Month: April 2018

Response 3 of 5

In George Chauncey’s piece, “Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World,” he focuses on the largely forgotten, or even purposefully hidden, lives, communities, and lifestyles of the growing and thriving gay community in early 20th century New York. Chauncey describes the gay history of New York and its many gay enclaves as “not supposed to have existed,” based on the intentional burial of truths by many influential historians. Chauncey illustrates the gay scene and their communities by addressing common beliefs and misconceptions about gays, especially those from ignorant historians and the pre-WWII era.

First, Chauncey addresses the myth of isolation, which claims that gays were not able to develop their subculture due to constant fear from the aggressive masses. Chauncy disproves this by exemplifying many bustling communities, such as Greenwich, Times Square, and Harlem, including their speakeasies, clubs, street corners, etc. He also makes mention of the flourishing of gay authors and artists from these neighborhoods, each having its own subset of unique cultural identity.

Next, he discusses the myth of invisibility, that even if these communities were to exist, they were so secretive and “underground” that they were invisible to other gay men. This claim holds very little truth, due to the style, hair color choices, key spot selection, and even mannerisms and code, all of which were giveaways for gay men to easily identify each other.

Lastly, the myth of internalization, where gays would not resist against mistreatment due to the internalized feelings of self-hatred instilled into them by the masses. This myth, in my opinion, holds a partial truth. There were, and still are, many gay people who truly believe on the inside that they are lesser than the average straight person. They often fear shaming from their loved ones, thus preventing them from not only protesting for their rights, but even coming out. On the contrary, thousands upon thousands of gay people are now protesting, and to a lesser extent, back then as well. People started groups and coalitions to fight their oppression. This is the type of unity and sense of security that gave birth to gay enclaves, and most enclaves in general.

The City of New York has immense diversity, with substantial populations from several dozens of countries from around the world. These feelings of mistrust and fear that the gay community felt, stems at the root, from being different from the norm, which at the time was white American, born and raised. Every immigrant group, for at least the first few decades upon arrival, was treated poorly and not given equal rights. This was one of the reasons why ethnic enclaves exist, like Greenpoint for Polish people, Astoria for Greeks, Flushing for chinese, etc. People yearned for a sense of security and familiarity, both of which could be found within people of their same kind. All of these truths are maintained for the reason behind the gay enclave formation.

 

1) New York City is considered one of the country’s most progressive. How would an overwhelming amount of gays incoming to a conservative city look like? Would they still be able to from their own style of life and unique forms of communication?

 

2) How is connecting with others through your sexual identity different than connection through race or country of origin? Is it different?

 

3) Do these myths for gay men still hold true today? Does the addition of gay women change any norms or peoples views on homosexuality?

 

4) How has social media and television changed the way people view and treat gay people?

Joseph Dwan

Response 4 of 5

George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World.

 

Chauncy’s Book, Gay New York, strives to reveal a hidden layer, a hidden group in a time when it was the agreed upon sentiment at the time, homosexuality was not something to be proud of.

Gay men were on the defensive and for the majority of the 1890s to 1940s, they were pretty much off the radar. Anti- gay laws allowed prosecutors to oppress the the gay community as freely as they wished. The oppression was so severe that the gay community even developed their own systems of code to identify each other and keep the general public in the dark. Many myths eventually arouse of this underground community. One of which was that because this gay community was so secretive, isolated gay men couldn’t join because they simply couldn’t find the underground movement. This was proven untrue as gay men loudly proclaimed their uniqueness with bright red ties and bleaching their hair. The city was an easy place for the gay community to hide, the massive amounts of people meant they could blend in and change society’s view of the gay community from the inside. This eventually lead to New York city to be one of the central hubs of the gay community. This isolation of the gay community today is less severe than in the past, however the gay community will always have an opponent to fight against. New York city stands by the community with its annual Gay Pride parade. The community no longer have to hide behind secret codes and dress, and can express themselves as freely as they want.

 

Questions

• There is much coverage on the gay male struggle, however, where is the coverage on the lesbian community struggle?
• Were the cities the only such “safe havens” for the gay community?

 

By Charles Lauer (Response 3 out of 5)

The introduction to George Chauncey’s Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 debunks three widespread myths about gay male culture in turn-of-the-century New York: the myth of isolation, the myth of invisibility, and the myth of internalization.

The myth of internalization refers to the ultimately unsubstantiated belief that hostility towards the gay community halted the development of a vibrant gay subculture and forced many homosexual individuals to live secluded lives until the eventual gay liberation movement. The widespread nature of this fictitious belief is understandable. There were laws in place against almost every facet of homosexual culture. There were laws that criminalized gay men’s sexual behavior, laws that criminalized their attempts to coalesce, even laws that criminalized their culture and style. Plus, this atmosphere of discrimination made it easier for bigots, hate groups, and cops to harass gay men and simply get away with it.

Continue reading “Three Myths of Early 20th Century NYC Gay Culture”

Salvatore Fevola

Response 4 of 5:

George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, (New York: Basic Books, 1995), Intro and chapter 9.

in Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, George Chauncey gives us a look into the history of the gay community through not only the lens of plain history, but by approaching the history by correcting common misconceptions that people have. Referred to as myths, he brings counters the ideas that the gay community suffered isolation, invisibility, and internalization.

The myth of Isolation comes from the idea that hostility towards the gay community would prevent a subculture from being formed as well as forcing people to live solitary lives. While hostility was a major problem, it didn’t stop gay men as, “they were able to construct spheres of relative cultural autonomy in the interstices of a city governed by hostile powers.” (Chauncey 18). Through the creation of enclaves, and communities, it became easier to overpower hostility through the pride and strength found in groups. Places like Harlem, Times Square, and Greenwich Village became places where gay people could find people within their identity fairly easily. The myth of Invisibility comes from the idea that, due to the hostility towards the gay identity, gay people wanted to keep that part of themselves hidden which made it so that straight people couldn’t recognize gay people, and not even gay people could recognize gay people. Chauncey argues against this by stating that gay men “boldly announced their presence by wearing red ties, bleached hair, and the era’s other insignia of homosexuality” (Chauncey 19). The myth of internalization states that gay men internalized society’s negative views of them and led them to reject their lives and live behind fake fronts.  Yet Chauncey counters this with a claim from doctors at the time that “inverts saw nothing wrong with their sexuality and were rather proud” (Chauncey 21).

Continue reading “Gay New York”

Sam Gosda

Response 3 of 5: Gay New York by George Chauncy

George Chauncy uses his book, Gay New York, to write about the gay population of New York city in  late 19th century into the early 20th century. He discusses how the gay community is effected in different areas of the city as well as different events that occurred at the time. He also touches on the subsets of different types of gay communities. While Chauncy can be over-explanatory at times, he does a great job showing contrasting sides of homosexual life in the city.

Continue reading “Homosexual Enclaves”

John Semanduyev

Response 4 of 5:

George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, (New York: Basic Books, 1995), Intro and chapter 9.

Chauncey delves into the history of gay New York before World War 2. He restores gay history by falsifying three significant myths about gay culture and how gay people lived in general. One of the myths focused on the isolationism gay men supposedly endured. According to Chauncey, gay men were often vocal about who they were and built a healthy community within themselves. This leads to Chauncey’s discussion of gay enclaves that formed during the 1920s such as Greenwich Village. These enclaves served as a safety net for the gay community.

This opens up to the discussion about enclaves as a whole. Through our many talks in class, immigrant enclaves seemed to come up each time repeatedly. I found it fascinating that the gay community formed enclaves of their own. Perhaps it isn’t too farfetched to connect the gay experience with the immigrant experience in the early 1900s. The formation of enclaves is the result of a marginalized group of people coming together to build a place where they are surrounded by people similar to them. One difference between a gay enclave and an immigrant enclave is the motives for forming one. Immigrant enclaves were the result of fear in a chaotic new world. There is no doubt in my mind, which if I were to put myself in an immigrant’s shoes I would be attracted to live in areas where people are similar to me. I would be terrified to move to an entirely new place where no one knew my language. I believe gay enclaves were motivated by the presence of real immediate danger. Homophobia was rampant during the times and crimes against gays were very common. The gay community needed an escape from the constant day-by-day hatred they undoubtedly experienced.

Even the motives for forming enclaves by the two groups themselves are very similar. We can connect the history of what happened to the psychology of how marginalized groups behave when placed in a dangerous situation. The psychology can then be linked to the biology of natural selection that codes the instincts we depend on in our everyday lives. All in all, there is little distinction between types of marginalized groups and how they attempt to escape oppression; this implies a more significant “likeness” present in humanity.

Questions:

1. Have other marginalized groups in other countries acted similarly?
2. Is the formation of an enclave counterproductive?

Gay New York

Salma Ali

Post 4 of 5

George Chauncey writes a book about the compelling world of urban gay life before World War II. The gay world that blossomed before the war has been forgotten by historians, however this book restores this history through the opposition of the common myths of the movement. Chauncey calls them the myths of isolation, invisibility and internalization. The myth of isolation disputes the idea that gay men had to live solitary lives and hide themselves from creating a gay subculture. The myth of invisibility discusses that even if men were gay, they remained excluded and invisible. However, this was proven to be untrue because they were highly visible figures and boldly expressed their homosexuality with the way they dressed. The myth of internalization stated that gay men allowed the stereotypes to be said and allowed it to take over their lives rather than resist it, however homosexuals have resisted these ideas and rather celebrated their uniqueness from the norm. These men were very strong in the sense that they built their community to reject the ideas that society has placed upon them and instead counteracted them by preaching that they only differ from the norm in their preferences consisting of their love life, but are in fact still normal human beings.

Chauncey also discusses the gay enclaves that were formed and the neighborhoods in which consisted of gay subculture. Greenwich Village in the 1920s was known to be a popular gay enclave and was the first to really shape gay centers. Harlem was also a very exciting center for gay life in the early 1900s.

Chauncey elaborates more on the fact that lesbians and gays were forming individual enclaves and were separate in the social world, but got together during meetings and gatherings at speakeasies. They both developed enclaves around the same time and some of the drag balls were predominantly lesbian performers and attendees. He also discusses men who had long hair and dressed in feminine-like attire or even those who were interested in art, they were often looked at as unmanly and queer by outsiders and the name used to describe gay men was “artistic”.

Reading all this information about gay enclaves is a new perspective that we have not yet spoken of in class yet and it is definitely one that I had forgotten about when discussing People of New York City. It is incredible that disregarding culture and immigrants, these gay enclaves were also taking form and shape in the 1900s in New York City. In addition, these enclaves were formed even through the fear of hatred and crime that people would try to destroy it because of the sexuality choices of these human beings. Laws were not passed to accept homosexuals to get married and so being gay in that time period was extremely difficult in the lives of these men and women. It is extremely interesting to learn that enclaves not just of individual nationalities were being formed, but also of different sexualities where people stayed to feel welcome around people just like themselves. This also interests me to know the different nationalities of the gay men and women who lived in these enclaves and if they got along with one another because they shared similar ideas in their sexualities.

Question: Did the different nationalities within each gay enclave affect the relationship amongst the people living around each other?

 

Danielle Itshaik

Response 3 of 5:

George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, (New York: Basic Books, 1995), Intro and chapter 9.

In his book “Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940”, George Chauncey delves into homosexuality and life in New York and how these two have comingled through time. Pre-WWII, the gay world “was supposed to have not existed” according to historians. However, this is not the case. In this book, Chauncey sought to acknowledge and restore this history. He begins by dissolving three myths which have fed the misconception that the gay world was almost nonexistent during 1890-1940. He continues on to correct several other misconceptions. In general, his introduction is effective in stripping down previous notions and allowing the reader to continue on with the correct ideas in mind.

Continue reading “Gay New York”

Shainu George

Response 5 of 5

Ethnicity, Sexuality and Race in Defining the People of New York

This book focused on how NYC played a major role in the homosexual world. This book challenged three myths in the gay world. The first myth is isolation. One would assume that there was no place for gays in America in the 1900’s. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. By 1930, gay neighborhoods were created in Greenwich, Harlem and Time Square in order to escape the anti- gay hostility that was present everywhere else in the city. The second myth was invisibility. Contrary to popular belief, gay men boldly announced their presence through their red ties and bleached hair. The final myth is internalization. There was a large amount of gay men who rather than internalize the hatred that they received from others, would boldly announce their homosexuality. This theme of sexuality is relevant to this class particularly because gay people make up a population of NYC. Gay people felt more inclined to stay in the city over other places. The gay neighborhoods in the city became a safe haven for homosexuals. Homosexuals were more inclined to move into Greenwich Village, at a certain point, than any other neighborhood because of its tolerance for nonconformity or eccentricity. This is specific to NYC because New Yorkers are more likely to accept ‘outsiders’ compared to most other places. The term ‘outsiders’ could refer to anything from immigrant populations to gay people.

Questions:

1)    Where did gay women stay during this time period?

2)    Did heterosexuals live in the gay enclaves when they were popular? How did they feel being surrounded by so many gays?

Stefan Nikolic

Post 4 of 5

Often times in history the mistreatment of large groups of people is left out. The book Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 by George Chauncey plans to restore the world of homosexuality to history, and make it more known to people. It challenges three myth about the history of gay life. He does so by challenging three common misconceptions about the gay social life, that he calls the myth of isolation, invisibility, and internalization.

Continue reading “Homosexuality in New York”