Here's your weekly pride content! As we go into the next week of pride month, it's a good time to think back on where the origins of pride and safe spaces came from. Before even the famous Stonewall riots, and the heroic actions done by trans women of color.
I want to talk about the mafia. It's time to get into some weird history.
In 1960's New York, it was essentially illegal to be gay. The prohibition had been lifted 30 years prior, and in the new bar scene, police had various rules about who bars were allowed to serve. The NYPD had laws against "disorderly premises" and "moral indecency", it was illegal to serve gay people alcohol, for gay people to be seen together, or for them to dance together. Any bars that would frequently serve gay patrons would be raided by police. These raids involved arresting cross dressing men, women who were found to be wearing less than three 'feminine' articles of clothing, or any gay youths seen dancing or drinking together. At times they would engage in the nauseating action of having a female officer take patrons to the bathroom to 'confirm their sex' (i.e. check their genitals).
This left not a lot of options for gay youths. New york city in the 1960's was a dangerous time to be gay, and a lot of them were homeless, or sex workers, and they rarely had a place to feel safe.
Fortunately, there was one group of people who weren't scared of the police. The mafia.
While most bars weren't willing to serve gay patrons under fear from the police, the mafia had no such concerns. They watched the desperation of members of the LGBT community to find a safe bar to go to, and they saw a business.
In New York City, the Genovese family, led by Vito Genovese, controlled most of the West Village. One member of the family, Tony "Fat Tony" Lauria, bought the Stonewall Inn in 1966, and turned it into a gay bar.
Naturally, he knew this wasn't legal, but in exchange for $1,200 a week, the NYPD let him run his string of bars, which in addition to Stonewall, included the lesbian Howdy club.
And thus, a community of gay bars and safe spaces was created in New York. Where, at least for a little bit, gay youths in New York had a chance to be safe for a little while and be seen drinking and dancing with one another.
This was far from perfect however. The mafia weren't allies by any stretch of the imagination, they were just trying to make a profit, and were more than willing to exploit LGBT youth to get their money.
They sold watered-down liquor, bootlegged cigarettes, and rarely kept up with the maintenance of their bars. Their sole goal was to maximize profits from their new clientele. The owners would frequently communicate with the NYPD about good times to come by for raids, and the NYPD would warn the owners ahead of time.There are even tales of the owners of these bars 'pimping' out some of their patrons, but if they did, they were never caught for it.
Some scholars claim that the Stonewall riots were as much against the exploitation of the mafia, as it was against police violence.
Nevertheless, even though the mafia had corrupt motives, they unintentionally created some of the original safe spaces, and created a sense of pride and community among gay youth in New York City, at a time when this was very hard to express pride.
