Yes! At one time, camp was sort of queer cultural signal, I guess. Campy performances allowed a person to violate (temporarily) social norms, particularly gender norms.

We see that way back, even the before gender-bending stage performances in Washington DC after the Civil War, when "Queens of Drag" like William Swan staged public performances.

Weimar Germany was renowned for camp as queer culture, as we see reflected in the stage musical and films called Cabaret, loosely based on Christopher Isherwood's Berlin memoirs.

Today, the culture perpetuates with drag shows, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and lots of other popular entertainment.

In my own youth, I did not personally relate to camp's effeminacy and flamboyance, probably because I was running from it. For a lot of years I felt camp was something to distance myself from (as an unfair gender stereotype) rather than something to embrace.

Ironically, I realized I was gay because of Anita Bryant. If it hadn't been for her highly publicized anti-gay campaign, I would not have realized in church when I was almost 12 that I was gay.

It never occurred to me that Bryant might have been campy. I guess in some vague way contrary to usual definitions of camp as gender-bending flamboyance, she might have been. Although I can't really think of a way to find any positivity in that.

She was so cruel, a thoroughly despicable human being spreading hatred against people, like you and me, who weren't harming anyone.

Tiny Tim was something else! I remember adults in my life going to great lengths to assure themselves that he was actually straight so it was okay to laugh. Johnny Carson would have a lot of guests on his show like that — straight or obstensively straight like Liberace, if anybody actually believed that about Liberace. (Some of my relatives believed it! 🤣)

Thank you for the interesting peek into 20th-century queer history!