“Your name would be associated with what was considered a despicable, morally licentious behavior and you would become a pariah in the society you loved. “A gay man could, in 1973, live a very full life that he might not be able to enjoy in other places.”īut the city was also still mired in the sexually repressive dogma of the heavily Catholic population.Īccording to Fieseler, undercover police would regularly conduct sting operations to catch gay men soliciting for sex in public spaces, and if caught and arrested on a dreaded “crimes against nature” charge, the ramifications in the wider world were absolute. “It was the queer capital of the south in 1973,” said Fieseler.
Thought New Orleans ‘was the queer capital of the south in 1973’ it was also a place of duality for LGBT people.
Firemen giving first aid to survivors of the fire.
