City council members met this week in an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood to remove “No U-Turns” signs that they say were part of the area’s homophobic history.
In 1997, signs appeared conveying messages such as: ‘No cruising’. No U-Turns. Midnight to 6am,” were posted throughout the Silver Lake neighborhood in an effort to reduce hookups between gay men.
On Monday, city leaders joined local LGBTQ+ people as they removed the last of the “No U-Turn” and “No Crossing” signs.
In a statement, Los Angeles Councilmember Nithya Raman, who led 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 written into the physical spaces of the city”. , as happens with these no U-turn signs.’
When the signs went up in the late ’90s, gay men relied on printed guides that offered the names of public places where they could connect with other queer people, sometimes for love and sex.
City council members met this week in an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood to remove “No U-Turns” signs that they say were 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 gay community.
After the signs were removed, Councilman Higo Soto-Martínez 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 first examples in the United States of public protest against police brutality toward LGBT people.
Councilman Soto-Martínez continued: “The physical remains of that intolerance remained on our streets until yesterday, when we joined with @nithyavraman to finally remove the signs.”
On Monday, city leaders joined local LGBTQ+ people as they removed the last of the “No U-Turn” and “No Crossing” signs.
He Los Angeles TimesHowever, he reported that some people present at the sign removal were bewildered and surprised to hear about the neighborhood’s homophobic past “particularly because the neighborhood was simultaneously a bastion of queer resistance and resilience.”
Pickle, West Hollywood’s inaugural drag queen laureate, who spoke at the impeachment ceremony, said she was unfamiliar with the signs.
“I was not aware of those signs and would never have found them.”
Pickle added that the signs were an “insidious” strain of discrimination that he and others had “no context for.”
Maebe A. Girl, a Silver Lake councilwoman and the first drag queen elected to public office in the United States, made similar comments, speaking of her ignorance of the signs.
“I was also surprised that these U-turn signs were still up and at first they looked a little… ‘Oh, okay, it’s just a no U-turn sign,'” Girl said.
In 1997, signs appeared conveying messages such as: ‘No cruising’. No U-Turns. Midnight to 6am,” were posted throughout the Silver Lake neighborhood in an effort to reduce hookups between gay men.
He continued: “But when you know the history of (the signs), you realize that they were used to profile gay people.”
“It’s very important that we remove them,” Girl added.
After a successful vote by the Silver Lake Council, the first “No Cruising” signs were removed in 2011.
The remaining “No U-Turn” signs and other related signs were left standing and almost forgotten.
Then Silver Lake resident Donovan Daughtry alerted the city council to the problem after listening to a podcast about the neighborhood’s queer history.
Although satisfied with the result, Councilor Soto-Martínez believes that more needs to be done to safeguard these types of places.
Maebe A. Girl, a Silver Lake councilwoman and the first drag queen elected to public office in the United States, spoke at the ceremony.
“I completely agree that we need to do more to protect these spaces,” he said, before adding, “It’s not unique to Los Angeles…we’re all facing the same very serious challenges.”
Albert LeBarron, who runs a gay bar in the area, reflected on long-standing complaints against queer people in the neighborhood.
“People driving around all night with radios playing Madonna probably wasn’t conducive to a quiet neighborhood like Silver Lake and the noise inside the bars sometimes spilled over outside,” he told Los Angeles Times.
“But honestly, a lot of us are people who walk, drive or hang out because we have nowhere else to go.”
