What about red shirts at Disney? And no, I never heard of the green Thursday thing.
Shit. I wear purple a bit. Apparently I gave off the wrong signals… ?
(… to anyone who took it seriously. Or knew the code.)
First I’m hearing of this, or the green thing. The earring thing was already considered B.S. when I was a kid, and I’m pushing 40.
I had only heard of earrings with “right ear, wrong fellow.” Of course, in conservative Salt Lake City in the 70s any earring in a guy would make you suspect.
Salt Lake was so closeted that it wasn’t until I was around 25 that I even became acquainted with an openly gay person. Lesbians didn’t exist, of course.
Never heard of the green on Thursdays or purple or whatever else.
Never heard of it.
Green on Thursday was a thing where I went to school (northern WV) in the late 70s and early 80s. Nobody really took it that seriously, though. If a guy happened to wear something green on Thursday a couple of people might say something in a joking manner, but no one would seriously think he was gay.
Never heard the purple on Thursday variant.
I heard it maybe a couple of times in elementary school in the 1970s. I’m not sure there was agreement on the day. I didn’t think anyone took it seriously, just one of those dumb playground things.
I heard about it back in the 60s. I was already out, but didn’t need to adjust my wardrobe to reflect that fact.
digs, it could be worse. At the school I was at for 9th grade, if you didn’t pull other guys’ pants off in the locker room, that meant you were gay.
Getting kicked out of that place was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
I read about a historical event that may never have happened. Parliament presented Queen Victoria with laws banning homosexual acts for both men and women. Queen Vicky, sheltered soul that she was, even with all those kids, just couldn’t conceive (conceive, snerk!) of women doing anything so heinous as a homosexual act. So she crossed out anything referring to women in the bill, and then signed it into law. So homosexuality in the British Empire was illegal for men, but okay for lesbians.
Hah! Tell the Men’s Rights groups that one!
In another interesting case of double standard for homosexuals - Judaism arguably bans male homosexuality based on certain Biblical texts, but says nothing whatsoever about lesbians so, again, gay men have a big problem there but gay women are, apparently, OK.
Back in the mid-80s, it was claimed that wearing green on Thursdays (Wednesdays?) meant that you were horny. Also, eating green M&Ms made you horny. This was in Jr. High and High school though so horniness among my peers was probably a given regardless.
Never heard the “gay” reference though. Seems as though it morphed before it reached my neighborhood and era.
That’s disgusting and ironic at the same time.
Come to think of it, what bothers me the most about all these childhood taunts, is that being gay was the worst thing the kids could think of.
“Well, you’re a mass murderer.”
"Yeah, well I’d rather murder a hundred nuns than be like you. You’re… a homo!"
[collective gasp from playground denizens] [who are thinking “This game is over now!”]
In high school (late 1960s, Midwest), there was a day/color combination that supposedly meant you were a queer. One socially awkward girl showed up on the wrong day in the wrong color, and when it was pointed out to her, she started crying and made her parents bring her different clothes.
I like to think that I would’ve ignored any teasing, but since I never wore the color on the day, I’ll never know. Other than Weird Girl, I don’t remember anyone else doing it either. I do remember that the color was not a popular one, and few people wore it ever.
By high school, my peers and I had a fair idea what “queer” meant. Earlier we bandied the word about, considering it a hilarious insult, but we actually didn’t comprehend it. It was the height of hilarity in a public place with no adult supervision to yell out, “All queers look this way”.
The term “gay” was not yet used in the Midwest at that time.
At first I just understood “queer” to be another way to say “unusual” or “strange.” “Well, that’s a queer outcome.” But when the kids started playing smear the queer on the playground, it started to take on a disparaging connotation.
I thought everybody was supposed to be gay on St Pat’s. You’re celebrating, after all.
Wearing a college sports polo on Fridays during the fall was the sure goto sign that you were gay in the 90’s and '00’s.
Yellow. It was yellow where I grew up (Portland, OR) in the 60’s. Nobody ever wore yellow anyway, so it was fairly easy to avoid making a mistake. And I don’t think anyone really took it seriously past junior high.
The only clothing based “gay sign” I remember hearing mention of back in the 1980s as a teenager was some kind of handkerchief (maybe of a particular color) tucked into a specific rear pocket (left one?).
I graduated HS in Baltimore in '72, and I never heard this particular tale.
When I was at Purdue in the late '70s, the gay student alliance (if that’s what it was called) declared Oct 19 to be Gay Blue Jeans Day, saying anyone wearing jeans that day would be considered to be gay. Letters to the editor of the school paper angrily declared “I’ll wear whatever I want and if some <gay slur> hits on me, it’ll be the last time…” and similar sentiments.
Then someone countered with October 19 Straight Shoe Day - anyone wearing shoes would be considered to be straight. OK. The cherry on top was the person who opined: Anyone not wearing clothes on Oct 19 will be considered to be naked!
Hail, Purdue!
On Oct 19, I saw a student walking across campus in blue jeans, a denim jacket, denim shirt, denim hat, and no shoes. I’m guessing he was making a statement. 
I heard the expression “gay as green on Thursdays”, but I don’t think it was ever widespread. I don’t think I owned any green clothing, so it was never an issue.
I also heard the stuff about which ear was pierced meant what role you wanted to play in gay sex, plus the various colors of scarves you had sticking out of your pocket meant you were looking for various activities. I don’t wear scarves sticking out of my pocket, and by the time I got my ear pierced, it was too commonplace among straight people to mean anything.
Regards,
Shodan