THE LESBIAN BAR CHRONICLES

Uncovering queer history “found not in books, but in bars.”

Karp, writer and co-creator of the podcast Cruising, hit the road in 2021—along with her future wife, Jen, and Cruising co-creator Sarah Gabrielli—to visit the country’s remaining lesbian bars. “It was stories that I was after,” Karp writes. “I wanted to uncover the histories of these spaces, which have offered sanctuary when safety for the queer community was otherwise elusive.” On their 30-day journey, arranged in 24 brief chapters, readers learn of fascinating people along the way; among them are Evelyn Adams, a “gender-nonconforming lesbian anarchist immigrant” who opened a lesbian tearoom in Greenwich Village in 1925, and Nancy Valverde, a Chicana lesbian who was arrested dozens of times in 1950s Los Angeles for her refusal to wear traditional women’s clothing. The author recounts the histories of bars that are fondly remembered as vibrant community spaces, including Les Pierres, the first Black-owned lesbian bar in New Orleans, and the Wreck Room, an all-ages dance club for LGBTQ+ teens in Oklahoma City. Karp also interviewed the proprietors of current establishments—one is the Sports Bra, in Portland, Oregon, which opened in 2022 thanks to an overwhelmingly positive crowdfunding effort. The book inspires reflection on the definition of a lesbian bar today. Acknowledging that bars and clubs of the past were often “in dark caverns,” for the safety and security of patrons, new spaces have open windows. Many are now inclusive of all genders and sexual identities. The number of lesbian bars might have dropped in recent years, but that doesn’t make Karp despair. She writes, “Their decline in numbers in the early 2000s is actually indicative of a more expansive queer culture and a more welcoming, open society as a whole.”

Snappy vignettes on safe—and fun—spaces.