The men are acced of agreeg to have sex a park wh other men — who were actually unrver puti. Experts and advot say rells an era of anti-gay policg.
Contents:
- THE FIRST GAY PUB I DARED SET FOOT NOW HAS A RABOW PLAQUE. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS
- HILLSBOROUGH’S SHERIFF PUBLICIZED A SEX STG. DID TARGET GAY MEN?
- GAY PARKS NEAR ME
THE FIRST GAY PUB I DARED SET FOOT NOW HAS A RABOW PLAQUE. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS
* gay park in tampa *
Frankly, I’d have served a prison jt for him to hold my hand, like he did his off-whe Vxhall Nova on the drive there, breakg only to change, he took me for strawberry cir the Gloucter, a pub at the park’s edge, takg my tremblg hand his and reassurg me: “It’s actually a gay bar. Gay pubs are far more than bars; they’re refug. On Sunday, the first a new seri of rabow plaqu will be stalled at the Gloucter – now the Greenwich Tavern – cementg s place gay home the workg-class Medway area of Kent, where we met when he sold me a phone cred rd at the lol petrol statn, “queers” like were wily perceived as predatory, perverted, spic or simply scum.
”After the strawberry cir, served by a man a tight whe vt – the only other gay man I’d seen real life – the squiggly summer sunlight ma a strobe effect through the park’s tre.
HILLSBOROUGH’S SHERIFF PUBLICIZED A SEX STG. DID TARGET GAY MEN?
Lookg for LGBTQ-iendly neighborhoods Tampa? Our gui vers all the ma attractns Tampa Bay’s most gay-iendly areas. * gay park in tampa *
The first time I saw wh him, when I was 18, I realised he had echoed the love story of the two protagonists, who also had their first kiss the twilight of Greenwich Park’s tre, and their first experience of a gay pub at the Gloucter. The explanatn for his obssn is now clear: there was such a pcy of same-sex love stori that this was the first time many young people had seen a same-sex kiss, or peeked si an actual gay bar after dark.
The project remds people “that we have always been here, good tim and bad, ” David Robson of the London LGBT+ Foms’ Network said when the plaqu were film and my own story were workg-class gay love: not dandyish and sheltered by the polse of privilege, but the btal realy of beg perceived a non-mascule boy. It was a powerful and rarely told tersectn – and one that, even more rarely, ends rather happily, wh a betiful scene of fiance and acceptance played to a Mama Cass waltz on the sk I disvered that I wasn’t the only wi-eyed baby gay my boyiend had been chasg through those ancient chtnuts that summer.
For me, the plaque honours that private moment as well as the shared history of the LGBTQ+ ’s the msage I’d impart to anyone who thks such symbols are meangls, as the unique social history of the UK’s gay bars is endangered by gentrifitn, hook-up apps, the st of livg crisis and even assiatn. Like many workg-class, closeted gay boys, I’d hi unr the glovebox of my boyiend’s Nova when we drove back om the park, lt anyone saw.
GAY PARKS NEAR ME
It whispered to ckney-accented gay boys like me: there are others like you. Was the Sheriff’s Office crimalizg gay sex? Crics ask if the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office is crimalizg gay sex.
[ Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office]Sheriff’s spokwoman Crystal Clark fend the operatn as way of protectg children and said accatns that the stg was prejudiced agast gay men “are absurd, and que ankly, offensive. Defense attorney Jam Amarosa, who has reprented several men acced such s, put bluntly: “I believe they’re targetg homosexual men. To her, appears that the Sheriff’s Office is targetg certa lotns, regardls of who’s havg sex there, rather than gay ncerns her that the operatns were nducted whout any plats om the public.
”• • •It has been more than six s sce Florida’s famo Johns Commtee targeted Black people, munists and gay men a McCarthye asslt on the civil rights movement om 1956-65.