In the late 1970s, gay patrol units formed in US cities including San Francisco and New York City. While short-lived—most only lasted a few years—these units joined other queer political action groups created to protest American imperialism, provide community aid, publish small-scale periodicals, and join the efforts of the feminist and Black power movements. As anthropologist Christina Hanhardt writes in her book Safe Space, these patrol units, organized predominantly by white gay men, aspired to prevent unlawful arrests by local police forces and, if possible, to retaliate against homophobia in action. These groups’ indicate increasing militancy following the 1969 Stonewall Riots and the growing sentiment that gay people could foster and defend neighborhoods catering specifically to their community. Like the Pink Posse, patrol groups took on a variety of colorful names such as the Butterfly Brigade and the Society to Make America Safe for Homosexuals (SMASH). To most white Americans, these vigilantes-cum-law enforcement officers garnered little attention. All, that is, except one: San Francisco’s Lavender Panthers.
Their name, The Lavender Panthers, was an appropriated rendition of the Black Panther Party, a Black revolutionary organization founded just a stone’s throw away in Oakland. Piquing the interest of both Rolling Stone and Time magazine, their queer proximity to Black radicalism hinted at a coalition in the making. The Lavender Panthers, however, could not be ideologically farther from their Oakland neighbors. In an interview for Coast magazine, the group’s leader Raymond Broshears—a defrocked Southern Evangelical preacher—described a typical neighbourhood sweep for potential homophobes:
Three blacks, wearing pimp garb and driving around in a white Cadillac, are believed responsible for five beatings and robberies in the area over a two-month period. ‘I’d hate to be those black motherfuckers when we find them,’ Broshears says with a tight, little smile. ‘Because you know what they’re gonna be when we get a hold of them?’ The little smile gets a bit wider as he leans over the desk and hisses, ‘N*****s!’