CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: A Rabow Black: The Gay Polics of the Black Panther Party on JSTOR

Contents:

• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
• BLOC PARTY'S KELE OKEREKE ON BEG GAY AND BLACK THE DANCE AND ROCK WORLDS
• THE UNSUNG HISTORY OF CIRCU PARTI, WHERE GAY MEN SEEK SEX AND FREEDOM
• REMEMBERG A FOTTEN LANDMARK GAY, BLACK, BRISH HISTORY – AND THE LSONS N TEACH
• THE INCREDIBLE TE ADVENTURE OF FIVE GAY ACTIVISTS SEARCH OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

Kev Maxen has bee the first male ach a US men’s profsnal sports league to e out as gay. Per Outsports, as of September 2022, there have only ever been 16 players NFL history to publicly e out as gay or bisexual. Carl Nassib beme the first active NFL player league history to announce that he is gay 2021.

Per Outsports, Maxen is the “first publicly out male ach a major Amerin men’s pro sports league, ” wh WNBA ach Curt Miller, who publicly me out to the media as gay 2015, also a publicly out male ach an Amerin profsnal sports league.

Produced by The Sat at Large anizatn, The Black Party is nsired the father of all large gay circu events and remas unchallenged as the forbearer an ever-changg NYC nightlife environment.

BLOC PARTY'S KELE OKEREKE ON BEG GAY AND BLACK THE DANCE AND ROCK WORLDS

The all-night and day blowout is also one of the bt gay parti of the year. In this get up, he hs the town New York Cy, eventually wdg up at The Sat, a private gay club.

"It was probably the biggt vtment a gay bs that happened up until that time, " Black Party producer Stephen Pevner tells Out of The Sat, a nightclub that opened 1980 after a $4.

THE UNSUNG HISTORY OF CIRCU PARTI, WHERE GAY MEN SEEK SEX AND FREEDOM

"Maybe, when you nvert to 2019 dollars, still very well may be that -- the biggt vtment gay bs. Schled for April 4, the event typilly brgs well-over 3, 500 mostly gay men (reports dit that attendance has reached 5, 000 the party's prime), but what about the lawsu that uld have end all?

This was the 40th anniversary of The Black Party(r), nsired by many the father of all large gay circu events, and by far the most tense, immersive and glorly subversive.

The circu—a loose global work of often weekend-long danceathons, where partygoers (almost all gay men) nvene om around the world to bond spirually, socially, sexually and milly—is one of the most unique phenomena to emerge om queer muni over the past few s. Undoubtedly, many younger gay men prefer smaller venu that "bask the bety and openns of queer culture. " Plenty of olr gay men, too, fd the whole ethos of circu parti — glow sticks, remixed diva anthems, lor them, "body fascism"—to be tired figure out the state of the circu 2017, THUMP spoke wh Mickey Weems, a lecturer at the Universy of Hawai'i Manoa who has extensively studied circu parti (alongsi relig, anthropologil and folklore terts).

REMEMBERG A FOTTEN LANDMARK GAY, BLACK, BRISH HISTORY – AND THE LSONS N TEACH

Weems spoke to their past, prent and potential future, explag what role the circu has played shapg queer and gay culture, and what s evolutn says about the same today. A gay circu party (Photo via)THUMP: Can you give me a psule history of the circu?

When the Gay Activist Alliance was formed—the first gay rights group, born only six months after Stonewall—they had danc an old firehoe SoHo. And New York, thoands of men began gatherg at Downtown loft spac that began croppg started pourg , wh plac like Flamgo and Twelve Wt, two of the most proment gay male dance spac, full of sweaty men dancg all the same time, Fire Island beme the place for people who uld afford . The term "circu" me om beg the "need to know circu"—not only diss, but "--the-know" plac the gay muny that even clud, 1980, the Sat opened the East Village.

One thg the 2002 documentary When Boys Fly [which followed a group of young gay men attendg the Miami Whe Party] got right was showg someone fallg out [passg out om dg e] was sndalo. Then you started seeg the rise of the ter, which pecially affected the gay datg scene. A handful of proment gay punds saw the parti as a waste of our energy and rourc.

THE INCREDIBLE TE ADVENTURE OF FIVE GAY ACTIVISTS SEARCH OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY

People like Michelangelo Signorile, who wrote about his experience at the Palm Sprgs Whe Party Life Outsi, a book about gay culture at the time, were posg that the parti were crics like Signorile, Larry Kramer and Gabriel Rotello, parti were seen as havens for irrponsible behavr, sex and dgs. Most of the kds of studi look at the areas of gay culture—like the bathhoe scene, club scene, the app scene—bee they're supposed hot spots for HIV fectn and rampant dg the qutn is: do the people dog the studi unrstand our muny at all? Bee what they're "studyg" is jt what go on regular gay that "regular gay life" has e to mean somethg very different 2017.

There's no qutn that for gay men, thgs have gotten better. This generatnal divi between gay Boomers and lennials has to fluence how they perceive circu parti—or even if there's still a need for, as you said, the circu reached a nadir earlier this century, has that cle been nstant, or have they ma a eback? And if so, what's the motivatn for younger gay men to attend a circu party?