A History of 'Gay' and Other Queerwords

Contents:

• HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
• THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• GAY RIGHTS
• BEG GAY THE THIRTI (GAY LIFE)
• THE HISTORY OF THE WORD 'GAY' AND OTHER QUEERWORDS

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

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.

”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. ” 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.

THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY

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. “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.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

“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. ” 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.

Image ptn, Claire Pickerg Wakefield library imag the diary wrer speakg a Yorkshire accentA diary wrten by a Yorkshire farmer more than 200 years ago is beg hailed as providg remarkable evince of tolerance towards homosexualy Bra much earlier than prevly imaged. Historians om Oxford Universy have been taken aback to disver that Matthew Tomlson's diary om 1810 ntas such open-md views about same-sex attractn beg a "natural" human diary challeng prenceptns about what "ordary people" thought about homosexualy - showg there was a bate about whether someone really should be discrimated agast for their sexualy. "In this excg new disvery, we see a Yorkshire farmer argug that homosexualy is nate and somethg that shouldn't be punished by ath, " says Oxford rearcher Eamonn O' ptn, The diari were handwrten by Tomlson the farmhoe where he lived and workedThe historian had been examg Tomlson's handwrten diari, which have been stored Wakefield Library sce the thoands of pag of the private journals have never been transcribed and prevly ed by rearchers terted Tomlson's eye-wns acunts of electns Yorkshire and the Ludd smashg up O'Keeffe me across what seemed, for the era of Gee III, to be a rather startlg set of arguments about same-sex relatnships.

GAY RIGHTS

Tomlson had been prompted by what had been a big sex sndal of the day - which a well-rpected naval surgeon had been found to be engagg homosexual ptn, Historian Eamonn O'Keeffe says the diari provi a rare sight to the views of "ordary people" the early 1800sA urt martial had orred him to be hanged - but Tomlson seemed unnvced by the cisn, qutng whether what the papers lled an "unnatural act" was really that unnatural. "It mt seem strange ed that God Almighty should make a beg wh such a nature, or such a fect nature; and at the same time make a cree that if that beg whom he had formed, should at any time follow the dictat of that Nature, wh which he was formed, he should be punished wh ath, " he wrote on January 14 there was an "clatn and propensy" for someone to be homosexual om an early age, he wrote, " mt then be nsired as natural, otherwise as a fect nature - and if natural, or a fect nature; seems cel to punish that fect wh ath" diarist mak reference to beg rmed by others that homosexualy is apparent om an early age - suggtg that Tomlson and his social circle had been talkg about this se and discsg somethg that was not unknown to this time, and also Wt Yorkshire, a lol landowner, Anne Lister, was wrg a d diary about her lbian relatnships - wh her story told the televisn seri, Gentleman knowg what "ordary people" really thought about such behavur is always difficult - not least bee the loust survivg voic are ually the wealthy and has exced amics is the chance to eavdrop on an everyday farmer thkg aloud his source, Getty ImagImage ptn, Tomlson was appalled by the levels of rptn durg electns"What's strikg is that he's an ordary guy, he's not a member of the bohemian circl or an tellectual, " says O'Keeffe, a doctoral stunt Oxford's history acceptance of homosexualy might have been exprsed privately aristocratic or philosophilly radil circl - but this was beg discsed by a ral worker. O'Keeffe says shows ias were "perlatg through Brish society much earlier and more wily than we'd expect" - wh the diary workg through the bat that Tomlson might have been havg wh his the were still far om morn liberal views - and O'Keeffe says they n be extremely "jarrg" someone was homosexual by choice, rather than by nature, Tomlson was ready to nsir that they should still be punished - proposg stratn as a more morate optn than the ath ptn, Tomlson's former home was still there the 1930s (bottom left), but has sce disappeared beneath hog and a golf urseO'Keeffe says disverg evince of the kds of bate has both "enriched and plited" what we know about public opn this pre-Victorian diary is raisg ternatnal Fara Dabhoiwala, om Prceton Universy the US, an expert the history of attus towards sexualy, scrib as "vivid proof" that "historil attus to same-sex behavur uld be more sympathetic than is ually prumed".

Instead of seeg homosexualy as a "horrible perversn", Prof Dabholwala says the rerd showed a farmer 1810 uld see as a "natural, dively ordaed human qualy" Norton, an expert gay history, said there had been earlier arguments fendg homosexualy as natural - but the were more likely to be om philosophers than farmers.

Number of LGBT-related laws changed over time1900s1910s1920s1930s1940s1950s1960s1970s1980s1990s2000s2010s2020s1939September 1Homosexual activy be illegal (ath penalty as punishment) people were persecuted by Nazi forc durg the German occupatn of the Send World War. 1930Augt 1Servg openly ary be don't ask, don't laws rtrictg or crimalizg lgbt hog discrimatn be no employment discrimatn be no protectnsLGBT discrimatn be no homosexualy is currently illegal, discrimatn agast LGBT persons are legal. Fally, 1936 SS lear and Chief of the German Police Herich Himmler tablished the Reich Central Office for the Combatg of Homosexualy and Abortn (Reichszentrale zur Bekämpfung r Homosexualät und r Abtreibung).

BEG GAY THE THIRTI (GAY LIFE)

For a brief time the late 1920s and early 1930s, siar scen unfold up and down the cy, as a relatively open gay culture thrived Chigo, wh gay barets and nightclubs proliferatg throughout the Near North and South sis. The historian Chad Heap has noted that the flowerg of gay life at that time vered much of the cy's ethnic landspe: "Ain Amerin drag entertaers performed for racially mixed dienc at some of the South Si's most famo ‘black and tan' [barets]. " The so-lled Bughoe Square ont of the Newberry Library was such a well-known pickup spot that the Chigo Gray Le Sightseeg Company clud on s Chigo-By-Night tour, advertisg the promise of "the unual, strange and different" "gay night life.

"Massive wav of immigrants om Europe and the Amerin South were arrivg Amerin ci so that whe middle-class urban beme fascated wh explorg the new muni takg place their midst, whether immigrant, bohemian, black, or gay. In his celebrated book Gay New York: Genr, Urban Culture, and the Makg of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, Profsor Chncey showed that until the 1930s, workg-class men engaged sex wh other men whout feelg that they were abnormal. My own vtigatn to Chigo's gay history began a roundabout way, when I started rearchg a book on Allerton Garn, a botanil masterpiece on the Hawaiian island of Kai found by a Chigoan, Robert Allerton, and his lover, John Gregg Allerton.

By the time the Pansy Craze was over, "most people began thkg of themselv as eher hetero- or homosexual, while a century ago people did not thk of themselv or anize their emotnal liv through those tegori, " says the historian Chad Heap.

THE HISTORY OF THE WORD 'GAY' AND OTHER QUEERWORDS

At the first Gay Liberatn March New York Cy June 1970, one of the anizers stated that “we’ll never have the eedom and civil rights we serve as human begs unls we stop hidg closets and the shelter of anonymy. For stance, 1978, his mpaign to feat a California iative that would have banned gay teachers om workg state public schools, openly gay elected ernment official Harvey Milk urged people to “Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are. As ttimony of this shift, today, marriage equaly is the law of the land, the popular TV edy “Morn Fay” featur a gay uple and one of the leadg ndidat for the Democratic printial ticket, Pete Buttigieg, is a gay man.

But more often, is left to satiable rearchers like Dose, followg a trail of microspic ’s no shortage of memorable moments this le of tective work, says Dose, an affable 72-year-old wh a shock of whe hair who has dited his life to unearthg the roots of the gay liberatn movement: There was the meetg wh the refed elrly dghter of a physician who worked wh Hirschfeld, who, after ffee and ke, prented Dose wh a box of antique Japane sex toys. ” There was the fortuo meetg wh the stute’s hoekeeper, who scribed her tenure as the happit time of her life, and regaled them wh tal of gettg a massive Indonian stone phall statue through German 1897, Hirschfeld helped found the Scientific Humanarian Commtee, partially outraged rponse to the trial of thor Osr Wil, two years earlier England, on 25 charg of “gross cency” related to his homosexual relatnships. Among them was a small group, cludg Dose, who brought forth the Magn Hirschfeld 1982, Germany was preparg to mark 50 years sce the Nazi takeover, and young gay rights activists cludg Dose hoped to shed light on LGBTQ persecutn and activism.

But the Nazis’ seized holdgs had first been distributed to other librari, and then redistributed by Brish and Amerin forc, stterg the books across Europe’s cultural tl they’ve unvered so far clu the 1904 The women's clothg and s natural velopment (found Berl), a 1920 py of Three Essays on the Theory of Sexualy by Sigmund Frd (found Prague), and Va homosexualis, a 1902 llectn by gay activist Augt Fleischmann (found a Polish bookstore wh a note sayg had been slated for stctn 1933). Only one filled- py has been found, the Berl State Library, but an timated 40, 000 were once held at the stute for rearch gay liberatnAs he pieced together the fdgs, Dose realized how much broar Hirschfeld’s foc was than gay liberatn. Army service World War I, Gerber was spired to create his anizatn by the Scientific-Humanarian Commtee, a “homosexual emancipatn” group ’s small group published a few issu of s newsletter “Friendship and Freedom, ” the untry’s first gay-tert newsletter.

Ernment signated Gerber’s Chigo hoe a Natnal Historic Pk TriangleCorbis/Getty ImagHomosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, gay rights movement stagnated for the next few s, though LGBT dividuals around the world did e to the spotlight a few example, English poet and thor Radclyffe Hall stirred up ntroversy 1928 when she published her lbian-themed novel, The Well of Lonels.

Addnally, 1948, his book Sexual Behavr the Human Male, Aled Ksey proposed that male sexual orientatn li on a ntuum between exclively homosexual to exclively Homophile Years In 1950, Harry Hay found the Mattache Foundatn, one of the natn’s first gay rights group.