Stephen Donaldson

Stephen Donaldson (July 27, 1946 – July 18, 1996), born Robert Anthony Martin Jr. and also known by the pseudonym Donny the Punk, was an American bisexual rights activist, and political activist. He is best known for his pioneering activism in LGBT rights and prison reform, and for his writing about punk rock and subculture.

At Columbia University, he founded the first LGBT college group in the United States, called the Student Homophile League (SHL) (now the Columbia Queer Alliance).

He coined the term "protective pairing".

Childhood and adolescence (1946–1965) The son of a career naval officer, Donaldson spent his early childhood in different seaport cities in the eastern United States and in Germany. Donaldson later described his father Robert, the son of Italian and German immigrants, as a man who "frowned on display of emotion" and his mother Lois as "an English, Scottish Texan, artistic, free-spirited, emotional, impulsive." After his parents' divorce in 1953, when he was seven years old, Donaldson's mother suffered from acute porphyria (a rare genetic disease), and his father gained custody of Robert and his two brothers. His father remarried several years later.

At age 12, Donaldson was expelled from Boy Scouts for engaging in sexual behavior with other boys (who, as recipients, were not punished). "The disgrace triggered a family crisis, resolved by sending the boy to live in Germany, where he could be watched over by his stepmother's relatives." He attended a boys' boarding school and continued homosexual activity, hiding it from adults.

In the summer of 1966, Donaldson began a relationship with gay activist Frank Kameny, who had a great influence on him. Donaldson later wrote:

After a series of meetings, the Committee of Friends on Bisexuality was formed, with Donaldson (using the name Bob Martin) as its chair until he left the Quakers in 1977.

Donaldson was involved in the New York bisexual movement in the mid-1970s, for example appearing in 1974 on a New York Gay Activists Alliance panel with Kate Millett. Donaldson propounded the belief that ultimately bisexuality would be perceived as much more threatening to the prevailing sexual order than homosexuality, because it potentially subverted everyone's identity (the idea that everyone is potentially bisexual was widespread) and could not, unlike exclusive homosexuality, be confined to a segregated, stigmatized and therefore manageable ghetto.

Washington jail experiences and aftermath (1973)

Demonstrations and incarcerations After being discharged from the Navy in 1972, Donaldson moved to Washington, D.C., where he "worked as Pentagon correspondent for the Overseas Weekly, a privately owned newspaper distributed to American servicemen stationed in Europe". On August 14 Donaldson was one of 66 demonstrators (including Daniel Berrigan) who took part in a CCNV-sponsored pray-in at the White House protesting the bombing of Cambodia, where he was again arrested. Donaldson again refused to post bail. In a 1974 account under the pseudonym Donald Tucker, he explained:

Donaldson wrote that he was aided in his sexual recovery by an understanding woman who helped him regain his confidence. After a year and a half, he returned to his prior level of sexual activity.

Subsequent arrests and incarcerations (1976–1990)

Acceptance of "punk" role (1976) While traveling to Florida for his mother's funeral in late 1976, Donaldson was arrested after urinating in a motel parking lot, then was charged with possession after the police searched his hotel room and found cannabis. He was placed in a small cell block with four white and eight black prisoners, most of them Marines from a nearby base, who demanded sexual services. Donaldson later wrote:

Not wishing to repeat the battering I got in the D.C. Jail, I capitulated....I considered myself lucky that the blocks were so small....The next day the four white marines came up to me and said, "You're moving in with us!" and so I became the fifth occupant of the four-bunk cell....

I had become the Punk of these four lads, who in jail lingo became my Men....They provided me with protection and such things as stamps and snacks, in return wanting blowjobs (from three) and ass (in jail called "pussy") from one. Lozoff was leader of the Prison-Ashram Project, which encourages convicts to use their prisons as ashrams (religious retreats) for spiritual growth. In their correspondence, Donaldson expressed his desire to help other victims but lamented that:

Writing and working on the rape question and the enslavement of punks (and gays) poses a major dilemma for my own spiritual work...[because] everything I do in it reinforces my own identity as a punk, since I am speaking out of experience....

Perhaps one reason why I work to help other punks in transcending their punk identity, is that the destructive results of assuming that identity are all too manifest in my own life—where the identity has become so firmly attached as to be part of my own name, "Donny the Punk". Oh physician, how to heal thyself?

Around 1983, Cahill resurrected the defunct organization "People Organized to Stop Rape of Imprisoned Persons" (POSRIP), which had been founded in 1980 by Russell Smith. In 2004, Cahill recollected:

When Donny and I connected in 1985, he agreed to be president and I became director. Even though at the time I lived under a leaky camper shell on the back of an old, beat-up pick-up truck on the streets of San Francisco, I was a little more stable than he was. So we used my post office box and telephone message service. With Donny in New York and me on the "Left" Coast, we were voices in the wilderness trying to spotlight a serious, massive crime in progress.

Activism and writing

As "Donny the Punk", Donaldson was already a respected writer and personality in the punk and anti-racist skinhead subcultures. He had published in punk zines such as Maximumrocknroll, Flipside and J.D.s. In the mid-1980s, Donny was the chief organizer of The Alternative Press & Radio Council (APRC), which brought together members of the punk community (such as fanzine editors and college radio DJs) from New York City, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

This co-operative group met on Sundays before the weekly CBGB Sunday hardcore matinees and organized several benefit concerts. The group published a newsletter, and released a compilation LP on Mystic Records in 1986, which was entitled Mutiny On The Bowery. The compilation featured live recordings from the group's benefit concerts. Among other active members of the APRC were WFMU-FM DJ Pat Duncan, Maximumrocknroll columnist Mykel Board and Jersey Beat editor Jim Testa.

Donaldson was associate editor of the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality (Garland Publishing, 1990). He was editor-in-chief of a concise edition of the encyclopedia, which remains unpublished.

Legacy and honors Donaldson died of a bronchial infection in 1996 at the age of 49. He was HIV-positive at the time.

After Donaldson's death, the Columbia Queer Alliance renamed its student lounge in his honor. SPR continued to work for prisoners' rights. It contributed to gaining the passage of the first US law against rape in prison Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003. The issue of rape and prisoners' rights continues to receive national and state attention.