From Regency England to 1920s Harlem to Miss Piggy, gay vernacular has given voice to homosexual inty and sire a hostile world. In some parts, still do.
Contents:
- DICK LESCH’S GUI TO SEVENTI GAY SLANG
- GAY SLANG OM THE 1970S
- THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN
- THIS SECRET LANGUAGE ALLOWED GAY MEN TO COMMUNITE WHEN HOMOSEXUALY WAS ILLEGAL
- 12 SLANG WORDS FOR GAY – USE THE TERMS TO ADDRS THEM!
DICK LESCH’S GUI TO SEVENTI GAY SLANG
While hazg the lennials durg a meetg today, several of them nfsed to not knowg the basic lexin of gay slanguage. This is for them and everyone else who needs a reher. * gay slang 70s *
Dick Lesch, an early gay-rights activist, who is now his eighti, arranged to donate his old workg fil to the archiv of the New York Public Library.
GAY SLANG OM THE 1970S
Polari is a secret language, or cryptolect, that served to help gay men England munite, and remas surprisgly fluential today. * gay slang 70s *
”In 1959, when Lesch was twenty-four, he left his fay home, Kentucky, for New York Cy, where he found work as a pater, a bartenr, a rator, a journalist, and as the unpaid print of the Mattache Society, one of the first gay-rights anizatns.
THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN
* gay slang 70s *
When the Stonewall rts broke out, three years later, he was the only openly gay reporter on the scene, verg the event for a new gay-focsed magaze lled The a recent Friday eveng, Lesch’s buzzer rang.
THIS SECRET LANGUAGE ALLOWED GAY MEN TO COMMUNITE WHEN HOMOSEXUALY WAS ILLEGAL
In 1959, he left Kentucky for New York Cy, where he beme the print of the Mattache Society, one of the first gay-rights anizatns.
12 SLANG WORDS FOR GAY – USE THE TERMS TO ADDRS THEM!
“This rd file is great, ” he said, flippg through a set of four-by-six x rds on which Lesch had neatly typed out gay slang terms om antiquy.
” Some of the fns were more nuanced: an “ntie, ” Lesch had wrten, was “an ageg or middle aged homosexual, offtim effemate character, ” or “a person of settled meanor who utns agast temperate acts. Photograph by Rebec FudalaNext up was Lesch’s llectn of magaz and newsletters, cludg After Dark (“Oh, bls you—they’re real llector’s ems, ” Bmann said); Christopher Street (“We have the archiv”); Female Mimics (“That’s fabulo”); the 1969 Time issue on homosexualy (“Cute”); and the monthly bullet for the Mattache Society.
Many untri around the world have their own versn of queer slang, om Brish gay slang rived om the rhymg slang Polari to beki – the Philipp’ queer language that borrows om a slew of sourc, cludg pop culture, Japane, Spanish, and the untry’s lol languag. But the Onle Slang Dictnary c 1960s gay male culture as the earlit known source, particularly rtoonist Joe Johnson’s characters “Miss Thg” and “Big Dick”, which appeared early issu of The Advote. Homosexualy remaed illegal across the Uned Stat the mid-twentieth century – that is, until Illois beme the first state to crimalize same-sex relatns 1962.