Lakshmi.Sparthosx said:
»If you were a tomboy 100 years ago you were a maverick and if you were an effeminate male ha... well, you weren't having a good time.
Actually, you'd be surprised, but context is everything. In the more moneyed parts of society during the Victorian and Edwardian reigns, a man being a little effeminate was not a hanging offense. Oscar Wilde got in more trouble for being a pain in the *** than for doing it in the butt, but, like Capone, one option was easier to convict. Similarly, Boston marriages have a certain history of tolerance, especially in the States.
It's really no different today, though. Being a hipster douchebag, for instance,
probably won't get your *** justifiably curb-stomped in Portland, OR, or the right neighborhoods of NYC, but that won't stop it happening in places where people still have standards and believe in human dignity. Peruvian train tracks, for instance.