Gay's Pot mid-channel - Riverkeeper

Contents:

• GAY CISG SPOTS
• MOVG TO LGBT FORT MYERS, FLORIDA? HOW TO FD YOUR PERFECT GAY NEIGHBORHOOD!
• GAY’S POT MID-CHANNEL
• GAYT PLAC IN CALIFORNIA FOR 2020
• GAY POTS
• GAYT PLAC IN ALASKA FOR 2020
• BUDAPTMENUHOTELSGUTHOON TODAYBARSDANCE CLUBSCISE CLUBSSNASMASSAGESHOPSTOURSBUDAPT IN PICTURCY GUIGAY MAPGAY GROUP
• GAYT PLAC IN NORTH CAROLA FOR 2020

GAY CISG SPOTS

As Eric Gonzaba, a historian at California State Universy, Fullerton, explas, Damron, a whe, gay man om San Francis, “started jt wrg down lists of lotns that he would vis, … plac [where] he eher found other gay men or he felt accepted. What began as a personal reference for the Californian and his iends soon morphed to a thrivg enterprise ak to The Negro Motorist Green Book, which safely shepherd Ain Amerin travelers across the untry durg the Jim Crow era, but for gay men and, to a lser extent, lbian women.

Ccially, Damron’s Addrs Book never explicly intified s target dience (at least until 1999, when the word “gay” was first prted on s ver), stead relyg on phemisms, nuendo and d abbreviatns to circulate rmatn wh the queer muny. Tled Mappg the Gay Guis, the project aims to “rrect the cultural erasure of historil geography” by spotlightg lol muni’ oft-unherald queer history and, adds Gonzaba, explorg “how that muny relat to other parts of the untry.

MOVG TO LGBT FORT MYERS, FLORIDA? HOW TO FD YOUR PERFECT GAY NEIGHBORHOOD!

In 1964, the year Damron first published his Addrs Book, gay sex was nsired a crime every state except Illois, and the Stonewall Uprisg, wily creded wh sparkg the ntemporary gay rights movement, was still five years away.

To ensure his work reached s tend dience, Damron plugged to existg works wh the unrground gay muny, addg his handbook to the array of eroti, pulp novels, physique magaz and other prted materials available to those the know.

“The mute you enter the gay world via one of the s, ” says Gonzaba, “ … you n possibly buy accs to even more of the gay culture, [intifyg] more spac by buyg this gui and beg able to see other plac that might be of tert to you other ci.

GAY’S POT MID-CHANNEL

Damron’s Addrs Books weren’t the only gay travel guis available durg the latter half of the 20th century, but as Mappg the Gay Guis pots out, “They were the origal and remaed the gold standard, pecially for men, through the 1990s. But by intifyg patterns the body of work Damron left behd, the rearchers hope to learn more about his dividual character, cludg the implic bias he had as a gay, whe man om the progrsive astal cy of San Francis. Acrdg to Gonzaba, Damron often classified s popular among gay Ain Amerin men the Amerin South as not only “B” (“Blacks Frequent”), but “RT, ” or “Rnchy Typ”—shorthand for tablishments emed “ls than reputable.

Damron’s guibooks refute this misnceptn, ttifyg to the existence of what Gonzaba ems “thrivg” gay muni ci across the untry long before Stonewall and other ton the gay rights movement. On a wir sle, says David Johnson, thor of Buyg Gay: How Physique Entrepenrs Sparked a Movement, to Los Angel magaze, the Addrs Books likely ntributed to the growth of a llective sense of gay inty.

Mart Leve ed spot maps of bars and cisg grounds to substantiate a "gay ghetto"; Jen Jack Giekg analyzed dividuals' "mental maps" of queer space; Am Ghaziani criqued the enclave theory of "gayborhoods" favor of what he terms "cultural archipelagos. As Hoton's Montrose neighborhood me to be intified as a "gayborhood" between 1960 and 1980, archival evince shows that cisg narrativ played a powerful role that intifitn.

GAYT PLAC IN CALIFORNIA FOR 2020

Rather, ntemporary popular culture, high art, lerature, pornography, and vernacular speech ntue to reproduce face-to-face cisg public as part of a globally available gay sexual vobulary and social practice. Through documentg the disparate works of people who me to meet on Hoton's cisg grounds—tentnal sex-seekers, crimals explog stigmas attached to gay sex, ambivalent law enforcement officials, area nizens, and perhaps ially naïve passersby—I argue that the social distributn of knowledge about cisg illtrat that queer terrori functned part bee some who do not intify as "queer" also imaged those terrori as nnected to queer liv.

Leve borrows four creria om the soclogists Robert Park and Louis Wirth to asss the stat of a "gay ghetto": stutnal ncentratn, culture area, social isolatn, and rintial ncentratn.

" That multiplicy of spac grounds his proposal "that we redirect the study of sexualy and space away om our preexistg assumptns of spatial sgulary—evced by a steady stream of publitns about dividual gay districts—toward a cultural archipelagos mol of spatial pluraly. Durg the twenty-year span centered on the 1969 Stonewall rts New York, cisg narrativ Hoton exhib a multiplicy of opns about a multiplicy of spac, even as public awarens of the Montrose neighborhood as "gay" solidified both lolly and natnally. Here, "tertg" served as for "gay"; the words "gay" and "homosexual" never appear the League's program, even though the drag event raised money to help those arrted raids on gay bars.

GAY POTS

Also, attendg only to bars and bs n skew our perceptn of queer space along class-flected l; profsnal middle-class and upper-class lbians and gays chewed the bar scene as dangero for some time, even as recently as the 1990s. In Hoton, that pattern stctured the Dianas, an almost exclively whe, upper-middle-class social anizatn of mostly gay men that origated 1953 as an Amy Awards watch party a private home. Mappg bar lotns sourced a mostly whe-oriented gay prs also elis Black, Indigeno, and other People of Color, along wh their specific works and practic.

See also William Michael Smh, "Lookg Back at Some of the Hurdl Hoton's Gay Communy Had to Overe (Part 1), " June 20, 2014, ; "Hoton's Earlit Gay scen (Part 2), " Hoton Prs, June 23, 2014, ; "'The Homosexual Playground of the South' (Part 3), " June 24, 2014,. Asi om a few bars that, while not tentnally or exclively gay, served as gatherg spac to those the know—the Rathskeller, the Old Vienna, the Capol Bar, Rex's27Sadly, Hoton cy directori om the 1930s and 1940s did not nfirm the addrs and lotns for the bars documented this article, so they are not clud on the map.

Gay works circulated parallel wh other works, but at least Van Allen's acunt, cisers would often move across the cy landspe to more private spac after meetg more public on. Take for example a May 23, 1963 letter a Hotonian sent to the natnally distributed gay homophile magaze ONE, 29ONE Magaze, ONE Archiv at the USC Librari, Los Angel, 2018,. Gay life Hoton seems relatively trouble-ee as nearly as I n tell om my somewhat aloof perch (I don't patronize bars or attend parti or socialize much).

GAYT PLAC IN ALASKA FOR 2020

Don't know of any other part of Hoton where gay life is ncentrated, though, except for a cheap theater downtown where the rough tra operat amazg quanty and ankns—but uld hardly ll that gay life!

He also seemed to see himself as livg that ncentrated part of town; he did not "know of any other part of Hoton where gay life is ncentrated" (emphasis me). Importantly, the wrer is also silent on the subject of race, a silence that suggts Jim Crow culture ntued to texture both "gay life" and "rough tra" the 1960s jt as had "wdow shoppg" the 1930s. More cur still is that The Nunti ran multiple stori 1971 about the Hoton Gay Liberatn Front picketg the Red Room (see map above for lotn) bee did not adm Black patrons.

I me across the rerds que by accint while lookg to substantiate historian Jam Sears' assertn that Welch and gay bar-owner Gee Hger knew each other. They also track claims of reciprol arson among rival gay bar owners, timidatn tactics among natnal pornography distributors vyg for ntrol of the Hoton market, and dividual members of Hoton's nascent Gay Liberatn Front. Actrs Liz Torr speaks out agast Ana Bryant's "Save Our Children" mpaign at a gay rights rally the parkg lot of The Deposory at 401 McGowen and Bagby, Hoton, Texas, June 16, 1977.

BUDAPTMENUHOTELSGUTHOON TODAYBARSDANCE CLUBSCISE CLUBSSNASMASSAGESHOPSTOURSBUDAPT IN PICTURCY GUIGAY MAPGAY GROUP

In an all too faiar rhetoril move forhadowg Ana Bryant's 1977 "Save Our Children" mpaign, Martson foced on protectg "youngsters" om the "crowd of homosexuals and perverts who roam the neighborhood night and day. Dpe wnsg two years of night and day homosexual prence, Martson apparently uld not image even late 1971 that his neighborhood might already be that part of town. The tails of Driskell's memo illtrate how Hoton police officers enacted the laws available to them as they unrstood them, while the cha of munitn self shows how closely the Mayor personally monored police actns regardg the gay muny.

For more about the impact of Ciao!, see Lus Hilrbrand, "A Suse Full of Vasele, or Travels the 1970s Gay World, " Journal of the History of Sexualy 22, no. Galloway reported that "area gay anizatns" llaborated wh the MCA to pass out flyers at street rners the Montrose Circu on Friday and Saturday nights, rmg potential cisers of the "movg of the historic cisg area" om Montrose to a "non-rintial, semi-isolated area nearer downtown" that would supposedly be "more nducive to cisg ndns, sce the roads are better and there is good lightg.

GAYT PLAC IN NORTH CAROLA FOR 2020

Jt a few months later, March 1976, Mel Plummer (former owner of Update Texas) wrote a lumn for The Nunti tled "Hoton Cise Circu Closed, " which he argu that the flyer mpaign failed bee the roads at the new lotn uld not handle the volume of r traffic, particularly durg the peak weekend hours for the nearby Farmhoe, a three-story gay bar on Albany. " Plummer's reportg also answered a cur gap Galloway's acunt: he specified the gay anizatns workg wh MCA as the Gay Polil Cc, the Metropolan Communy Church, and "other lol anizatns"—some of whom uld also have offered expert guidance on the move. Even as Plummer asserts that "most Gays have not found a new cise route, " he go on to observe that "many are returng to the old cise route before the days of Montrose.

The nouement of the Candy Man Murrs played out the same year the Amerin Psychologil Associatn removed s classifitn of homosexualy as a mental illns the Diagnostic and Statistil Manual. Such headl and biased language epen our unrstandg of why Plummer might specifilly ment on the "fair and unbiased reportg" regardg the no-turn signs and cisg; jt weeks before the no-turn signs went up, many Hotonians were imagg a murro, gay prostute Montrose.

In that ntext, battl over whether gay men uld or should claim Montrose as their cisg grounds have an unrstandable urgency, and not jt for cisg men ncerned about their own safety. 1974, "[t]he Mayor, orr to rce growg tensn arisg between straights and gays, immediately advised bar owners that he would not terfere wh bs so long as their patrons weren't a public nuisance. Cisg Montrose was steeped emotns and nflictg terts: straight-gay tensns, bs ncerns, rints' long-standg noise and traffic plats, and murro headl (none of which ever mentned race as a motivatg factor).