A grassroots tour of the nation’s lesbian bars that illuminates their past, present, and hopeful future, from the co-creator of the hit podcast Cruising
Lesbian bars are so much more than a place to get a drink. For over a century, they’ve acted as community posts, political organizing grounds, and sanctuaries. Yet whereas in the 1980s there were an estimated 200 lesbian bars across the US, the current count sits at a few dozen.
In The Lesbian Bar Chronicles, author and co-creator of the hit podcast Cruising Rachel Karp embarks across the country with her wife and best friend to chronicle the stories of the remaining US lesbian bars. Recent narratives have claimed lesbian bars are dying, but Karp’s group finds many of the places they visit to be thriving, their communities sustaining themselves over decades of change and challenges.
Weaving together over 100 hours of immersive interviews with bar owners, staff, and regulars, Karp highlights places like
- Chicago spot Nobody’s Darling, where readers meet “the mayor” Shirley J, who in the 1970s was instrumental in the birth of house music
- Frankie’s in Oklahoma City, where readers attend a “family night” to learn how a lesbian bar can birth a chosen family
- Redz, a Chicana lesbian bar in East LA involved in the precedent setting court case that followed years of arrests for patrons wearing men’s clothing
A heartfelt reclamation of queer history and queer lives, Karp’s narrative examines how these beacons for community and inclusion can teach us to live openly, cultivate connection, and continue to take up space.
“A bracingly optimistic chronicle of modern queer life.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Snappy vignettes on safe—and fun—spaces.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Stories of humans who refuse to be erased and who create community against all the odds are just what we need right now. The Lesbian Bar Chronicles is an effervescent mix of history, sex, and politics, not to mention fun!”
—Barbara Smith, coauthor of The Combahee River Collective Statement
“For those of us who’ve long known sacred sapphic spaces like The Cubbyhole, Ginger’s, and Good Judy’s, Rachel Karp’s The Lesbian Bar Chronicles finally captures—and properly documents—their enchantment and vital importance. And for newcomers, it carves out a liminal space where everyone knows your lot, your light, your life, and your heart. It stands as one of the most engrossing and essential archives of our queer times.”
—Ricky Tucker, author of And the Category Is . . . : Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community
“A beautiful tapestry of the loves, secrets, and stories that shape us, reminding the world that our community has always survived and created a legacy no one can erase.”
—Hayley Kiyoko, American singer-songwriter, actress, director, and New York Times best-selling author
“Lesbian bars have long been places of arrival—where our identities sharpen, our friendships form, and our chosen families take shape. They hold memory and meaning, often at moments when the world outside feels hostile or indifferent. What makes this book so powerful is its attention to the care, persistence, and courage that are required to bring people together in real rooms, at real tables. The lesbian tearoom that Eva Adams opened in 1925 was a lifeline for the women who frequented Greenwich Village; a full century later, now that so much of life is fractured and remote, these bars continue to be the rocks of our community. I can chart my adolescence and young adulthood by the bars I frequented: The Lex, Wildside West, Ginger’s, Cattyshack. I understand the power of choosing and standing by each other, and I believe deeply in the quiet radicalism of gathering—of creating places that invite people to show up fully and connect. Rachel Karp’s book honors that work and the communities it makes possible.”
—Jessi Hempel, host of LinkedIn’s award-winning podcast Hello Monday and author of The Family Outing
“I entered my first lesbian bar, the Sea Colony, in New Year’s Greenwich Village in 1958 when I was eighteen. How gifted with life I am to have the opportunity to read this book now, at eighty-five, to stand on the mountaintop with Karp’s found inclusive voices, to savor this journey through geographies of need, struggle, care, resistance. The richness of voices, histories, identities, and material realities is unforgettable, precious, and instructive. Our bars, our gathering places, are not disappearing but always reforming under the pressure of their times. Expansive, inclusive, complex, an American story of how we would not quit in finding a public home for our lesbian queer selves. And now in these once again dangerous times, how we need to hear these lives, to take heart for what lies ahead.”
—Joan Nestle, Lambda Award–winning writer, teacher, activist, and cofounder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives
“A love letter to queer survival and joy, this glorious book chronicles the lesbian bars that became sanctuaries, organizing hubs, and chosen homes. Part road trip and part oral history, it reveals why these spaces—of refuge, resistance, and connection—still matter.”
—Debbie Millman, host of the podcast Design Matters and author of Love Letter to a Garden
Preface
PART ONE: THE NORTHEAST—LESBIAN BARS ARE NEIGHBORHOOD BARS
CHAPTER ONE
Eve’s Hangout—The First Lesbian Bar? (New York, NY)
CHAPTER TWO
Henrietta Hudson—Lesbian Bars Are Evolving (New York, NY)
CHAPTER THREE
Cubbyhole—In Times of Crisis Where Do You Go? (New York, NY)
CHAPTER FOUR
Ginger’s—Where Everybody Knows Ruthie’s Name (Brooklyn, NY)
CHAPTER FIVE
The Bush—A New Dyke Bar in Town (Brooklyn, NY)
CHAPTER SIX
A League of Her Own and As You Are—Survival Ready (Washington, DC)
PART TWO: THE MIDWEST—BE NICE OR LEAVE
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lost & Found and Executive Sweet—A History of Respect and Resistance (Chicago, IL)
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nobody’s Darling—For the Outcasts (Chicago, IL)
CHAPTER NINE
Dorothy—Where Any Friend of Dorothy Is Welcome (Chicago, IL)
CHAPTER TEN
Slammers—A Family Affair (Columbus, OH)
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Back Door—Consent Is Fucking Mandatory! (Bloomington, IN)
CHAPTER TWELVE
Walker’s Pint—Be Nice or Leave (Milwaukee, WI)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Blush & Blu—The Myth of the Last Lesbian Bar (Denver, CO)
PART THREE: THE GREAT QUEER PILGRIMAGE WEST
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mona’s—Where Girls Will Be Boys (San Francisco, CA)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Maud’s—The Best of Times, the Worst of Times (San Francisco, CA)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Wild Side West—When Life Gives You Garbage, Plant a Garden (San Francisco, CA)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Gossip Grill—Welcome Home (San Diego, CA)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Redz—Shit Come, Shit Go, I’m Gonna Be Myself (Los Angeles, CA)
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Wildrose—The Heart of the Hill (Seattle, WA)
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Sports Bra—Everyone Watches Women’s Sports (Portland, OR)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Doc Marie’s—We Fight Because We Care (Portland, OR)
PART FOUR: THE SOUTH—WE KEEP US SAFE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Alice Brady’s and Charlene’s—Lesbian Bars Are Political (New Orleans, LA)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Les Pierres—The Home They Built (New Orleans, LA)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Boycott Bar—Lesbians Against Drunk Driving (Phoenix, AZ)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
YBR Pub—From Ally-Run to Queer-Run (Tulsa, OK)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Alibi’s and Frankie’s—Out and Proud in OKC (Oklahoma City, OK)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Pearl Bar—Becoming Human (Houston, TX)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Sue Ellen’s—A Queer Bar Empire (Dallas, TX)
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Herz—How to Make an Unlikely Ally (Mobile, AL)
CHAPTER THIRTY
My Sister’s Room—When Your Health Insurance Fails, Your Lesbian Bar Shows Up (Atlanta, GA)
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The Lipstick Lounge—Take Me to Church (Nashville, TN)
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Babe’s of Carytown—The Tale of Two Vickies (Richmond, VA)
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Hershee Bar—A Thirty-Five-Year Fight for Queer Space (Norfolk, VA)
PART FIVE: MASSACHUSETTS—COMING HOME
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Femme Bar—For Dianté (Worcester, MA)
CONCLUSION
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index