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Upscale Los Angeles neighborhood removes 'homophobic' no U-turn signs
City council members gathered this week in an upmarket LA neighborhood to remove 'No U-turn' signs that they say were a part of the area's homophobic history.
In 1997, signs that conveyed messages like, 'No cruising. No U-turns. Midnight to 6 am,' were posted throughout the Silver Lake neighborhood in an effort to curtail hookups among gay men.
On Monday, city leaders were joined by local LGBTQ+ individuals when they removed the final few 'No U-Turn' and 'No Cruising' signs.
In a statement, LA Councilmember Nithya Raman, who spearheaded the effort, said, 'Los Angeles has a rich history of welcoming the LGBTQIA+ community, but there has also been real and present homophobia- which at times has been inscribed into the city's physical spaces, as with these no-U-turn signs.'
When the signs were posted in the late '90s, gay men depended on printed guidebooks that offered the names of public places where they could connect with other queer individuals, sometimes for love and sex.
City council members gathered this week in a posh LA neighborhood to remove 'No U-turn' signs that they say were a part of the area's homophobic history
Along with several other locations, Silver Lake and West Hollywood, where similar signs were posted and taken down, loomed large in the homosexual community.
After the signs were removed, Councilman Higo Soto-Martinez wrote on X.com:
'This type of homophobia persisted in Silver Lake 30 years after the Black Cat protests,' he said, referring to one of the earliest examples in the US of a public protest against police brutality toward LGBT people.
Councilman Soto-Martinez continued: 'The physical remnants of that bigotry remained on our streets until yesterday, when we joined @nithyavraman to finally take the signs down.'
On Monday, city leaders were joined by local LGBTQ + individuals when they removed the final few 'No U-Turn' and 'No Cruising' signs
The LA Times, however, reported that some people present at the signs' removal were bemused and surprised to hear about the neighborhood's homophobic past 'particularly because the neighborhood was simultaneously a stronghold of queer resistance and resilience.'
Pickle, West Hollywood's inaugural 'drag queen laureate,' who spoke at the removal ceremony, said that she was unfamiliar with the signs.
'I was unaware of those signs and never would have found [them].'
Pickle added that the signs were an 'insidious' strain of discrimination that he and other people 'didn't have context for.'
Maebe A. Girl, a Silver Lake councilmember who was the first drag queen elected to public office in the US, made similar remarks, speaking of her ignorance of the signs.
'I was also surprised that these U-turn signs were still up, and at first, they seem a little... "Oh, ok, it's just a no U-turn sign,"' Girl said.
In 1997, signs that conveyed messages like, 'No cruising. No U-turns. Midnight to 6 am,' were posted throughout the Silver Lake neighborhood in an effort to curtail hookups among gay men
She continued: 'But when you learn the history of [the signs], you realize that these were used to profile gay people.'
'It's so important that we have these removed,' Girl added.
After a successful vote by the Silver Lake Council, the first 'No Cruising' signs were taken down in 2011.
The remaining 'No U-turn' and other related signs were left standing and nearly forgotten.
Then Silver Lake resident Donovan Daughtry alerted the city council to the issue after listening to a podcast concerning the neighborhood's queer history.
Although satisfied with the outcome, Councilman Soto-Martinez believes that more needs to be done to safeguard these types of places.
Maebe A. Girl, a Silver Lake councilmember who was the first drag queen elected to public office in the U.S., spoke at the ceremony
'I would completely agree that we need to do more to protect these spaces,' he said, before adding: 'It's not just unique to Los Angeles...we're all sort of facing the same very serious challenges.'
Albert LeBarron, who operates a gay bar in the area, reflected on the old complaints against queer people in the neighborhood.
'People driving around all night with the radios playing Madonna was probably not conducive to a quiet neighborhood like Silver Lake and the rowdiness inside the bars sometimes spilled outside,' he told the LA Times.
'But in all honesty, a lot of us are people walking or driving or kind of hanging out because they had nowhere else to go.'