Gay adoption of skinhead style reshaped its public meaning in London

Evidence

When I first became a skinhead and was walking down the street, you might get a bit of hassle from people, you know, “Nazi Bastard”, that sort of thing. Nowadays they say, “Batty man.” It doesn’t matter who you are - they’ve never seen you before, you could be covered in White Power tattoos - that’s their first image. You get that reaction from straight blokes. For me, the gays have fucked up the Nazi skinhead image. (Healy, 1996:208) Such combinations of sexual transgression and racial authoritarianism complicate a simple reading of the meaning of skinhead style. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2988

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: semiotic slippage — how queer appropriation hijacked a white-supremacist uniform’s street reading, a case study in contested signifiers.