The Gayt Mic Vios of the '80s | Grdr

Contents:

• ANDREW PIERCE RELLS HIS OWN EXPERIENCE OF THE 1980S GAY SCENE
• THE 13 GAYT MIC VIOS OF THE '80S
• A RETURN TO CHIGO’S 1980S GAY PARADISE, THE BELMONT ROCKS
• 1980S SKHEAD GAYS – A PLITED STORY
• AL PACO'S GAYT MOVIE: THE 'CISG' CONTROVERSY OF 1980
• LOOKG FOR THE GAY OLD DAYS THE EAST VILLAGE
• STEPHEN FRY OPENS UP ON FEELG LIKE ‘UNSIRABLE PERSON’ ON 1980S LONDON GAY SCENE

ANDREW PIERCE RELLS HIS OWN EXPERIENCE OF THE 1980S GAY SCENE

The Daily Mail's Andrew Pierce, pictured the 1980s, once met Boy Gee Heaven nightclub unrneath Charg Cross Statn which was the biggt gay club Europe I watched as he was hered to a VIP room, a sanctuary om his adorg may have been only a fleetg enunter but was enough for me to be able to boast that I had met Boy Gee Heaven! Not the celtial versn, but the notor venue unrneath Charg Cross Statn, then the biggt gay club was the summer of 1985 and I'd recently moved to London, a snake-hipped 24-year-old, out and proud, relishg the new-found eedoms of the gay the phoria fad fast that night.

His cheeks were sunken and his face srred by unsightly brown were the tattoos of ath, the most tellg sign of Aids, which for the prev 18 months had stalked the gay blood ran ld when, wh Diana Ross still blarg, the wrah said: 'Hello, Andrew. Pl and I met after I moved to Cheltenham 1979 to jo my first worked a partment store and later moved to London to live openly as a gay man — somethg he uldn't do his home parents assumed their strappg 6 ft son — an only child — was a red-blood heterosexual who would provi them wh the grandchildren they craved. Memori of that eveng Heaven me floodg back this week as I watched the powerful new Channel 4 drama, It's A S, wrten by Rsell T club featur several tim the seri, which charts the rapid, unfivg spread of Aids across the pal's vibrant gay scene the 1980s, and the fear, bigotry and hate men ma to feel like pariahs, rejected the workplace and socially, often by their fai and iends, openly discrimated agast and at risk of vlence, all bee of their sexualy.

Now, almost two s after homosexual acts were legalised, was our script and the evotive soundtrack pture perfectly the joyo optimism of young gay men g out rerd numbers. There had been an explosn the number of gay bars and clubs, wh entreprenrs such as a young Richard Branson spottg the potential of the 'pk pound' was Branson who bought Heaven, a former roller-skatg dis, felt vcible, happy our own sks, which is why on our way out to the bars and clubs we would lnch to the 1970s Tom Robson song: 'Sg if you're glad to be gay'. They also enhanced sexual the clubs, gay men uld be themselv: hold hands, kiss their boyiends or, more often than not, other people's boyiends.

THE 13 GAYT MIC VIOS OF THE '80S

Sex was high on most people's 's A S brilliantly nveys the ntradictn of the relentls pursu of sexual adventure wh the dawng, terrifyg realisatn that gay men were beg thlsly hunted down by a myster and lethal the mours gathered pace, as our iends fell ill or sudnly vanished om our liv, as wrahs like poor Pl beme a route sight, many gay men abandoned the scene altogether.

When you heard that phrase the 1980s about a gay man, you knew they had gone back to their parents to wasn't always home sweet home. There were chillg reports of partners banned om seeg their dyg lovers the fay home, visg them hospal or attendg, was bee the parents were nial that their son was gay, let alone had the 'gay plague''s why when Stonewall, the gay rights group, was formed 1989, I was an early rec. Reports were filterg through om New York and Los Angel about a strange disease afflictg only gay men, but the first many of here heard about was July 1982.

A RETURN TO CHIGO’S 1980S GAY PARADISE, THE BELMONT ROCKS

It was then that the Gay News, a fortnightly newspaper, ran an em about a man lled Terrence Higgs who died om what Amerin doctors had dubbed Grids or 'Gay-Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome'. It's still gog strong a year of Terry's ath —and as French scientists announced they had isolated the vis rponsible — panic had broken out the gay muny and young gay men, the ignorance and prejudice were terrifyg.

There was hysteril talk om some policians about isolatg Aids patients leper-style the digal era, wh facts and figur readily obtaable om the ter, is difficult to grasp how hard was to fd out the tth about the vis that was ravagg an entire muny back 1987 — by which time was apparent that heterosexuals were as vulnerable to fectn as gay men — the much mocked 'monolh' advertisements of giant tombston crashg to the ground were broadst. HIV fectn is no longer an stant ath sentence, but that has allowed placency to take hold both the heterosexual and gay muniThat same year, the first Aids-specific dg was approved for e and sudnly there was light at the end of this darkt of, there are more than 40 dgs to choose om and, wh the right batn given at the right time, some HIV posive men and women never get fectn is no longer an stant ath sentence, but that has allowed placency to take hold both the heterosexual and gay that long ago, I was a gut speaker at a Terrence Higgs Tst fundraisg event at a Wt End theatre which was packed wh hundreds of 20 to 30-somethgs. Ins like Whney and Madonna turned out plenty of hs durg the ‘80s that are today nsired gay anthems, but the classic vios—eher by LGBTQ+ artists or featurg queer subject matter—are gay a more leral sense.

1980S SKHEAD GAYS – A PLITED STORY

BRONSKI BEAT - “SMALLTOWN BOY” (1984)This ‘80s dance h and s explicly queer vio about a smalltown gay boy the big cy broke new ground for LGBTQ+ visibily—and reached the top of the charts the procs.

AL PACO'S GAYT MOVIE: THE 'CISG' CONTROVERSY OF 1980

MARC ALMOND - “RUBY RED” (1987)Few ‘80s pop stars were more -your-face about their sexualy than Soft Cell ontman Marc Almond, and this kky Kenh Anger-spired visual is as gay as B-52s - “LOVE SHACK” (1989)As if The B-52’s John Waters-spired athetic and out-and-proud ontman Fred Schneir weren’t gay enough for you, this mpy vid for their late-’80s h featur a pre-fame meo by the one and only RuPl.

LOOKG FOR THE GAY OLD DAYS THE EAST VILLAGE

- “CLUB TROPICANA” (1983)It would be another 15 years before he formally me out, but if Gee Michael a whe speedo vampg to this breezy 1983 bop don’t set off your gaydar…nothg will.

ERASURE - “CHAINS OF LOVE” (1988)If seeg Andy Bell spend om chas jt BASKING his gayns don’t make you feel like you’re an episo of Queer as Folk, you’ve got some homework to do. In the mid-80s the AIDS crisis took s toll on many of s most voted nizens, and by the early 90s a new generatn of gay men and women, lured north by the gentrifitn of Anrsonville and the gay beach volleyball scene, rved out a happy niche along crcent-shaped Kathy Osterman Beach (aka Hollywood Beach) Edgewater.

STEPHEN FRY OPENS UP ON FEELG LIKE ‘UNSIRABLE PERSON’ ON 1980S LONDON GAY SCENE

“The Rocks were a kd of a polil statement, that we had a right to be ourselv and to be out the h air, ” says Keehnen, a bookseller at Unabridged Books Lakeview and the thor of several gay novels as well as bgraphi of Chigo leather muny in Chuck Renslow and Baton Lounge owner Jim Flt. Surprised by the openns of the Rocks parison to gay mecs plac like New York, San Francis, and Los Angel (where at the time, gay beach were well off the beaten path), Ischar beme a daily fixture and persuad many the margalized muny to let him photograph them at play.

“I was termed to photograph gay men and I was very terted photographg them social suatns, ” says Ischar, 68, now an associate profsor at the Universy of Illois at Chigo. Keehnen tends the Belmont Rocks oral history to serve as a kd of tergeneratnal scrapbook, one that functns as a history lson for LGBTQ lennials as well as a memento for gay senrs.

In the UK, the Thatcher ernment created Sectn 28 of the Lol Government Act, makg illegal for lol thori to support anythg that might promote homosexual relatnships as a viable alternative to heterosexual ‘fay life’.

And even the US Army, who had clared homosexualy to be “patible wh ary service” 1982, were forced to adm 1989 that gay recs were “jt as good or better” than heterosexuals.

New York Cy – and Greenwich Village, particular – are associated worldwi wh gay rights and gay history bee of the Stonewall uprisg of June 1969 and the newly visible gay world that flowered the Village as a rult of . By the 1850s, people that we would today ll gay began to play an important role New York – at least the cultural life that was beg a signifint feature of the cy.

Whman read his most clearly homoerotic works, the ‘Calam’ poems, aloud to the circle of his iends who gathered at Pfaff’s beer cellar, at Broadway and Bleecker Street, which suggts that they were at least what today we ll ‘alli’.

There is ls evince of gay life New York the s after the 1850s, perhaps bee the Civil War retard the velopment of alternative liftyl the US. As Gee Chncey explas his masterly book Gay New York, at that time people tend to divi men not to gay and straight, but to ‘normal men’ and ‘fairi’ and was nsired possible for ‘normal men’ to have sex wh ‘fairi’ whout brgg their normaly to qutn, so long as they retaed the sertive role sex. The gay bars were known for their ‘fairy’ waers, who, acrdg to police reports, ‘rouge[d] their necks’ and sang ‘ filthy dti’, ie performed drag.

From the 1890s on, has an enormo history of gay liv, lov and muni, as well as of cultural productn by gay people and, om the 1950s, polil activism.

There are even bars, such as Juli’ on Wt 10th Street – important gay history bee of the Sip-, a key gay-rights prott that took place there three years before the Stonewall – that have prospered through the whole time perd. There have also been cultural movements, groups and stutns that were fluenced by the gay muny, such as the Harlem Renaissance, the Beat poets, o -o -Broadway and Andy Warhol’s Factory.

And many gay-rights anisatns have been found New York, om the Gay Liberatn Front the early 1970s to the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Act Up and Queer Natn. Today, the Stonewall Inn is one of the most famo plac the Village, but there are others nearby that are also important to gay history, cludg still-vibrant stutns such as Juli’ and the Cherry Lane Theatre.

Andrew Lear is a former profsor of classics and history and the founr of Osr Wil Tours, the first and only pany to o er tours foced on gay history New York and around the world.