Rose is a gay man who ns the Ajax Steel Mill. When Homer and Bart vised the steel l (as part of Homer's effort to make sure that Bart was straight), Rose told them that the workers worked hard and played hard. Rose then pulled a cha which ma mic play and a dis ball e down...
Contents:
- IS THE GAY STEEL L CLOSED? REFLECTNS ON QUEER HISTORI OF DTRIALIZG CAPE BRETON
- STEEL CLOSETS: VOIC OF GAY, LBIAN, AND TRANSGENR STEELWORKERS
IS THE GAY STEEL L CLOSED? REFLECTNS ON QUEER HISTORI OF DTRIALIZG CAPE BRETON
* reddit gay steel mill *
To quote the top ment, "Dad, why did you brg me to a gay Steel Mill? It did not have the smopolan queer nightlife of the ci and ltle activism that uld be lled “gay liberatn” manifted any visible way.
The urbanizatn and dtrial palism of the 19th century, as John D’E argu, provid the prendns for a ntemporary gay inty and muny. Where we might be left lookg for Sydney’s gaybourhood is a gay steel l. I njure this image of a gay steel l to showse the uneasy teractn between memori of queer life and memori of dtrial life, both wh my oral history work as well as existg scholarship.
STEEL CLOSETS: VOIC OF GAY, LBIAN, AND TRANSGENR STEELWORKERS
The gay steel l may not be an actual physil place, but rather a vice that might allow to qutn the hegemony of so-lled dtrial masculy and open up room for queer histori of dtrial labour. So let’s open the gat to the gay steel l and ask, if dtrial palism and urbanizatn are rponsible for the emergence of what we might nsir a ntemporary gay muny, then why have scholars not explicly examed how dtrial cle has shaped queer muni?
In the words of Charl MacKenzie (another one of my narrators), stable fay and work life bed wh Cape Breton’s relative isolatn left some wh “nothg else to do but recreatnal homosexualy. Dpe the lack of explicly gay bars, the church basements and golf urs where gay and lbian danc were held still lger as trac of queer life. Further, queer history exists outsi of metropol; gay steel ls matter as much as gaybourhoods!
To return to the qutn posed by the tle, the gay steel l may be closed, but s history is only jt openg. My goal for Steel Closets was to document what life and work meant to one group of the workers, as they experienced the gay rights movement and rapid dtrializatn simultaneoly. Though I vised several archiv, cludg Rivers of Steel Homtead, PA, none mentned gay steelworkers at all.