Formed 1974 as a sponsored program of The Center for Social Servic, we produced the first Lbian and Gay Para San Diego to celebrate the 1969 Stonewall Rebelln on New York’s Christopher Street. San Diego Pri rporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprof anizatn 1994, and today ntu to brg together the skills, talents, and visns of our diverse muny through numero programs.
Contents:
BEFORE GAY MEANT GAY: MEET SAN DIEGO’S EARLY LGBTQ PNEERS
* san diego lgbt history *
Yet spe dranian laws that threatened to sweep up anyone hapls enough to be ught a homosexual act, same-sex love flourished San Diego, even the cy’s hight social circl. Protected by their soc-enomic stat om dishonor and prosecutn, upper class upl such as Lee and Teats or Shepard and Tonner did not suffer om stigma or the punishg laws wh which ls fortunate homosexuals of their day had to ntend. Gay historian Allan Bébé has famoly suggted that Ameri’s war effort also served to brg together many gays and lbians who had hherto been isolated small towns and ci all across Ameri, and a signifint subculture was th on s way to beg formed.
For stance, gay bars such as Bradley’s and Blue Jacket the Gaslamp District proliferated durg the war years; locker clubs such as the Seven Seas Locker Club and Jack’s Steam and Locker Club beme not only facili where ary men uld change to civvi before a night on the town but also cisg grounds where those who were gay found sexual opportuni. Many gays and lbians who had been troduced to port ci such as San Diego durg the war chose to settle them after the war bee they had learned they uld feel eer there than they had back home. By 1952, there were so many venu downtown San Diego terg to gay men that the cy was featured USA Confintial, a sensatnalistic book about Ameri’s “s spots.
” Lee and Mortimer tend their fulmatns to shock and tillate, but surely a llateral effect was to rm even more gay people of San Diego’s thrivg gay life and to draw them to the cy.