Exploring the Secret Lesbian World of Interwar Paris

Note: I’ve been informed that one of my sources, the author of Female Masculinity, goes by Jack Halberstam now! The paper I referenced includes his deadname on it as it was published beforehand. My apologies, I wish I could edit the video itself.

After WW1, a vibrant underground community of Sapphic women found community together in Paris. Come learn with me about the big names, their favorite haunts, and the queer history that led there!

I'm on TikTok @ kazrowe

Captioning by Transcription, Ho! Captioning Services

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Sources

Seeing Queerly: The Emergence of Lesbian Visual Codes in Interwar Paris by Lowry Martin II

Women together/women apart : portraits of lesbian Paris by Tirza True Latimer

Looking like a lesbian: The sexual politics of portraiture in Paris between the wars by Tirza True Latimer

“A Woman Dressed like a Man”: Gender Trouble at the Sapphic Cabaret, Paris, 1930–1960 by Tamara Chaplin

The modern woman revisited : Paris between the wars by Whitney Chadwick, Tirza True Latimer

No modernism without lesbians by Diana Souhami

Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion by Eleanor Medhurst

‘Our jolly marin wear’: The queer fashionability of the sailor uniform in interwar France and Britain By Andrew Stephenson

Gender, Sexuality, and the City in the Early Twentieth Century by Birgitte Søland

Disruptive Acts: The New Woman in Fin-de-Siecle France by Mary Louise Roberts

Female Masculinity by Jack Halberstam

Beyond the Myth of Lesbian Montmartre: The Case of Chez Palmyre by Leslie Choquette

Histories of French Sexuality: From the Enlightenment to the Present edited by Nina Kushner, Andrew Israel Ross

Passing Fashions: Reading Female Masculinities in the 1920s by Laura Doan

Who's Afraid of Stephen Gordon?: The Lesbian in the United States Popular Imagination of the 1920s by Sherrie A. Inness

Theorizing Female Inversion: Sexology, Discipline, and Gender at the Fin de Siècle by Heike Bauer

Exist Otherwise: The Life and Works of Claude Cahun by Jennifer L. Shaw

Paper Bullets: Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis by Jeffrey H. Jackson

Fashioning Sapphism: The Origins of a Modern English Lesbian Culture by Laura Doan

One is not Born a Woman by Monique Wittig

Banishing the Beast: English Feminism and Sexual Morality 1885-1914 by Lucy Bland

[Lawrence_Miles]

1920s newspapers talk about gender as if they're describing Pokemon battles. "In an attempt to compete with effeminate men, the tomboy will evolve into a boyette, and ultimately a lesbian."

[theloverlyladylo]

My mom was once sent home from elementary school in the 60s because her mom sent her to school with snow pants on under her dress. The freak outs about girls in pants was long lasting and utterly bizarre.

[LampjePockelé]

Our local radical queer bar closed recently and this video made me tear up a bit. Our history is vast and beautiful and we will endure like ivy through the cracks

[kamilasledz]

"Huge Good Luck Babe moment for Natalie, im sure" caught me off-guard, i love the Chappel Roanification of the lesbian hivemind

[mintjaan]

I remember in the 2010s there was this sentiment that you couldn't tell who was queer anymore because in years prior if you saw a woman wearing masc clothes, heavily tattooed with short hair it was assumed she was a lesbian. I don't think it was necessarily the straights coopting queer style but rather clothing becoming more neutral and body mods becoming more normalized. The majority of queer idenitifiers are ment to be able to worn in plain sight and interpret by those who know. In away that often means constantly shifting, if something becomes too well known outside of queer culture or just becomes too common -- we pick something knew. Recently people were talking about "can non lesbians wear carabiners?" And like sure, it's a functional accessory, it's not a sacred object. Queer culture will persist regardless.

[vayianos]

OH MY GOD THE CINEMATOGRAPHY OF THIS VIDEO HHAH THIS IS SO COOL 😭

[portablegoose]

I'm literally 25 seconds in and WOW PRODUCTION VALUE HELLO???!!

[ElicBehexan]

I went to a woman's university. I started there in the fall of 1973. I was told my students and a few employees who had been there stories. For example, it was sometime shortly before I started that girls were not allowed of of the dorm if they did not wear a dress. If roommates in the dorm, one could not wear a nightgown if the other was wearing pajamas. Girls who had gym classes, had to wear a dress to the gym before they could change into gym clothes and then had to change back after class. I have ALWAYS been glad I did not have to endure these rules! I turned 70 last year. Putting on a pretty dress isn't the worst thing I've ever done, but it sure isn't my favorite thing!

[-eye-willy]

im a cis male, but i used to frequent this lesbian bar in Dallas Texas called "MR.BIGGS" and i was welcomed with open arms every time i went on 25 cent drink nights. lesbians know how to party, it was some of the most fun ive ever had in a night club.

[leocoyote]

in my own way, i actually really identify with “the inverts”. i am a f*ggot and a d*ke, i am transsexual, and i exist entirely outside of the binary while completely understanding that i will still be boxed in. this approach has deeply alleviated my dysphoria and made me happier than ever.

all of kaz’ videos are absolutely ridiculously incredible, but this one takes the cake. i sobbed from the precious beginning to the pix from the 30s & 40s, it’s making me sad that we don’t have basement speakeasies reserved for all of the d*kes of today, but so beautiful that we had those and have the spaces we have now

[qetoun]

I came for the top hat and monocle...I stayed for the documentary.

[TickTockTimeTraveler]

truly an eye popping number of monocles featured in this vid!! love it

[calebleland]

I passed this on to my daughter. They recently came out to us as non-binary, and is still figuring out other things about their sexuality (made doubly hard because they're Autistic). I thought this might be of some interest to them. Thank you for videos like these that help and entertain not only the LGBTQIA+ community, but CIS-HET people like myself.

[marykayryan]

I'm 70 and when I was going to high school (in Chicago where it gets mighty cold in the winter), girls were not allowed to wear pants to school. If you wore them under a skirt or in place of one, you had to change as soon as you got there. GUESS WHO WORE PANTS TO SCHOOL ANYWAY?! And refused to change out of them. Yup, me, and I have no doubt other girls in the country. (Of course, I got sent home...more than once.) Y'all, you're welcome 'cause we did that so you could wear clothing appropriate to the season and your own inclinations.

[nixhixx]

I took my newly hatched trans daughter to Pride, and made her a patchwork purse based on the Trans Flag. Happy Pride, Guys, Gals, and Non-binary pals!

[asterology]

i'm not out and i don't know if i can ever be out while my parents are alive. but learning about and knowing about queers of yesteryear who couldnt either makes me feel less like a failure for not coming out. thanks so much, kaz.

[PurelyCoincidental]

I'm a woman with a very unbalanced prescription (one eye is barely nearsighted, the other significantly more so), so that wearing a monocle would actually work well for me. I was chatting with a guy friend of mine a few months ago about it, and I referred to it offhand as going for that 1920s lesbian chic. My friend had no idea what I was talking about and was completely confused, lol.

Btw, amazing video, and the top hat and tux look amazing on you. :)

[peri_gee]

5:44 just fyi the author of "Female Masculinity" now goes by Jack Halberstam, and you may see newer editions of the book with that name :) Great read btw!

[piaonomata]

My town recently witnessed the launch of a queer-centered antifascist bookstore/cooperative shop, and WOW has it been successful. Finally, finally, finally, local queer folx have a venue (crucially: not a bar) where they can gather, bond, and build community. My daughter has found her people there, and I have never seen her happier or more at ease with herself.

Even in this era of ubiquitous parasocial/online friendships and communities, as Kaz very aptly pointed out, meeting up with others of your tribe in actual physical spaces where being your authentic self is safe and celebrated is so incredibly important.

On a different note...Kaz, I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see you do a biography of Tove Jansson at some point. She was a fiery and complex and fascinating person by all accounts, and I can't think of anyone better suited to completing a review of her life and work.

[christabelle__]

I love that when America basically ran out Eartha Kitt, she ended up working at Carroll's! "Her name was Fred – one of the most beautiful women you ever want to see in your life, always dressed as a man." Eartha went on to meet Orson Welles there, and work closely with him, as well! I love Eartha Kitt so much, but so few know much about her beyond 'Santa Baby' or her time acting in the 60s Batman show. As an outcast, and an outspoken woman, I love that she accepted anyone else society saw as an outcast - I love that lesbians in France gave her a safe place to not just exist, but thrive!