Chauncey, George. Gay New York Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940. New York: Basic Books. 1994.

## Summary

Chauncey’s *Gay New York* looks at how a visible, complex, and continually changing gay male world took shape between 1890 and
the beginning of World War II; it was a world that included gay neighborhood
enclaves, public dances and other social events, and a host of commercial
establishments for gays, ranging from saloons and bars to elegant restaurants.
It is, in one sense, the story of the gay male world in New York; but it is
also a story of the dominant culture during this time period and reinterprets
how we see immigrant, African American, and working class communities, where
often gay life took hold.  In retelling
this story, this book challenges three myths of the gay life before the rise of
the gay liberation movement: 1) the myth of isolation (anti-gay hostility
prevent the development of gay culture): Chauncey contends, gay men forged an
immense gay world of overlapping social networks from private apartments to
city streets; 2) the myth of invisibility (even if the gay world existed, it
was kept invisible): Chauncey argues that gay men were highly visible in New
York in part “because gay life was more integrated into the everyday life of
the city in the prewar decades than it would be after WWII” as well as the fact
that many gay men pronounced their presence through their style (red ties,
bleached hair, etc.) and were reported on in newspapers; 3) the myth of
internalization (gay men internalized the dominant culture’s view of them as
sick, perverted and immoral): Chauncey shows that many gay men celebrated their
difference and even organized to resist anti-gay policing (published articles
and books, sent letters to newspaper, and urged jurists and doctors to change
their views along with the day-to-day tactics of resistance). All of these
myths, Chauncey further notes, are represented and perpetuated by the metaphor
of the closet, which is often used to characterize gay life before the advent
of gay liberation. However, Chauncey argues (key argument) that until the 1930s
a gay world flourished in New York and that is was only with the repression
accompanying the repeal of Prohibition and the conformity of the Cold War that
the “closet” confining gays was constructed. This “gay world” was lost in
history because of how visible it became in the 1920s; by the 1930s and 1940s
(and especially during the Cold War in the 1950s) authorities enacted new laws
and regulations to limit the visibility of gay culture. Given this, Chauncey
argues: “Gay life in New York was less tolerated, less visible to outsiders,
and more rigidly segregated in the second third of the century than the first,
and that the very severity of the prewar reaction has tended to blind us to the
relative tolerance of the prewar years.” (9) During this time period
(1890-1940) Gay New York was transformed from an alternative world of diverse
sexual options to a hegemonic discourse of the hetero-homosexual dichotomy.  Shaped by working-class neighborhoods, a
person’s sexual identity was shaped by the gender traits (receptive or
penetrative, passive or active, “fairy” or masculine) of both partners (not by
the sex of the chosen partner).