The Forgotten Black Lesbian Dandies

The 2025 Met Gala theme, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, celebrates the essence of Black dandyism taking inspiration from style trailblazers like André Leon Talley, Dapper Dan, Langston Hughes, and James Baldwin. In tandem with the Costume Institute’s exhibition, the theme pays homage to the art of fine tailoring and the enduring style of Black men—from the 18th century through the Harlem Renaissance of the Roaring Twenties to present day. While the Met Gala primarily highlights this tradition through a lens of masculinity, it’s important to recognize the often-overlooked contributions of women, particularly masculine-presenting lesbians, who were also pioneers of this style.

During the 1920s, as jazz and blues dominated mainstream entertainment and echoed through every speakeasy from 110th Street to 155th in New York, a small group of women began embracing masculine attire—not just on stage, but in their everyday lives. Black queer artists and intellectuals played a pivotal role in shaping this style of dandyism. Like many queer people in early twentieth-century America, they often had to hide their sexualities and gender identities. However, for masculine-presenting lesbians, their performance of masculinity—viewed as a kind of spectacle, much like modern-day drag—allowed for a degree of visibility and acceptance. By defying traditional notions of “masculine” and “feminine” dress and behavior, they carved out space for themselves.

At famed speakeasies, the Clam House, and the Ubangi Club, Gladys Bentley became a prominent figure behind the piano and infront of it. Clad in a white three-piece suit with a trailing coat, a towering top hat, and a cane, the openly lesbian performer captivated audiences with bawdy, jazz-infused sets that included suggestive lyrics about her female lovers. She openly flirted with women in the crowd, embodying a suave, masculine persona that both defied and redefined gender expectations of the era. Bentley’s performances were more than entertainment—they were radical acts of visibility of masculine lesbianism at a time when few had ever witnessed such.

While Bentley was a famous lesbian during this time, openly at that, during the McCarthy Era in the 1950s, she started wearing dresses and married a man. And she later denounced her homosexuality in the later years of her life.

Fifteen blocks north at the Apollo Theater—and three decades later—emerged Stormé DeLarverie: performer, activist, and self-proclaimed “guardian angel of the Village.” A towering figure in both presence and queer legacy, DeLarverie is widely believed to have thrown the first punch at the Stonewall uprising, a claim supported by those closest to her. “Nobody knows who threw the first punch, but it’s rumored that she did, and she said she did,” her friend Lisa Cannistraci, DeLarverie’s legal guardian and the owner of a Village lesbian bar, told The New York Times following her death in 2014. “She told me she did.”

Stormé DeLarverie, born to an African American mother and a white father, was the only “male impersonator” in the Jewel Box Revue, a queer touring company during the 1950s and ’60s. “There were around 25 guys and me,” she recalled in a 2010 interview with AfterEllen.com.

While the other performers dressed in glittering dresses, DeLarverie stood out—famously photographed in a shawl-collar tuxedo. In another photograph, she appears in a wide-cut zoot suit and fedora, a pipe in hand, fully embodying the Black masculine style standard of that time.

Before her time performing in Harlem, she worked in Chicago as a bodyguard for mobsters, embracing the role of protector—both onstage and off. That same protective instinct carried into her later life, as she became a guardian of the queer community in New York’s West Village, home to the legendary Stonewall Inn. According to Curve magazine in 2008, DeLarverie was remembered as the “Stonewall lesbian” who helped spark the rebellion, earning her the title “the Rosa Parks of Stonewall.”

While Black dandyism is often narrated through the lens of male fashion icons, female and queer dandies have been equally present—though historically rendered invisible. Despite this erasure, their influence resonates deeply, not only within the Black queer community but also in contemporary fashion and culture, as seen in figures like Janelle Monáe, Lena Waithe, and others who continue to carry their legacy.