ABSTRACT
This essay describes the political, cultural, and social environment for LGBT people and communities between 1945 and 1965. It argues that unprecedented persecution and exclusion by governing and policing authorities and stigmatizing representations in popular culture fostered community and resistance among same-sex desiring and gender nonconforming people. During a period of intense heterosexism and homophobia, LGBT people crafted livable and even pleasurable lives by: leading and participating in early gay and lesbian civil rights groups; defending commercial and urban territories; preserving access to familial, rural, domestic, and religious spaces; strategizing about sexual self-disclosure; making erotic and sexual connections; and playfully interpreting dominant representations.
