Is "the newsies were gay" historically accurate?
Probably. People were gay, Steven.
In modernity, about 3.5% of Americans claim identity as LGBTQIA+ and there’s no reason to suppose that that number would have been any different amongst the newsies. It may even have been higher, as they were already slightly outside the control of ‘normal’ societal forces and living in an intensely homosocial environment. We have evidence of gender nonconformation among the newsies —a ‘boy’ named ‘Narrow Mike’ who willingly presented as a girl in day-to-day work and ‘girls’ being kicked out of the Lodging Houses when their sex was discovered. There are also hints towards LGBTQIA+ leanings. Graham Robb’s book Strangers claims that at least one newsboy was devastated by hearing of Oscar Wilde’s arrest. Simon Sleight’s book Children, Childhood, and Youth makes the claim that newsboys “developed an unsupervised culture” in the same places where men would solicit sex (I’m honestly unsure if this is a reference to newsies running errands for prostitutes, implying that newsies were sometimes sex workers, or just calling them gay).
Historically, the newsies were often children and young teens, and there isn’t a lot of data recorded about their romantic relationships (although there are records of older newsies being engaged/getting married). Unfortunately, until 1962, homosexual activity (”sodomy”) was a felony and displays/suspicions of it could have gotten them fined, arrested, beaten, or killed. It was also considered a psychiatric disorder at the time and could land them (particularly trans people and gay men) in mental asylums for years. If they were religious or from religious families, that was another blockade.
There was a very limited community available for exploration and understanding of self. The most famous Lower East Side gay bar, Paresis/Columbia Hall, doubled as a brothel and was widely considered “a nest of sin” etc. It was closed down by the government in 1899. Although you had people like Oscar Wilde who really put the gay in “The Gay ‘90s”, the atmosphere surrounding the 1900 LGBTQIA+ community wasn’t exactly peaceful or welcoming. The labels that did exist were almost entirely derogatory. Any public mention of it would be accompanied by words like “depravity”, “unnatural”, and “criminal”. That being said, the newsies did have a reputation for snubbing their nose at Normal Decent Society™.
So the question isn’t so much “did gay newsies exist” —which they definitely did— but rather “would they have felt comfortable to express themselves”. A bunch of Australian newsboys were arrested in 1905 for homosexual behavior (among other things). Newspapers often had field days screaming about the ‘scandals’ and, in some cases, deaths of those who were caught at same-sex activity. Lodging House supervisors would actively police the gender of their boarders in order to make sure that there were no ‘girls’ living there. It’s likely that if any of the LGBTQIA+ newsies did experience ‘heterosexual’ attraction (when they were, in fact, bi or pan or poly etc.), they would focus on the socially acceptable part and repress the rest.
For those newsies who were exclusively homosexual or had difficulties passing, life was not a walk in the park. As pure conjecture, though, in such a tight knit, socially outcast, pseudo-familial community, I bet the newsies could rely on each other to be supportive and understanding. And then that support would contribute to more of them feeling comfortable to live as their true selves. And even if, by some odd statistical gymnastics, not one newsie in the entire legion was gay, they were at least very aware of people who were.
