Stereotypilly, gay, queer and trans kids flee small towns to fd acceptance big, diverse ci like New York or Chigo. But evince shows many will eventually return to ral areas.
Contents:
- QUEER THE COUNTRY: WHY SOME LGBTQ AMERINS PREFER RURAL LIFE TO URBAN ‘GAYBORHOODS’
- WHO ARE THE PEOPLE YOUR GAYBORHOOD? UNRSTANDG POPULATN CHANGE AND CULTURAL SHIFTS LGBTQ+ NEIGHBORHOODS
- ARE RURAL GAYS HAPPIER THAN CY GAYS?
QUEER THE COUNTRY: WHY SOME LGBTQ AMERINS PREFER RURAL LIFE TO URBAN ‘GAYBORHOODS’
* urban gay contact *
The standard narrative of ral gay life is that ’s tough for LGBTQ kids who flee their ral hometowns for inic urban “gayborhoods” like Chigo’s Boystown or the Castro San Francis – plac where they n fd love, feel “normal” and be surround by others like them. The standard narrative of ral gay life is that ’s tough for LGBTQ kids who flee their ral hometowns for inic urban “gayborhoods” like Chigo’s Boystown or the Castro San Francis – plac where they n fd love, feel “normal” and be surround by others like them. Apart om intifyg as LGBTQ+, a high-e Black female cis-genred lbian, for example, her journey to unrstand and exprs her own sexual orientatn, may have ltle mon wh a middle-e gay genr-queer Asian male who both may have ltle mon wh a middle-age Whe genr-nonnformg trans dividual quietly explorg bisexualy at mid-life.
It is the differenc that fuel a grassroots mobilizatn among LGBTQ+ people to persevere through adversy; gay neighborhoods th serve as cubators for empowerment and social change and serve as home base for social movements and the fight for equaly that ultimately benefs every rner of society. Gay neighborhoods fostered brave pneers and some of the very first efforts to assist people wh AIDS, to unselfishly raise awarens among the general public about safe sex (when ernments were unwillg to do so), and to nurture the value of human life amid profoundly changg circumstanc.
1(Source Image urty of William Ivancic)In Chigo and other ci, rints of gay neighborhoods adapt to COVID-19 guil cludg mask wearg and spatial distancgFull size image2 Nomenclature: Everyone BelongsThe semantics of “gay” have changed over time and the chang reflect shifts attu and shifts the evolutn of mastream perceptn. Gay “liberatn” durg the 1960s evolved to gay “eedom” the 1970s which evolved to gay “pri” the 1990s, and this progrsn was terpted the 1980s by the HIV/AIDS panmic and the ll to power for all LGBTQ+ dividuals to “Act Up” for the right to live ee om social stigma. In this ve, although many gay neighborhoods were historilly anchored by a populatn of gay cis men (Chncey 2008; Podmore 2021), we nsir a “gay” neighborhood to be urban space wh some gree of tolerance clive of gay men, lbian women, trans+ dividuals, tersex dividuals, qutng dividuals, and var other sexual among like-md people, LGBTQ+ rints sought llective secury to addrs their feelgs of disenanchisement and safeguard agast opprsn manifted hostily and vlence (Lria and Knopp 1985).
WHO ARE THE PEOPLE YOUR GAYBORHOOD? UNRSTANDG POPULATN CHANGE AND CULTURAL SHIFTS LGBTQ+ NEIGHBORHOODS
Pop portrayals of LGBTQ Amerins tend to feature urban gay life, om Ru Pl’s “Drag Race” and “Queer Eye” and “Pose.” But not all gay people * urban gay contact *
Throughout this chapter and this book, we nsir a neighborhood to be a basic buildg block of a cy (Forsyth 2001), and for nvenience we terchangeably e the terms “gayborhood, ” “gay neighborhood, ” “gay enclave, ” “gay district, ” “gay village” and “LGBTQ+ neighborhood”; we acknowledge the limatns of the labels. We regnize that our cisn to e the term “gay” to scribe neighborhoods is imprecise bee sometim the term relat to gay men but other tim relat to everyone unr the LGBTQ+ umbrella (such as when ed to note “gay” pri, which would more accurately be labeled LGBTQ+ pri). Gay neighborhoods emerged over this perd as a safe haven for ee exprsn and a rpe for all manner of people ostracized or shunned by mastream society om prosecutn, judgement, and gay neighborhoods were seed the settlement and movement pattern of sexual mori begng the first half of the twentieth century, and the history of gay neighborhoods is well documented lerature (Chncey 2008; Ghaziani 2015a; Higgs 1999; Niedt 2021; Orne 2017).
Origal and inic LGBTQ+ neighborhoods— large ci such as Berl (Schöneberg), Istanbul (Taksim Square), London (Ltle Compton Street), Los Angel (Wt Hollywood, which beme Ameri’s first gay cy), Mexi Cy (Zona Rosa), Miami (South Beach), New York (Greenwich Village and Chelsea), Paris (LeMarais), Sydney (Oxford Street), San Francis (the Castro), São Plo (Rua Frei Cane), Tokyo (Ni-chōme), Toronto (Church Street), and Washgton, DC (DuPont Circle)—tered maly to gay men (lbians often did not have a notable prence).
ARE RURAL GAYS HAPPIER THAN CY GAYS?
Each gay neighborhood has s own unique reasons for beg and circumstanc for velopment (Gorman-Murray and Nash 2021) and nsequently the velopment and evolutn of dividual gayborhoods large urban centers—perceived as the “natural space” for gays and lbians (Higgs 1999)—opportuni gay neighborhoods for leisure and socializatn brought together the formative elements for the velopment of muny.