This presentation focuses on a condensed history of LGBTQ clubs and pubs as gathering spaces for communities traditionally under siege.

1. By Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld
warrenblumenfeld@gmail.com

2.  England, 1700-
1830s
 Network of men
gathered for
company & sex
 Series of houses or
rooms in pubs
 Some raided by
police
 Men tried,
 Some executed

3.  U.S. change from agricultural to
industrial economies, late 19th
century
 Cities with large number of
unmarried people
 People of different identities
mixed: race, class, gender
 Homosexual subcultures and
networks
 Many single-sex boarding
houses, hotels
 Bars, Cafés, Theaters, Dance
Halls, Clubs, Parks, Streets

4. One of the first New York City anti-gay police
raids occurred on February 21, 1903 at the
Ariston Bathhouse frequented by homosexual
and bisexual men. Police detained 60 men and
arrested 14.

5.  Drag balls in pre-World War II New York gay
society.
 Harlem Renaissance, homosexual women and
men part of black night club life.
“Beau of the Ball”
Photographer:
James VanDerZee

6.  Many songs had homosexual
subthemes.
 Clam House in Harlem
 Flirted with & dedicated songs
to women in audience

7. “Married” a woman in New Jersey civil
ceremony.

8.  Same Sex Sexuality Illegal in all States and in
D.C. before 1962 when Illinois became first to
decriminalize.

9. Same-sex sexuality had become legal in Illinois in 1962, Connecticut in
1971, Colorado and Oregon in 1972, Delaware and Hawaii in 1973,
Massachusetts and Ohio in 1974, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and North
Dakota in 1975, California, Maine, Washington, and West Virginia in 1976,
Indiana, Iowa, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming in 1977, Nebraska in
1978, New Jersey in 1979, Alaska, New York, and Pennsylvania in 1980,
Wyoming in 1983, Kentucky in 1992, Nevada and District of Columbia in
1993, Tennessee in 1996, Montana in 1997, Georgia and Rhode Island in
1998, Maryland and Missouri (Western District counties only) in 1999,
Arizona and Minnesota in 2001, and Arkansas in 2002, remainder in 2003
with Supreme Court Decision, Lawrence v. Texas.

10. "The petitioners
are entitled to
respect for their
private lives. The
state cannot
demean their
existence or
control their
destiny by making
their private sexual
conduct a crime.“
John Geddes Lawrence &
Tyron Garner
Supreme Court Overturned Sodomy Laws

11.  1930s: did not allow homosexuals to be
served in licensed bars in New York state
 Penalty: revocation of the bar's license to
operate.
 Confirmed by a court decision in the early
1940s.
 Mere presence of homosexuals in
bars constitutes “disorder.”

12.  From the mid-19th century, several states passed
laws prohibiting wearing, as stated in the 1845
New York law, “the dress of the opposite sex.”
 Anyone perceived as male could be arrested as
late as 2011 in New York for “impersonating a
female.”
 The 1845 New York law defined an unlawful
vagrant as a “person who, having his face
painted, discolored, covered, or concealed, or
being otherwise disguised, in a manner
calculated to prevent his being identified,
appears in a road or public highway.”

13.  Many of the earlier anti-cross-dressing laws were
not only intended to harass people assigned male
at birth, but also were also a reaction by the
government to inhibit and harass members of the
burgeoning women’s movement for greater
opportunities outside the home.
 Feminist scholars have discovered the
“association between dressing as men and the
demands of young women for greater personal
freedom.” Also, “cross-dressing” women during
the early 1900s was regarded in some areas of
psychology as associated with insanity or
homosexuality.

14.  1930, Conservative era
 Frequent police raids

15.  F.B.I. Director
 Emotionally and possibly sexually
involved with his assistant, Clyde Tolson
 Hoover wrote in 1936:
“The present apathy of the public toward perverts
[homosexuals] generally regarded as ‘harmless,’ should
be changed to one of suspicious scrutiny. The harmless
pervert of today can be and often is the loathsome
mutilator and murderer of tomorrow…The ordinary
offender [turned] into a dangerous, predatory animal,
preying upon society because he has been taught he
can get away with it.”
“War on the Sex Criminal,” New York Herald Tribune
Tolson & Hoover

16.  1920s, Scientific Humanitarian Committee
 25 chapters
 Work continued to abolish Paragraph 175
Patrons Eldorado Club, Berlin enjoying pleasant night out

17. Nazis closed Eldorado Club,
Berlin, March 5, 1933.

18. Foundation developed for lesbian, gay,
bisexual, trans communities following W.W.II

19.  From small towns
 Came to big cities
 Lesbian & Gay Bars
Knotty Pine, 1940s
Mona’s 440 Club, 1940s

21.  San Francisco, August 1966
 First collective violent resistance to
oppression against LGBT people in U.S.
 Police conducted raid, entered Compton’s,
began physically harassing the clientele.

22.  People fought back hurling coffee at the officers,
heaving cups, dishes, and trays around the cafeteria.
 Police retreated outside as customers smashed
windows. Over the course of the next night, people
gathered to picket the cafeteria, which refused to
allow trans people back inside.

23.  June 28, 1969
 Stonewall Inn, 53 Christopher
Street
 Greenwich Village, NYC
◦ Transgender people, lesbians, gays,
bisexuals, People of Color,
street people, students
 Police Raid
 Selling alcohol without license

24.  Harassed too long
 One of the first times to challenge police
 flinging bottles, rocks, bricks, trash cans, parking
meters as battering rams
 Five nights

25.  Snake Pit Bar raid, NYC - March 8, 1970
 Unlicensed bar, dancing and alcohol, a few blocks
from Stonewall Inn.
 All patrons taken to police station.
 One patron, Alfred Diego Vinales, 23-years old,
Argentinian national, expired visa.
 At police station, terrified, threw himself from a
window in effort to escape
 Impaled himself on iron spiked fence below in
five places on his body.
 Fence had to be cut away.
 He was taken to hospital.
 He survived
 Community organized protest
march.

26.  Arson Fire, Molotov Cocktail, Kills 32
 June 24, 1973
 The UpStairs Lounge, New Orleans, LA

27.  Shooting Outside Club, No Injuries
 November 18, 1980
 Ramrod club, New York City, NY
Shooter said gay men are agents
of the devil, are stalking him and
“trying to steal my soul just by
looking at me.”

28.  Nail Bomb, 150 Inside, 5 Injured
 February 21, 1997
 Other Side Lounge, Atlanta, GA

29.  Bomb, 2 Killed, 81 Injured
 April 30, 1999
 Admiral Duncan pub, London, England

30.  Shooter Opened Fire, 1 Killed, 6 Wounded
 September 22, 2000
 The Back Street Cafe, Roanoke, VA

31.  Arson Fire, Gasoline on Carpeted Stairway
 No injuries
 December 31, 2013
 Neighbours night club, Seattle, WA

32.  Shooter with Semiautomatic Weapon & Hand
Gun
 49 Killed, 53 Injured
 June 12, 2016
 Pulse club, Latin Night, Orlando, FL

33. Two dead, one injured in gay bar shooting in the Teplaren bar in Slovakia’s
capital city of Bratislava. Local LGBTQ groups called the attack ‘the result of a
long and systematic campaign against them by state officials, churches, and
extremist groups.’“
October 12, 2022

34.  Five murdered, many more injured by a
shooter at Club Q, November 19-20, 2022.

35.  An LGBTIQ History: Part 1
 http://www.slideshare.net/wblumen/an-lgbtiq-history1
 An LGBTIQ History: Part 2
 http://www.slideshare.net/wblumen/an-lgbtiq-history2
 An LGBTIQ History Part 3
 https://www.slideshare.net/wblumen/an-lgbtiq-history3-85723091
 An LGBTIQ History Part 4
 http://www.slideshare.net/wblumen/an-lgbtq-history4
 LGBT People under the Nazi Regime
 http://www.slideshare.net/wblumen/lgbt-holocaust-full
 This unique presentation investigates the life and times of LGBT
people leading up to and under the Nazi regime. It is a story of
Surveillance, Interrogation, Censorship, Incarceration, Brutalization,
Mutilation, Murder, but it is also a story of Resistance and Resiliency
of the human spirit.