Paris and gay love through the ey of Gert Ste and Alice B. Toklas

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. 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.

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

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.

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

” 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. Durg her lifetime, Gert Ste’s gay followers and fans were spired by the openns wh which she lived as a lbian and by the way her work upled homoeroticism wh mornist athetics.

Her scholarly terts clu eighteenth-century Brish fictn, the Gothic novel, Jane Aten, the First World War, English art and culture of the 1920s and 1930s, tobgraphy and bgraphy, and gay and lbian wrg.

California tors cidg how to meet the state's new requirement to clu lbian and gay Amerins history curricula uld strike gold by diggg to Wanda Corn's magnum op on Gert Ste's life and tim. Sometime 1934 Ste wrote: "We are surround by homosexuals, they do all the good thgs all the arts. Such as: how she managed to live and move about eely Nazi-occupied France durg World War elaborated on how the enigmatic artistic figure and her famo partner opted to stay France durg the Holot and, “spe beg Jewish lbian Amerins, they - and Ste's pricels morn art llectn - survived the war whout major cint, ” wh help om noted noted French amic and anti-Seme, Bernard Faÿ, who was a key adviser to Pétaa, a Gtapo agent, as well as gay a historil analysis of Ste’s relevance posted on, there’s brief mentn of “The San Francis Mm of Morn Art (SFMOMA) exhibn of the morn art llected by the Bay Area-based Ste exhibn drew blockbter crowds and will go on to the Grand Palais Paris and then to the Metropolan Mm of Art New York.