The LGBTQ+ muny is known for havg unique and creative ways of self-exprsn. One secret language began as an act of fiance agast an anti-gay society.
Contents:
- DICK LESCH’S GUI TO SEVENTI GAY SLANG
- THE GUYSEXUAL’S CY DICTNARY FOR GAY SLANG. WHAT’S THE SHELF LIFE OF A CLEARANCE SALE CLOTHG?THE GUYSEXUAL’S CY DICTNARY FOR GAY SLANG. WHAT’S THE SHELF LIFE OF A CLEARANCE SALE CLOTHG?
- POLARI: THE LANGUAGE GAY MEN ED TO SURVIVE
- GAY SLANG: A SECRET LANGUAGE THAT BEGAN AS AN ACT OF DEFIANCE
DICK LESCH’S GUI TO SEVENTI GAY SLANG
Dick Lesch, an early gay-rights activist, who is now his eighti, arranged to donate his old workg fil to the archiv of the New York Public Library.
”In 1959, when Lesch was twenty-four, he left his fay home, Kentucky, for New York Cy, where he found work as a pater, a bartenr, a rator, a journalist, and as the unpaid print of the Mattache Society, one of the first gay-rights anizatns. When the Stonewall rts broke out, three years later, he was the only openly gay reporter on the scene, verg the event for a new gay-focsed magaze lled The a recent Friday eveng, Lesch’s buzzer rang.
In 1959, he left Kentucky for New York Cy, where he beme the print of the Mattache Society, one of the first gay-rights anizatns. A py of a 1976 gay guibook, wrten by Lesch, along wh his origal typewrten mancript.
THE GUYSEXUAL’S CY DICTNARY FOR GAY SLANG. WHAT’S THE SHELF LIFE OF A CLEARANCE SALE CLOTHG?THE GUYSEXUAL’S CY DICTNARY FOR GAY SLANG. WHAT’S THE SHELF LIFE OF A CLEARANCE SALE CLOTHG?
“This rd file is great, ” he said, flippg through a set of four-by-six x rds on which Lesch had neatly typed out gay slang terms om antiquy.
” Some of the fns were more nuanced: an “ntie, ” Lesch had wrten, was “an ageg or middle aged homosexual, offtim effemate character, ” or “a person of settled meanor who utns agast temperate acts. Lesch ed to llect mentns of the “homophile movement, ” a term that preced the morn gay-rights vobulary.
POLARI: THE LANGUAGE GAY MEN ED TO SURVIVE
Lesch holds up a plastic toy school b, ma the neteen-sixti by the Gay Toy Company. Photograph by Rebec FudalaNext up was Lesch’s llectn of magaz and newsletters, cludg After Dark (“Oh, bls you—they’re real llector’s ems, ” Bmann said); Christopher Street (“We have the archiv”); Female Mimics (“That’s fabulo”); the 1969 Time issue on homosexualy (“Cute”); and the monthly bullet for the Mattache Society.
GAY SLANG: A SECRET LANGUAGE THAT BEGAN AS AN ACT OF DEFIANCE
A 1971 issue of Gay featured an terview that Lesch had nducted wh a twenty-five-year-old Bette Midler. Many untri around the world have their own versn of queer slang, om Brish gay slang rived om the rhymg slang Polari to beki – the Philipp’ queer language that borrows om a slew of sourc, cludg pop culture, Japane, Spanish, and the untry’s lol languag.