This thread has a few good comments on this. Surprisingly it seems that not a lot has been talked about gay life in this era on AH.

Being gay in the 1950s was difficult... to say the very least. As you can see from this 1950s PSA gay behavior in the US was viewed in mainstream culture as predatory, vile, and criminal. An evident example of this can be seen in the Lavender Scare, the lesser know corollary to the Red Scare in the 50s & 60s. In 1953, President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450 which outlawed gays from working in the federal government. This caused a massive federal witch hunt to investigate employees suspected of gay behavior, ultimately resulting in 5000+ gay men and women losing their jobs, many of whom were veterans in WW2. Executive Order 10450 was not removed until 1995 under Bill Clinton, only to be replaced by the much derided Don't Ask Don't Tell policy.

The primary method for how gay people found each other, at least for gay men, was through gay bars. These bars were typically known to be gay by word-of-mouth, where either the entire bar, or back dance rooms in the bar, were understood to be specifically for gay people. Gay bars moved around a lot though, as they would close down often and new ones would have to spring up to replace the old ones. This was typically due to police interference. Part of the way people kept a gay bar running consistently was through paying off the police, or hiring the Mafia. Cruising, walking/driving around a public location to find a sex partner, was also popular among gay men (although I'm not sure what time period this became popular).

Print culture also saw a surge in literary representation for gay people in the 50s. Magazines like ONE, for gay men, and The Ladder, for lesbians, would list addresses of gay gathering places. These gathering places, along with various house parties were more popular meeting places for lesbians and POC. Lesbian bars did exist but women typically weren't very free to roam around town alone at this time and because of segregation few POC occupied the same spaces as white people.

This is extremely brief, but hopefully it gives you a better idea of gay life in the 1950s.

Also, just a note: most, if not all, gay people (men, women, trans) prefer the term gay over homosexual. I would suggest using that term instead when asking questions about people, even historical. As you can see from the videos I've linked, the term homosexual has often been used as a derogatory, animal-like term by popular media in the US (e.g. CBS Reports 'The Homosexuals').

Sources:

Creating a Place For Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Histories

[The Lavender Scare] (https://www.worldcat.org/title/lavender-scare-the-cold-war-persecution-of-gays-and-lesbians-in-the-federal-government/oclc/52197376&referer=brief_results)

Also, an excellent autobiographical read which delves into being a lesbian as a POC from the 40s onward is Audre Lorde's Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

Edit: Spelling, switched links to WorldCat