by Cliff Gallant

Out and about 

The Pride Parade that takes place in Portland on the 20^th of this month is the city’s largest parade of the year, and it’s one hugely happy, riotous celebration from beginning to end. Hundreds of people, gay and straight, will be on the streets being loud and proud, bursting with the thrill of it all.

It was not that long ago that such carryings on would have been unthinkable. Even in the recent past, being “out” in Portland was a hazardous existence, and there were not many takers. Gay-bashing was common, and the authorities weren’t always as responsive as they might have been. The first gay-pride parade, in 1987, was miniscule in size compared to today’s affair and markedly more reserved. The marchers kept the volume of the music down and were careful not to be too flamboyant or display many expressions of affection. They even stuck to the sidewalks and obeyed pedestrian-walk signals, so as not to incite hecklers.

Every movement has its pioneers, and Portlanders of a certain vintage will remember when the public’s perspective on the local gay scene was framed by one individual: Mr. Stanley Broy. Stanley was a female impersonator who, in the early 1970s, was the main attraction at the Crow’s Nest, an infamous honky-tonk bar and strip joint located on Middle Street, where Tommy’s Park is now. Female strippers followed one after the other onto the stage, and they each got their due attention, but Stanley was the draw. Just for reminiscence’s sake, let me describe his act — as it was described to me by others, of course.

Mr. Broy, let it be said, was very good at what he did. The women would take the stage pretty much in the raw from the get-go. They might remove a semi-transparent veil or something after about 10 seconds, but that was the extent of the mystery. There wasn’t any imagination or showmanship involved, like there was with Stanley. He’d slink out from behind the curtain, wearing a sleek evening gown with a slit up the side, and do a Jane Mansfield swivel-hipped walk around the stage that left the crowd bug-eyed and yelling for more. A highlight was when he’d lift his leg up onto a high stool and reveal his black mesh-nylon stockings, which, after the cries of “ Take it off! Take it off!” grew loud enough, he would slowly unhook from his lacy garter belt and toss out into the audience. The place would go mad. Some customers might have come to hoot and holler and make fun of Stanley and his act, but they soon encountered something they hadn’t expected.

I got to know Stanley years later, shortly before he passed away. He told me he’d always been careful to leave the bar unaccompanied after last call, the times being what they were, but invariably there were rendezvous, and almost always with men who passed as straight. He never spent the night alone, he said, except by choice. And never once, he added with a sly smile, was there the slightest bit of surprise or objection when intimate parts were revealed. Every man he was ever with, he said, knew exactly what was up and was all for it.

What better way to fool yourself and others than to be with a man who appears to be a woman? Those were repressive times; the closets were full.

Sexual repression was very much the norm in the city during those years. Gays were called “queers” or “homos,” and cruising the streets at night after the bars closed, looking for one another, was their only option. Otherwise respectable people resorted to episodes of anonymous sex at the Eastern and Western Proms. (Street signs still posted near the Proms warning against “cruising” — driving by a particular spot more than a few times in any given hour — are a vestige of those repressive days.) It was common to see shadowy figures darting out from behind the trees in Deering Oaks, which a smirking public referred to as “Pickle Park.”

As time went on, though, the gay movement began to take on an air of legitimacy. In 1987, Barb Wood became the first “out” gay person elected to public office in Maine when she won a seat on the Portland City Council. Peter O’Donnell, who was elected to the Council that same year, was later appointed mayor and held a press conference on the steps of City Hall the day he publicly came out.

Those were also the days of “Hurricane” Fran Peabody and her trademark boa feathers. An aristocratic, pert and lively woman, Frannie was 80 years old when she got involved in the fight against AIDS, following the diagnosis of her oldest grandson. This straight grandmother embraced the cause of gay rights so wholeheartedly that she was proclaimed the Grand Marshall of the Pride parades in the years before died, in 2001. Watching a young man running beside the convertible she rode in, trying desperately to hold an umbrella over her to protect her from the sun, is a scene that will always stay with me.

Here in the present day, we’re on the verge of legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. Who would’ve believed it back then? The fact we’ve had to go through such rigmarole just to confer a basic human right is more than a little disconcerting, but there you go.

Times sure have changed. One can only imagine what Stanley Broy would think of this year’s Pride Parade. I imagine he’d be truly amazed. But to tell you the truth, knowing him as I did, I can also assure you he wouldn’t have liked all the competition.