How Gay Culture Blossomed Durg the Roarg Twenti | HISTORY

Contents:

• DICK LESCH’S GUI TO SEVENTI GAY SLANG
• 12 SLANG WORDS FOR GAY – USE THE TERMS TO ADDRS THEM!
• HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
• GAY SLANG
• GAY NEW YORK CY

DICK LESCH’S GUI TO SEVENTI GAY SLANG

Dick Lesch, an early gay-rights activist, who is now his eighti, arranged to donate his old workg fil to the archiv of the New York Public Library. ”In 1959, when Lesch was twenty-four, he left his fay home, Kentucky, for New York Cy, where he found work as a pater, a bartenr, a rator, a journalist, and as the unpaid print of the Mattache Society, one of the first gay-rights anizatns. When the Stonewall rts broke out, three years later, he was the only openly gay reporter on the scene, verg the event for a new gay-focsed magaze lled The a recent Friday eveng, Lesch’s buzzer rang.

In 1959, he left Kentucky for New York Cy, where he beme the print of the Mattache Society, one of the first gay-rights anizatns. “This rd file is great, ” he said, flippg through a set of four-by-six x rds on which Lesch had neatly typed out gay slang terms om antiquy. ” Some of the fns were more nuanced: an “ntie, ” Lesch had wrten, was “an ageg or middle aged homosexual, offtim effemate character, ” or “a person of settled meanor who utns agast temperate acts.

Lesch ed to llect mentns of the “homophile movement, ” a term that preced the morn gay-rights vobulary. Lesch holds up a plastic toy school b, ma the neteen-sixti by the Gay Toy Company.

12 SLANG WORDS FOR GAY – USE THE TERMS TO ADDRS THEM!

Photograph by Rebec FudalaNext up was Lesch’s llectn of magaz and newsletters, cludg After Dark (“Oh, bls you—they’re real llector’s ems, ” Bmann said); Christopher Street (“We have the archiv”); Female Mimics (“That’s fabulo”); the 1969 Time issue on homosexualy (“Cute”); and the monthly bullet for the Mattache Society.

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

A 1971 issue of Gay featured an terview that Lesch had nducted wh a twenty-five-year-old Bette Midler.

Many untri around the world have their own versn of queer slang, om Brish gay slang rived om the rhymg slang Polari to beki – the Philipp’ queer language that borrows om a slew of sourc, cludg pop culture, Japane, Spanish, and the untry’s lol languag. While the gay slang terms and languag serve jt as much attentn, one article wouldn’t be enough to ver everythg. To hi their inti pla sight of other queer people, gay and bisexual men would refer to each other wh nam.

Today, “Mary” is still ed as an exprsn or a way to teasgly refer to another gay person.

GAY SLANG

But the Onle Slang Dictnary c 1960s gay male culture as the earlit known source, particularly rtoonist Joe Johnson’s characters “Miss Thg” and “Big Dick”, which appeared early issu of The Advote. Homosexualy remaed illegal across the Uned Stat the mid-twentieth century – that is, until Illois beme the first state to crimalize same-sex relatns 1962.

GAY NEW YORK CY

In the 60s and 70s, gay men even had a “hanky ” – a system that volved wearg bandanas wh lors that signified whether you were a top, bottom, to BDSM, etc. One of the most well-known phras to e out of this time is “iend of Dorothy”, which is for a gay man.

Judy Garland, who played Dorothy the film, was also a queer in who patronized gay bars and often surround herself wh queer iends. In the 60s, Lesch was the print of a gay rights anizatn lled the Mattache Society and me up wh the “Sip-In” – a monstratn held at New York Cy bars that banned service to out gay people. Lesch scribed nti as “agg or middle-aged homosexuals, offtim effemate character” and people of “settled meanor who utns agast temperate acts”.