How Gay Culture Blossomed Durg the Roarg Twenti | HISTORY

Contents:

• THE HISTORY OF HOW GAY BARS BEME THE BATTLEGROUND FOR LGBTQ+ RIGHTS
• THE SLI AND THE EXCISE: NYC’S MOST NOTOR 19TH CENTURY GAY BARS
• A PEEK UNR THE TOWEL: INSI THE 500-YEAR HISTORY OF GAY BATHHO
• HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
• GAY RIGHTS

THE HISTORY OF HOW GAY BARS BEME THE BATTLEGROUND FOR LGBTQ+ RIGHTS

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. “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.

Prohibn was repealed, and the New York State Liquor laws were updated to serve alhol only plac that were “orrly”, which didn’t apparently clu gay and lbian nightclubs.

” 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. ” Unfortunately, police reports and mastream media verage of a gay bar 1880 proved to be extremely unreliable and hyperbolic, fueled mostly by pearl-clutchg and fear-mongerg rather than actual rmatn.

THE SLI AND THE EXCISE: NYC’S MOST NOTOR 19TH CENTURY GAY BARS

“ orr to tablish 'good e' for spensn of platiff's license, somethg more mt be shown than that many of his patrons were homosexuals and that they ed his rtrant and bar as a meetg place. Jt as did California, this state law was short lived, wh urts eventually led that gays uld ‘peacefully’ assemble at bars, which paved the way for the inic Stonewall Inn to open 1967.

“But that night, for the first time, the ual acquicence turned to vlent that night the liv of lns of gay men and lbians, and the attu toward them of the larger culture which they lived, began to change rapidly. Whether you are a member of the LGBTQ+ muny, work at a gay bar, are an ally the dtry, or if you plan on celebratg this June, jt remember the bars and people who helped make all possible. While you n’t tst police blotters and moraly csars to give an accurate pictn of what The Sli was tly like, an attempt to peel back the hyperbole provis a sight that would rival the bawdit gay bars of today’s Hell’s Kchen.

A PEEK UNR THE TOWEL: INSI THE 500-YEAR HISTORY OF GAY BATHHO

While you n’t tst police blotters and moraly csars to give an accurate pictn of what The Sli was tly like, an attempt to peel back the hyperbole provis a sight that would rival the bawdit gay bars of Hell’s Kchen. Dpe survivg 100 years of police harassment, though, the gay bathho of New York Cy uldn’t survive the homophobia of Mayor Ed Koch, who shut most of them down durg the HIV epimic. Transient male-male timacy was not necsarily labeled as gay or homosexual by ntemporari, but was stead seen as a threat to the ials of a heteronormative fay and Christian valu of Seattle’s moral guardians.

Although gay dividuals lived ral areas, ci provid opportuni for men and women to pe the supervisn of their fai and neighbors, allowg for the possibily of formg distct inti, muni, and cultur. Many men wh homosexual tennci met one another the service and went and out of major port ci that had visible and veloped gay subcultur, while women wh sexual tert othe women uld meet wartime factori.

While not every tavern was genr-tegrated, gay men and lbians largely belonged to the same muny and uld feel fortable visg tablishments that might ter to the oppose sex, as they had durg the Great Deprsn.

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

Drag performanc quickly beme a central feature of the gay muny, first appearg vville performanc as early as 1898, when the natnally regnized female impersonator Edward Stewart performed a Seattle Theater productn of 1492.

The Garn of Allah, a gay baret loted on First Avenue between Universy and Sene Streets that opened 1946, beme a central venue for drag performanc the postwar perd. This venue was the first gay-owned baret Seattle, and many of s visors were heterosexual tourists and ary servicemen who me to see s famed drag performers, cludg Skippy LaRue and Jewel Box Revue. Durg the Lavenr Sre of the Cold War, the armed servic banned personnel om visg such venu, argug that homosexualy—and by associatn, drag—would place servicemen danger of beg blackmailed by munists.

In a piic sponsored part by the group, atten were not allowed to wear drag, an ditn that the Dorian Society was tryg to move away om certa forms of gay cultural exprsn to achieve rpectabily the ey of hetersexual rints. Durg the era of the civil rights movement and Vietnam War (1960s-70s), Seattle’s gay activists and lobbyists were transformg Seattle to a cy creasgly tolerant of homosexualy.

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

Organizatns dited to gay pri clud the Unn of Sexual Mori, the Gay Women’s Alliance, the Seattle Counselg Service, the Gay Communy Center, Seattle’s chapter of the Gay Liberatn Front, Stonewall (a dg and alhol rehabilatn center), and the Lbian Rource Center. Along wh the feat of the Briggs Iniative California, which would have banned homosexuals om teachg, the were the first mocratic feats of antigay iativ that spng up begng 1977.

Proponents of Iniative 13 argued that gays were not a mory group that required legal protectn like women, blacks, Latos, Asians, Native Amerins, and other ethnic and racial groups.

Dpe disagreements over polil msag and tactics between the first two anizatns and CRFE, gay activists feated SOME and Iniative 13 on November 7, 1978, wh Seattle voters rejectg the iative by a near two-to-one marg. Some lbian and femist groups believed that separatism (livg, anizg, and socializg wh women only) was the answer to endg male domance, yet the Unn of Sexual Mori, a aln of gay men and women who shared anti-racist and anti-imperialist views, believed this approach to be shortsighted bee society is posed of both women and men. There were three ma Christian mps: those who believed gays were children of God, those who argued homosexuals uld—and should—change their sexualy through fah, and others who clared homosexualy was a s of the hight orr.

GAY RIGHTS

While Pneer Square and First Avenue were the center of gay entertament, many gay rints moved to Capol Hill as post-World War II suburbanizatn attracted wealthy and upper middle class Capol Hill fai to the suburbs. Several larger hom were subdivid to separate uns or beme munal hom habed by untercultural youth and gay “fai, ” a group of gay people livg together a tight-kn muny.

The expansn of the Ain Amerin populatn the adjacent Central District durg and after World War II also ma the southern part of Capol Hill ls attractive to more well-to-do whe rints, drivg rents down and thereby makg the area more affordable for gay rints. The Unn of Sexual Mori, which was active the mid-to-late 1970s, rried on the polics of the ealry gay liberatn movement, nnectg the opprsn of sexual mori wh other opprsed peopl. The Seattle Urban League, an Ain Amerin anizatn, leased space s buildg the Central District for the Gay Communy Center the late 1970s, and the Central District voted agast Iniative 13 at a higher rate than any other neighborhood Seattle 1978.