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Mobility Created The Gayborhoods
For centuries, most LGBT folks lived and died within a few miles from where they were born. Then, when cars, trains and planes became common, large amounts of us had useful choices, at long last.
Think about it: You are a special, blessed child, born among hicks, yahoos and bigots. You have creativity and an open mind. You may as well be a pink monkey in a cage full of mean, brown monkeys. Instead of being warmly welcomed into the local community like everybody else, your LIFE is in danger, just because of things that you can't change about yourself.
Who the hell wants that? So, you head out on your own, as soon as you possibly can. You pick a coast or a big city, far, far away from Chicken Leg Arkansas, swearing never to return.
You would find a neighborhood that caters to the disenfranchised, and where LGBT folks can be themselves as much as the local police will allow. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than Squaw's Ass, Idaho. You can finally find folks of like interests, and plenty of sex that is pleasing. We could also band together and protect each other from bashers and police.
Folks had plenty of Gay Ghetto choices, according to Wikipedia:
As more and more distressed refugees from flyover country arrived, businesses sprang up to suit our tastes. Boutiques, bistros, barbershops, book stores, bars and bathhouses. We developed our own subcultural slang, styles and traditions.
Any open-minded, sassy waitress made a LOT of money on tips in the 1970's. Particularly if she worked an all-night restaurant after the bars closed. Gay men love us some divas, and any woman who could entertain a table full of drunken homos with her brassy ways was our QUEEN.
LGBTQ Junior High Arrives At Last
Cops Harassing The Gay Bars
Being gay in the 1970's was still a very bad thing to be. Sure, Stonewall had happened, but the culture around us was still very disapproving, and changes came slowly. That's why the earlier Pride parades were confrontational, angry and political. We wanted a lot of bad treatment to end.
Cops were still a hazardous problem. There was a recent KPBS documentary about San Diego's Gay Bar History, and I'm in it. I'm the one who is crying, and also making jokes. The point is made by somebody that hundreds of bars have existed in our city, but they tended to come and go like spring mushrooms, due to police harassment.
It all started at the top - The local Attorney General or Police Chief could encourage the hiring of hateful law enforcers, and set up stings to entrap the homos. Bars would get busted for having signs outside that were too big, having porn on the TV, or having people in the bar who didn't have ID's in their pockets.
Beaten By the Cops
In 1981, I was dancing at a local bar called Mister Dillon's (it has been Rich’s for the last few decades). I am huge, and a very enthusiastic dancer, so I was up on stage. I wanted to avoid colliding with others who were smaller than me. As a result, I could see what happened:
Two uniformed cops were shoving their way through the crowded dance floor, throwing punches and whacking people with their billy clubs. I jumped off the stage to try and see their badge numbers. Bad plan. Being six foot five (five foot seventeen when standing fully erect), I do NOT do the "unobtrusive" thing well at all.
They caught me, and knocked me to the ground. One of them stomped and whacked at me with his club while the other one called on his radio. Within seconds, four more cops arrived and all six of them beat me while I cried out for help. When they got tired of doing that, they arrested me, my boyfriend, the bar manager and a few others who hadn't left quickly enough.
I was convicted of "assaulting a police officer" and "resisting arrest," despite the fact that the ringleader cop had earned over 150 citizen complaints for excessive force. Shortly afterward, the police chief was replaced, and the new one started firing the bad cops.
It took me several decades before I could stand to be near cops. Seeing friendly uniforms at Pride festival booths, actively recruiting gay cops, helped a lot.
San Diego's Spreading Gayborhood
In San Diego, Hillcrest was widely known as the where the gay community lived and played. When I first started living there, it was referred to as "The Gay Nineties," because in order to live there, you had to be either gay, or ninety years old. As the old, original owners of the cute little bungalows died or moved away, gay couples moved in and GENTRIFIED.
We would plant flowers, peel away old aluminum siding, remove green-painted, low-maintenance concrete, and restore the interiors and exteriors. Property values skyrocketed, and fewer working-class folks could afford to buy a home in Hillcrest. So, we started spreading outward, into University Heights, Mission Hills, Talmadge, and on and on. From Highway Five to the west, to Golden Hill on the south end, and all of the way out to Lakeside in the east. One big, well-blended, straight and LGBT, open-minded culture, and almost NOBODY was born there. They were all refugees.
Even the heterosexuals had fled the Midwest. These intelligent, creative and flexible-minded folks had to get the hell AWAY from where they were born. This is why the Red states were getting redder, and the Blue states were getting bluer.
On one hand, we benefitted from the "Brain Drain," but on the other hand, the folks in Wisconsin, Iowa etc. lost their champions - the folks who would fight the good fight. That's why I was so pleased when the Kentucky men who confronted Kim Davis stood up on their hind legs and confronted her bigotry. This is why the Red states are now turning Purple.
Papa Tony's Parties
I live in a suburb of San Diego called Normal Heights. A century ago, a "Normal" school was a school that taught teachers. I love living here, and it is very neighborly, but it's a bit discriminatory. I tried to join the Normal Heights Book Club, but they wouldn't allow me to, because I am not of "normal height." Hardy har har.
When my husband Dennis and I moved into our home in Normal Heights in 1993, I saw a gay leatherman buddy of mine, behind our home's back fence. He lived there, and I said "Wow - We shall have to have a nice party together, once we have fully moved in." I talk like that.
He said "Don't forget to invite the other gay couples in the area," and started listing them. I thought "We should have the party in our yard!" A couple of months later, I got onto my bicycle, and started riding up and down every street in Normal Heights.
Back then, rainbow flags, lambdas and pink triangles were very popular and visible on car bumpers, window stickers and flags. For a long time, I had been one of the few thoroughly and openly-gay folks. Now, everybody was doing it.
I'd stop at a house, and knock on the door. It would open just a sliver, and I'd hear a doubtful voice say "Yes?" I'd say "Is that your red Toyota out in front?" "Yes, why?" "Well, I saw the rainbow flag sticker on the back bumper, and I have a neighborhood party invitation for you!" I'd hand them a sheet of paper that was festooned with many rainbow flags, and I'd ride away.
The first year, we only had 26 households who showed up. The next year, we had over 250, because word had gotten around. I was the real deal. That second year, I had created a map of Normal Heights. It was printed and mounted on foamcore board. I had created little rainbow-flag pins, and as soon as folks arrived, they would place a flag where they lived.
Most blocks had a MINIMUM of three gay or lesbian households. I showed this map to local community leaders in other neighborhoods, and they assured me that their local area contained the same density of LGBT households, for miles and miles.
These were not "gay" neighborhoods. They have just become peaceful, comfortable and diverse. 25 years later, the level of diversity has only gone up.
The Bashers
For years, there was a constant hazard of assault by bigots. Groups of rednecks would ride into town in pickups and station wagons. They would drive around Hillcrest, yelling and throwing eggs at homos who were walking along the streets. If the fag reacted badly, they'd pile out and beat him with baseball bats and fists.
Now, you KNOW that every one of those bashers was sexually repressed, and wanted nothing more than to suck a nice big, juicy cock, but their cultural programming didn't allow for it. So, they acted out in violent ways.
Things got very bad, in phases that lasted for years. You'd read in the gay newspapers about men hiding outside of gay bars, and when a gay man would walk out of the bar and past the hiding-place, the basher would swing a lead pipe at the back of his head, leaving him permanently brain-damaged. I can't recall how many men this happened to, but it went on for months until we started our own Neighborhood Patrol.
Think about it: You are a special, blessed child, born among hicks, yahoos and bigots. You have creativity and an open mind. You may as well be a pink monkey in a cage full of mean, brown monkeys. Instead of being warmly welcomed into the local community like everybody else, your LIFE is in danger, just because of things that you can't change about yourself.
Who the hell wants that? So, you head out on your own, as soon as you possibly can. You pick a coast or a big city, far, far away from Chicken Leg Arkansas, swearing never to return.
You would find a neighborhood that caters to the disenfranchised, and where LGBT folks can be themselves as much as the local police will allow. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than Squaw's Ass, Idaho. You can finally find folks of like interests, and plenty of sex that is pleasing. We could also band together and protect each other from bashers and police.
Folks had plenty of Gay Ghetto choices, according to Wikipedia:
Among the most famous gay villages are New York City's Greenwich Village, Chelsea, and Hell's Kitchen neighborhoods; Fire Island and The Hamptons on Long Island; Boston's South End and Provincetown, Massachusetts; Chicago's Boystown; Philadelphia's Gayborhood; Washington D.C.'s Dupont Circle; London's Soho, Birmingham's Gay Village, and Manchester's Canal Street, all in England; Los Angeles County's West Hollywood; as well as Barcelona Province's Sitges, Toronto's Church and Wellesley neighborhood, San Francisco's Castro, Madrid's Chueca, Sydney's Newtown, Berlin's Schöneberg, The Gay Street in Rome, Le Marais in Paris, Green Point in Cape Town and Melville in Johannesburg, South Africa.
In North America, the following gayborhoods are also noted: Asbury Park, Maplewood, Montclair, and Lambertville in New Jersey; Wilton Manors, Florida; Atlanta's Midtown, Montreal's Le Village, Houston's Montrose, San Diego's Hillcrest, San Jose's St Leo neighborhood, Dallas' Oak Lawn, Sacramento's Lavender Heights, and Seattle's Capitol Hill.It was an exodus caused by pain and rejection. LGBT folks wanted to get the hell out of a miserable, unsafe environment, and into a place of our own choosing and design. Gay men wanted career choices other than being florists and hair stylists.
As more and more distressed refugees from flyover country arrived, businesses sprang up to suit our tastes. Boutiques, bistros, barbershops, book stores, bars and bathhouses. We developed our own subcultural slang, styles and traditions.
Any open-minded, sassy waitress made a LOT of money on tips in the 1970's. Particularly if she worked an all-night restaurant after the bars closed. Gay men love us some divas, and any woman who could entertain a table full of drunken homos with her brassy ways was our QUEEN.
LGBTQ Junior High Arrives At Last
I have hosted hundreds of Men's Discussions. Periodically, I will stop and ask "How many of you have attended a high school prom?" A bunch of them will raise their hands. Then, I ask "Keep your hand up if you feel that it has prepared you for the life that you are living now." All hands drop, and rueful laughter ensues.
My point is that we were all put on a track. That track was designed for heterosexuals. During our formative years, most young men and women were playing games of "Does he like me, or does he REALLY REALLY like me?" They were testing their attractiveness and dating freely, while queers lacked such choices, and sat by the sidelines.
Picture this concept: In Junior high, when you attended "Health" classes that were really "Sexual Education" classes, an announcement comes over the loudspeaker: "In Room 24 at 2:30PM, we will be teaching a class on how to have sensational male-male intercourse. Directly afterward, we will teach the basics of long-term gay-male relationship dynamics."
Well, THAT never happened, so we had to figure out that mysterious stuff through direct exposure. So we gay men would dive right in to our new Tribe, liberating our dicks and asses. We slutted out, baby. The pendulum needed to swing.
Once we hit the gay neighborhoods, all of that repressed pleasure started revving up as fast as we could manage. Sexual intercourse was gay men's way of shaking hands and saying "Howdy!" We called sexual conquests "numbers," "He's a hot number" was a sassy way of saying "Now serving Number 63!"
West Hollywood
I recommend reading this wonderful article about West Hollywood's gay history. There are MANY articles online that can speak more knowledgeably than me. All that I can share is what I saw, back during the heyday of Boy's Town in the late 1970's, and early 1980's. There are long stories coming up. This is just an overview.
I lived near West Hollywood for a short time. Santa Monica Boulevard in the late 1970's was intensely gay. The sidewalks would be crowded with cruising men on a Saturday afternoon. For miles.
There were gay bars everywhere, and many bathhouses. It felt like you could go a full month without seeing a heterosexual in West Hollywood. I used to joke that we'd have to bus "breeders" and "front-loaders" into town once a month for Diversity Day.
You could walk into a supermarket and find yourself facing a magazine rack with muscular, scantily-clad men on the cover of Blueboy, Mandate and Drummer magazines. I don't think I got used to seeing that for a few years.
My point is that we were all put on a track. That track was designed for heterosexuals. During our formative years, most young men and women were playing games of "Does he like me, or does he REALLY REALLY like me?" They were testing their attractiveness and dating freely, while queers lacked such choices, and sat by the sidelines.
Picture this concept: In Junior high, when you attended "Health" classes that were really "Sexual Education" classes, an announcement comes over the loudspeaker: "In Room 24 at 2:30PM, we will be teaching a class on how to have sensational male-male intercourse. Directly afterward, we will teach the basics of long-term gay-male relationship dynamics."
Well, THAT never happened, so we had to figure out that mysterious stuff through direct exposure. So we gay men would dive right in to our new Tribe, liberating our dicks and asses. We slutted out, baby. The pendulum needed to swing.
Once we hit the gay neighborhoods, all of that repressed pleasure started revving up as fast as we could manage. Sexual intercourse was gay men's way of shaking hands and saying "Howdy!" We called sexual conquests "numbers," "He's a hot number" was a sassy way of saying "Now serving Number 63!"
West Hollywood
I recommend reading this wonderful article about West Hollywood's gay history. There are MANY articles online that can speak more knowledgeably than me. All that I can share is what I saw, back during the heyday of Boy's Town in the late 1970's, and early 1980's. There are long stories coming up. This is just an overview.
I took these photos during Los Angeles Pride in 1979.
You could see where MY mind was...
I lived near West Hollywood for a short time. Santa Monica Boulevard in the late 1970's was intensely gay. The sidewalks would be crowded with cruising men on a Saturday afternoon. For miles.
There were gay bars everywhere, and many bathhouses. It felt like you could go a full month without seeing a heterosexual in West Hollywood. I used to joke that we'd have to bus "breeders" and "front-loaders" into town once a month for Diversity Day.
You could walk into a supermarket and find yourself facing a magazine rack with muscular, scantily-clad men on the cover of Blueboy, Mandate and Drummer magazines. I don't think I got used to seeing that for a few years.
Cops were still a hazardous problem. There was a recent KPBS documentary about San Diego's Gay Bar History, and I'm in it. I'm the one who is crying, and also making jokes. The point is made by somebody that hundreds of bars have existed in our city, but they tended to come and go like spring mushrooms, due to police harassment.
It all started at the top - The local Attorney General or Police Chief could encourage the hiring of hateful law enforcers, and set up stings to entrap the homos. Bars would get busted for having signs outside that were too big, having porn on the TV, or having people in the bar who didn't have ID's in their pockets.
Beaten By the Cops
In 1981, I was dancing at a local bar called Mister Dillon's (it has been Rich’s for the last few decades). I am huge, and a very enthusiastic dancer, so I was up on stage. I wanted to avoid colliding with others who were smaller than me. As a result, I could see what happened:
Two uniformed cops were shoving their way through the crowded dance floor, throwing punches and whacking people with their billy clubs. I jumped off the stage to try and see their badge numbers. Bad plan. Being six foot five (five foot seventeen when standing fully erect), I do NOT do the "unobtrusive" thing well at all.
Fresh out of jail the next morning,
I had a broken eye socket and broken nose,
plus many deep bruises all over my body.
Just for being in a gay bar at the wrong time.
They caught me, and knocked me to the ground. One of them stomped and whacked at me with his club while the other one called on his radio. Within seconds, four more cops arrived and all six of them beat me while I cried out for help. When they got tired of doing that, they arrested me, my boyfriend, the bar manager and a few others who hadn't left quickly enough.
I was convicted of "assaulting a police officer" and "resisting arrest," despite the fact that the ringleader cop had earned over 150 citizen complaints for excessive force. Shortly afterward, the police chief was replaced, and the new one started firing the bad cops.
It took me several decades before I could stand to be near cops. Seeing friendly uniforms at Pride festival booths, actively recruiting gay cops, helped a lot.
San Diego's Spreading Gayborhood
In San Diego, Hillcrest was widely known as the where the gay community lived and played. When I first started living there, it was referred to as "The Gay Nineties," because in order to live there, you had to be either gay, or ninety years old. As the old, original owners of the cute little bungalows died or moved away, gay couples moved in and GENTRIFIED.
We would plant flowers, peel away old aluminum siding, remove green-painted, low-maintenance concrete, and restore the interiors and exteriors. Property values skyrocketed, and fewer working-class folks could afford to buy a home in Hillcrest. So, we started spreading outward, into University Heights, Mission Hills, Talmadge, and on and on. From Highway Five to the west, to Golden Hill on the south end, and all of the way out to Lakeside in the east. One big, well-blended, straight and LGBT, open-minded culture, and almost NOBODY was born there. They were all refugees.
Even the heterosexuals had fled the Midwest. These intelligent, creative and flexible-minded folks had to get the hell AWAY from where they were born. This is why the Red states were getting redder, and the Blue states were getting bluer.
On one hand, we benefitted from the "Brain Drain," but on the other hand, the folks in Wisconsin, Iowa etc. lost their champions - the folks who would fight the good fight. That's why I was so pleased when the Kentucky men who confronted Kim Davis stood up on their hind legs and confronted her bigotry. This is why the Red states are now turning Purple.
Papa Tony's Parties
I live in a suburb of San Diego called Normal Heights. A century ago, a "Normal" school was a school that taught teachers. I love living here, and it is very neighborly, but it's a bit discriminatory. I tried to join the Normal Heights Book Club, but they wouldn't allow me to, because I am not of "normal height." Hardy har har.
When my husband Dennis and I moved into our home in Normal Heights in 1993, I saw a gay leatherman buddy of mine, behind our home's back fence. He lived there, and I said "Wow - We shall have to have a nice party together, once we have fully moved in." I talk like that.
He said "Don't forget to invite the other gay couples in the area," and started listing them. I thought "We should have the party in our yard!" A couple of months later, I got onto my bicycle, and started riding up and down every street in Normal Heights.
Back then, rainbow flags, lambdas and pink triangles were very popular and visible on car bumpers, window stickers and flags. For a long time, I had been one of the few thoroughly and openly-gay folks. Now, everybody was doing it.
I'd stop at a house, and knock on the door. It would open just a sliver, and I'd hear a doubtful voice say "Yes?" I'd say "Is that your red Toyota out in front?" "Yes, why?" "Well, I saw the rainbow flag sticker on the back bumper, and I have a neighborhood party invitation for you!" I'd hand them a sheet of paper that was festooned with many rainbow flags, and I'd ride away.
The first year, we only had 26 households who showed up. The next year, we had over 250, because word had gotten around. I was the real deal. That second year, I had created a map of Normal Heights. It was printed and mounted on foamcore board. I had created little rainbow-flag pins, and as soon as folks arrived, they would place a flag where they lived.
Most blocks had a MINIMUM of three gay or lesbian households. I showed this map to local community leaders in other neighborhoods, and they assured me that their local area contained the same density of LGBT households, for miles and miles.
These were not "gay" neighborhoods. They have just become peaceful, comfortable and diverse. 25 years later, the level of diversity has only gone up.
The Bashers
For years, there was a constant hazard of assault by bigots. Groups of rednecks would ride into town in pickups and station wagons. They would drive around Hillcrest, yelling and throwing eggs at homos who were walking along the streets. If the fag reacted badly, they'd pile out and beat him with baseball bats and fists.
Now, you KNOW that every one of those bashers was sexually repressed, and wanted nothing more than to suck a nice big, juicy cock, but their cultural programming didn't allow for it. So, they acted out in violent ways.
A buddy told me that he was leaving town, because he had been traumatized. After leaving the San Diego Eagle, six men had chased him with baseball bats, and when he jumped into his car, they broke his windows before he could drive away.
Once we finally got the leadership in the local cop culture on our side, the problems stopped, but not before I studied karate and weapons training for four and half years. I was tired of feeling like a victim. I mean, come on - we were being handed rape whistles. That seemed like some pretty feeble protection.
The Ghetto Slowly Loses Relevance
Living in Boys Town in any city has its charms. After so many of us have been cast out of our homes, disinherited and shamed, we needed a space where we can hide out from the world for a while. It's a great place to live, but it doesn't move our lives forward.
The Ghetto Slowly Loses Relevance
Living in Boys Town in any city has its charms. After so many of us have been cast out of our homes, disinherited and shamed, we needed a space where we can hide out from the world for a while. It's a great place to live, but it doesn't move our lives forward.
Decades ago, my husband Dennis left Buffalo, New York, and moved to San Diego. He rejected Buffalo's hetero-biased culture, and had no intention of ever moving back. His attitude changed radically when we went back for our niece's wedding in 2016.
We were walking around downtown Buffalo, and when we turned a corner, there were rainbow flags everywhere! We had arrived without knowing that it was Pride weekend, and we had arrived at the festival, which was being set up. Folks there told us that the parade would start shortly, so we made our way over there.
That's Dennis on the far right, smiling blissfully.
Dennis cried as he watched 150 teenagers lead the parade. The crowd for the parade was enormous, and I noticed a lot of heterosexual couples smiling, waving and hollering in the crowd. It was a cheerful, mind-blowing day for the both of us. Our minds were changing about Dennis' home town. Sure, when he lived there, there had been a gayborhood, but it was small and furtive.
We stayed in Buffalo for two more weeks. As we power-walked through every neighborhood, we'd see rainbow flags hanging on nearly every church (and Buffalo has a LOT of old, massive churches.) Buffalo was revitalizing in every area, even the most-deteriorated ones. There were rainbow flags flying on every block for miles around.
I started testing my hunches on dozens of strangers: Dennis and I would be at a street fair, or an open-air concert, and we'd meet a heterosexual couple. I'd introduce us, adding "We are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary!" Within a second or so, the first words we ALWAYS heard were "DID YOU MAKE IT TO PRIDE?!??!!" Those straight folks wanted to take sure that we didn't miss out on something that THEY were invested in. They were proud allies.
In Conclusion
I have been using Buffalo as a metaphor for what has been happening in the USA. Younger folks can't imagine why anybody would want to fag-bash. They have friends who are queer. Based upon the fact that the horrid mommy-porn book called "Fifty Shades of Gray" was the fastest-selling paperback book in history, I suspect that many heterosexuals wish to be more flexible.
Over the decades, folks who are closed-minded are being excluded from the now-dominant, open-minded urban places. In my neighborhood, I know of only two households that have been proudly anti-gay, and both places no longer fly hateful flags or bumper-stickers. They know that their opinions aren't welcome.
In 2018, I still see plenty of negative crap in the news from folks who want to drive us back into our gayborhood ghettos. I don't see that ever happening again. The trend is ever upward. All of the current aggravation from hateful people is their last gasp of resistance to generational and demographic change.
The gayborhoods have expanded, and are popping up in new places. My wish is that the day will come when every child is valued, and never driven away. Then, everywhere will be a safe space. Based upon my last forty years of close observation, the positive changes are accelerating.
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