Eldergays- A question? Was the “no hat rule” for gay clubs back in the day, a subtle form of racism?

Does anyone still wear a hat?

It was awful! I couldn't wear my fedoras, porkpies, homburgs, or sombreros anywhere!

Fuck you, OP.

Why would you think that a tradition in bars and clubs of having a "no hat" rule, which simply stressed that gentlemen didn't wear hats indoors, had anything to do with race?

You're a piece of shit. Divisive pig.

OP how the fuck would that have been racist?

I don’t know how it would be racist, it was on the Sunday show, on our local public radio talking about SF and pride etc. I had never heard this and kind of thought it was BS. They also said 3 forms of ID were needed to go to the bath houses?

What rule was this and when? I've never heard of it in my life. Are we going back to the 1950's and 60's when men actually wore hats?

3 forms of ID to go to a bathouse? That sounds ridiculous. Who has 3 forms of ID on them at any time?

Who are these know-it-alls? This all sounds like bullshit.

R4 Apparently at the time black men liked to wear hats. I mean this is what the person being interviewed said.

“ . At 9:30, “Pride, the Pandemic and George Floyd” tommi avicolli mecca, journalist, housing activist, artist, and Blackberri, singer songwriter”

Maybe it’s more stuff from They?

They will reinvent history ??

Even just to raise the possibility is enough to make me go completely ballistic and lose my shit entirely! Medicate me!!!

R3 Yes. Gentlemen did not wear hats indoors as a show of respect. Now they have those damn baseball caps glued to their skulls.

But the no hat rule, inside was for everyone- right? . Like church - not supposed to wear a hat. Old school.

Even school had this rule too when I was a kid in the 90’s. Not sure if kids have to take off hats inside now?

I understand what OP is asking, ridiculous or not. No need to pile on.

It’s like when a bar or club has signage stating “dress code strictly enforced.”

It’s a subtle way of telling certain groups to stay away, whether it’s younger people, poorer people... people who ‘dress a certain way.’

Calm down, it wasn't a racist thing. Back in the 90s, we used to actually dress up to go clubbing. Who in the hell wants to see some punk in a baseball cap sitting next to a guy in Hugo Boss?

People will not pay for high priced entry cover charges and drinks if the people inside look like fraternity bros. Bars and clubs are for-profit businesses, not gathering places for society's freeloading dregs.

Nowadays, young people are perpetually offended, PC stupid and look like shit.

Ignore the triggered snowflake R3.

Yes, OP, I have heard stories both from black people and from former bar employees who are white who said that there were racist dress codes until very recently, some bars even had specific bans on certain clothes like oversized white t-shirts or baggy shorts/pants, etc. These rules were selectively enforced and usually not publicly posted, either, so white people and just "the right kind" of minorities were tolerated if they, say, wore a backward baseball cap or "sports logos," but if certain other "elements" were wear the same kinds of clothing but in a different (urban) style or in different (urban) brands, they would trot out the old "dress code" and threaten folks with "loitering" if they didn't leave immediately.

I'm of an age when I remember when gay bars in my racially mixed city were always 90% or more white, with a disproportionately non-white staff, particularly in the "back of the house." Gay spaces were white spaces populated by classist, elitist snobs like R13, who give cover to the R3 types.

People like R3 will call me a liar while screaming bloody nurder at OP for bring up the topic, but this is actual history whether you like it or not.

Yes

Before every white gay man in America began copying black men by wearing backward baseball caps and sneakers, nightclubs and bars had “No Hats” and “No Tennis Shoes” policies to reduce the number of blacks granted admission.

Indeed, even in the early 1990s, popular family Georgetown restaurants in majority black Washington DC had such policies to try to keep the number of minority patrons below the level owners thought would make their white patrons uncomfortable.

Miss R13 has clearly stated her very stylish boundaries for acceptable attire when she's out getting shit-faced.

Dear R15, black men didn’t invent the backwards baseball cap and/or sneakers.

🙄

"Gay spaces were white spaces populated by classist, elitist snobs like [R13], who give cover to the [R3] types."

"People like [R3] will call me a liar while screaming bloody murder at OP for bring up the topic, but this is actual history whether you like it or not."

R14., I couldn't have said it better and I, too, was there and saw it happening. It was all about racism.

This elder gay doesn’t know what you’re talking about.

I’m 66 and R19. I’ve been going to gay clubs and bars since 1974 and I never saw or heard of anything like what R15 describes and I went to places all major cities in CA, NYC, Washington DC, all major clubs in FLA, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Huston, Seattle and more. Unforced dress codes usually were enforced in leather bars which had nothing to do with race.

Because you chose not to, R19, and you've chosen not to for years if not decades.

Ignorance is a choice.

Ah Charlie, classist, clueless snob from way back. Haven't changed one bit.

The Townhouse had a rule like that too. Maybe they were afraid people had guns under them? I mean, apparently Versace murderer Andrew Cunanan used to hang around the piano years ago.

and he was white, btw.

This would only be racist if a hat was an integral part of the head.