The queers of the sixties, like those since, have connived with their repression under a veneer of respectability. Good mannered city queens in suits and pinstripes, so busy establishing themselves, were useless at changing anything.
I think that, at least in my experience, it is difficult when there is unfinished work. That makes it difficult to think of dying when what you have to do is not quite done. Of course it's never quite done.