'We're not hidg': Gay and lbian Rsians say a cultural shift is unrway

Contents:

• HOTON ANNUAL GAY EVENTS CALENDAR
• 'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY
• GAY PRI CALENDAR

HOTON ANNUAL GAY EVENTS CALENDAR

Altogether, ’s the perfect settg for the livelit of gay cultur.

The LGBTQ muny tak the spotlight at ftivals all year long, wh Southern Dence over Labor Day weekend attractg more than 125, 000 revelers to what’s e to be known as Gay Mardi Gras. Paras, stum, drag shows and themed parti abound durg Dence, then aga they’re a part of the cy’s Pri Ft, Mardi Gras, Halloween ftivi and even Easter, where the Gay Easter Para is one of three the French Quarter. The Sats and Sners Lerary Ftival tak a more studied approach, brgg the gay, lbian, bisexual, transgenr and tersex lerati together for three days of spired mgs.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, this took the form of “Hell Ho”, where nservative Christian mistri, terrified of the impact of Halloween on young mds, took children around guid trips of the cy, warng them of var ss, cludg the great sta of homosexualy.

'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY

This Halloween at Manchter's Gay Nightclub we get. "They're g me to get ved to gay Halloween so they n meet hot girls!

Well, you don't have to wa to sre an ve to South Florida's gayt Halloween event, SAVE's Halloween Ball. Halloween is Ameri’s gay holiday. In the words of the lbian poet and scholar Judy Grahn, Halloween is “the great gay holiday.

GAY PRI CALENDAR

Long before June officially beme Gay Pri Month, and October “Comg Out Month” for the LGBT muny, Halloween was unofficially our yearly celebrated holiday. By the 1980s, gay enclav like Key Wt, Wt Hollywood, and Greenwich Village were holdg their annual Halloween street parti.

And the paras the night of Halloween did, and still do, draw straights and gay spectators out to watch. Gay cultural fluence on Halloween is unstoppable. Gay cultural fluence on Halloween has bee such an unstoppable phenomenon here and abroad that anthropologist Jerry Kugelmass of the Universy of Florida published a book 1994 on the new trend, tled Masked Culture, scribg Halloween as an emergg gay “high holiday.

“The ’masked culture’ first veloped by the gays of San Francis has reached across the l of orientatn — and now jumped across the boundari between natns and languag. It is an ial that los none of s power when tak the form of a sexy nurse’s outf, ” CNN ntributor David Fm wrote last year “Halloween craze started gay culture. Nicholas Rogers, thor of Halloween: From Pagan Rual to Party Night, pots out that while Halloween is enjoyed by everyone, “ has been the Gay muny that has most flamboyantly exploed Halloween’s potential as a transgrsive ftival, as one that operat outsi or on the margs of orthodox time, space, and hierarchy.

Ined, is the Gay muny that has been arguably most rponsible for Halloween’s adult rejuvenatn. As Halloween flourish as a gay cultural phenomenon, so too flourished a backlash by the fundamentalist Christians wh their “Hell Ho. Hell Ho were a ntemporary form of both anti-gay bullyg and wch-huntg.