Gert Ste took the War like a man - The Gay & Lbian Review

Contents:

• SO FAMO AND SO GAY
• PARIS AND GAY LOVE THROUGH THE EY OF GERT STE AND ALICE B. TOKLAS
• SO FAMO AND SO GAY: THE FABULO POTENCY OF TMAN CAPOTE AND GERT STE

SO FAMO AND SO GAY

Subtled “The Tale of Two Young Ladi Who Were Gay Together and How One Left the Other Behd, ” Ste’s story is que possibly the first published work to e the word “gay” to scribe same-sex relatnships; the word appears over 100 tim the brief story, a particularly strikg and signifint example of Ste’s equent e of extreme repetn her wrg.

HOW DID Gert Ste, a Jew who was also a homosexual Paris durg the Nazi occupatn of 1940–1945, manage to survive—both physilly and psychologilly—durg the Send World War? Like many transgenred dividuals, Ste intified wh lbianism, bee, as Gay Wachman suggts, wrg of lbian stereotypg Lbian Empire (2001), “a negative image n be preferable to a blank when one is stgglg wh inty.

PARIS AND GAY LOVE THROUGH THE EY OF GERT STE AND ALICE B. TOKLAS

For all the ary surveillance and persecutn of both Jews and homosexuals this era, Ste and Toklas seem to have remaed beyond the pale of the Vichy ernment’s lens.

SO FAMO AND SO GAY: THE FABULO POTENCY OF TMAN CAPOTE AND GERT STE

Dpe Ste’s Judaism, homosexualy, and tellectual standg wh the muny, as a transgenred person she remaed ultimately untegorizable. ” This, of urse, would entail bondg wh a woman, ensurg that she would have to endure all of the negative nsequenc of beg an ostensibly homosexual relatnship.

” Acrdg to Benstock, Ste’s day “[t]he term ‘versn, ’ ed by the women to scribe their own sexual clatns, meant for them not only the sire for someone of the same sex, but the more pervasive need to duplite heterosexualy wh the homosexual relatnship. Curator Tirza Te Latimer and Stanford profsor, thor & artist Terry Castle discs Ste’s bonds wh young gay artists the 1920s-30s and her legacy ntemporary queer culture.