During the summer of 1976, a restaurant in Fire Island Pines, New York, denied entry to a visitor in drag named Terry Warren. Fire Island Pines is a beach community on Fire Island east of New York City with a gay majority population that was at the time more affluent and conservative than the population of nearby Cherry Grove. When Warren's friends in Cherry Grove heard what had happened, they too dressed up in drag, and, on July 4, 1976, with Cherry Grove's 1976 Homecoming Queen Thom Hansen (aka Panzi) in the lead, sailed to the Pines by water taxi. The boatload of drag queens that stormed into the Pines that day—to a surprised but exuberant welcome—was the first "invasion," an event now repeated each year.
Current annual event
Now, many years later, the annual Fourth of July Invasion of the Pines attracts hundreds of drag queens and thousands of spectators to what has become an annual Independence Day event.
The queens arrive at the Fire Island Pines Harbor
On the afternoon of July 4 each year, drag queens from both Cherry Grove and the Pines gather at the Ice Palace Bar at the Cherry Grove Hotel in Cherry Grove; after parading through the street of Cherry Grove, they board a chartered ferry boat and sail to the Pines Harbor, where they are greeted by thousands of cheering residents and visitors. As each drag queen leaves the ferry and marches onto the dock, she is announced by Panzi, the original 1976 invasion leader, now mistress of ceremonies.
A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and have been a part of gay culture.
Cherry Grove is a hamlet in the Town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County, New York, United States. It is located on Fire Island, a barrier island separated from the southern side of Long Island by the Great South Bay. The hamlet has approximately 300 houses on 41 acres (170,000 m2), a summer seasonal population of 2,000 and a year-round population of 15.
Fire Island is the large center island of the outer barrier islands parallel to the South Shore of Long Island, in the U.S. state of New York.
Fire Island Pines is a hamlet in the Town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County, New York, United States. It is located on Fire Island, a barrier island separated from the southern side of Long Island by the Great South Bay.
Ferry Farm, also known as the George Washington Boyhood Home Site or the Ferry Farm Site, is the farm and home where George Washington spent much of his childhood. The site is located in Stafford County, Virginia, along the northern bank of the Rappahannock River, across from the city of Fredericksburg. In July 2008, archaeologists announced that they had found remains of the boyhood home, which had suffered a fire during 1740, including artifacts such as pieces of a cream-colored tea set probably belonging to George's mother, Mary Ball Washington. In 2015, the George Washington Foundation began constructing a replica of Washington's boyhood home on the site of the original building. The replica house was completed in 2018 and is open to the public.
Paris Is Burning is a 1990 documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, it chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender communities involved in it.
Honeymoon Island State Park is a Florida State Park located on Honeymoon Island, a barrier island across St. Joseph's Sound from Palm Harbor, Ozona, and Crystal Beach. The park is 385 acres (1.6 km2) in land area with 2,400 acres (10 km2) submerged and 4 miles (6 km) of beach. It lies at the western end of Causeway Boulevard, which becomes Curlew Road east of Alternate US 19. Its address is 1 Causeway Blvd. Consistently receiving more than one million visitors each year, it is the most-visited state park in Florida.
Panzi is an American gay activist.
Esther Newton is an American cultural anthropologist who did pioneering work on the ethnography of lesbian and gay communities in the United States.
Wolfgang Busch is a multiple award winning documentary filmmaker, director, producer, cinematographer and editor. He was inducted into the Queens Business Hall of Fame for his company Art From The Heart Films for "Best LGBT Business" and into the LGBT Music Hall of Fame. For his social and artistic activism for the Black and Hispanic LGBT Ballroom community, aka Harlem Drag Ball community, Wolfgang received a Humanitarian award for his documentary How Do I Look, and the "Keep The Dream Alive" Martin Luther King Humanitarian award from the straight Black community.
Watch Hill is a campground and marina located on Fire Island, a barrier island off the south shore of New York's Long Island. The park is located across the Great South Bay from Patchogue and is contained within the Fire Island National Seashore.
Atlanta Pride, also colloquially called the Atlanta Gay Pride Festival, is a week-long annual lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) pride festival held in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1971, it is one of the oldest and largest pride festivals in the United States. According to the Atlanta Pride Committee, as of 2017, attendance had continually grown to around 300,000. Originally a pride held in June, Atlanta Pride has been held in October every year since 2008, typically on a weekend closest to National Coming Out Day.
Stonewall Uprising is a 2010 American documentary film examining the events surrounding the Stonewall riots that began during the early hours of June 28, 1969. Stonewall Uprising made its theatrical debut on June 16, 2010, at the Film Forum in New York City. The film features interviews with 15 participants and eyewitnesses to the riots, including many who were active in the uprising and later went on to form gay liberation groups, as well as law enforcement who participated in the raids that precipitated the rebellion.
New York City has been described as the gay capital of the world and the central node of the LGBTQ+ sociopolitical ecosystem, and is home to one of the world's largest LGBTQ populations and the most prominent. Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rise buildings, and Broadway theatre". LGBT travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs". LGBT advocate and entertainer Madonna stated metaphorically, "Anyways, not only is New York City the best place in the world because of the queer people here. Let me tell you something, if you can make it here, then you must be queer."
The Carrington House is a bungalow located in the hamlet of Cherry Grove, New York. Built around 1912, it was one of the first buildings in Cherry Grove and constructed for Frederick Marquet. It is typical of early buildings on Fire Island. It was acquired by theater director Frank Carrington in 1927, who enlarged the house. Under his ownership, the house was a popular refuge for LGBT artists like Truman Capote; Breakfast at Tiffany's was written there.
The Cherry Grove Community House and Theatre is a historic building in Cherry Grove, New York. It played an important part in the development of Cherry Grove as an LGBT town.
Fire Island is an American reality television series from the LGBT-interest network Logo that began airing on April 27, 2017. It is produced by Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos, Albert Bianchini, and Lenid Rolov. The show was not renewed for a second season.
RuPaul's Drag Race UK is a British reality competition television series based on the American television series of the same name. The television series, a collaboration between the BBC, World of Wonder and Gallowgate Productions, premiered on 3 October 2019. The show is the fourth installment of the Drag Race franchise, and the second fronted by RuPaul. The show documents RuPaul and a panel of judges' search for "the United Kingdom's next drag superstar", the first series title dubbed "UK's First Drag Superstar". RuPaul plays several roles on the show including host, mentor and head judge for the series, as the contestants are given different challenges to participate in each week. The show also employs a panel of judges: RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Alan Carr and Graham Norton.
Fire Island is a 2022 American romantic comedy film directed by Andrew Ahn, and written by and starring Joel Kim Booster. The film co-stars Bowen Yang, Conrad Ricamora, James Scully, and Margaret Cho. Inspired by Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the story follows a group of gay friends who go on vacation to Fire Island, only for things to become complicated by classism and romance.
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