They have returned because the living is good in Oklahoma. They have come home for the same reasons as anyone else: better jobs, family, lifelong friends, safe streets.
hiding in the crowd, waiting for the day they can escape to the promised lands of New York, Boston, Houston and San Francisco.īut there are a significant number of gays who, having fled what they considered the repressive and stultifying atmosphere of conservative Oklahoma, are coming home. Unquestionably, many gays in the cities are only marking time. For some, the cities of Oklahoma are only a stopping place, a resting point on the road to cities with more open, and more visible, gay populations. Rural gays are coming to the urban areas Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Lawton and Stillwater. Having reached what one gay called "the point of no tolerance," many are banding together, tentatively but with growing awareness and strength, to tell Oklahoma they are here, they are carrying their own weight, they are paying taxes, they are voting, and, because they like it here, they are planning to stay. While some members of their closed community have greeted the movement with an "It's about time" philosophy, the increased openness of gays has spawned community backlash and resentment in some sectors of "straight" society. Gay leaders say 1 or 2 percent of gays are actually "out." Out of the closet, out to mom, out to dad, out to the boss, out to the world.īut although the percentage of homosexuals in the population may have remained constant throughout history, a position the Kinsey research seems to support, the other figure the out is definitely growing in Oklahoma. "You've heard the joke that Oklahoma is the land of steers and queers?" asked an Oklahoma City gay man. It's always been that way, always will, the gays say. Others, and gays themselves, put the figure closer to one in six. Gays cite the latest research, a 1981 Kinsey survey that indicates 10 percent of any given group is gay. An exaggeration perhaps, but the statement is indicative of a growing gay presence, which gays contend is about 80,000 in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area and 300,000 statewide. One national publication recently reported that Oklahoma City has "a thriving lesbian community."Ī Norman lesbian opines that Oklahoma City has more gay bars per block than San Francisco. They are some of Oklahoma's doctors, lawyers, artists, construction workers and businessmen. Gays are operating bars, nightclubs and small businesses.
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Young and old, rich and poor, professional and blue collar and gays are all these things the community is colonizing certain sections of Oklahoma City, Tulsa and to some extent the smaller cities in the state.Īn area of Tulsa is known as "The Fruit Loop," while a near-downtown residential area of Oklahoma City is referred to as "Homo Heights."Ī northside apartment complex is called "The Foo-Foo Hilton" because so many gays live there. Once the most invisible of minorities, Oklahoma's homosexuals are tentatively pushing open their closet doors and, to use their own phrase, "coming out." In this, the first of a series, the status of gays in Oklahoma is examined. For that reason, many sources are referred to by initials or by a business affiliation. Some gays shared their secret on the condition it go no farther.
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The following series of stories, written collaboratively, seeks to put months of watching, several hundred hours of taped interviews and the lives of several hundred gay Oklahomans into focus. It took that long to move freely in a world of secrets, to get beyond bars and into living rooms, businesses and minds. Editor's Note: Oklahoman staff writers Terrie Clifford, Jim Killackey and Kevin Stoner have spent the past four months getting to know Oklahoma's homosexual community.