The Gay Metropolis review: if we n survive Aids, we n survive Tmp | LGBTQ+ rights | The Guardian

Contents:

• THE GAY METROPOLIS
• READ MORE OM THE GAY METROPOLIS AND CHARL KAISER:
• GAY METROPOLIS (MASSAC COUNTY, ILLOIS)
• THE GAY METROPOLIS, 1940-1996
• THE GAY METROPOLIS REVIEW: IF WE N SURVIVE AIDS, WE N SURVIVE TMP
• MAKG ROOM FOR ALTERNATIV : CLUBS: METROPOLIS IRVE OFFERS GAYS AN UPSLE, CLASSY PLACE TO PARTY ON SUNDAYS.

THE GAY METROPOLIS

At twelve Bigelow was already havg sex wh his classmat, but they didn’t thk their pastime had anythg to do wh beg “gay” or “homosexual, ” words that they had never heard spoken. And que quickly Gordon cid that he was “very to not beg gay, ” Bigelow relled. Three s later, Merrick wrote The Lord Won’t Md, one of the first gay novels to bee a bt-seller the seventi, and he moled one of s betiful young men after Bigelow.

Bigelow would never be as famo as his roommat, but among gay men New York he was a legend: a great many nsired him the bt-lookg man Manhattan. Bigelow socialized wh a group of gay men whom his ntemporary, the playwright Arthur Lrents, rid as “the silver and cha queens.

READ MORE OM THE GAY METROPOLIS AND CHARL KAISER:

” Lrents scribed the gentlemen as “a class of gay om way back that was always as right-wg as possible, out of a sperate sire to belong.

The nooks and shadows created by this shaft down the center of the avenue played a signifint role gay life New York before the war: they offered a multu of discreetly darkened meetg plac right the heart of the metropolis. And even though he ntued to believe that he was sted to marry a woman, he led a very gay Manhattan life.

After he enrolled Haton College, he fally nfid a sympathetic an, who he thought was probably gay.

GAY METROPOLIS (MASSAC COUNTY, ILLOIS)

The photographer was forty-two when Bigelow met him, and he kept himself f wh regular viss to the gym—a ctom that would bee almost universal among a certa class of gay men three s later. “The landmark portra of 20th-century New York viewed through the ey of gay New Yorkers … Mr. Kaiser guis through the amazg chang gay life at the dawn of the new lennium.

“Updated and featurg a new troductn, Charl Kaiser’s landmark book The Gay Metropolis, featurg the addnal subtle ‘50 Years After Stonewall, ’ is even more sential readg than ever.

THE GAY METROPOLIS, 1940-1996

A New York Tim Notable Book of the Year and wner of a Lambda Lerary Award, The Gay Metropolis is a saga of stggle and triumph that was stantly regnized as one of the most thorative works of s kd. Now, for the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Rts, Charl Kaiser brgs this -by- acunt of the rise and acceptance of gay life and inty sce 1940 to the twenty-first century.

In a new fal chapter for this edn, “The Twenty-First Century, ” he draws a le om Queer as Folk to Moonlight, each wh new ntext as their succs is amed by a reuntg of Jtice Anthony Kennedy’s fal landmark gay rights cisns, Uned Stat v. If the police raid on the Stonewall Inn had happened earlier, probably would have been stantly fotten, like so many other attacks on surrept gay meetg plac. “In the 1950s there were approximately three openly gay public figur Ameri: Jam Baldw, Allen Gsberg and sort of Gore Vidal — although he never scribed himself as gay, ” Kaiser says.

THE GAY METROPOLIS REVIEW: IF WE N SURVIVE AIDS, WE N SURVIVE TMP

“But there were no openly gay people really any profsn to seek out before the 1970s.

In the early morng of June 28, 1969, New York Cy police raid the Stonewall Inn Greenwich Village as part of systematic crackdown on the few tablishments terg to openly gay ctomers.

MAKG ROOM FOR ALTERNATIV : CLUBS: METROPOLIS IRVE OFFERS GAYS AN UPSLE, CLASSY PLACE TO PARTY ON SUNDAYS.

The raid sparked a vlent backlash and monstratns that me to be lled the Stonewall rts, which marked the begng of the gay liberatn movement of the 1960s-’80s and the morn fight for LGBT rights the U. Wh a year of the rts, gay pri march took place New York, Los Angel and San Francis. “It was my great good fortune to e out as a gay man 1970, the year after the Stonewall Rts began the gay liberatn movement.