In honor of Pri Month, take a ep dive to 200+ years of gay bar history and how they paved the way for the LGBTQ rights movement.
Contents:
- RUNNG A GAY BAR THE 1950S
- THE HISTORY OF HOW GAY BARS BEME THE BATTLEGROUND FOR LGBTQ+ RIGHTS
- THE GAY BARS AND VICE SQUADS OF 1950'S LOS ANGEL
- GAY HISTORY: THE GAY BARS AND VICE SQUADS OF 1950’S LOS ANGEL
RUNNG A GAY BAR THE 1950S
Culture Lt ntributor Randy Dotga disvers a memoir by an opnated straight woman bold enough to n a gay bar the 1950s. He also looks at the gay nightlife scene San Diego durg the 50s. * gay bar 1950s *
Back 1950s Hollywood, a hole--the-wall neighborhood gay bar offered an attractive mix of fizz, iends and fabulons.
But the proprietor ran a tight ship, unlike any gay bar you might drop to today.
THE HISTORY OF HOW GAY BARS BEME THE BATTLEGROUND FOR LGBTQ+ RIGHTS
* gay bar 1950s *
Branson wrote her 1957 memoir "Gay Bar, " she need to lay low by keepg her standards high. Authori om the police to the alhol board preferred to keep gays om ngregatg anywhere, so she ma sure to not draw attentn. "Gay Bar" spent 60 years obscury.
But then a Milwkee thor heard about and brought back to life the newly published "Gay Bar: The Fabulo, Te Story of a Darg Woman and Her Boys the 1950s. "In an terview, I asked thor Will Fellows to scribe what he disvered about gay life Southern California more than six s ago.
I also rang up a lol historian to learn about the history of gay bars San Diego. Will Fellows: Helen Branson had many gay iends the 1940s and 1950s, and she was an extraordary straight ally at a time when beg a straight ally of homosexuals was unheard of. It was a pretty groundbreakg book: by my timatn, the first book by a straight person that picts the liv of gay people posively.
THE GAY BARS AND VICE SQUADS OF 1950'S LOS ANGEL
In Los Angel throughout the 1950s, gay men lived unr nstant harassment by the police. They risked ostracism and loss of employment if outed. * gay bar 1950s *
She was wrg this book when Senator McCarthy was still rantg and ravg about thgs, a climate of what we uld all ll homophobia -- great antagonism toward homosexualy and homosexuals, perversn and viants, and all that sort of stuff. Q: What was her gay bar like? She really saw as a kd of public livg had a lot of gay iends she'd veloped sce her divorce the 1930s, and she had managed other gay bars for other owners.
She was able to do thgs her own way, a way that created a hospable, iendly and vg atmosphere but still mataed safeguards agast problems wh law enforcement and htlers and people who were not necsarily out to treat her gay iends well. Q: Why did she have such a strong policy agast actg too gay? A: At that time, there some gay men who their self-prentatn, bee of feelg so opprsed and beltled and beleaguered and trapped their liv, they kd of acted out almost wildly flamboyant ways, rryg on ways that were more than jt thentic exprsns of maybe an gree of effemacy on their parts.
The kds of dividuals -- the screamers -- were really a problem for the early homosexual rights anizatns bee they were jt bad p. Many lears of homosexual anizatns tried to distance themselv om the people, whom they viewed as excsively flamboyant typ. There's another thg that's a fascatg dimensn of homosexual thought at that time: even early gay rights anizatns were very tent on enforcg pretty tradnal standards of drs for men and women.
GAY HISTORY: THE GAY BARS AND VICE SQUADS OF 1950’S LOS ANGEL
Many gay men and lbians had a siar kd of perspective: what we need to do is nform. Q: It's amazg how Branson discs issu that are still big today: Can gays have healthy long-term relatnships? ) Do nature or nurture create homosexualy?