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Some might read what she says and think she's indulging in stereotypes, but I think some of the things are more like archetypes. But she points out that gay men are real people who have a fascinating mix of things going on in their lives, with various strengths and weaknesses. She didn't put gay men up on a pedestal and suggest they are paragons of virtue.
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When she realized that the men she found most appealing as friends when she was working as a palm reader in Los Angeles in the 1940s were gay, she became really intrigued by that. She had a real interest in finding patterns in life. But I missed how she was insightful and progressive in some ways. Q: It's amazing how Branson discusses issues that are still big today: Can gays have healthy long-term relationships? (She said yes and proved it.) Does nature or nurture create homosexuality? Were you surprised by how modern the book sounds?Ī: When I first read the book, I was kind of blinded by some of the things that rubbed me the wrong way. Many gay men and lesbians had a similar kind of perspective: what we need to do is conform. In some ways, it's similar to some of the early black civil rights organizers in the African-American population who felt the way to win acceptance was to be as white as possible in how you lived your life. There's another thing that's a fascinating dimension of homosexual thought at that time: even early gay rights organizations were very intent on enforcing pretty traditional standards of dress for men and women. Many leaders of homosexual organizations tried to distance themselves from these people, whom they viewed as excessively flamboyant types. These kinds of individuals - the screamers - were really a problem for these early homosexual rights organizations because they were just bad p.r. Q: Why did she have such a strong policy against acting too gay?Ī: At that time, there some gay men who in their self-presentation, because of feeling so oppressed and belittled and beleaguered and trapped in their lives, they kind of acted out in almost wildly flamboyant ways, carrying on in ways that were more than just authentic expressions of maybe an degree of effeminacy on their parts. She was able to do things her own way, in a way that created a hospitable, friendly and inviting atmosphere but still maintained safeguards against problems with law enforcement and hustlers and people who were not necessarily out to treat her gay friends well.
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She didn't like some of the practices that she had to go along with in managing the other establishments. She had a lot of gay friends she'd developed since her divorce in the 1930s, and she had managed other gay bars for other owners. She really saw it as a kind of public living room. It was bottled beer, bottled soft drinks and various things to munch on. It would have been very reasonable and understandable if she would have elected to use a pseudonym, and she didn't.Ī: There was nothing fancy, nothing high end about it. Here she is working as a small bar proprietor, trying to make enough to live on until she could make it to retirement and Social Security checks. She was writing this book when Senator McCarthy was still ranting and raving about things, a climate of what we could all call homophobia - great antagonism toward homosexuality and homosexuals, perversion and deviants, and all that sort of stuff. Q: What surprised you about the book and her story?Ī: It was just really remarkable that a woman like Helen would have been courageous enough, or bold enough, to publish this book with her real name attached to it. It was a pretty groundbreaking book: by my estimation, the first book by a straight person that depicts the lives of gay people positively. Then I gradually began to realize it was more significant than that. It struck me as a kind of curious, quaint and somewhat charming period piece of a book. It occurred to me that a revival of the book seemed warranted.