Where the Boys Are: the 5 Gayt Beach Southern California | LAist

Contents:

• WHERE THE BOYS ARE: THE 5 GAYT BEACH SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
• GGER ROGERS BEACH, LA’S GAY BEACH, TO BE REGNIZED
• SANTA MONI AND VENICE BEACH GAY GUI

WHERE THE BOYS ARE: THE 5 GAYT BEACH SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Will Rogers Beach is the unofficial gay beach of Los Angel. The gay sectn is loted near life guard statn 18, on the southern end of the ma beach.

Cozy apartments, private rooms and amazg hom: be weled by the gay muny over 200 untri. Apartments, rooms, hom: be weled by the gay muny. Young gay men began visg the unofficial “gay beach” north of Santa Moni as early as 1940.

Acrdg to film profsor David Lugowski, gay men were fatuated wh Rogers’ mpy talents, androgyno performanc, and diva persona– so much so that drag queens began emulatg her the 1930s and 1940s, and ntue to do so today.

GGER ROGERS BEACH, LA’S GAY BEACH, TO BE REGNIZED

World War II talyzed the growth of ncentrated, unr-the-radar gay muni urban centers, pecially port ci like Los Angel as men and women embraced newfound enomic opportuny and personal eedoms away om their home liv. In Gay L.

A., Lillian Farman and Stuart Timmons wre: “For symbolic and functnal reasons, the beach was pecially attractive to gay people. It reprented the very edge of the ntent, far away om ‘back home’… Durg and after the war, verable oas of gay life uld be found the open at many Los Angel beach, where the atmosphere was celebratory, rnival-like, even lawls. Jose Sarria papers, urty of Gay, Lbian, Bisexual, Transgenr Historil Society.

SANTA MONI AND VENICE BEACH GAY GUI

As a teen the 1950s, Farman– the “mother of lbian history”– observed gay people at the beach eely exprsg their flamboyance and explorg romance. In the summer of 1957, Farman and a crowd of gays watched San Fransi drag queen Jose Sarria give an impromptu performance on the sands. After his vice arrt, Sarria vowed “to be the most notor impersonator or homosexual or fairy or whatever you want to ll me– and you would pay me for .

Later, as a founr and head of the Imperial Court System, Sarria created not only an oasis for gay pri and celebratn, but a fundraisg force for gay rights across the Uned Stat, stg him as a peerls lear the early fight for gay rights. At this time, gay beachgoers were not yet willg to jo an anizatn to discs homosexual rights. In 1995, Hay wrote: “Formg a society of two, and termed to get a discsn group gog, [Rudi and I] went to an unmarked sectn of Santa Moni Beach that we knew was equented by gay brothers… By the end of the summer, we had gotten 500 signatur on our petn, and had found not one person who would dare e to our [homosexual] discsn group, so overpowerg was the terror of police reprisal or blackmail.

The followg year, Hay led the formatn of the Mattache Society Los Angel, one of the natn’s first gay rights anizatns. Mattache argued that gay and lbian people were a mory group opprsed by a prejudicial society and that they need to anize orr to challenge their unjt persecutn. At this time, most gays and lbians believed that assiatn would be their bt optn and would not risk exposure for what they viewed as an impossible e.