One
of my many claims to fame is that I contributed to. and am quoted many
times in. his book  “Gay New York”--some day I will have to write about
our meeting at Marchi’s restaurant in Manhattan and he still had 'jr,'
after his name.

This is the
thirty-third post in a series highlighting the best gay and lesbian
authors from the 20th century (with a few before and after that period)
who have recorded in fiction, and nonfiction, the history of gay people
telling what life is, and was, during an important time of history.

George
Chauncey (born 1953) is a professor of history at Yale University. He
is best known as the author of Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and
the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 (1994).

Life and works

Chauncey
received his Ph.D. in history from Yale in 1989, where he studied with
Nancy Cott and David Montgomery. From 1991 to 2006, he taught in the
Department of History at the University of Chicago, rising from
assistant professor to full professor of history. In 2006, he joined the
Yale faculty.

His book Gay New
York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World,
1890-1940 (1994) was published to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of
the Stonewall Rebellions. It combined social, political, and cultural
history, and in it Chauncey argues that early twentieth century New York
had a thriving, open gay culture. Using newspaper accounts from a wide
variety of mainstream and underground publications, the archives of
reform organizations, police and court records, popular cartoons and
caricatures, guidebooks, and maps, Chauncey offers a rich and textured
account of urban gay life. The book was acclaimed for several original
findings, among them the malleability of sexual identities (he finds,
for example, widespread acceptance of homosexual practices among
working-class, heteronormative men), the use of house concerts as covers
for sexual activity, a discussion of the "panzy craze", and the
relative novelty of the category of "closeted" gay men. According to
Chauncey, it was not until the 1930s and afterward that a strict regime
of policing gay male sexuality emerged. It was in this period, he
contends, that homosexual behavior began to move underground.

Chauncey
has written a historical defense of the concept of gay marriage. He is
currently finishing a history of gay New York from the mid-twentieth
century to the present
Chauncey is the recipient of fellowships from
the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center,
the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Center for Scholars
and Writers at the New York Public Library.
Expert testimony

Chauncey
has testified as an expert witness in several major gay rights cases,
and he was the organizer and lead author of the Historians' Amicus Brief
in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which weighed heavily in the Supreme
Court's landmark decision overturning the nation's remaining sodomy
laws. In that brief, Chauncey argued for the historical specificity of
understandings of sodomy, challenging the reasoning in Bowers v.
Hardwick (1986) that antisodomy laws were an enduring feature of the
American legal system.

Chauncey most
notably testified as an "expert witness" in the California Proposition 8
case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, on behalf of the successful plaintiffs.
In the Perry case, the Court found him to be "qualified to offer
testimony on social history, especially as it relates to gays and
lesbians."The court recounted his academic qualfications, citing his CV,
his authorship of books, and original research using primary
sources.[1] The decision cited Chauncey's testimony on a dozen issues of
fact or points of law that were relevant to the case.

Works

Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940. Basic Books, 1995. 496pp. ISBN 0465026214

Why Marriage? The History Shaping Today's Debate Over Gay Equality. Basic Books, 2005. 224 pp. ISBN 0465009581