LGBTQ+ Past

Hell no

How about this book?

A Room in Chelsea Square by Michael Nelson.

Thanks for the suggestion

I googled gay literature 1950s and that came up.

Have you thought of asking this question on some LGBT websites? I'm sure there's plenty of old gay guys who'd like to talk about how things were back then?

Have you heard of polari? It was an underground language used by gay men back then.

Wow, I had never heard of Polari.

If you'd heard old recordings of Round the Horn when you were a kid you'd have been aware of it, even if, like me, you didn't know what it was.

Depends where. The French revolution decriminalized consensual homosexuality, and subsequent napoleonic wars spread this to places like the Nethelands or Bavaria as early as 1810 or thereabout.