as the non-pornographic successor of beefcake.

Bill by Eddie Van, Vector Jan 1973