Gay Conversn Therapy's Disturbg 19th-Century Origs | HISTORY

Contents:

• HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
• BUT WERE THEY GAY? THE MYSTERY OF SAME-SEX LOVE THE 19TH CENTURY
• THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”
• GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS
• GAY CULTURE 19TH CENTURY NEW YORK CY
• GAY NETI
• THE GAY NETI – 1890S VTAGE LOOKBOOK

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

By the mid-1920s, at the height of the Prohibn era, they were attractg as many as 7, 000 people of var rac and social class—gay, lbian, bisexual, transgenr and straight alike. Stonewall (1969) is often nsired the begng of forward progrs the gay rights movement. The Begngs of a New Gay World“In the late 19th century, there was an creasgly visible prence of genr-non-nformg men who were engaged sexual relatnships wh other men major Amerin ci, ” says Chad Heap, a profsor of Amerin Studi at Gee Washgton Universy and the thor of Slummg: Sexual and Racial Enunters Amerin Nightlife, 1885-1940.

By the 1920s, gay men had tablished a prence Harlem and the bohemian mec of Greenwich Village (as well as the seedier environs of Tim Square), and the cy’s first lbian enclav had appeared Harlem and the Village.

Each gay enclave, wrote Gee Chncey his book Gay New York: Genr, Urban Culture, and the Makg of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, had a different class and ethnic character, cultural style and public reputatn. Gay Life the Jazz AgeAs the Uned Stat entered an era of unprecented enomic growth and prospery the years after World War I, cultural mor loosened and a new spir of sexual eedom reigned. Though New York Cy may have been the epicenter of the so-lled "Pansy Craze, " gay, lbian and transgenr performers graced the stag of nightspots ci all over the untry.

BUT WERE THEY GAY? THE MYSTERY OF SAME-SEX LOVE THE 19TH CENTURY

”At the same time, lbian and gay characters were beg featured a slew of popular “pulp” novels, songs and on Broadway stag (cludg the ntroversial 1926 play The Captive) and Hollywood—at least prr to 1934, when the motn picture dtry began enforcg censorship guil, known as the Hays Co. ” The sale of liquor was legal aga, but newly enforced laws and regulatns prohibed rtrants and bars om hirg gay employe or even servg gay patrons.

In the mid- to late ‘30s, Heap pots out, a wave of sensatnalized sex crim “provoked hysteria about sex crimals, who were often— the md of the public and the md of thori—equated wh gay men.

” This not only disuraged gay men om participatg public life, but also “ma homosexualy seem more dangero to the average Amerin. ” By the post-World War II era, a larger cultural shift toward earlier marriage and suburban livg, the advent of TV and the anti-homosexualy csas champned by Joseph McCarthy would help ph the flowerg of gay culture reprented by the Pansy Craze firmly to the natn’s rear-view mirror.

THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”

Number of LGBT-related laws changed over time1900s1910s1920s1930s1940s1950s1960s1970s1980s1990s2000s2010s2020s1900January 1Homosexual activy be illegal (ath penalty as punishment). 1896May 1Homosexual activy be illegal (imprisonment as punishment) least 6 months imprisonment1893March 14Homosexual activy be illegal (imprisonment as punishment). 1890January 1Homosexual activy be age of nsent be equal.

(date unknown)Homosexual activy be laws agast homosexual relatnships anywhere Italy's Penal Co.

"Walt Whman and Gay Liberatn are nearly synonymo for me, " wrote cultural historian Rictor Norton a 1999 say.

GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS

"It's hard to image any morn poet wrg about lyg another man's arms and then llg homosexualy "damnable. ""The thg we don't know about any of the people, " says Peggy Wishart, "is the qutn most morn people have: Were they gay? " By 1911, there was enough awarens of homosexualy that when Fields pulled together a posthumo volume of Jewett's letters, edor Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe urged her to censor out the pet nam.

But as Reynolds says, "It's absolutely wrong to impose today's versn of homosexualy on Whman or Jewett. Do you know what the word gay really means?

GAY CULTURE 19TH CENTURY NEW YORK CY

The word gay dat back to the 12th century and om the Old French “gai, ” meang “full of joy or mirth. For centuri, gay was ed monly speech and lerature to mean happy, reee, bright and showy, and did not take on any sexual meang until the 1600s.

GAY NETI

At that time the meang of gay as reee evolved to imply that a person was unrtraed by morals and prone to nce and promiscuy. A prostute might have been scribed as a “gay woman” and a womanizer as a “gay man. “Gay hoe” was monly ed to refer to a brothel and, later, “gaiety” was ed as a mon name for certa plac of entertament.

In the 1890s, the term “gey t” (a Sttish variant of gay) was ed to scribe a vagrant who offered sexual servic to women or a young traveler who was new to the road and the pany of an olr man. This latter e suggts that the younger man was a sexually submissive role and may be among the first tim that gay was ed implyg a homosexual relatnship.

THE GAY NETI – 1890S VTAGE LOOKBOOK

In 1951, gay appeared the Oxford English Dictnary for the first time as slang for homosexual, but was most likely ed this way “unrground” at least 30 years earlier. I jt went gay. ” This le (ad-libbed by Grant) n be terpreted to mean that he was behavg a happy-go-lucky or lighthearted way but is accepted by many as the first e of gay to mean homosexual a mastream movie.

Today, gay is a socially acceptable term for homosexual people.

When gay is ed today to mean stupid or unsirable ( has only been ed this way sce the 1990s), rri wh a history of negative judgment and rigid ias about who or what is acceptable.