admiring the stockings. 1940’s.
#[40S COMMERCIAL ANNOUNCER VOICE] WHAT’S BETTER THAN THIS? GALS BEING PALS
Fun fact: Though being gay in the 40s sucked, being gay in the military was easier, and pretty common. There were apparently, at one point in time time so many lesbians in the military that when they tried to crack down on it, the girls wrote back and said “Look I can give you the names, but you’ll lose some of your best officers, and half your nurses and secretaries.” And they pretty much shut up about it unless you were especially bad at subtlety. (Source: Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers. A good source for gay history from 1900s onwards.)
wait but also lesbians in the WAC were so common and often had hierarchies of popular lesbians; more traditionally butch women were considered super hot and often formed cliques where they’d wear men’s suits and cut their hair to look like sideburns and smoke cigars in the mess (there was also a lot of terrible profiling done to butch women during gay/lesbian witch hunts later in the military but at least this part is fun)
also when they finally tried to crack down on lesbian relationships in the WAC it proved to be incredibly difficult because of male officers’ inability to distinguish friendly female behavior from like.. couples’ PDAs (“gal pals????” they all thought. “lesbians????” they couldn’t tell. “these women are all holding hands with each other and kissing each others’ cheeks what is going on,” they thought. “men don’t do this?”) and this wasn’t at all helped by the fact that the women would often intentionally mess with the people questioning them; they’d pull the gal pal card and they’d pull it hard. “do you two sleep in the same bed?” “well of course, we’re best friends!”
and when the military tried to profile more butch-presenting women, who often (but not exclusively!) filled more industrial jobs such as mechanics and technicians etc. they found that they were losing some of their best people who were replacing “”“male”“” homefront and reserve jobs and therefore couldn’t discharge them
another great book to read is Coming Out Under Fire by Allan Berube; it specifically addresses lesbian and gay climates in WWII, with a heavy focus on the WAC and on drag culture in the men’s army/navy
transientterritory, it got better. ^_^
