Terminology

Nonexistent Terms

• homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, asexual
• gay, straight
• transgender, transvestite, transsexual
• drag, drag queen, drag king

  Perceived Men's Terms

  • Queer - men who had sex with men but were "more respectable" than fairies. typically upper-class, top position. probably attracted to men, often a confirmed bachelor.
  • Fairy - a person assigned male at birth who presents in a feminine manner, usually wearing dresses, often casually. usually a sex worker, or at the least walking the streets for sex with men. almost exclusively in a bottom position.
  • Female-Impersonator - a broader term for any street-walker, fairy, actor, etc. who dresses as a woman while being assigned male and usually identifying as a man.
  • Trade - a man who would be usually or easily heterosexual, but who has sex with fairies, usually due to either a marriage or a lack of female intimacy. previously used to refer to sex workers, and may still be used in that manner.
  • Punk - a young male sex worker (think 13 - 23) who has sex with men.
  • Urning - an adult man who practices pederasty (pedophile who preys on boys)

    Perceived Women's Terms

    • Lesbian
    • Sapphic
    • Spinster
    • Tribade - a woman who practices tribadism (vagina-on-vagina non-penetrative sex)
    • Euphemism

      Miscellaneous

      • "Street-walker" appears to have been an informal term for sex workers.
      • Jennie June describes an "androgyne" as being assigned male at birth but having primarily feminine sexual features and feminine mannerisms
      • "Dicksucker" and "cocksucker" appear to be used in Jennie's autobiography, but are censored extremely so as to be unreadable.

        Queer Neighborhoods, Centers, Etc.

        • The Bowery was known to have queer-friendly police, as well as sailors and soldiers as sexual conquests. It was frequented usually by lower-class fairies.
        • Mulberry Street between Grand and Broome was frequented by Jennie June, fairy, in 1892, who made a number of fairy friends in the area. Most of the people who spent time in the area knew Jennie was a fairy.
        • 14th Street theater district is described as a "favorite promenade of fairies" in 1894, typically those of a higher class status. Jennie was invited to parties and treated affectionately with little fear. Jennie was also sexually assaulted by a gang of teenagers here.
        • "esides the Bowery, the streets most frequented by me during these nine weeks—as well as during the not immediately following two years when I was compelled to go on a female-impersonation spree once in two weeks—were the following: (1) In the foreign Hebrew quarter: Grand, from Bowery eastward to Allen, and Allen and Christie, for several blocks on both sides of Grand. (2) In the foreign Italian quarter, containing also a large sprinkling of Irish immigrants: Grand, from Bowery 144westward to Sullivan and Thompson; the whole lengths of the two latter streets; Bleecker from Thompson to Carmine; and Mulberry south of Spring. (3) In Chinatown: Doyers, Pell, and Mott streets. I did not seek the Chinese, who were sexually repulsive, but the adolescent toughs and young gentleman libertines who visited Chinatown evenings from all parts of the city." (Jennie June)
        • In 1897, Jennie describes going to the back of a saloon in a redacted neighborhood. "After entering the side-door of a repulsive-looking “Saloon,” we walked down a very long passage, divided into sections by several heavily barricaded doors, each provided with a peep-hole and door-tender, who opened only to the elect. Protection was thus secured against surprises by the police. We finally arrived in a spacious room filled with small tables, around which 155were seated a dozen flashily dressed “sports,” about the same number of shabbily clad ruffians, three or four girls costumed as for a fancy-dress ball, and five “sports” in the biological sense of that word, that is, youths with no front teeth, hair à la mode de Oscar Wilde (that is, hanging down in ringlets over the ears and collar) and clad in bright colored wrappers. [...] Three of the fairies were introduced to me as Jersey Lily, Annie Laurie, and Grace Darling. Two others had adopted the names of living star actresses. The unreflecting and uneducated victims of innate androgynism, and having passed their lives exclusively in the slums of New York, they had always been perfectly satisfied with the lot Nature had ordained for them." These "professional fairies" seem comparable to drag queens and Jennie says they prefer "actors" over "actresses."

          Flagging

          • Fairies of higher class status were known to wear red neckties, and sometimes even said to be arrested for them. They also typically wore gloves.

            References

            • "The Autobiography of an Androgyne" by Jennie June/Earl Lind/Ralph Werther, 1918
            • "Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940" by George Chauncey, 1994