It was the deadliest US incident of violence against an LGBT population until the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. That safety came crashing down violently on 24 June 1973 when the lounge, which only had one public entrance/exit became a fiery tomb for 32. You’d lose your job, your home, everything,” Fieseler said.Īt the time, a residence occupied by two suspected gay men (or two “spinsters”) could be declared a house of ill-repute and seized with little to no due process.Įnter the relatively safe space of the UpStairs lounge, a quietly well-known place where gay men (Fieseler notes that during this era, the lesbian scene was politically and socially isolated from the gay scene) could openly be themselves. “Your name would be associated with what was considered a despicable, morally licentious behavior and you would become a pariah in the society you loved.
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“A gay man could, in 1973, live a very full life that he might not be able to enjoy in other places.”īut the city was also still mired in the sexually repressive dogma of the heavily Catholic population.Īccording to Fieseler, undercover police would regularly conduct sting operations to catch gay men soliciting for sex in public spaces, and if caught and arrested on a dreaded “crimes against nature” charge, the ramifications in the wider world were absolute. “It was the queer capital of the south in 1973,” said Fieseler. Thought New Orleans ‘was the queer capital of the south in 1973’ it was also a place of duality for LGBT people. Firemen giving first aid to survivors of the fire.