Mappg the Gay Guis

Contents:

• THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985
• SAN ANTON GAY MAP

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

Genr inty and exprsn are pennt of sexual orientatn, and transgenr people may intify as heterosexual, lbian, gay or bisexual. Mappg the Gay Guis’ ma functn is prervg and publicizg an overlooked, unr-studied chapter LGBTQ history.

Screenshot via Mappg the Gay Guis / Photo illtratn by Meilan Solly. As Eric Gonzaba, a historian at California State Universy, Fullerton, explas, Damron, a whe, gay man om San Francis, “started jt wrg down lists of lotns that he would vis, … plac [where] he eher found other gay men or he felt accepted. What began as a personal reference for the Californian and his iends soon morphed to a thrivg enterprise ak to The Negro Motorist Green Book, which safely shepherd Ain Amerin travelers across the untry durg the Jim Crow era, but for gay men and, to a lser extent, lbian women.

Ccially, Damron’s Addrs Book never explicly intified s target dience (at least until 1999, when the word “gay” was first prted on s ver), stead relyg on phemisms, nuendo and d abbreviatns to circulate rmatn wh the queer muny. Tled Mappg the Gay Guis, the project aims to “rrect the cultural erasure of historil geography” by spotlightg lol muni’ oft-unherald queer history and, adds Gonzaba, explorg “how that muny relat to other parts of the untry. The first phase of Mappg the Gay Guis lnched mid-Febary wh a foc on the southern Uned Stat.

SAN ANTON GAY MAP

Screenshot via Mappg the Gay Guis. Mappg the Gay Guis isn’t the first digal history project dited to Damron’s Addrs Books or the numero sp-off guis the publitns spawned. As Gonzaba explas, “This is one publisher and one guy’s view of what the gay world looked like.

In 1964, the year Damron first published his Addrs Book, gay sex was nsired a crime every state except Illois, and the Stonewall Uprisg, wily creded wh sparkg the ntemporary gay rights movement, was still five years away.

To ensure his work reached s tend dience, Damron plugged to existg works wh the unrground gay muny, addg his handbook to the array of eroti, pulp novels, physique magaz and other prted materials available to those the know.

“The mute you enter the gay world via one of the s, ” says Gonzaba, “ … you n possibly buy accs to even more of the gay culture, [intifyg] more spac by buyg this gui and beg able to see other plac that might be of tert to you other ci.

Damron’s Addrs Books weren’t the only gay travel guis available durg the latter half of the 20th century, but as Mappg the Gay Guis pots out, “They were the origal and remaed the gold standard, pecially for men, through the 1990s. But by intifyg patterns the body of work Damron left behd, the rearchers hope to learn more about his dividual character, cludg the implic bias he had as a gay, whe man om the progrsive astal cy of San Francis.

Acrdg to Gonzaba, Damron often classified s popular among gay Ain Amerin men the Amerin South as not only “B” (“Blacks Frequent”), but “RT, ” or “Rnchy Typ”—shorthand for tablishments emed “ls than reputable. Mappg the Gay Gui’s ma functn is prervg and publicizg an overlooked, unr-studied chapter LGBTQ history.

Damron’s guibooks refute this misnceptn, ttifyg to the existence of what Gonzaba ems “thrivg” gay muni ci across the untry long before Stonewall and other ton the gay rights movement. On a wir sle, says David Johnson, thor of Buyg Gay: How Physique Entrepenrs Sparked a Movement, to Los Angel magaze, the Addrs Books likely ntributed to the growth of a llective sense of gay inty. By fall 2020, the Mappg the Gay Guis team hop to publish listgs om every state, Washgton, D.