A soclogist spent two years terviewg gay gang members. While some were the closet and others were openly gay, all were forced to reckon wh an environment of hypermasculy.
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YOUNG, GAY AND LIVG ON THE STREET: LGBT YOUTH FACE CREASED ODDS OF HOMELSNS
Over the urse of the early 20th century, was a safe haven for New York's LGBTQ muny and home to events—cludg the Stonewall Inn protts—that would bee flash pots for the mastreamg of the gay rights movement all across the remas to this day an important symbol of LGBTQ life New York (photographs of the sign at s tersectn wh Gay Street are tourist souvenir shop stapl), even though 's now more populated wh luxury shops and extravagant gyms than the nightlife hotspots that was once famo for. At this time gay bars were still not openly operatg, but the way the thory wrote s l meant they would later bee the unexpected llateral damage of the legislatn. While the thory did not directly ce gay bars any of s extensive regulatns, police will go on to terpret a le agast nng a "disorrly" tablishment to mean venu equented by gay people.
And so gay bars (and also servg gay people any bar) beme, practice, Mafia se a bs opportuny here. Pretty soon, the Fay will have ntrol over majory of the gay nightlife the Village, a monopoly that will ntue ep to the 1960s.
For many gay and lbians livg WWII Ameri, their sexual inti were relatively tolerated. A need for as many drafts as possible after Pearl Harbor meant that when gay people enlisted the army, they weren't turned away. Durg this time, the FBI matas a list of gay Amerins, who will subsequently be targeted by police for an array of illegal activi, cludg habatn and kissg the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, many queer people of lor had been leadg a (relatively) open life the north Manhattan neighborhood—as celebrated gay artist Bce Nugent put : "Nobody was the closet.