Gay Key West - A History

A history of gay Key West starting in 1954, when the city police chief Bienvenido Perez promised to rid the island of the "scores of sex deviates" that had supposedly flocked to the island to escape a crackdown by Miami police. "The town is full of them," he said at the time. "We don't want that kind of people in Key West."

Twenty-nine years later Richard Heyman, an out-and-proud homosexual, was elected mayor. But no one in 1954 would have believed it possible. There were gay rights protests and lawsuits along the way. But the change is mostly due to the gay men who moved to the island, along with those who were born in Key West, becoming part of the fabric of the community. Over the years they have served as firemen, policemen, politicians, doctors, contractors, lawyers, shopkeepers-and, of course, trolley drivers, drag queens, bartenders, and artists.

This book tells their stories.