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.
And although they were hundreds of men arrested in NYC a year for breaking homosexual-related laws, the truth is the bulk of these laws were haphazardly enforced. Another, often overlooked, truth was that the bulk of New York didn’t react in a hostile or frightened way when it came to homosexuality. The most common response was that of curiosity.
Thanks to these, often omitted, realities, gay men were able to form their own cultural enclaves, crafting immense communities that consisted of everything from apartment buildings, to public parks, to saloons. Communities like Greenwich Village, Harlem, and Times Square began to rise to prominence as vibrant homosexual communities and the Bowery became a hub of gay life.
The next myth, the myth of invisibility, posits that the aforementioned gay world was kept secret, making it hard for isolated gay men or people recently out-of-the-closet to find.
The widespread nature of this myth is also understandable. It’s believable that a repressed social group would form a secret community or institution. I mean, they are plenty of examples of this throughout history (Like the secret Yeshivas founded during the Holocaust, or the Underground Railroad, or the basement parties thrown during Prohibition) This myth is believable, but it’s certainly not true.
In reality, gay men were “highly visible figures” as Chauncey puts it, routinely sporting red neckties and bleached hair as proud indicators of their homosexual lifestyle. Gay men were just as abundantly present as their straight counterparts. They gathered on street corners, met in saloons, and even starred in films. In fact, Chauncey goes so far as to argue that gay life was more integrated into society during pre-war America than it was after World War 2.
The last myth, or the myth of internalization, believes that gay men internalized the societal perception that they were sick and perverted without much critical thought, which led them to develop a growing self-hatred. The theory goes on to assert that this self-hatred led the community to accept the country’s policing of them, instead of resisting against it.
I can’t say this myth is understandable, but I can definitively say it’s false. Gay men routinely resisted the belief that they were distinct from other people, homosexual communities came together often to push back against anti-gay policing, and gay new yorkers, as early as the late 19th Century, were already writing letters, articles, and books about the issue of inequality, even going so far as to urge jurists and doctors IN PERSON to change their opinion.
Questions:
1. Are there any myths about modern gay culture? If so, what are they?
2. Why do you think these myths became widespread in the first place? Is it just the by-product of ignorance and assumptions? Or are they being purposefully perpetuated?
