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Hub AI
Cross-dressing ball AI simulator
(@Cross-dressing ball_simulator)
Hub AI
Cross-dressing ball AI simulator
(@Cross-dressing ball_simulator)
Cross-dressing ball
Gay balls, cross-dressing balls, pansy balls, or drag balls were (depending on the place, time, and type) public or private balls that were celebrated mainly in the first third of the 20th century, where cross-dressing and ballroom dancing with same-sex partners was allowed. By the 1900s, the balls had become important cultural events for gays and lesbians, even attracting tourists. Their Golden Age was during the interwar period, mainly in Berlin and Paris, even though they could be found in many big cities in Europe and the Americas, such as Mexico City and New York City.
By the end of the 17th century, a gay subculture is documented in Europe, with cruising areas, bars, parties and balls, cross-dressers, and slang. Scholars like Randolph Trumbach consider it as the moment when gay subculture appeared in Europe. On the contrary, historian Rictor Norton considers unlikely that such a subculture would appear fully formed, and thinks that it was actually the increase in surveillance and police procedures that brought to the surface an underground culture that had not been visible up to that moment.
The archives of the Portuguese Inquisition in Lisbon preserve information of the so-called "danças dos fanchonos" from the beginning of the 17 century. About 1620, the "fachonos", the baroque equivalent of modern drag queens, organized big parties in the Gaia Lisboa, the gay Lisbon. These itinerant celebrations, called "escarramão", or "esparramão", used to include pantomimes with racy scenes, where some of the participants were dressed as women, and other as men. His Majesty's High Court in Mexico City discovered in 1656 a similar case, when Juan Correa, an old man, over 70 years old, confessed that he had been committing the unspeakable vice since his childhood. Correa's house, in the outskirts of the city, had been used as a meeting point to celebrate balls, where many men dressed as women.
Several studies have not found similar phenomena in the judicial cases in Aragon, Catalonia, the Basque Country or Valencia, even though in the Valencian case there are evidences of a subculture and a possible gay ghetto. In Spain, cross-dressing was socially only allowed for carnival, when even those closest to the king could dress as women. On the other hand, in France, during Louis XIV's reign, no ball was complete without cross-dressers.
By the end of the 17th century, there was a completely developed gay subculture in London, with the molly houses used as clubs, where gays met regularly to drink, dance and have fun. These taverns are well known thanks to the Mother Clap's molly house scandal from 1726, when a police raid discovered that her molly house was a gay brothel.
Berlin's clandestine gay underground can be followed up to the 18th century, in spite of the persecution gays were suffering. In Prussia, Paragraph 143 of the penal code, and later the introduction of Paragraph 175 in the German penal code, with other laws for public scandal, and child protection, made the life of gays extremely difficult. In fact, the activities of Magnus Hirschfeld or the first homosexual movement could not avoid the regular police raids and closing of premises in the 1900s. And not just the premises were being watched by the police, in 1883, the moral police had 4799 "transvestite" and transgender woman under vigilance, even though "permits" could be handed out to cross-dressers in cases considered "medical".
It is thus surprising that, beginning mid 19th century, the Urningsball or Tuntenball came to be, balls of uranians, or queens, tolerated, but watched by the police. By the 1900s, these balls had achieved such a fame in Germany, that people from all around the country, and even foreign tourists, would travel to Berlin to participate. These balls were celebrated in large ballrooms, as the Deutscher Kaiser, in the Lothringer Straße, or the Filarmonía, in the Bernburgstraße, the Dresdner Kasino, in the Dresdner Straße, or the Orpheum, in the Alter Jakobstraße 32.
For example, the Berliner Morgenpost described extensively on October 17, 1899, a gay ball that had taken place in the hotel König von Portugal, where balls were still being celebrated in 1918. The ball season used to begin in October and go until Easter, with a frequency of several balls a week, sometimes two the same day. Hirschfeld, in his book Berlins drittes Geschlecht (1904; "Berlín's Third Sex"), described the balls in following fashion:
Cross-dressing ball
Gay balls, cross-dressing balls, pansy balls, or drag balls were (depending on the place, time, and type) public or private balls that were celebrated mainly in the first third of the 20th century, where cross-dressing and ballroom dancing with same-sex partners was allowed. By the 1900s, the balls had become important cultural events for gays and lesbians, even attracting tourists. Their Golden Age was during the interwar period, mainly in Berlin and Paris, even though they could be found in many big cities in Europe and the Americas, such as Mexico City and New York City.
By the end of the 17th century, a gay subculture is documented in Europe, with cruising areas, bars, parties and balls, cross-dressers, and slang. Scholars like Randolph Trumbach consider it as the moment when gay subculture appeared in Europe. On the contrary, historian Rictor Norton considers unlikely that such a subculture would appear fully formed, and thinks that it was actually the increase in surveillance and police procedures that brought to the surface an underground culture that had not been visible up to that moment.
The archives of the Portuguese Inquisition in Lisbon preserve information of the so-called "danças dos fanchonos" from the beginning of the 17 century. About 1620, the "fachonos", the baroque equivalent of modern drag queens, organized big parties in the Gaia Lisboa, the gay Lisbon. These itinerant celebrations, called "escarramão", or "esparramão", used to include pantomimes with racy scenes, where some of the participants were dressed as women, and other as men. His Majesty's High Court in Mexico City discovered in 1656 a similar case, when Juan Correa, an old man, over 70 years old, confessed that he had been committing the unspeakable vice since his childhood. Correa's house, in the outskirts of the city, had been used as a meeting point to celebrate balls, where many men dressed as women.
Several studies have not found similar phenomena in the judicial cases in Aragon, Catalonia, the Basque Country or Valencia, even though in the Valencian case there are evidences of a subculture and a possible gay ghetto. In Spain, cross-dressing was socially only allowed for carnival, when even those closest to the king could dress as women. On the other hand, in France, during Louis XIV's reign, no ball was complete without cross-dressers.
By the end of the 17th century, there was a completely developed gay subculture in London, with the molly houses used as clubs, where gays met regularly to drink, dance and have fun. These taverns are well known thanks to the Mother Clap's molly house scandal from 1726, when a police raid discovered that her molly house was a gay brothel.
Berlin's clandestine gay underground can be followed up to the 18th century, in spite of the persecution gays were suffering. In Prussia, Paragraph 143 of the penal code, and later the introduction of Paragraph 175 in the German penal code, with other laws for public scandal, and child protection, made the life of gays extremely difficult. In fact, the activities of Magnus Hirschfeld or the first homosexual movement could not avoid the regular police raids and closing of premises in the 1900s. And not just the premises were being watched by the police, in 1883, the moral police had 4799 "transvestite" and transgender woman under vigilance, even though "permits" could be handed out to cross-dressers in cases considered "medical".
It is thus surprising that, beginning mid 19th century, the Urningsball or Tuntenball came to be, balls of uranians, or queens, tolerated, but watched by the police. By the 1900s, these balls had achieved such a fame in Germany, that people from all around the country, and even foreign tourists, would travel to Berlin to participate. These balls were celebrated in large ballrooms, as the Deutscher Kaiser, in the Lothringer Straße, or the Filarmonía, in the Bernburgstraße, the Dresdner Kasino, in the Dresdner Straße, or the Orpheum, in the Alter Jakobstraße 32.
For example, the Berliner Morgenpost described extensively on October 17, 1899, a gay ball that had taken place in the hotel König von Portugal, where balls were still being celebrated in 1918. The ball season used to begin in October and go until Easter, with a frequency of several balls a week, sometimes two the same day. Hirschfeld, in his book Berlins drittes Geschlecht (1904; "Berlín's Third Sex"), described the balls in following fashion: