1920s gay men coding

Celebrating Queer Joy in 1920s Berlin

Prior to Nazi Germany, in a period established as the Weimar Republic, queer people lived openly in a society that allowed LGBTQ+ spaces to exist to such an extent that Berlin was considered the queer capital of the world. In these spaces queer people found freedom, community, and joy living openly as their authentic selves. To honor the queer people of Weimar Berlin – and the queer people today – Illinois Holocaust Museum is dedicating an evening to celebrate the most famous LGBTQ+ nightclub in Weimar Berlin: the Eldorado.

The Eldorado was one of an estimated 170 LGBTQ+ spaces in Berlin, even as anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination was prevalent. Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code, which made homosexual relations between men illegal, was in place, if not strictly enforced. Persecution was not limited to cisgender men: historian Laurie Marhoefer’s research illustrates that while lesbian sex was not illegal, it was still regulated and contained by the state.

Trans people were targeted as adv – appearing in common wearing clothing that didn’t match the person’s sex assigned at birth could result in arrest. Homosexual establishments were tolerated, rat

How Gay Culture Blossomed During the Roaring Twenties

On a Friday night in February 1926, a crowd of some 1,500 packed the Renaissance Casino in Brand-new York City’s Harlem neighborhood for the 58th masquerade and civil ball of Hamilton Lodge.

Nearly half of those attending the event, reported the New York Age, appeared to be “men of the class generally known as ‘fairies,’ and many Bohemians from the Greenwich Village section who...in their gorgeous evening gowns, wigs and powdered faces were hard to distinguish from many of the women.”

The tradition of masquerade and civil balls, more commonly known as drag balls, had begun back in 1869 within Hamilton Lodge, a dark fraternal organization in Harlem. By the mid-1920s, at the height of the Prohibition era, they were attracting as many as 7,000 people of various races and social classes—gay, lesbian, pansexual, transgender and direct alike.

Stonewall (1969) is often considered the beginning of forward progress in the gay rights movement. But more than 50 years earlier, Harlem’s famous flamboyant balls were part of a flourishing, highly visible LGBTQ nightlife and identity that would be integrated into mainstream American life i

Gay Coding in Hitchcock Films

Editor’s note: The following article, like many of Alfred Hitchcock’s films, includes references to sex and violence.

Did Martin Landau play a homosexual in North by Northwest? Did Alfred Hitchcock really show gay sex on-screen in Rope, albeit in an unusual way? Was the whole plot of Rebecca driven by the twisted jealousy of an evil lesbian? And, most surprisingly, did Hitchcock depict a gay marriage way back in 1938’s The Lady Vanishes?

The famed, late English film director Alfred Hitchcock was a complicated, twisted and mischievous man — characteristics that show up in all his great movies. He meticulously planned each motion picture and knew exactly the effect each detail would have on his audiences. If he wanted to refer to homosexuality, as he did in at least 10 of his movies, Hitchcock would employ what are now called “gay codes.” These are subtle references that queer people and their allies would recognize but could pass by most of the audience unnoticed. They are intentionally ambiguous in order to maintain deniability if questioned, especially by the censors.

Hitchcock was exposed to vibrant gay communi
1920s gay men coding

A Brief History of Gender non-conforming Coding in Film: Part 1

Posted by Melanie on May 27, 2022 · 2 Comments 

I was recently asked to put together a concise primer about the history of queer coding. This is nowhere near exhaustive, and though chapters 5 and 6 are less egregiously white, it’s still a very pale overview; if you have production suggestions, additional thoughts and specifics, etc., would cherish to hear from you in the comments.

WATCHLIST:Double Indemnity (1944), The Exorcist (1970), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) Bend It Like Beckham (2002)

CHAPTERS

  1. Introduction
    – Thesis
    – Terms
    – About Me
  2. Pre-Hays
  3. During Hays1934 – 1968
  4. Post-Hays
  5. 80s-00s
  6. Current Films
  7. Causes and Effects
    – Blockbusters and Us
    – Unintended Consequences, or Seeing Ships Where They Ain’t
    – When Truths and Fiction Collide
    – Queerbaiting
    – Queerness and Villainy
  8. Links and Resources

1. Introduction

THESIS: Queer characters have been part of cinema since its inception. Sometimes their presence has been veiled, sometimes punished, sometimes projected because tru

A group of lesbians at NYC venue Webster Hall [Public Domain]
In the widespread imagination, most people imagine that male lover culture in Unused York City started in 1969 with the Stonewall Riots. This has always kind of pissed me off as a gay person, if only for the reason that if you even try to transport up the thought of anyone having a gay experience before the 60s people just suppose it couldn't be possible. As if we as LGBT folk didn't live until the tardy 60s as anything other than the occasional person hung for sodomy or something. Condescendingly, many straights imagine that the gays of yore must acquire become self-loathing and passively spent their entire lives in the closet until Stonewall happened. Not that the Stonewall Riots weren't tremendously important, of course - that's not at all what I am saying - but male lover clubs didn't obtain their start with Stonewall and Julian's and the Duplex, and the systematic suppression of the LGBT community was not due to some age-old, unchanging social antipathy, nor was it a sign of passivity by LGBT people. Anti-gay forces createdthe closet in the early 20th century.

Believe it or not, there was actually an earlier lgbtq+ subculture in NYC - and it