MALE HOMOSEXUALITY AND GENDER-NONCONFORMING EXPRESSION

Chapter 5 details how Black Press news coverage produced a black public sexual sphere that allowed readers to debate homosexuality and gender-noncomforming expression’s position in early-twentieth-century black communities. As the Black Press worked to transform negative images of blackness, they held homosexual life and gender-nonconformity up as a spectacle that could not seamlessly fit into notions of African American respectability. Nonetheless, regular coverage in the Black Press proved that editors believed that readers enjoyed reading articles and viewing images about female impersonators and gay men. In presenting readers’ responses to this coverage, chapter 5 draws attention to instances of contest and negotiation between diverse African American readers as they struggled to understand the intersections between race, gender, and sexuality.