The LGBTQ community in Connecticut wanted to be seen, creating the tension between the desire for visibility and the safety of invisibility. In 1927, Mae West previewed her play, The Drag: A Homosexual Comedy in Three Acts, in Bridgeport’s Poli theater with an all-gay cast. Although the play was quickly shut down by critics and subsequently banned from Broadway, it was well-received by the audience. Throughout Connecticut history, queer people have constantly been asking, “Can you make room for us?”
Right: Bridgeport Telegram, February 11, 1927 (Source: Connecticut Historical Society)
If in The Drag I can find a new foothold for truth, I shall feel amply rewarded for my labors.
Mae West, in a letter to the Bridgeport Post
As a war refugee, I know how vital a foothold as small as a word can be.
“Reimagining Masculinity,” Ocean Vuong
The arts and humanities become tools for LGBTQ people to explore their identity and express their unique experiences to the larger community. Through their work, they are able to reinterpret the world and highlight their own perspectives. In 1934, the Wadsworth Atheneum director, Chick Austin, debuted lesbian writer Gertrude Stein’s Modernist opera, Four Saints in Three Acts, with music by gay composer Virgil Thompson.
Queer representation continued to crop up in Connecticut, despite the constant discrimination and oppression. LGBTQ people were blooming amid the chaos, however fleeting and ephemeral their visibility was.
(In)Visibility
Throughout history, the LGBTQ community has fluctuated and operated between two states of being: invisible and visible. LGBTQ people want to be seen, but at what cost? How exhausting must it be to live within this constant tension? LGBTQ people want more.
We were all once inside our mothers, saying with our entire curved and silent selves, more, more, more.
On Earth we’re briefly gorgeous, Ocean Vuong
In December 1990, State Representative Joe Grabarz came out as gay at a news conference, becoming the first openly gay legislator in Connecticut history. His announcement made national news.
Now more than ever, LGBTQ people are demanding acceptance in the public sphere. The community is actively rupturing their own silence, and along with it, the rules of heteronormativity.
People are coming out and encouraging others to voice their identities, to fill up the space that historically did not accept them, and to create safe spaces for themselves.
The brutal murder of Richard Reihl, a gay man who was targeted because of his sexual identity, invigorated the movement for LGBTQ rights in Connecticut. The people who rallied did not wear masks anymore to protect their identities. They want to be seen fighting against the injustices. They want to be seen. They want to see.
Listen to Gay Spirit Radio host Keith Brown interviewed about the history of LGBT+ rights in Connecticut NPR.
Read more about the historical struggle for gay rights in Connecticut.
Read more about the constant tension in queer lives within the public sphere.
