LGBT Culture

LGBT culture is a culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. It is sometimes referred to as queer culture (indicating people who are queer), while the term gay culture may be used to mean "LGBT culture" or to refer specifically to homosexual culture.

LGBT culture varies widely by geography and the identity of the participants. Elements common to cultures of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people include:
* Works by famous gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, including:
**Contemporary LGBT artists and political figures like Larry Kramer, Keith Haring and Rosa von Praunheim.
**Historical figures identified as LGBT, although identifying historical figures with modern terms for sexual identity is controversial (see History of sexuality). However, many LGBT people feel a kinship with these people and their work (particularly that addressing same-sex attraction or gender identity); an example is VictoryFund.org, dedicated to supporting homosexual politicians.
*An understanding of LGBT social movements
*Figures and identities present in the LGBT community; within LGBT communities in Western culture, this might include drag kings and queens, pride parades and the rainbow flag.
* LGBT communities may organize themselves into, or support, movements for civil rights promoting LGBT rights in various places around the world. At the same time, high-profile celebrity icons in the broader society who have achieved representation of LGBT culture itself, may offer strong support to these organizations in certain locations; for example, LGBT advocate and entertainer Madonna stated, “I was asked to perform at many Pride events around the world — but I would never, ever turn down New York City.”

Not all LGBT people identify with LGBT culture; this may be due to geographic distance, unawareness of the subculture's existence, fear of social stigma or a preference for remaining unidentified with sexuality- or gender-based subcultures or communities. The Queercore and Gay Shame movements critique what they see as the commercialization and self-imposed "ghettoization" of LGBT culture.

In some cities, particularly in North America, some LGBT people live in neighborhoods with a high proportion of gay residents, otherwise known as gay villages or ''gayborhoods''—examples of these neighborhoods include Greenwich Village, Hell's Kitchen, and Chelsea in Manhattan; Castro and West Hollywood in California, United States; and Church and Wellesley in Toronto, Canada. Such LGBT communities organize special events in addition to pride parades celebrating their culture such as the Gay Games and Southern Decadence.

Gay men's culture

According to Herdt, " homosexuality" was the main term used until the late 1950s and early 1960s; after that, a new "gay" culture emerged. "This new gay culture increasingly marks a full spectrum of social life: not only same-sex desires but gay selves, gay neighbors, and gay social practices that are distinctive of our affluent, postindustrial society".

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, gay culture was largely underground or coded, relying on in-group symbols and codes woven into ostensibly straight appearances. Gay influence in early America was more often visible in high culture, where it was nominally safer to be out. The association of gay men with opera, ballet, haute couture, fine cuisine, musical theater, the Golden Age of Hollywood and interior design began with wealthy homosexual men using the straight themes of these media to send their own signals. In the heterocentric Marilyn Monroe film '' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'', a musical number features Jane Russell singing "Anyone Here for Love" in a gym while muscled men dance around her. The men's costumes were designed by a man, the dance was choreographed by a man and the dancers (as gay screenwriter Paul Rudnick points out) "seem more interested in each other than in Russell"; however, her presence gets the sequence past the censors and works it into an overall heterocentric theme.

After the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City was covered on the mainstream news channels, showing images of gay men rioting in the streets, gay male culture among the working classes, people of color, street people, radical political activists and hippies became more visible to mainstream America. Groups such as the Gay Liberation Front formed in New York City, and the Mattachine Society, which had been in existence and doing media since 1950, gained more visibility as they addressed the crowds and media in the wake of the uprisings in Greenwich Village. On June 28, 1970 the first Christopher Street Liberation Day was held, marking the beginning of annual Gay Pride marches.

In 1980 a group of seven gay men formed The Violet Quill in New York City, a literary club focused on writing about the gay experience as a normal plotline instead of a "naughty" sideline in a mostly straight story. An example is the novel '' A Boy's Own Story'' by Edmund White. In this first volume of a trilogy, White writes as a young homophilic narrator growing up with a corrupt and remote father. The young man learns bad habits from his straight father, applying them to his gay existence.

Female celebrities such as Liza Minnelli, Jane Fonda, and Bette Midler spent a significant amount of their social time with urban gay men (who were now popularly viewed as sophisticated and stylish by the jet set), and more male celebrities (such as Andy Warhol) were open about their relationships. Such openness was still limited to the largest and most progressive urban areas (such as New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans