a Hispanic crowd taking over: the femmes dolled up in frilly, sexy clothes, complicated hairdos, and lots of makeup, and the butches with high pompadoured, shiny hair, sharp suits, and boots with pointed toes. Strict adherence to these roles was common among some older dykes, but my friends and I did not indulge. We were just lesbians, maybe a little butch sometimes, maybe a little femme, but in no way stuck in a role. A personal anecdote illustrates this situation—and also the need for secrecy. In the mid-’70s, two lesbian friends visiting family in Milwaukee encountered a woman friend of their mother, who whispered to them while mom was out of the room: “Do you want to go to a bar?” “Sure, yes,” they replied. “I am Spike the Dyke,” the woman announced, and then took them to her house, where she changed into butch clothes. It was dark and cold, and they got in her car and drove for miles and miles until they finally saw a red Schlitz sign blinking over a small building. That was it. They went inside, and it was jammed full of lesbians. Awoman came up to one of my friends and said: “So, are you butch or femme?” My friend couldn’t answer, so the woman asked the other. She didn’t know what to say either. “Oh boy, you guys are so confused!” said the dyke, and walked away. No one hit on them all night because they couldn’t figure out what to do with them. Lesbian bars played a pivotal role in both my own and Erica’s coming out. For my generation, they provided the only safe public place to identify as a lesbian; for Erica, forty years later, it also proved to be a haven. Even with liberal parents, both psychologists, Erica felt uncomfortable coming out to them even as recently as fifteen years ago. Although Erica did not come out until college, she began to feel attracted to other girls in high school. Her mother, supportive of Erica’s gay male friends, proved ambivalent toward Erica’s potential queerness. There was still a stigma attached to it. Erica felt this to be a gendered response, finding other lesbians whose mothers expressed similar discomfort at their coming out. But in a bar for the first time, she felt sexy and desired in the way that she had not known outside, where heteronormative standards still rule. LESBIAN BARS have not prospered over the years. The Cubbyhole is the last of two lesbian bars in all of New York City. In the 1970s, in the city of Los Angeles alone, there were at least a dozen lesbian bars. And there were scores more across the country. In the 1980s, there were roughly 200 lesbian bars in the U.S. Today there are only 21 left. The causes for this precipitous decline are manifold. In the fifty-plus years since the Stonewall Riots, same-sex marriage has become federal law and anti-discrimination statutes are widespread. Lesbianism has been mainstreamed. “The LWord,” flannel shirts, short hair—so many lesbian signifiers have been co-opted by the straight world. Bars are no longer necessary for coming out. Social media have blasted open the ways for lesbians to meet. You can come out now in grade school. In addition, the trans movement has upended lesbian life. Butch culture has nearly disappeared as many butch women have transitioned, causing them to give up their lesbian identity. The pandemic alerted Rose and her co-director Elina Street to the alarming decline in the number of bars. Long before the pandemic, the bars had begun to feel old and uncool; only the party circuit mattered. But the pandemic accelerated the loss of these physical places of community and personal connection, and that is what prompted Rose and Street to produce their short documentary “The Lesbian Bar Project.” Their goal was to bring greater awareness of, and support for, the remaining lesbian bars across the country and to celebrate their history. In October 2020, they released a Public Service Announcement and launched a fundraising campaign that helped raise over $117,000 for the remaining bars. In June 2021, they released their documentary and another fundraising campaign. The documentary spotlights the bar owners, community activists, and patrons in three cities—New York; Mobile, Alabama; and Washington, D.C.—and highlights their struggles during the pandemic and their hopes for the future. The 2021 fundraising campaign raised over $150,000 for the bars. The executive producer for both the PSA and the film is 18 The G&LR
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