WeHo, warts and all: in the 1970s the most popular dance club barred blacks, Latinos, women, and older men. Today, the city council would stop that in a heartbeat

"America's First Gay City," as West Hollywood, Calif., is sometimes called, just mined 20. On November 29, to be precise. And if you failed to celebrate--well, maybe you should reconsider. I know, I know: You're sick of hearing about WeHo as if it were the center of the gay universe. Believe me, I understand. I own a home here, but I've also had a love-hate relationship with the place, going back decades. In the 1970s, as a card-carrying member of the Lavender Left, I wouldn't have been caught dead spending my time or money in such a shallow, sexually objectifying, racially intolerant gay ghetto (unless you count a few memorable trysts here). A bitter gay character in one of my mystery novels put it this way: "Boys Town is a gay paradise, unless you're old, fat, black, female, or ugly."

So why should we care about WeHo's 20th anniversary? Because when gay residents forged an alliance with renters and seniors back in 1984, using a ballot measure to form a new, independent city, they proved that grassroots politics can work--that local government can be made to be responsive to a wider range of needs and issues. That's an important lesson, especially when a vitriolic and divisive national election has just left many of us feeling frustrated and cynical about what we can do to make a difference.

When I first encountered WeHo's thriving gay subculture three decades ago, the most popular dance club in town batted blacks, Latinos, women, and older men by demanding three pieces of picture ID at the door, while pretty underage boys slipped past with a wink. One of the owners, whom I briefly dated, once defended the practice, asking rhetorically, "You don't want a great club to be ruined by too many blacks and Mexicans, do you?" (I immediately lost all desire to touch him, even if he was a dreamboat.) Plenty of gay men knew what the club was doing and flocked to it anyway. Today, the city council would step in and stop that kind of discrimination in a heartbeat.

Today, in this little city of 1.9 square miles and 36,000 residents--roughly a third identified as GLTB--there are nearly 250 city-supported housing units, a pay-what-you-can lunch program for the elderly and homeless, free condoms and HIV testing all over town, city hall outreach to the growing Russian refugee community, transgender employees at city hall, a sheriffs substation with openly gay deputies, and public protest rallies organized with lightning speed by the city in response to hot-button issues like same-sex marriage and antigay violence.

It wasn't like this prior to November 29, 1984. In those days, homeless men with AIDS were literally dying along the sidewalks of Santa Monica Boulevard, sheriffs deputies routinely treated queers like dirt, and outsiders disdained the Boys Town club culture as snobby and racist, with good reason. One of the first acts of the new city council was to force a local tavern, Barney's Beanery, to remove its infamous sign that read FAGOTS STAY OUT. It was a small but symbolic victory and a harbinger of things to come.

I'm not arguing that West Hollywood is a perfect city, or even a gay mecca. But it is a special place, warts and all. A passage in my latest mystery novel, Moth, and Flame, which revolves around WeHo's colorful history, sums up why I still live here. It refers to two young men who've just met during gay pride weekend and might be falling in love:

"They deserved a chance to fend each other, to test the connection, to have the same shot at intimacy and happiness as anyone else. In West Hollywood, for all its silliness and superficiality, all its self-conscious glitz and glamour, all its attention to image and gratification, they were given that chance. Whatever its flaws, it was a city that let people be themselves and make their own choices about whom they loved and how, without judgment or condemnation or shame."

This unique city exists because some determined women and men joined together and made a difference. As much as West Hollywood sometimes makes me crazy, I wish there were more cities like it.

Wilson has won the Edgar Allan Poe Award and three Lambda Literary Awards for his gay-themed Benjamin Justice novels.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Liberation Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group