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.
Contents:
- MIDNIGHT FOR NEW YORK’S 1960S GAY COMMUNY?
- QUEEN CY COM OUT: EXPLORG SEATTLE'S LBIAN AND GAY HISTORY, BY THE NORTHWT LBIAN & GAY HISTORY MM PROJECT
- RUNNG A GAY BAR THE 1950S
- POLICE ED TO RAID GAY BARS. NOW THEY MARCH PRI PARAS.
- PRIVATE AND PUBLIC: GAY BARS NEW YORK CY BEFORE 1970S
MIDNIGHT FOR NEW YORK’S 1960S GAY COMMUNY?
It was a rough, problematic, turbulent world for the bars and their gay ’s when young sger Trevor Copeland arrived New York and stumbled to a relatnship wh pianist and poser Arthur. The third is the story of the police crackdown on illegal gay bars the 1960s, culmatg the famo Stonewall raid of June 28, 1969, that led to rts, the start of the gay rights movement and a new day for the gay muny. Midnight at the Never Get has a lot of drama , pecially for anyone who was around the 1960s and was an eyewns to the police war on the gay muny.
QUEEN CY COM OUT: EXPLORG SEATTLE'S LBIAN AND GAY HISTORY, BY THE NORTHWT LBIAN & GAY HISTORY MM PROJECT
Rerd pani the 1960s also sisted that lyrics nnected to gay life be cut out or, more likely, rewrten slightly to turn the gay love stori to heterosexual story of police harassment of gays bars the 1960s is told well. The mob saw the gay clubs as a gold me bee no one plaed of ndns there, pretty dismal at tim, bee was an oasis om a cel world. Until Stonewall, the gangsters knew how to al wh the police, too, and that benefted gay batn of the police raids on gay bars, anized crime and the actured relatnship between Trevor and Arthur at the end of the play works nicely.
Arthur is not as worried for jtice for gays as he is havg his reer ed by the do not n out at midnight, but go on betifully, jt as the play do. The Queen Cy Bs Guild, an anizatn of bar owners that would eventually bee today’s Greater Seattle Bs Associatn, as well as the Uned Ebony Council, a black gay male anizatn found 1975, and part of the Court of Seattle wh s emprs and royalty, both ed the Mombo for early anizatnal meetgs. In addn to tradnal tnal efforts such as a newsletter, the Dorian Society had a speakers bure to speak Seattle public schools, appeared on rad programs, led tours of gay bars for a program lled Urban Plunge, and hosted drag balls.
RUNNG A GAY BAR THE 1950S
This strikg image is a remr that the work of homophile anizatns like the Dorian Society and the Third Name Society (a women’s anizatn) were already makg signifint efforts toward gay and lbian visibily. Like most bars Seattle both gay and straight alike, was subject to the “blue laws” preventg activi rangg om patrons holdg drks while standg up, or the number of chairs at the bar. Bob: “The 611 was not the first gay bar that I ‘equented’, but on July 11, 1970, was the place where I met the man that is my partner life.
(I e the term ‘equented’ bee that was the popular term ed by the police, the ary and the general prs to scribe bs or lotns ‘patronized by homosexuals. No doubt the 611 has served as a meetg place for thoands of gay people, some of whom have bee lastg iends and even life partners, as my se. 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.
POLICE ED TO RAID GAY BARS. NOW THEY MARCH PRI PARAS.
"In an terview, I asked thor Will Fellows to scribe what he disvered about gay life Southern California more than six s ago. 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.
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. 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.
PRIVATE AND PUBLIC: GAY BARS NEW YORK CY BEFORE 1970S
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. 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. When she realized that the men she found most appealg as iends when she was workg as a palm rear Los Angel the 1940s were gay, she beme really trigued by that.