ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the assimilationist practices of property enhancement and related neighborhood activism by LGBT Dallasites, and the repercussions of this activity for LGBT neighborhoods and rights. LGBT people in Dallas have gone from relatively recent invisibility to composing the largest metropolitan LGBT population in the South after Washington. The political history of LGBT Dallas begins in 1964, with the meeting of a Circle of Friends. One outgrowth of this group was the 1970 founding of a Dallas congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church, a California-based church with a primary mission to gay people. The Dallas Way originated in the late 1970s when DGPC president Steve Wilkins urged fellow activists to wear pin-striped suits, wing-tipped shoes and carry briefcases. The organizational spirit begun with the Circle of Friends produced a pride parade in 1972, and activists founded the Dallas Gay Political Caucus (DGPC) in 1977.
