A column that explores the queer natural and cultural histories of the American Southwest.
IN MANY MAJOR U.S. and European cities in the 1930s, a surge of queer underground parties sprouted like pansies from the soil. Queer and transgender performers sang proud songs about waving buttercups and daisies. The revelry attracted thousands, but after only a few years, homophobia and Nazism trampled this short-lived superbloom, which historians call “The Pansy Craze.”
When I was growing up near conservative Colorado Springs, Colorado, my
