WEBVTT - Part Two: Stonewall: The Criminal Queers Who Birthed a Movement 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:03.520 Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff, the 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:07.560 podcast about history and stuff and people and subjective qualities 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:11.600 like coolness. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy. My guest is 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:20.320 not subjectively cool because she's objectively cool anymore. After an 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:22.720 introduction like that, anyone who gets introduced is less cool. 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:25.200 But it's not their fault. It's my fault. Yeah, you 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:28.960 really set me up for failure that one. This is Sharid. 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:35.240 I am back. You're welcome. Yay. This week we are 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:39.280 running Rudderless without our captain slash producer Sophie, which means 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.440 we can finally tell you about the basement full of 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:47.720 You can't say that on Mike, Margaret, I mean, you 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:49.440 know who doesn't want you to know about it is. 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:58.120 But also we can talk about fucking gay rights, not 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:00.400 because Sophie would let us talk about this. Also, just 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:02.120 to be clear, I'm not trying to drive so for here. 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:04.920 This is part two of a four part series, so 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:06.480 you're gonna be a little bit confused. If you don't 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:08.480 go back and listen to the part one, you'll have 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:10.320 missed out on the guy with the leopard who founded 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:12.440 funded like most of the transhit in US for decades. 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:14.200 You all got to listen to that. You have to, 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:18.080 you have to. You'll have to learn about Henry, Henry, 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:23.800 gay rights, Henry the Leopard right Henry. He also funded 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:28.280 the Dun Dun Dun, the Daughters of Belitis. And if 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:31.760 you've been following along and listened and did not google 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.480 anything today, you will learn what that name means. I'm 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:37.240 gonna learn what that name means because I was a 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:42.759 good listener and didn't google anything since Monday. Thank you. Yeah, 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:44.680 I'm going to make everyone wait a little bit longer 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.760 as we go on a side quest. A tangent on 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:49.960 this show that's unheard of, but don't worry. It's about 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:54.000 a lesbian crime lady, and it's good that's allowed. The 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.280 Daughters of Belitis were a response to lesbian bar culture 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.760 in the Bay. And which is the Bay of California? 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:06.360 What is the name of bay? San Francisco Bay. I'm 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:11.120 definitely well traveled. So let's talk about lesbian bars because 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.320 most gay bars at the time were criminal enterprises in 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:16.800 plenty more ways than one, because it was like illegal 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:21.359 to be gay but also run by criminals. Tommy Vassou 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:26.200 like cool criminals are like both, Yeah, and sometimes people 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:27.919 who are like both at once and you're like, oh, 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:29.720 I wish that didn't turn me on. I do not 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.120 feel good about myself, like a big like anti hero 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:34.960 kind of guy. Yeah, person a lot of anti heroes. 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:38.560 Gay rights was brought to you by the anti hero. Yeah, 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:44.000 there's a couple unabashed good people. But if you're being 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:48.000 faced with like terrible shit, you know, at least like 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.320 adopt some terrible shit. I don't think gir survive. I 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.480 really think that's like my honest opinion. I think so too. 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:58.160 Tommy Vassou was a butch lesbian gangster who moved to 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:01.239 San Francisco in the forties from the Midwest. I'm gonna 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:07.680 use she pronouns because those are very cool altogether. Yeah, 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:10.679 she she lived her life as a man, but I 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:14.960 believe identified with butch culture. Um. She was born in Ohio. 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:17.160 She lived in Michigan for a while. She moved to 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:20.079 San Francisco and immediately set about living her best life, 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:22.280 which means that she had short hair. She wore double 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:26.120 breasted suits with Fedora's. She drove a fucking Catalac convertible. 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.440 She passed as a man completely. She used the men's restrooms, 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.080 and she was big in the crime scene doing crime stuff. 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.600 Love all that for her. Yeah, she was a pimp. 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.440 She dated sex workers. I don't know one way or 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:41.080 the other about how she treated them. I know that 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.160 at least some of them she made her business partners 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.840 and such. That's a good sign, I know. Yeah, it's 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:50.200 good as far as pimpsco. Yeah, Like she could have 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:52.839 been absolutely awful to her other workers. I have no idea. Yeah, 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:55.680 I know. Later she was a drug dealer, selling emphetamine's, 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.400 weed and heroin. It's implied that that came later, But 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:00.680 I think people might have been implying that later because 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:05.640 people don't want any People really want to whitewash gay history, 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:08.880 even when it comes like why is drugs the line 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.600 that's so interesting to me? You know, there's a couple 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:14.240 lines they see people like avoid a lot um. The 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.200 people who seem to be written out of these stories 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:19.680 are the mafia, especially the gay members of the gay 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.160 the gay gangsters. Those are the people I want to 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.400 learn about. Are you kidding? I've got some more in here, good, 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:29.320 good good. The sex workers, the drug dealers and drug 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:31.960 users and the prisoners are the people who are all 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:34.360 left out of this story. They're not good for the 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:39.080 image what they think anyway. Yeah, and so then they'll 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.320 include people and be like, oh, this person who was 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:43.919 like a drag queen and be like she was also 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:49.320 on heroin and selling sex. That doesn't make her less cool, 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:53.800 It makes her more cool of anything. Yeah, not the 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:57.560 heroine's cool. Yeah no, yeah, it's it's a I think 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.640 it just like makes someone layered and more were interesting 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:04.160 to know that, like they weren't this one dimensional activist 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:06.760 person right totally. It's like when we look back on 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:10.480 the like fucking um opiate crisis that we're still in, 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:13.000 you know, people will be like, oh and then these 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:17.440 people who were harm reduction volunteers for no reason, You're like, 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.840 because they were fucking dealing with it themselves. Not everyone, right, 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:24.920 but like yeah, yeah, it's like I honestly think some 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:29.240 of that stuff unfortunately, Like whether it's like addiction or 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:31.600 even just like recovering from addiction, I think your empathy 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:33.720 goes like out the wind, like it just goes way up. 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:35.640 Like I think it just like kind of makes you 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:40.920 a more sometimes anyway, that's my experience, but it makes 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:42.839 you more. But if you're someone who's dealing with that. 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:45.480 You're saying, Yeah, sorry, I was gonna say out the window, 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:47.800 but I meant like out like up and out the windows, 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:49.520 the opposite of what I meant. Yeah, But like I think, 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:51.520 I really think it makes you more empathetic and more 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:56.479 like emotionally aware and probably like I don't know, not 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:59.080 that I mean, I don't think anyone should do heroin 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:01.280 just like to put it out their point play. Yeah, 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:05.719 but I do think that sometimes addiction has like a human, 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:07.880 like a really human aspect to it that I don't 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:10.800 think is like talked about enough. I don't know if 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.360 that makes sense. Well. I think that also, like it 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:18.600 puts you into understanding the needs for need of community, 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:20.760 you know, they need to like take care of each 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.320 other and like, yeah, the people who reverse the most 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:28.599 overdoses are our users, you know whom And that gets 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.520 left out of the story. Yeah, go ahead. I think 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:35.760 it teaches you to depend on people without shame, like 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:40.480 hopefully you know, and I think that's really hard for people. Yeah. Anyway, 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.760 So Tommy, Tommy and her girlfriend owned a bar called 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.279 Tommy's Place. They had a different bar before that and 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:50.680 it moved, but Tommy's Place was next door to and 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:53.440 basically the same bar as another lesbian bar they also owned, 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:57.320 called twelve Adler Place. The liquor license was in her 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.120 girlfriend's name, which is how I know that her her 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:05.719 girlfriend slash client, was a business partner. The local license 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:07.880 was in her girlfriend's name because Tommy's criminal record meant 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.920 she couldn't get one, and Tommy is the first openly 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.880 lesbian bar owner in the city. San Francisco is the 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:17.400 place to be gay in the fifties, and there's other 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:21.360 La Chicago, New York, a bunch of other places, some 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.680 cool shit going on too, but San Francisco had a 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:26.480 lot going on for it to be gay in the fifties, 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.400 partly because the Beat generation had been pretty openly pro 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.280 gay and or written about how great gay sex is 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:34.480 all the time. And there are a ton of these 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.520 gay bars. But of course, because it's all these gay bars, 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:40.000 there's the forces of reaction. The cops and the boring 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:42.520 people didn't like all these homos moving to town. I 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.760 love that you said cops and boring people. They are 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:50.320 they're fucking boring. Yeah, And you get this moral panic right, 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:53.560 because it's like, because straight people aren't boring. Homophobes are boring? 0:07:53.960 --> 0:08:01.160 Yeah kidding? Is they get this moral panic because nothing 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:03.960 ever changes. Some parents got freaked out that their daughters 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.160 were going to Tommy's place and getting involved in the 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:09.080 butch and fem culture, and how some of them wore 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:11.480 mannished clothes and called themselves either butch or fem. This 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:13.040 is the thing I don't quite have time to go into. 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.520 I would recommend everyone read the book Stone Butch Blues 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.720 by Leslie Feinberg to talk about what it meant to 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.480 be pre Stonewall going to gay bars and like what 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:24.520 the lesbian culture around butch and fem was basically kind 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:26.360 of created these two genders where they would date and 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:30.760 things like that. That's interesting, Okay, very quick, very quick 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:35.480 side note. There's a book called Hejab Butch Blues, a memoir. 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:38.959 Ooh and I directed the audio book if y'all want 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.880 to listen. I think it's a really amazing book. It 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:44.559 was one of those like there's so many things that 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:46.840 I was just like, wow, this puts into words what 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:50.240 I felt. But talks about how like like for her 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:53.200 as a Muslim person, like God was like a non 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:57.559 binary like entity versus just like a he or a she, 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:01.000 and the way she describes it as like he's both 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.120 or God is both, the same way she is both. 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:06.480 I think it's just like there's a really beautiful way 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.200 she says it that I can't articulate, But if you're 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.560 interested in that kind of stuff, I really do recommend it. 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:14.839 And I directed the audiobook, so that's fun. That fucking rules. 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:17.199 I'm actually gonna most of the stuff I read that 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.000 as in a history book. I listened to an audiobook, 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:23.560 so hell yeah, and Stone which blues like shaped so 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:26.559 much of my like young queer life by coming to 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:29.200 understand like some stuff. And yeah, I mean if I 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.600 had red cut stuff like that growing up, it would 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:33.560 have really helped me not feel like a fucking freak, 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:37.040 you know. Yeah, yeah, I believe it. So you get 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:40.560 this moral panic nineteen fifty four, the police is like, 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:43.040 the police chief is like, we gotta stop all these homosexuals. 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:45.760 So they started arresting people in bars and parks and 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:49.880 shit like that. On September eighth, nineteen fifty four, the 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:53.440 SFPD raided Tommy's Place in twelve Adler Place, and the 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.880 charges are around drugs. A heroine kid was found. People 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:00.760 claim as planted. I literally don't know or care. The 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:03.800 media refers to the place as a vice academy because 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.679 it's convincing young girls to act manish and do drugs 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:11.120 and shit. And I know you're thinking, you're like, you know, 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:13.680 the police are raiding this place. I bet there's some 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:15.880 way that they can arrest a straight black man and 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:21.800 pin everything on him. Oh no, uh yeah. The media 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:24.000 was also like, it's a way to lure young white 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.360 girls into sleeping with black men, to go to this 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:31.480 wow gay bar. That's one way to really get some 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:35.199 bigots up in arms. Oh god, huh. And they referred 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:39.640 to it as white slavery and that's so fun. Sorry. Yeah, 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.040 it's kind of been repeated in recent times, just the 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.840 idea of white oppression, and it's just laughable every time. 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:49.320 But I know, I like, there's so many things wrong 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:53.440 with the words white white slavery. Yeah, because some of 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:59.080 them include the word for that is slavery. Yeah, like, 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.840 it's not worse when it happens to white people. Another 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:05.480 thing wrong with it is it's often code for we 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:10.400 hate sex workers. There's anyway, Yeah, yeah, there's a lot 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:12.960 that's that's a that's a loaded thing. I mean, yeah, 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:17.800 implying that slavery means black enslavement by saying white in 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:20.240 front of I mean that's already like a yeah, yeah, 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:26.120 a can of worms so canceled nineteen fifties media in 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:30.679 San Francisco. Um, but I mean, actually, yeah, fuck them. 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:33.280 But then okay, you're gonna have some listeners being like 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.800 my ancestors were Irish and they were enslaved, and they 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:41.160 were white. So there's always that person that's like reminds 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:44.440 you of the white people that were slaves, uh yeah, 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:46.600 which does not include the Irish and the United States 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.880 of America as someone of Irish descent, it does include Now, 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:54.120 if you're saying that because your family is in like 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:58.920 fourteenth century Iceland, you might be telling the truth. There 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.360 was a lot of Irish slave very, and like some 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.240 port the founding of Iceland was like I think forty 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:11.640 Irish slaves. Anyway, I mean, I just I have genuinely 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.000 had a person I know that looked like the most 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:16.600 aryan person I've ever met in my life, with like 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:20.040 a very like just a bunch of privilege, kind of 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:22.520 like counteract an argument I made about racism, because he 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:24.600 was like, my family were slaves, and I'm like, what 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:25.960 the fuck are you talking about? And that was my 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.880 first experience, like fifteen years ago with the idea that 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.000 people genuinely cling to that as far as like I 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:34.800 was oppressed too, because people why why people just like 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:38.720 want to be oppressed so bad they do because whiteness 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:43.320 is the eradication of culture in exchange for privilege. And 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:47.600 people on a gut level. Don't get me wrong, these 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:49.280 people are doing bad when they say shit like this, 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:52.240 But on a gut level, people are like, I want 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:56.439 to have a culture instead of this privilege, and so 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:58.880 like they want to trade it, and it's just like 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:02.280 we don't get to make that decision, right, but we 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.480 can like whatever. Yeah, as a whole other fucker, I mean, 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:07.200 I just like what you said. I'm gonna remember that 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.160 whiteness is the eradication of culture because you've put into 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:12.720 words something that is very true. Maybe it's been said 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:14.600 before and I just haven't been paying attention, but I 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:18.160 like that you said it because now I know it. Thanks. Yeah, 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:20.079 And that's like part of the whole like thing about 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:22.080 like you know, when we say like get rid of whiteness, 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:25.400 we don't mean get rid of white people. We mean, 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:27.280 get rid of whiteness. We get get rid of this 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:30.360 like weird Devil's bargain where suddenly you don't have an ethnicity, 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.160 you're just privileged, and like get rid of white privilege 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.800 and like I don't know whatever. Um, okay, very quick 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:40.760 side note. Actually, though, I'm gonna get hate for that everybody. Okay, well, 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:43.720 I'm already gonna hate for what I yep. Well, okay, 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:46.280 there's a Vastard's episode that I was on. Was it 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:50.840 on Bastards? Okay, there's a whole thread on Reddit that 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.000 says that I hate white people, that I'm racist against 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:54.600 white people, and I want all white people to die 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:58.440 because I said that white people ruined yoga or like 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:03.200 something like that, and that just like became a whole 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:07.800 beast on its own where I don't know how that happened, 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.280 but there's like people are defensive about that stuff. As 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:12.720 what I'm trying to say, the fact that like you 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:15.280 can say whiteness and kind of try to equate it 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.760 to like this eradication, and then someone jumps on that 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:21.120 and like thinks, I want to like genocide white people. 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.200 Just an interesting point in men genocide white people and men. 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.320 That's the that's what the threat is about. I think, yeah, 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.440 that's anyways, that's such a funny, funny, good story that 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:36.640 I put through. I'm sorry, that's okay, that's funny. Though. 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.440 After this raid, patrons were forced to testify against the 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:45.320 bar or go to jail themselves. Um. One of the bartenders, 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:48.000 a white woman, got six months for serving beard of miners, 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:50.360 a black man who was a regular there. This is 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.120 the this is the person that the whole scare was around. 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:56.240 He got five years for supplying marijuana to a miner 0:14:56.560 --> 0:15:00.720 um so ten times the sentence and the bar's liquor 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.920 license was revoked and the bar closed. And the whole 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:07.560 thing was this, like, but young people come here and drink. 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:10.040 There was this girl who claimed that she'd been drinking 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:14.400 here since she was thirteen, which is probably true. She 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.480 was drinking at every bar in San Francisco when she 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.680 was thirteen, and she said as much, and they closed 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.800 this one down because it was gay. Wow, Tommy. The 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.600 rest of to fast forward her life, And if you 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:29.880 fast forward anyone's life, it sounds bad because then you're like, 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:32.600 and then they'd die, you know, right right, right right, Tommy, 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.480 got arrested nineteen sixty eight, so ten years later for dealing. 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:39.160 Fourteen years later, got arrested for dealing, spent five years 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:41.640 in prison, and then was murdered in nineteen seventy nine. 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.320 And I could not find out. Someone knows, but I 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:45.920 did not was. Now they will find out whether it's 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:49.440 a hate crime thing or a europe A gangster. And 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.440 you do prom for a living and terrible way to 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:56.360 go either way. Yeah, totally. Her spot wasn't the only 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.160 gay bar in San Francisco, not in the slightest. You 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:01.360 have a diner called the Paper Doll, which is mostly 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:04.440 a lesbian spot that was so crowded they cramped strangers 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.120 into the booths with you, which sounds like hell to me, 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:08.640 but it was a good way for people to meet 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:12.680 each other. You had Gordon's, a mostly gay male spot 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:14.600 opened by a guy who had worked for the Paper Doll. 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.840 Because LGBT people, but we belong together. We care for 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:19.400 each other, you know, we help each other start our 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.920 own things. You had the Beige Room, which was a 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:26.160 drag theater with trapeez swings hanging from the ceiling, and 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.320 tourist buses stopped at this place, which was actually apparently 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:31.640 a common source of income for fifties and sixties gay 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.120 bars across the country, as tourists would come and be like, 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.600 hell yeah, drag because drags fucking cool. Yeah, And then 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:41.560 you had the front, another lesbian owned bar, and the 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:43.520 front was really interesting. It's kind of the inverse of 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:47.480 Tommy's Place because Charlotte Coleman she had been in the 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:49.800 Coastguard and then she was an auditor for the IRS. 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:54.040 So she's like normy right until the lavender scare got 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.360 her fired from working as an auditor for the IRS. 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.680 That's gonna turn you, that's gonna turn you. In the end, 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:02.880 she was glad she was fired. I mean, you know, 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:04.879 I doubt she was like man, the lavender scare rules, 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.320 but she certainly was happier as a bar owner in 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:09.760 San Francisco instead of an auditor for the I R. S. 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:13.320 And when she opened the front, she ran the entire 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.480 thing herself, with no employees noon till close, seven days 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:20.080 a week. And in order to avoid what Tommy's Placed did, 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.120 I assume Tommy's Places paid off the cops. I couldn't 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:25.240 promise you that, but what she did in order to 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.000 avoid attention was she opened it in the industrial district, 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.840 like in a warehouse somewhere, and what that meant was 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.399 that working class men would stop by and get a 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:35.840 drink on their way home from work, and they were 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:41.080 all buds. This part so heartwarming. The working classmen, they 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.360 never disparagingly, like they weren't harassing them. But they called 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:48.800 the lesbians the fruit. So the lesbians called them the vegetables. 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:53.720 Oh my god, and that is the most precious thing 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:57.440 you've ever said on this rock. And then when ship 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.159 would break, the like worker dudes would just like go 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.200 fix shit for free at their favorite bar, the lesbian 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:08.119 bar in the warehouse district, and yeah, a vegetable is 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:11.600 going to help them out. That is so funny. You 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:13.320 know that one guy walked in there and was like, 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:15.800 I'm the meat and people are like get out, yeah, 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:21.040 or one person was like, I'm a tomato and then 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:23.119 they were like that actually means you're a fruit, and 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:25.760 just the long pause that they were like, yeah, he 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:27.639 got wrong. And then she came out as a trans 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:35.119 exactly so. And one of the front's first events was 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:40.040 a benefit for the lesbian organization. I've twenty minutes in 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:45.840 this episode promised, I'm gonna tell you about that's how 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:48.440 my braid works. It's just like I was on a ride. 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:51.080 I was on a different ride. But yes, I can't wait. Well, 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:59.120 you're gonna have to wait after these ads and we're back. 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:05.399 In nineteen fifty five, there was a Filipino lesbian named 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:08.080 Rose Bamburger and she decided with her partner that they 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:10.680 needed a lesbian social club. They were tired of only 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:13.480 hanging out in bars. I really can't blame them, and 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:17.480 they got together with three other lesbian couples because lesbians, yeah, 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.719 And on September twenty first, nineteen fifty five, they were like, 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:23.560 what is the gayest name we could possibly imagine for 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:26.720 our new social club. I don't know if that's actually 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:28.680 what they said, but they came up with the gayest name. 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:32.160 They picked Daughters of Belitis, based on a book called 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:35.479 the Songs of Belitis, which is a French nineteenth century 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:39.600 lesbian poetry book written by a guy named Pierre Louis, 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:44.280 who probably banged Oscar Wilde but was definitely friends with 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:49.480 Oscar Wilde, yeah probably, and who wrote about pagan sexuality 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:52.480 aka gay sex all the time. But he also wrote 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.879 this book Songs of Belitis, which he claimed weren't written 0:19:55.880 --> 0:20:00.879 by him, but instead were ancient Greek lesbian poetry that 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:04.680 would found on the walls and of a tomb in Cyprus, 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.520 written up by a made up ancient Greek lesbian poet 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:11.760 named Belitis, who was contemporaries with Sappho, the ancient Greek 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:14.040 Greek penn sexual whose life is the reason we have 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:16.480 the word safik and lesbians because she lived on the 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:20.160 island of Lesbos. So the book when it came out, 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:23.680 Songs of Belitis, it was so successful that people thought 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:26.200 it was actually an ancient Greek poetry thing for a while. 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.000 I don't know whether eventually it was like surprise, bitch, 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:32.080 is this to me? Or like, yeah, but I already 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:35.240 had made it smart at that point. Yeah. And because 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:38.320 the nineteenth century rules in weird interconnected ways, Claude Debussy, 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:40.639 one of my favorite composers, wrote a bunch of songs 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:43.639 from those Songs of Belitis into actual songs, and his 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:45.600 dad fought in the Paris Commune, which you can listen 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.440 about with my episode with Miriam Roscheck about the Paris 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:54.760 Everything Connected. I know, Daughters of Belus, Yeah, which just 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:57.360 sounds like they belong in Vampire the Masquerade, and I'm 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:00.840 not convinced they aren't vampires. They formed a dads of belitis. 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:03.720 I mean, I just imagined like a bunch of badass 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:05.760 like Joan of Arc people, you know what I mean. 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:08.040 That's that's where my head goes. Oh yeah, yeah, like 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:12.520 like chainmail and shit. Yeah, just like fucking into it. 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:16.120 And they about their weird name. Some of the founders said, quote, 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:18.040 if anyone asked us, we could always say we belong 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:23.920 to a poetry club. And they had four goals besides socializing. 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:27.280 One education of the variant, which was their word for 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:32.280 temperamental love it. Two education of the public. Three participation 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:34.320 in research projects. They were into the idea that they 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:37.040 would all go volunteer for these like human sexuality subjects 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:39.919 and studies in order to prove that they're normal, you know, 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:44.239 and for investigation of the California penal code. And they 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:46.600 got support from the Matachine Society and I believe also 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:50.000 One Incorporated. They shared an office with them on Mission Street. 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:54.280 Madaschine not one, and they kind of similarly to Madachine, 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:56.520 took their super cool name and mission and went really 0:21:56.520 --> 0:22:02.000