The newspapers serve as a gauge of the community’s reaction to gays and serve as an argument against the myth of invisibility and isolation. The primary sources gathered by Chauncey consists of interviews, reports by anti-vice investigators, and newspapers. Cite Share Permissions The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Moreover, the secondary sources provide more refined research from other historians because of scarcity of certain source material such as that produced in more exclusive cultures. WHAT GAY STUDIES TAUGHT THE COURT: The Historians Amicus Brief in Lawrence v. The secondary sources act as support for the argument from experts in other fields.

1 Reports provided by the anti-vice committees had provided much evidence for the common practices and appearance with the downside of only having reported areas that were suspected of homosexual practices. The areas of Harlem, Greenwich Village, and Bowery provided the necessary means of sustaining the anti-gay laws that had risen during the 1930s and had only made the gay community more exclusive and discrete. The openness or popularity of certain areas correlates with the past view of sex between men was simply a means of achieving satisfaction and nothing more. Male to male sexual relations differed on multiple levels dependent on masculinity or flamboyance. Chauncey’s book provides a great depth of understanding homosexuality as a construct that we associate today as clearly defined.

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