How Gay Culture Blossomed Durg the Roarg Twenti | HISTORY

Contents:

• HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
• FROM TROYE SIVAN TO PADAM PADAM: ATRALIA IS S GAY ERA AND THE WORLD SHOULD THANK
• WAS SHAKPEARE GAY?
• MEET GAY BOB, THE OUT AND PROUD ANATOMILLY CORRECT DIS-ERA DOLL
• HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: ANTI-GAY LAWS PROMOTE VLENCE, DISCRIMATN ST. VCENT
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• WHEN HOLLYWOOD STUDS MARRIED OFF GAY STARS TO KEEP THEIR SEXUALY A SECRET

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

By the mid-1920s, at the height of the Prohibn era, they were attractg as many as 7, 000 people of var rac and social class—gay, lbian, bisexual, transgenr and straight alike. The Begngs of a New Gay World“In the late 19th century, there was an creasgly visible prence of genr-non-nformg men who were engaged sexual relatnships wh other men major Amerin ci, ” says Chad Heap, a profsor of Amerin Studi at Gee Washgton Universy and the thor of Slummg: Sexual and Racial Enunters Amerin Nightlife, 1885-1940. By the 1920s, gay men had tablished a prence Harlem and the bohemian mec of Greenwich Village (as well as the seedier environs of Tim Square), and the cy’s first lbian enclav had appeared Harlem and the Village.

Each gay enclave, wrote Gee Chncey his book Gay New York: Genr, Urban Culture, and the Makg of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, had a different class and ethnic character, cultural style and public reputatn.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Gay Life the Jazz AgeAs the Uned Stat entered an era of unprecented enomic growth and prospery the years after World War I, cultural mor loosened and a new spir of sexual eedom reigned.

FROM TROYE SIVAN TO PADAM PADAM: ATRALIA IS S GAY ERA AND THE WORLD SHOULD THANK

Though New York Cy may have been the epicenter of the so-lled "Pansy Craze, " gay, lbian and transgenr performers graced the stag of nightspots ci all over the untry. ”At the same time, lbian and gay characters were beg featured a slew of popular “pulp” novels, songs and on Broadway stag (cludg the ntroversial 1926 play The Captive) and Hollywood—at least prr to 1934, when the motn picture dtry began enforcg censorship guil, known as the Hays Co.

” The sale of liquor was legal aga, but newly enforced laws and regulatns prohibed rtrants and bars om hirg gay employe or even servg gay patrons. In the mid- to late ‘30s, Heap pots out, a wave of sensatnalized sex crim “provoked hysteria about sex crimals, who were often— the md of the public and the md of thori—equated wh gay men.

WAS SHAKPEARE GAY?

” By the post-World War II era, a larger cultural shift toward earlier marriage and suburban livg, the advent of TV and the anti-homosexualy csas champned by Joseph McCarthy would help ph the flowerg of gay culture reprented by the Pansy Craze firmly to the natn’s rear-view mirror. One n be heterosexual or perta to any sort of homosexual affiliatn; however, acrdg to Matt Cook, edor of A Gay History of Bra: Love and Sex Between Men Sce the Middle Ag, the associatns “…wh beg a particular type of person, as we tend to do the Wtern world now, pend very much on the time and place qutn” (Cook, XI).

The followg work and rearch monstrat the vtigative procs and provis historil ntext of how society labeled and intified the male homosexual durg the Renaissance. Alan Bray, who wrote the universal referral on the topic of male homosexualy durg the 1500s, Homosexualy Renaissance England, stat that “[T]he term ‘homosexual’ did not exist 1611, ’ fact, ‘[I]t was not until the 1890s that the term ‘homosexual’ first began to be ed English, and none of s precsors now survive mon speech” (Bray, 13).

MEET GAY BOB, THE OUT AND PROUD ANATOMILLY CORRECT DIS-ERA DOLL

In morn ntext, sodomy refers to one particular sexual act; however, durg the 1500s, the act of sodomy was ed to scribe a myriad of sexually viant activi, cludg homosexual on. Where homosexual activy or viance om tablished genr rol/drs was banned by law or tradnal ctom, such nmnatn might be munited through sensatnal public trials, exile, medil warngs, and language om the pulp.

By the 20th century, a movement regnn of gays and lbians was unrway, abetted by the social climate of femism and new anthropologi of difference. However, throughout 150 years of homosexual social movements (roughly om the 1870s to today), lears and anizers stggled to addrs the very different ncerns and inty issu of gay men, women intifyg as lbians, and others intifyg as genr variant or nonbary.

Whe, male, and Wtern activists whose groups and theori gaed leverage agast homophobia did not necsarily reprent the range of racial, class, and natnal inti plitg a broar LGBT agenda.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: ANTI-GAY LAWS PROMOTE VLENCE, DISCRIMATN ST. VCENT

Most historians agree that there is evince of homosexual activy and same-sex love, whether such relatnships were accepted or persecuted, every documented culture. We know that homosexualy existed ancient Israel simply bee is prohibed the Bible, whereas flourished between both men and women Ancient Greece.

Such eyewns acunts the era before other media were of urse riddled wh the bias of the (often) Wtern or Whe observer, and add to beliefs that homosexual practic were other, foreign, savage, a medil issue, or evince of a lower racial hierarchy. The European powers enforced their own crimal s agast what was lled sodomy the New World: the first known se of homosexual activy receivg a ath sentence North Ameri occurred 1566, when the Spanish executed a Frenchman Florida. Biblil terpretatn ma illegal for a woman to wear pants or a man to adopt female drs, and sensatnalized public trials warned agast “viants” but also ma such martyrs and hero popular: Joan of Arc is one example, and the chillg origs of the word “faggot” clu a stick of wood ed public burngs of gay men.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

” In Wtern history, we fd ltle formal study of what was later lled homosexualy before the 19th century, beyond medil texts intifyg women wh large cloris as “tribas” and severe punishment s for male homosexual acts.

Their wrgs were sympathetic to the ncept of a homosexual or bisexual orientatn occurrg naturally an intifiable segment of humankd, but the wrgs of Krafft-Ebg and Ellis also labeled a “third sex” generate and abnormal.

Sigmund Frd, wrg the same era, did not nsir homosexualy an illns or a crime and believed bisexualy to be an nate aspect begng wh untermed genr velopment the womb. ” German rearcher Magn Hirschfeld went on to gather a broar range of rmatn by foundg Berl’s Instute for Sexual Science, Europe’s bt library archive of materials on gay cultural history. His efforts, and Germany’s more liberal laws and thrivg gay bar scene between the two World Wars, ntrasted wh the backlash, England, agast gay and lbian wrers such as Osr Wil and Radclyffe Hall.

WHEN HOLLYWOOD STUDS MARRIED OFF GAY STARS TO KEEP THEIR SEXUALY A SECRET

The blu mic of Ain-Amerin women showsed varieti of lbian sire, stggle, and humor; the performanc, along wh male and female drag stars, troduced a gay unrworld to straight patrons durg Prohibn’s fiance of race and sex s speakeasy clubs. The disptns of World War II allowed formerly isolated gay men and women to meet as soldiers and war workers; and other volunteers were uprooted om small towns and posted worldwi.