Neighborhoods that emerged as havens for gay Californians are now feelg the effects of risg home pric and shiftg cultural norms.
Contents:
- JT HOW GAY IS WT HOLLYWOOD?
- UNRSTANDG LOS ANGEL (AND WT HOLLYWOOD) GAY HISTORY: CONTUY AND DISNTUY
- GENTRIFITN IS CHANGG CALIFORNIA’S INIC GAY MUNI
- GAYT PLAC IN CALIFORNIA FOR 2020
- IS GENTRIFITN MAKG WT HOLLYWOOD LS GAY?
JT HOW GAY IS WT HOLLYWOOD?
* west hollywood gay population *
Wt Hollywood had more unmarried gay male upl by far than Santa Moni (which had over 150 of them), Beverly Hills (ls than 50), and Culver Cy (ls than 50). Based on the rough timat, only Palm Sprgs, San Francis’s the Castro, and part of San Diego had more married gay upl than Wt Hollywood and the adjacent areas.
LA Pri, one of the natn’s olst and largt LGBTQ pri celebratns, is leavg Wt Hollywood after more than four s the inic gay-iendly a letter to the Wt Hollywood Cy Council on Tuday, Christopher Street Wt, the nonprof that produc LA Pri, says the annual para and ftival will be moved om the cy 2021. ”“Wh s high ncentratn of LGBTQ rints and bs — more than 40% of rints Wt Hollywood intify as LGBTQ and three of the five members of the Wt Hollywood Cy Council are openly gay — the Cy of Wt Hollywood remas the heart of the regn’s LGBTQ muny, ” the cy’s statement reads. WeHo Pri 2019, on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebelln, the very reason for Pri’s existence, pletely ignored that earth-shakg event, pretendg like had never LA LGBT Center’s attempted 2019 to falsely rewre s early history and rrectly ced 1969 as the date for s 50th anniversary celebratn even though 1971 was the date ed to memorate s 25th Archiv refed to operate an attempt to provi a venue to asss the impact of Stonewall on the velopment of the Los Angel gay vic 1967 LAPD raid on the Black Cat, a Silver Lake gay bar, and s aftermath is skewed today to the pot of misreprentatn, and there are other exampl.
To honor the seven men—Harry Hay, Bob Hull, Chuck Rowland, Rudi Gernreich, Dale Jenngs, Jam Gber, Konrad Stevens—who rpond to Hay’s origal ll for a homosexual anizatn that 1951 beme the Mattache Society, named after the masked mattachi urt jters of medieval Europe thought by Hay to be largely homosexual men. Until the 1969 Stonewall Rebelln, protective super-paranoia based on dividual safety and survival om hetero supremacists’ vlence and physil and psychologil genoci characterized homosexual realy. History, homosexuals intified themselv as an opprsed mory group, affirmed that there was such a thg as a homosexual culture, implied, but never actualized, llective polil actn, and anized succsful, but secret, discsn groups entirely by word of mouth.
UNRSTANDG LOS ANGEL (AND WT HOLLYWOOD) GAY HISTORY: CONTUY AND DISNTUY
Even the heart of Boystown, gay-oriented bs are shuttg their doors as home pric rise and the neighborhood chang. * west hollywood gay population *
In a pneerg and remarkable manner at that time, homosexuals began to dialogue wh each other about their opprsn as they experienced —often cel and adly. (a name rived om Thomas Carlyle’s “A mystic bond of brotherhood mak all men one”) replaced Mattache and started g the scriptive term “homophile” (lover of man or same), importantly broang inty om a solely sexual fn to also clu relatnship.
GENTRIFITN IS CHANGG CALIFORNIA’S INIC GAY MUNI
Beg Asian Amerin and LGBTQ+ n feel lonely, wh stutns such as ethnic church often disavowg non-heterosexual relatnships while tradnal LGBTQ+ spac such as gay bars n be unwelg. * west hollywood gay population *
As Mattache had started homosexuals talkg to each other about their opprsn, albe secretly, the Homophile era was important that, through s pneerg publitns, the wrten word also me out of the closet for the first time. For them, assiatn meant homosexuals need to adjt to the domance of heterosexual culture, stutns, and social norms, which they believed would lead to social acceptance. Addnal fg characteristics of the Homophile era clud nyg that a homosexual culture existed, law reform was a panacea, advot for social acceptance for homophil should not be homophil themselv but hetero profsnals (misters, attorneys, psychologists and psychiatrists), and, for safety purpos, psdonyms were wily ed to shield real inti.
The bt acunt of the Mattache and Homophile perds is gay historian John D’E’s “Sexual Polics, Sexual Communi: The Makg of a Homosexual Mory the Uned Stat, 1940-1970. D’E, lookg back over the attempted erasure of Mattache and the ascenncy of the Homophile effort, wr, “In sum, acmodatn to social norms replaced the affirmatn of a distctive gay inty, llective effort gave way to dividual actn, and nfince the abily of gay men and lbians to terpret their own experience yield to the wisdom of the experts.
On June 28, 1969, at a Mafia-owned dive New York Cy, a global social revolutn of major proportns was lnched, and the liv and well-beg of gay and lbian people the U. It is important to unrstand historilly that New York Cy, Los Angel, San Francis and elsewhere the seeds and spiratn for the early Gay Liberatn revolutn did not e om eher the Mattache or the Homophile efforts, whose history most people were unaware of, even many members of the Gay Liberatn Front of Los Angel (GLF), whose cy that history rid. Gay Liberatn was seed largely by the spiratn of and molg by the bravery of lunch unter s-s by black llege stunts, water hos and the ant black civil rights movement, the -your-face anti-Vietnam War protters, early femist thought and actn, and the righteons and zeal of numero other social jtice/social change movements.
GAYT PLAC IN CALIFORNIA FOR 2020
Before Stonewall, many gay and lbian people were actively engaged a myriad of progrsive social change efforts, sometim learship posns, but the closet due to the vilent and stutnalized hetero supremacy progrsive circl and society general. After Stonewall, a handful of those activists--other-, like 28-year old me, began to see our own personal fight for eedom as a gay person as well as the Gay Liberatn movement self as an sential part of the social revolutn occurrg around . The word “gay, ” a mid-20th century -word creasgly ed by hip folk that was gay-rived and to which a new gay-fed and gay-fiant inty uld be poured, was married to the word “liberatn.
In Los Angel and throughout the untry durg the Gay Liberatn perd, actualizg self-rpect replaced the urtg of acceptance by the rpectabily agenda of the Homophile perd. A Homophile emancipatn md-set (heteros will give our eedom and accept if we behave and act jt like them) was supersed by a liberatn iology and a grassroots, radil prott movement (gay and lbian people will une llectively and antly ee ourselv).
IS GENTRIFITN MAKG WT HOLLYWOOD LS GAY?
A., GLF, the central anizg enty facilatg the Gay Liberatn movement here, fought back agast hetero supremacy wh direct nontatnal polil actn and a fierce unwillgns to promise on anythg impactg the eedom and well-beg of gay and lbian people. Gay Liberatn was engaged somethg much larger than dividual selv—the liberatn of a people—and those volved were transformed by the procs and transformed others.
After a year and a half of dac monstratns and nontatns, 1971 GLF’s Gay Survival Commtee morphed to the Gay Communy Servic Center (now lled the LA LGBT Center) around which an anized, visible and polilly proactive gay muny alced where none had ever existed before. A., Gay Liberatn also supported and allied self wh other ant, muny-based efforts (black, latx, Asian, first natn, poor, civil rights, anti-war) that supported .
Om psychologil exile New Mexi and 1979 lerally moved him back—the Mattache and Gay Liberatn historilly uned -creatg another leap forward gay-centered nscns, the Radil Faeri.