He and Knopp are studying how two government agencies – Public Health – Seattle & King County and the Washington State Liquor Control Board – interacted with gay people and the spaces they inhabited during a time when gay life was often carried out in secrecy. “People were more comfortable talking about sexually transmitted diseases and there was more awareness that people live sexual lives.” “AIDS changed a lot of things it made the gay community become more empowered,” Brown said.
Gay people stayed under the radar back then, and much remains to be learned about gay life at the time. Michael Brown, a UW geography professor, and Larry Knopp, professor and director of interdisciplinary arts and sciences at UW Tacoma, are piecing together how policies relating to alcohol and public health shaped how gays and lesbians in Seattle carried out their lives during the pre-AIDS era, before 1983. Northwest Lesbian & Gay History Museum Project
Inside the gay bar The Golden Horseshoe, which was on Second Avenue South near Pioneer Square.
