Between World Wars, Gay Culture Flourished In Berl : NPR

Contents:

• HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
• BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL
• RISE OF GAY DESIGNERS
• 1920S GAY CULTURE

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

By the mid-1920s, at the height of the Prohibn era, they were attractg as many as 7, 000 people of var rac and social class—gay, lbian, bisexual, transgenr and straight alike. The Begngs of a New Gay World“In the late 19th century, there was an creasgly visible prence of genr-non-nformg men who were engaged sexual relatnships wh other men major Amerin ci, ” says Chad Heap, a profsor of Amerin Studi at Gee Washgton Universy and the thor of Slummg: Sexual and Racial Enunters Amerin Nightlife, 1885-1940. By the 1920s, gay men had tablished a prence Harlem and the bohemian mec of Greenwich Village (as well as the seedier environs of Tim Square), and the cy’s first lbian enclav had appeared Harlem and the Village.

Each gay enclave, wrote Gee Chncey his book Gay New York: Genr, Urban Culture, and the Makg of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, had a different class and ethnic character, cultural style and public reputatn.

Gay Life the Jazz AgeAs the Uned Stat entered an era of unprecented enomic growth and prospery the years after World War I, cultural mor loosened and a new spir of sexual eedom reigned. Though New York Cy may have been the epicenter of the so-lled "Pansy Craze, " gay, lbian and transgenr performers graced the stag of nightspots ci all over the untry.

BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL

”At the same time, lbian and gay characters were beg featured a slew of popular “pulp” novels, songs and on Broadway stag (cludg the ntroversial 1926 play The Captive) and Hollywood—at least prr to 1934, when the motn picture dtry began enforcg censorship guil, known as the Hays Co. In the mid- to late ‘30s, Heap pots out, a wave of sensatnalized sex crim “provoked hysteria about sex crimals, who were often— the md of the public and the md of thori—equated wh gay men.

RISE OF GAY DESIGNERS

” By the post-World War II era, a larger cultural shift toward earlier marriage and suburban livg, the advent of TV and the anti-homosexualy csas champned by Joseph McCarthy would help ph the flowerg of gay culture reprented by the Pansy Craze firmly to the natn’s rear-view mirror. Durg the “Pansy Craze” om the 1920s until 1933, people the lbian, gay, bi, trans and queer (LGBTQ) muny were performg on stag ci around the world, and New York Cy’s Greenwich Village, Tim Square and Harlem held some of the most world-renowned drag performanc of the time.

All of this activy existed durg cultural time that, as historian Gee Chncey wr his book Gay New York, many people believe “is not supposed to have existed. In the ‘20s and early ‘30s, g out had to do wh makg a but to the gay and lbian world, and was rived om when wealthy women would “e out” formally to high society.

1920S GAY CULTURE

“They didn’t see a nflict between not beg openly gay at work and sort of only beg gay durg their leisure time, ” says Heap, addg that a person’s class was likely ditive of how you might participate gay and lbian culture at the time.

“The were moments when workg class gay men and women uld more eely explore their sexualy, sir, and terts cross drsg, but probably no doctor or lawyer is gog to drs up drag at the events, out of risk of beg exposed. Prohibn was repealed, and the New York State Liquor laws were updated to serve alhol only plac that were “orrly”, which didn’t apparently clu gay and lbian nightclubs. ” In the mid ‘30s, productn s were put to effect that rtricted and prevented performanc of openly gay characters film or theater, and the followg s, thoands of LGBTQ people were arrted post WWII for equentg their own clubs.

The lack of safety for gay men meant that secrecy was ccial, so the piercgs were a form of munitn that allowed them to regnize one another whout havg to out themselv.

11, 2013NEW YORK — It was lled “the love that dared not speak s name” when the artistic and flamboyant Osr Wil was vilified for his sexual persuasn at the end of the 19th long before the gay pri march, the pumped-up bodi on the streets of San Francis’s Castro district and same-sex marriage, homosexualy was absorbed to the language of the athetic ills worn to the so-lled “molly” clubs 19th-century London, through the flamboyant silken bathrobe of the playwright and poser Noël Coward to the lilac jacket of the Brish athete Bunny Roger and Liberace’s flamboyant folrals, men of a certa persuasn drsed to also were engaged the same athetic, like those who equented the notor lbian bars Paris the 1920s, or Marlene Dietrich her sexually ambivalent, mascule pantsus. Is a ground-breakg effort, explorg for the first time on mm terrory the fluence and origs of a subculture fed as LGBTQ — Lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer.

AIDS stck jt as the secrets were beg revealed and male bodi flexed provotively after the watershed moment the Uned Stat of the 1969 Stonewall rts, when drag queens and gays were still harassed by the exhibn starts wh 18th century stum for the foppish “molli” and “maronis” (cludg a morn pastiche of that look by Vivienne Wtwood) and ends wh his-and-his sus for a gay Dennis scrib AIDS, first regnized the early 1980s, as the ‘’breakg pot of show” and says that is important for younger people to know their retrospect, the early years seem nocent, even the flamboyance of Liberace’s silken srlet rob, or the lilac Bunny Roger jacket. Bowl, referrg to the Wil symbol durg the 19th-century athetic exhibn has a groupg of elegant outfs by gay signers om Cristóbal Balenciaga, through Pierre Balma, Christian Dr to Yv Sat Lrent, even though most of them did not “e out” at the Steele says that the curative duo has not “outed” those who have not publicly acknowledged their preference. The AIDS sectn is mostly a long le of T-shirts that eher rry activist ments or are prented as hazard warngs, as eedom the 1980s was stck by what was lled the gay “plague’ was no doubtg the sexual orientatn of the signers Jean Pl Gltier and Gianni Versace, both of whom have bold sectns the send half of the show.

In this area, foced on genr taboos, the exhibn looks not jt at the peack male, but on the sexual subculture of cloth for both sex: those inic Gltier ne-shaped bra tops and the Versace fetish hard, body-nsc piec seemed to fly a black leather flag over a world when sexual provotn and viatn had bee the display sounds tillatg rather than ede, is given pth the long scriptns and the multithor book wh the exhibn’s tle, g gay history scholars and published by Yale Universy display self is by the New York archect Joel Sanrs, thor of the 1996 book “Stud: Archectur of Masculy. Steele suggts, that homosexualy as a specific group only appeared after the slow breakdown of a fdal class system, when men at the apex of society thought natural to perate eher sex?

The exhibn clos, as was bound to do, wh a tradnal visn of gay marriage: all happy upl, openly uned, at last, morn fashn story ends not on a flamboyant but on an ordary note: a pair sus. A queer history of fashn | Dazed⬅️ Left Arrow*️⃣ Asterisk␠StarOptn Slirs✉️ MailExGay Pri 'Kgs and Queens 3', 1989Photograph by Joyce CulverFashn theorist Valerie Steele m the history of clothg through an LGBTQ lens.