Arts Programs - Gay Cy: Seattle's LGBTQ Center

Contents:

• ABOUT GAY CY
• SEATTLE'S LGBTQ+ CENTER (FORMERLY GAY CY)
• THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT AND THE CY OF SEATTLE DURG THE 1970S
• GAY CY CELEBRAT OVER 25 YEARS OF SERVG SEATTLE’S LGBTQ+ MUNY
• QUEEN CY COM OUT: EXPLORG SEATTLE'S LBIAN AND GAY HISTORY, BY THE NORTHWT LBIAN & GAY HISTORY MM PROJECT

ABOUT GAY CY

Transient male-male timacy was not necsarily labeled as gay or homosexual by ntemporari, but was stead seen as a threat to the ials of a heteronormative fay and Christian valu of Seattle’s moral guardians.

Although gay dividuals lived ral areas, ci provid opportuni for men and women to pe the supervisn of their fai and neighbors, allowg for the possibily of formg distct inti, muni, and cultur.

SEATTLE'S LGBTQ+ CENTER (FORMERLY GAY CY)

Bellotti then opened the Double Hear bar above the Caso Pool Hall 1934, believed to be the natn’s olst ntuoly operatg gay bar until s closure on December 31, 2015. While gay muni were already formg prr to the war, mass urbanizatn and dtrializatn durg World War II brought many people together the armed servic and fense dtri. Many men wh homosexual tennci met one another the service and went and out of major port ci that had visible and veloped gay subcultur, while women wh sexual tert othe women uld meet wartime factori.

THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT AND THE CY OF SEATTLE DURG THE 1970S

While not every tavern was genr-tegrated, gay men and lbians largely belonged to the same muny and uld feel fortable visg tablishments that might ter to the oppose sex, as they had durg the Great Deprsn.

Drag performanc quickly beme a central feature of the gay muny, first appearg vville performanc as early as 1898, when the natnally regnized female impersonator Edward Stewart performed a Seattle Theater productn of 1492.

GAY CY CELEBRAT OVER 25 YEARS OF SERVG SEATTLE’S LGBTQ+ MUNY

The Garn of Allah, a gay baret loted on First Avenue between Universy and Sene Streets that opened 1946, beme a central venue for drag performanc the postwar perd. This venue was the first gay-owned baret Seattle, and many of s visors were heterosexual tourists and ary servicemen who me to see s famed drag performers, cludg Skippy LaRue and Jewel Box Revue.

Durg the Lavenr Sre of the Cold War, the armed servic banned personnel om visg such venu, argug that homosexualy—and by associatn, drag—would place servicemen danger of beg blackmailed by munists. Gay bars Seattle were not raid or otherwise harassed by the police as often as they were most major ci wh a large gay prence, such as San Francis and New York. Wh the safety provid by the payoffs for patrons of gay spac, the number of gay bars creased dramatilly the 1960s Pneer’s Square and to the Central Bs District.

The wily accepted begng of the Gay Liberatn movement was late June 1969 when patrons of the Stonewall Inn New York Cy fought back agast a route police raid. Regardls, the Seattle gay muny quickly adopted Gay Liberatn: the philosophy that same-sex sexualy should be open and celebrated rather than hidn and persecuted. In a piic sponsored part by the group, atten were not allowed to wear drag, an ditn that the Dorian Society was tryg to move away om certa forms of gay cultural exprsn to achieve rpectabily the ey of hetersexual rints.

QUEEN CY COM OUT: EXPLORG SEATTLE'S LBIAN AND GAY HISTORY, BY THE NORTHWT LBIAN & GAY HISTORY MM PROJECT

Durg the era of the civil rights movement and Vietnam War (1960s-70s), Seattle’s gay activists and lobbyists were transformg Seattle to a cy creasgly tolerant of homosexualy.

Organizatns dited to gay pri clud the Unn of Sexual Mori, the Gay Women’s Alliance, the Seattle Counselg Service, the Gay Communy Center, Seattle’s chapter of the Gay Liberatn Front, Stonewall (a dg and alhol rehabilatn center), and the Lbian Rource Center. Along wh the feat of the Briggs Iniative California, which would have banned homosexuals om teachg, the were the first mocratic feats of antigay iativ that spng up begng 1977. Proponents of Iniative 13 argued that gays were not a mory group that required legal protectn like women, blacks, Latos, Asians, Native Amerins, and other ethnic and racial groups.

Dpe disagreements over polil msag and tactics between the first two anizatns and CRFE, gay activists feated SOME and Iniative 13 on November 7, 1978, wh Seattle voters rejectg the iative by a near two-to-one marg. Decryg “gay patriarchy, ” they sought their own separate enclav where women uld foc on issu that affected them particular, pecially rape and sexual harassment.

Some lbian and femist groups believed that separatism (livg, anizg, and socializg wh women only) was the answer to endg male domance, yet the Unn of Sexual Mori, a aln of gay men and women who shared anti-racist and anti-imperialist views, believed this approach to be shortsighted bee society is posed of both women and men. There were three ma Christian mps: those who believed gays were children of God, those who argued homosexuals uld—and should—change their sexualy through fah, and others who clared homosexualy was a s of the hight orr. While Pneer Square and First Avenue were the center of gay entertament, many gay rints moved to Capol Hill as post-World War II suburbanizatn attracted wealthy and upper middle class Capol Hill fai to the suburbs.

Several larger hom were subdivid to separate uns or beme munal hom habed by untercultural youth and gay “fai, ” a group of gay people livg together a tight-kn muny. The expansn of the Ain Amerin populatn the adjacent Central District durg and after World War II also ma the southern part of Capol Hill ls attractive to more well-to-do whe rints, drivg rents down and thereby makg the area more affordable for gay rints.

The Unn of Sexual Mori, which was active the mid-to-late 1970s, rried on the polics of the ealry gay liberatn movement, nnectg the opprsn of sexual mori wh other opprsed peopl. The Seattle Urban League, an Ain Amerin anizatn, leased space s buildg the Central District for the Gay Communy Center the late 1970s, and the Central District voted agast Iniative 13 at a higher rate than any other neighborhood Seattle 1978. The Gay Liberatn movement ma easier for middle-class men to intify as gay whout fear of discrimatn, pecially after the passage of Seattle’s employment and hog non-discrimatn ordanc.

Members sought to tablish a gay mercial district along Broadway on Capol Hill, though they never succeed creatg the kd of strip like San Francis’s Castro Street or Los Angel’s Santa Moni Boulevard.

The role gay bs played the enomic revery of the Capol Hill neighborhood the 1980s ma the GSBA and s members the neigborhood wele players neighborhood polics. The Pike/Pe Corridor, borrg Capol Hill and the Central District was a particularly ntent area which the growth of the gay muny me to direct ntact wh the historil center of Ain Amerin life Seattle. As enonic velopment and mographic growth phed racial and ethnic mori south, social divisns emerged among former rints and the gay muny, perceived as whe and middle-class.

The Pike/Pe Planng Study, which brought together varoi anizatns and fancial support om the Cy of Seattle’s Neighborhood Matchg Fund to study the velopment of the Pike/Pe Corridor, clus the gay muny as belongg to the area while ignorg the historil prence of Ain Amerins.