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American lesbian writer and activist Joan Nestle "walked the streets looking so butch that straight teenagers called bulldyke" (Nestle, p. Public reaction was not sympathetic to "butch" lesbians. In America, it was illegal for women to dress completely in men's clothes, and they were required to wear "three pieces of women's clothing" (Nestle, p. As a means of asserting difference and signaling to other lesbians, many women-loving women adopted certain "masculine" markers, such as a collar and tie or trousers. Until the 1970s, the public image of lesbians was very much centered on masculinity. In America, lesbian performers such as Ma Rainey and Gladys Bentley wore men's top hat and tails to express their identity, while bisexual film stars Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich wore masculine clothes both on-and offscreen. The typical masculinized lesbian dress of the period is typified by the wing collar, monocle, and man's jacket worn by Lady Una Troubridge (lover of Radclyffe Hall, author of The Well of Loneliness) in her portrait by Romain Brooks. The period between the two World Wars saw a rise in lesbian visibility.
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Some, like writer George Sand and painter Rosa Bonheur utilized the methods in order to have their professional work be taken seriously. Cross-dressing had been and continued to be utilized by women to allow them to "pass" as men and be accepted. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the adoption of male dress was a means for many women, including many lesbians, to protest the status of women and the roles assigned them by patriarchal societies. The adoption of effeminate dress codes began to wane with the rise of gay liberation, but has continued to play a role in gay life. Also, by adopting female characteristics and by adhering to strict gendered rules of sexual behavior, queens could attract allegedly "normal," straight sexual partners. Dressing as a "flaming queen" was a means of entering into the subculture of gay society. However, the risks were worthwhile for many. In his autobiography, The Naked Civil Servant (1968), Quentin Crisp recalls being stopped a number of times by police because of his effeminate appearance. Adopting such an appearance was dangerous, for it was risky to be overtly homosexual.
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At least three items of clothing had to be appropriate to the gender. In America it was illegal for men (and women) to cross dress unless attending a masquerade. Overt gay men, who did not want to go so far as to cross-dress, sometimes adopted the most obvious signifiers of female mannerisms and dress: plucked eyebrows, rouge, eye makeup, peroxide blond hair, high-heeled Women's Shoes blouses. The tradition has been carried on by gay drag performers such as American performers Divine and RuPaul and British television star Lily Savage. One of the greatest American drag performers was Charles Pierce, who began his career in the 1950s, and was best known for his impersonations of film stars such as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Cross-dressing performers, commonly known as drag queens, used women's clothes to parody straight society and create a gay humor. Similarly the Arts Balls of the 1950s in London offered an opportunity denied in everyday life. In the 1920s, the Harlem drag balls offered a safe space for gay men (and lesbians) to cross-dress.
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Male homosexuals continued to cross-dress in both public and private spaces throughout the nineteenth century. They wore "gowns, petticoats, head-cloths, fine laced shoes, furbelowed scarves, and masks some had riding hoods some were dressed like milk maids, others like shepherdesses with green hats, waistcoats, and petticoats and others had their faces patched and painted" (Trumbach, p. Many of the mollies wore women's clothing as both a form of self-identification and as a means of attracting sexual partners. London's homosexual subculture was based around inns and public houses where "mollies" congregated. By the eighteenth century, many cities in Europe had developed small but secret homosexual subcultures. Even before the twentieth century, transvestism and cross-dressing among men were associated with the act of sodomy.