In the Gay Wg of L.A. Men's Central Jail, It's Not Shanks and Mugggs But Hand-Sewn Gowns and Tears - LA Weekly

Contents:

• 10 THGS I LEARNED AS A GAY PRISONER BEHD BARS
• 'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
• IN THE GAY WG OF L.A. MEN'S CENTRAL JAIL, IT'S NOT SHANKS AND MUGGGS BUT HAND-SEWN GOWNS AND TEARS
• GAY BAR, MEET COCKTAIL BAR
• GAY BEHD BARS
• THE HISTORY OF HOW GAY BARS BEME THE BATTLEGROUND FOR LGBTQ+ RIGHTS
• HOW GAY BARS HAVE BEEN A BUILDG BLOCK OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNY
• THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI
• BOY BEHD BARS: THE GAY PRINT OF THE STOP PRISONER RAPE HUMAN RIGHTS LOBBY BAR HIS SOUL A REMARKABLE NEW MEMOIR REUNTG HIS FOUR YEARS PRISON--BEGNG AT AGE 17.

10 THGS I LEARNED AS A GAY PRISONER BEHD BARS

Atherton L's book starts off a crowd room a gay bar where he's gone cisg wh his partner, whom he refers to throughout the book wh the Leonard Cohen-spired nickname Famo Blue Raat. He wr betifully about his llege days Los Angel, where he went to his first one, though he n't rell the name, wryly notg, "Of urse I n't remember my first gay bar — I was dnk.

'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE

" That history clus the famo 1969 uprisg at the Stonewall Inn New York, but Atherton L also div to other, lser-known bars, cludg on that endured police raids meant to put gay people their place. " Atherton L explor topics like archecture and urban geography, as they relate to gay bars, betifully; he wr wh a real knowledge that's more than jt tellectual dilettantism. About the changg looks of bars before the turn of the century, he observ, "A new type of gay bar began to appear London's Soho the neti — airy, glossy, ntental.

" Along the way, Atherton L dips to other topics related to the gay muny: the appropriatn of gay culture by straight people, mic, drkg, and the valu of the younger generatn of LGBTQ people.

IN THE GAY WG OF L.A. MEN'S CENTRAL JAIL, IT'S NOT SHANKS AND MUGGGS BUT HAND-SEWN GOWNS AND TEARS

And while succeeds on many levels, perhaps the most remarkable one is Atherton L's nstant qutng of himself, and the realizatns of how he's changed sce he walked to his first gay bar years ago: "Maybe, I thought, I'm a dis ball.

Williams, a transgenr mate known on the si as Yah Yah, glis past a hootg and hollerg crowd of her fellow gay and transgenr mat, perched atop their beds for a prime view. Dunn Roy, a gay Brish film producer who was held K6G for 89 days whout bail 2012, unr ex–Sheriff Lee Ba’s ntroversial terpretatn of “immigratn holds, ” rells, “In other parts of the jail, you try and smuggle dgs and cigarett. Nothg like exists Ameri’s 21 largt urban jails, all ntacted by the Weekly, where officials scribed far more most terms their own steps to al wh and hoe gay mat.

GAY BAR, MEET COCKTAIL BAR

” The clost thg to a gay wg another big, urban jail system, though isn’t close at all, is at the Old Wayne County Jail Detro, which offers a small number of locked cells to gay and transgenr mat.

GAY BEHD BARS

David Arrieta, one gay mate given permissn to speak to the Weekly and be viotaped si the gay wg, explas, “Beg a Hoe Moe [the heterosexual si of Men’s Central Jail], you are nsired a rat, whereas K6G you are nsired a fairy. When mat are first assigned to a gay dorm, they are immediately stripped of their general-populatn, dark blue jail uniforms and given the powr-blue uniforms that signify they are gay or transgenr.

It might almost appear, to an outsir, as if MCJ’s gay and transsexual mat are gently mockg society’s expectatns of how crimals are supposed to act when nfed behd bars for long perds of time.

Alexanr Lara, wrg the Southern California Interdisciplary Law Journal, reported that a 2007 study of California mat showed 5 percent of straight men were victims of sexual asslt cludg rape, while “an astonishg” 67 percent of gay, bisexual and transgenr mat were.

THE HISTORY OF HOW GAY BARS BEME THE BATTLEGROUND FOR LGBTQ+ RIGHTS

… Inmat were able to report thgs such as ‘Hey, there is a predator here, ’ or ‘There is a puty on the floor g homophobic language, ’ or ‘Someone threatened me. A Hoe Moe another gay dorm, Rub, explas that his role is to ensure that mat follow puti’ l, such as quietly lyg down on their beds, facg the aisleway and fully drsed their blu, “out of rpect” when the puti brg their meals.

Such ntrasts between the gay wg and far more vlent general populatn help expla why, at least part, que a few straight arrte and nvicts try to talk their way si K6G.

HOW GAY BARS HAVE BEEN A BUILDG BLOCK OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNY

Machado believ straight men, fearful of gang reprisal the unpredictable general populatn, are seekg add secury when they try to talk their way to the gay wg.

THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI

Durg his time si, he says, he found that only two kds of guys tried to get onto the gay wg — boyiends who got released om K6G and were purposely re-arrted to be rned wh their partners, and “trans chasers, ” or straight mat who want to sleep wh and be served by transsexual women. Exte suggts, for example, that the jailers’ qutns are based upon stereotypil views of gay and transgenr life, and fail to acknowledge that some GBT men headg behd bars are not party-oriented or culturally up to date, and they simply don’t know the right answers.

“A jail is a jail — ’s a vlent, and sperate, and ld and miserable place, ” says Roy, who mced no words claimg that Sheriff’s puti openly mistreated mat while he served his time the gay wg.

Another ntributg factor to aggrsn the gay wg, Roy says, may be that many of the trans women are takg hormon to grow or enlarge their breasts or rce their facial hair or mcl, or they have been nied hormon that they were prcribed prr to rceratn and are experiencg whdrawal symptoms. “Beg homosexual and fdg acceptance our society is challengg, and there’s still a lot of stgglg ahead of , and as a rult we hi or mask a lot of our pa dg e, ” he says. Upg happengs clu the return of DV8’s Big Gay Wet and Wild event June, a fundraiser that rallied funds last year for Out Boulr County, and a Halloween party July featurg Dirty Circ, a seven-year anniversary bash that will rporate fire and flow and aerial shows and other performanc.

BOY BEHD BARS: THE GAY PRINT OF THE STOP PRISONER RAPE HUMAN RIGHTS LOBBY BAR HIS SOUL A REMARKABLE NEW MEMOIR REUNTG HIS FOUR YEARS PRISON--BEGNG AT AGE 17.

In a 2009 article for queer publitn Between the L, wrer Camper English laments the lack of “uture cktails” at gay tablishments, potg to the stereotype that “we’re supposed to be trendy people. ” Havg vered cktail culture sce 2006, English believ drks programs at gay bars have remaed remarkably static as the bar and rtrant dtry have drastilly evolved.

“It dawned on me that none of the gay bars were movg the same directn as other bars — they were jt dog the same old flavored vodka drks, most whout h juic or even drk men, ” English tells VePair. While the mixology movement has brought well-ma Manhattans and Mojos to hotel bars, cise ship bars, piano bars, mic ftival bars, and, hell, even airplane bars, 20 years after the cktail revolutn lnched NYC, gay bars are one of the last plac Ameri you n’t always fd a good drk.

“We thk of cktail bars as a place to go and have a curated experience, ” says Alex Negranza, a gay bartenr and director of operatns at Tongue-Cut Sparrow and The Pastry War Hoton. Much has changed, and ntu to change, sce bars like San Francis’s Black Cat and New York’s Stonewall opened unrserved neighborhoods to provi refuge to gay muni the 1950s. ” Acrdg to the latt studi om Pntial and the Harvard Bs Review, the average queer Amerin — albe mostly cis whe gay mal — now earns as much if not more than their straight unterparts.