It’s said Judy Garland once told her daughter, Liza, “When I die I have visions of fags singing ‘Over the Rainbow’ and the flag at Fire Island being flown at half mast.” In fact, the Stonewall Riots began the night of her death, and although not connected, it makes for a charming story.
The phrase “friend of Dorothy” – a slang term for gay men that refers to Garland’s character in The Wizard of Oz – dates to the second World War and likely relates to the Cowardly Lion, an avowed sissy, and the alternate, rainbow family that Dorothy gathers around her.
In 1906’s “Road to Oz,” Polychrome (the Rainbow’s daughter) tells Dorothy “You have some queer friends, Dorothy.” And the heroine replies, “The queerness doesn’t matter, so long as they’re friends!”
As fascism and authoritarian censorship rise in this country, we as a community might not be the swishing, squealing queens we once were at the time of Judy Garland’s heighted fame. We have better language for expressing our LGBTQ-ness, right? However, with things like horrific anti trans laws and Don’t Say Gay bills being passed, coded language to keep one’s identity a secret seems to be on the rise once again.
It might be time for our friend, Dorothy, to return…and not like in that Disney fever dream kind of way, but in an actual euphemism of safety for knowing who one can trust with their queerness.
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