Entrapment schem targetg gay men ntue across the untry, but the Stonewall ristance changed their meang.
Contents:
- THE FOTTEN HISTORY OF GAY ENTRAPMENT
- 24 TIPS ON HOW GAY MEN CAN AVOID POLICE ENTRAPMENT DANGERO, ANTI-LGBT COUNTRI
- THE HANDSOME UNRVER P S. IS HE ENTRAPPG GAY MEN OR CLEANG UP A PARK?
- WHAT’S STOPPG THE POLICE SGAPORE OM ARRTG GAY MEN AGA?
THE FOTTEN HISTORY OF GAY ENTRAPMENT
* gay police entrapment *
The Fotten History of Gay EntrapmentRoute arrts were the lchp of a social system tend to huiate LGBTQ JonEdor’s Note: This article is part of a seri about the gay-rights movement and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Payne, a mic stunt and aspirg performer om Trenton, New Jersey, got his big break near the end of 1947, when he was 23.
But the bure’s regulatns prohibed the employment of anyone who “was or pretend to be a homosexual, ” an expansive le signed to prevent queer-themed entertament, cludg the so-lled pansy acts that had been all the rage New York clubs near the end of Prohibn, as well as homosexual entertaers themselv. Between 1923, when the New York state legislature specifilly crimalized male homosexual cisg as a form of disorrly nduct (“generate disorrly nduct, ” or simply, police lgo, “generacy”), and 1966, when a loose aln of pre-Stonewall gay activists, civil libertarians, fé owners, and bohemian wrers persuad newly elected Mayor John Ldsay to end the police partment’s e of entrapment to arrt men on this charge, more than 50, 000 men were arrted for cisg bars, streets, parks, and subway washrooms New York Cy the e of entrapment was one of the signal victori of New York’s ant pre-Stonewall gay activists. The tens of thoands of New Yorkers who were arrted for cisg the 45 years before Stonewall have been even more thoroughly fotten than the movement that fought on their the 1940s and 1950s, police surveillance was only the lchp of a broar social system that punished people who were disvered to be gay.
Above all, the men feared that their fai or their employers would learn they were gay if word of their arrt reached them, as sometim happened when the police or urt officials ntacted them or, more rarely, a newspaper published the man’s name. But employers were much more likely to dismiss men and women they disvered to be gay, and begng the 1920s and 1930s, state ernments New York and elsewhere ma queer life more and more 1927, the New York state legislature prohibed theaters om stagg plays wh queer characters, and the 1930s, the Hollywood studs adopted a censorship that prohibed the appearance of lbian or gay characters or even the “ference of sexual perversn” s films.
24 TIPS ON HOW GAY MEN CAN AVOID POLICE ENTRAPMENT DANGERO, ANTI-LGBT COUNTRI
Durg the Send World War, the feral ernment followed su by prohibg homosexuals as a class om servg the ary, and after the war, extend that ban to civilian feral re prciple that erned such l was to exclu people who were openly gay om many workplac and the urban public sphere of bars and rtrants, and to prevent them om even beg reprented or discsed plays, films, and baret performanc. The pot was not jt to nmn, huiate, and disurage people who were queer, but also to renr homosexualy visible and therefore, the thori hoped, filmmakers, playwrights, and bar and baret owners who dissented om such heteronormative impuls were forced to ply.
THE HANDSOME UNRVER P S. IS HE ENTRAPPG GAY MEN OR CLEANG UP A PARK?
Absent such five evince intifyg patrons as gay, police reports routely ced ctomers’ mp w and other forms of genr nonnformy: women wh short hair stridg through a bar men’s cloth; makp-wearg men sashayg about and llg one another “Mary.
”At a moment when the State Liquor Authory was unr prsure to crack down on gay meetg plac, this was enough evince for to revoke the club’s license and permanently close for “perm[tg] homosexuals to ngregate” and “perm[tg] a performance by a homosexual.
” Unr normal circumstanc, even exclively gay bars managed to survive for perds of time bee they were n by the mob, paid brib to the lol patrolman, and were otherwise enmhed the web of rptn that erned much of New York’s postwar nightlife.
WHAT’S STOPPG THE POLICE SGAPORE OM ARRTG GAY MEN AGA?
But durg a crackdown, every bar was vulnerable—even a place, like the Salle Champagne, that did not cultivate a gay would be another 16 years before the policg of gay bars and dividual gay people was substantially challenged.
Endg the police e of entrapment to arrt gay men was so fundamental a change that has now been almost entirely fotten, but had a more profound impact on the everyday liv of gay men than the burst of activism immediately followg the Stonewall rebelln. He also prov himself to be an extraordary rantr, willg to pull back the veil on the strategi for dissemblg—om wearg sunglass so the employers who thought he was “a dumb lored boy” uldn’t see how much he hated them to talkg “sweet ltle whe boys” to buyg him cloth at Saks—that had enabled him, as a poor, black, flamboyant gay man, to survive his post–Salle Champagne life as a maid, hoeboy, and film hts at the black and whe bohemian artistic circl which he found support: the black sgers, such as Carmen McRae, who helped him by givg him work, and the terracial and mixed gay and straight artistic circl which he socialized and partied New York.