This year is a significant one for the LGBTQ+ community. June marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which took place in Greenwich, New York City in 1969. Patrons of Stonewall Inn overwhelmed an NYPD raid on the gay bar, resisting as the police attempted to arrest them for illegal activity: being gay, trans, or otherwise \u201cdeviant\u201d. The riots sparked a new era of the LGBTQ+ rights movement, galvanizing grassroots forces across the world, culminating in the radiantly rainbow Pride movement we recognize today and celebrate each June. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But before this, before Stonewall, the LGBTQ+ community existed in a very different way: hidden and disguised, but extravagant nonetheless. Published in August 2019, fifty years after Stonewall, Paul Baker\u2019s new book Fabulosa! The Story of Polari, Britain\u2019s Secret Gay Language<\/em> reveals a significant part of this underground community: the language of Polari, primarily spoken by gay men in the UK during the first half of the 20th<\/sup> century to conceal their sexual identities. \u00a0When non-straight activity was illegal, Polari provided a way of meeting up with some \u201cshamshes\u201d\u2014attractive men\u2014without attracting the attention of the \u201cBetty Bracelets\u201d\u2014the police. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Fabulosa!<\/em>\nis a work of nonfiction, academically exploring the origin and linguistics of\nPolari. The book also offers a more personal story, detailing Baker\u2019s own relationship\nto the language both as a scholar and as a gay man born well after the need for\na secret code had passed. Using interviews, personal testimonies, and\nartifacts, Baker allows the voices of the past to reconstruct the reality of\nBritish gay life in the early 20th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Baker provides a compelling history in Fabulosa!<\/em>, he is still unable to answer a few questions, leaving some of Polari a mystery. We know that Polari existed and was spoken in the UK, but the necessary concealment of LGBTQ+ communities and activity means that it is difficult to estimate exactly how many people used it. This is especially true because, as Baker writes, Polari was different for each of its speakers, used as a few words of bawdy, colorful slang to an entire language of complex code. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Consistent with each use, however, is Polari\u2019s playful tone and what Baker describes as its \u201canti-language\u201d qualities: its us-against-them rhetoric. Polari is a language created specifically for a marginalized community; speaking it often meant that the ideology of that community\u2014a wariness toward the dominant homophobic society\u2014was communicated as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/centmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/pride_2017.jpg?resize=580%2C385\")
Courtesy of MangakaMaiden Photography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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