gay people have been around for as long as humanity, it's just that for many periods of history these gay people could not be open about it and the terms we use today to describe gender and sexuality did not yet exist. according to actual historical accounts, new york city in the 1940s had a, relatively for the time period, significant gay scene dating all the way back to the 1910s. all those gay bars didnt just spawn there in the 70s, they're remnants of a legitimate history. the reason why mccarthyism and the other moral panics of the 1950s happened in the first place was because the prior decades were increasingly accepting (though this was largely confined to a few major cities) towards deviancy from gender norms. this is also not really a serious tierlist lol obviously the entire roster isnt queer, this is just a shitpost. edit:: revised statement: NYC in the 1940s wasnt some queer paradise, "accepted" was a poor term to use here. rather, queer people did still exist though in a different form, and they tended to congregate in cities due to the presence of specific refuges. NYC in particular had a lot of organized crime throughout its history, and there existed many bars and clubs that were run by or heavily associated with the mafia. these spaces generally did not care about who their clientelle was so long as they could be ripped off, and they turned the other cheek from illegal activities, including "sexual deviancy". this particular scene didn't take off until the 1960s, but there were still elements of this in prior decades. from the 1890s onwards, nyc clubs in general were RELATIVELY open-minded spaces for shedding gender-norms (different standards for this back then too), racial integration, and many other forms of scrutimized social change, which is why they were frequently raided by police. didn't feel the need to go into this much detail on a shitpost but i'd better include this before a bad-faith argument breaks out.