Protecting LGBTQ* Social Spaces in 1950s and 1960s New York: Mafia vs Self-protection

Abstract

In the 1950s and 1960s, the US government outlawed deviations from heteronormativity and proactively enforced anti-LGBTQ* statutes. This drove many to seek sanctuary in mafia-run gay and lesbian bars and cross-dressing revues. Yet at the same time these venues were perceived as demeaning, discriminatory, and exploitative. This paper employs protection theory to analyse how LGBTQ* sociability and intimacy was facilitated by mafia families in New York. State repression and extortionists preying on people hiding non-normative identities from their families or employers created a tricky combination of protection needs and a low-trust environment. Mafias could bribe public officials and exclude informers from their venues. Venues charged depending on how strongly the state persecuted the desired activity and identity of patrons: e.g. bars serving alcohol to masculine-presenting gay men were cheaper to protect than dancing, physical intimacy, or genderfluidity. Protecting people whose identities were discriminated on multiple dimensions (e.g. black lesbians) was prohibitively costly. Operators therefore tightly controlled who did what on their premises. Even so protection was partial at best: police raids could not be prevented altogether and rich customers risked being extorted by their protectors. There is a clear economic logic to mafia protection of LGBTQ* life. First, only a minority of LGBTQ* folk had access to reliable mafia protection: i.e. white working and lower middle-class lesbians and gays and exceptionally talented drag artists. Other people self-protected, hid criminalised identities or were punished. Second, the root of mafia discrimination lay in the challenge of operating in a hostile social and legal environment: activist groups practiced similarly exclusionary practices. Third, the geography of LGBTQ* nightlife in Manhattan can be explained by entrepreneurs minimising protection costs by locating in more tolerant areas.