Naw, you bought into an urban myth. Why would prisoners put up with such an inconvenience just to signal homosexuality? Especially when you already had signals used outside of prison like having an earring in the right ear, that system of handkerchiefs they used in the '70s, and so forth. It would be like signaling your sexual preference by walking around with your shoelaces untied.
Children in poor families often inherit clothing from siblings when they grow out of them. That pair of pants was too small on your brother, but it’s still too big on you. What was originally an inconvenience becomes fashionable because everybody in your neighborhood was doing it. This is so common that it’s caught on and now people are doing it on purpose.
Something similar happened with soul food. Enslaved people were given food that used to be thrown away. They found a way to make it taste good, and it became a cultural marker.
Naw, you bought into an urban myth. Why would prisoners put up with such an inconvenience just to signal homosexuality? Especially when you already had signals used outside of prison like having an earring in the right ear, that system of handkerchiefs they used in the '70s, and so forth. It would be like signaling your sexual preference by walking around with your shoelaces untied.
Children in poor families often inherit clothing from siblings when they grow out of them. That pair of pants was too small on your brother, but it’s still too big on you. What was originally an inconvenience becomes fashionable because everybody in your neighborhood was doing it. This is so common that it’s caught on and now people are doing it on purpose.
Something similar happened with soul food. Enslaved people were given food that used to be thrown away. They found a way to make it taste good, and it became a cultural marker.