Obstacles to Gay Political Activism in the 1940s

The book The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s: A Gay Life in the 1940s by Ricardo J. Brown demonstrates that as a result of the virulently homophobic atmosphere of the time period, gay men and women used a variety of tactics to ensure their safety and security. The consequences of being exposed as a homosexual at this point in American history were catastrophic in terms of the potential legal, social, and financial consequences. As a result, gay men and women adhered to a strict code of decorum that prevented anyone outside their circles from discovering their sexual orientation. The most effective tactic utilized by members of the gay community to preserve their safety was pretending to be heterosexual in all but the most intensely private situations, a tactic that, while successful, proved to limit the gay community in terms of their ability to form a community capable of resisting the heteronormative social order and fighting for equal rights.

To understand the intense and unwavering desire of the gay community during this time period to pass for straight, it is important to recognize the serious and disastrous consequences of being exposed as homosexual. As Brown states, “homosexuals could be imprisoned for years, institutionalized until ‘cured.’ In some countries we were executed, and any of us could be beaten to death if the wrong people got wise to us.”1 The distinct legal and physical danger related to being gay at this time forced the gay community to maintain rigorous secrecy, for fear that exposure could lead to consequences as grave as a violent death. The serious consequences of being outed as gay made the organization of any gay resistance virtually impossible. As certain incidents illustrate, even the rumor of being gay was enough to destroy a person’s life, meaning that being out of the closet was simply an unfathomable concept for most people during this time period.

In addition to concerns of legality and basic safety, in a matter of equal importance, homosexuality was quite simply a professional death sentence. As Brown states, “An anonymous letter or phone call, motivated by hate, spite, jealousy or revenge, accusing you of being queer could destroy you. My friend Dale had been fired from an office job he’d had for six years with Central Coal and Oil Company after a call like that to his boss.”2 The fact that homosexuality could completely derail a person’s ability to earn a living was one of the main reasons why the gay community of the time period focused so intently on secrecy above all else, a focus that made organization towards activism fundamentally impossible. In fact, we see that gay people of the time period went to extreme lengths to hide their sexuality from all but their closest associates. However, this is not to say that there was no community within the gay population.

Despite not being able to publically vocalize their desire for equal treatment, the gay community enjoyed a strong and intense sense of unity. As Brown states, “we did have a feeling of kinship. We had been brought up in stable, family-oriented, religious homes, and we tried to apply the values we learned there to the small brotherhood and sisterhood at Kirmser’s...there was no denying our blood bond. We were family.”3 However, these strong ties were forced to remain hidden from public view, resulting in a community that was extremely strong and close-knit, but invisible to the vast majority of the population. This anonymity, although vital to the well-being of gays and lesbians during this time period, meant that by definition there were few opportunities for activism or resistance. Upon close examination, the level of isolation and silence of the gay community and the lengths to which gay people went to preserve this status are astounding to the modern eye.

Gay people used a variety of tactics to ensure that they went unnoticed by the general population, always prioritizing secrecy, even in gay bars and other areas where they felt relatively safe. As Brown states, “There were never any overt signs of affection between men in Kirmser’s… a kiss between two men, or an embrace, even in Kirmser’s, was unthinkable, a deadly, ancient taboo...men simply did not show affection for one another, not even homosexuals. Not even at Kirmser’s.”4 The fact that even in a gay bar it was an extreme breach of decorum to physically express attraction to a member of the same sex illustrates the level of suppression of the gay community at this time. Despite the practicality of such measures, there was undoubtedly an impact on the ability of the gay community to form a cohesive resistance and effect change in their social and legal status as a result of their invisibility to the general population. In addition, the desire to remain invisible required even further deceptions than previously mentioned.

One of the ways in which members of the gay community ensured their secret status was by dating women. As Brown states, “We always had to keep our guard up. We all learned to get by on lies, deceit, illusions. We were expected to go out with girls, so we dated girls.”5 The fact that gay people were forced to lie and deceive the public, even going so far as to date women in whom they had no sexual interest, ensured that they would remain dehumanized and persecuted by society as a whole. If a subset of society is driven so far underground that no one knows they exist it is easy to demonize such a group, and it becomes extremely difficult for the group to raise their heads and demand justice and equality. Sadly, the deference towards surreptitiousness amongst gays and lesbians during this time can definitively be seen to have had a serious negative impact on their capacity to protect one another from bigotry and persecution.

One of the anecdotes from the book that most effectively demonstrates the negative impact of extreme secrecy on the gay community occurs during a homophobic attack at the titular gay bar, Kirmser’s. When two men begin to beat one of the gay men at the bar known as Flaming Youth as a result of his sexuality, Brown jumps in to break up the fight, and no one else in the bar helps him. As Brown states, “They looked at me as if I were a stranger, an unsettling and unexpected appraisal…Were we all supposed to sit there while two guys kicked the shit out of an old man like Flaming Youth...where were the rest of them?”6 The fact that the paramount importance of secrecy was so ingrained into the psyche of the gay men of the time period that they did not even consider helping their friend fend off a homophobic attack for fear of being implicated as gay is indicative of the debilitating effect of covert behavior on the capacity of the gay community for resistance against bigotry. When the emphasis on secrecy is so deeply implanted into the minds of a community it becomes impossible to organize even the most basic of resistance, as in this case, let alone implement a more sweeping vision for total social equality. Furthermore, we see the negative impact of intense secrecy manifest itself in other ways in the gay community.

In some ways, it is evident that the overwhelming need for secrecy had a variety of negative effects that in some ways became internalized by many gay individuals during this time period. One of the ways in which this trend is evident is with the trend of gender-switching. As Brown explains, gender-switching began as a code for talking in front of people, where “‘He’ became ‘she’ and ‘him’ became ‘her’...I hated the subterfuge. It was especially unsettling to hear Lucky, ordinarily the most guileless of men slip into gender-switching...Several of the guys at Kirmser’s thought it was cute to refer to men as women.”7 The fact that gender switching took such a pervasive hold in the community, and Brown’s obvious discomfort with the trend, illustrates that in some ways the internalization of tactics used to maintain secrecy led to what could be construed as a degree of self-hatred within the gay community. The commonality of referring to men as women certainly points to a degree of internalized repression, which could also contribute to the difficulty in organizing a more militantly activist gay community. In addition, there were more practical reasons for the difficulty in organizing a more revolutionary gay community.

Secrecy within the gay community was so important that it made any level of grassroots political organization almost impossible. As Brown states, at Kirmser’s “customers were careful, even in introductions, never to give out a last name. It was considered bad business to even mention anyone’s last name. It was first names only, and you would never tell a stranger where you worked.”8 This level of intense secrecy undoubtedly made any sort of political development or organization infeasible on a strictly practical level. If a community is under such pressure that it is dangerous to even reveal names and places of employment to one another in the safest environment available, it is impossible to formulate an effective activist strategy. The simple, practical effects of such extreme secrecy cannot be understated in their stifling influence on the ability of the gay community to resist persecution and make their case for equality.

As Brown makes clear, there were a variety of reasons why the gay community of the 1940s was forced into a level of almost unimaginable secrecy, and a number of different tactics utilized to ensure this level of invisibility. The homophobic atmosphere of the time period meant that anyone exposed as gay risked serious legal punishment, grave violence, and financial ruin. To combat this the gay community resorted to extreme measures of secrecy, even in private and in areas known to be gay-friendly. Although these circumstances helped create a close-knit and caring community, they also resulted in serious practical and emotional obstacles toward political mobilization and activism. While it is impossible to fault gays and lesbians during this time period for guarding their privacy with the utmost zeal, it is also clear that the extreme measures toward secrecy were counterproductive to progressive action from the gay community and to positive acceptance of such action in mainstream society. The forced secrecy of the gay community during this time period is an appalling and horrifying chapter of our nation’s history and makes the current political progress of the gay rights movement even more astonishing and impressive.

Work Cited

Brown, Ricardo J.. The evening crowd at Kirmser's: A gay life in the 1940s. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. Print.