Land of 10,000 Loves: A History of Queer Minnesota [First Printing ed.] 0816676453, 9780816676453

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Land of 10,000 Loves

Also Published by the University of Minnesota Press Crossing the Barriers: The Autobiography of Allan H. Spear Allan H. Spear Foreword by Barney Frank Afterword by John Milton The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s: A Gay Life in the 1940s Ricardo J. Brown Edited by William Reichard Foreword by Allan H. Spear Queer Twin Cities Twin Cities GLBT Oral History Project

Land of 10,000 Loves A History of Queer Minnesota Stewart Van Cleve

University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis • London

The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance provided for the publication of this book from Twin Cities Pride. Unless otherwise credited, photographs and illustrations are reproduced courtesy of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies, University Libraries, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Copyright 2012 by Stewart Van Cleve All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data   Van Cleve, Stewart.  Land of 10,000 loves : a history of queer Minnesota / Stewart Van Cleve.   Includes bibliographical references and index.  isbn 978-0-8166-7645-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Homosexuality—Minnesota—History.  2. Gays— Minnesota—History.  3. Gay culture—Minnesota— History.  I. Title.  II. Title: Land of ten thousand loves. hq76.3.u52m683 2012 306.76’609776—dc23 2012019603 Text design and composition by Chris Long/ Mighty Media, Inc. Printed in the United States of America on acidfree paper The University of Minnesota is an equalopportunity educator and employer. 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1



For those who will remember us. May their genders be irrelevant, may their sexualities be respected, and may oppression rest, finally and forever, in their very old books.

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Contents Preface xi Acknowledgments xv Introduction 1

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What Is Queer Here? Looking for Experiences in Early Minnesota 13 Ozaawindib of Leech Lake  15

How We Kept Warm: Queer Life in the Vice Districts of the Twin Cities 47

Lucy “La Roi” Lobdell  18

Rice Park  49

Was Alexander Ramsey Queer?  22

The James Montague Murder  52

Oscar Wilde’s Visit  24

The Coney Island  54

The Death of William Williams  27

The Hennepin Baths  56

The Emporium and Golden Rule Department Stores  28

Union Bus Depot  59

Good-time Parties on Rondo Avenue  32

Kirmser’s Bar  62

Josephine Baker at the Metropolitan Theater  35

The Onyx Bar  67

Drag at the Nicollet Hotel  36 Gertrude Stein Visits the Women’s City Club  39 Clement Haupers   40 Fort Snelling  43

The Garrick Theater  60 The Dugout  65 The Bremer Arcade  69 The Gay 90’s Complex  71 Directory Services, Incorporated  75 The Hotel Andrews  77 The Brass Rail  79 vii

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Act Up Here: A Legacy of Activism 83

Erotic Cities: Urban Sexuality Explored 121

Jack Baker and Michael McConnell’s Marriage License  86

The 19 Bar  124 Honey Harold’s Many Ventures  126

Allan Spear  88

Sutton’s 129

The Lesbian Feminist Organizing Committee  91

Queer Warehouse Parties  131

The Minnesota Committee for Gay and Lesbian Rights  93

The Rossmor Building  134

Lutherans Concerned  95 Dignity Twin Cities  97 St. Paul’s Equal Rights Ordinance 99

Foxy’s 133 The Town House  136 The Sandbox/Club Cabaret  138 The Noble Roman  141 The Saloon  142

The GLC Voice 101

The Locker Room   145

The Guardianship of Sharon Kowalski  103

The Adonis Theater  149

Brian Coyle  105

The Main Club  152

The Minnesota Family Council  107

The Minneapolis Eagle  155

Gay Community Services, the GLCAC, and OutFront Minnesota 109

Margarita Bella  157

ACT-UP Demonstrates in Mora  111 The Bisexual Organizing Project  114 Paul Koering Votes against Gay Marriage  116 The Two Spirit Press Room  117 Twin Cities Trans March  119

Bare Ass Beach  147

Pi Bar  158 The Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport  160

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Come Outside: Queer People Out in the Open 163

The Lavender Tower: Institutions of Art and Education 195

A Death in Loring Park  165 Twin Cities Pride  166 The State Fair  168 Rising Moon and the Pioneer Farm  169 Twin Cities Goodtime Softball League  171 The 1986 Winter Gay Games  172 Twin Ports Pride  174 The AIDS Trek  176 The North Star Gay Rodeo  177 Outwoods 180 North Country Bears/ Minnesota Bears  181 The Queer Street Patrol  183 Capital City Pride  184 The 1997 Two Spirit Gathering  187 Twin Cities Black Pride  189 Pine City Pride  191 The 2008 Two Spirit Gathering  192

The Transsexual Research Project  197 Fight Repression of Erotic Expression  200 The Amazon Feminist Bookstore 203 The Club  205 The Northfield Gay Liberation Front  207 At the Foot of the Mountain Theater 209 Jim Chalgren LGBT Center  210 A Brother’s Touch Bookstore  212 Patrick’s Cabaret  214 The Quatrefoil Library  216 Philanthrofund 219 District 202  220 Angels in America at the World Theater  223 The Anoka–Hennepin School District 224 UMD GLBT Services  226 People Representing the Sexual Minority (PRiSM)  227 Straights and Gays for Equality (SAGE) 228 The Transgender Commission  229

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Building Community: Life beyond the Gay Ghetto 233 Gay House  236 The Lesbian Resource Center  238

Epilogue: Dust on the Weathervane 277

Christopher Street  240

Note on Sources  283

A Woman’s Coffeehouse  242

Notes 285

Dyke Heights  244

Index 317

All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church  246 Equal Time 248 The Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP) 249 Out to Brunch  252 The Aurora Lesbian Center and the Northland Gay Men’s Center  254 The NAMES Project Memorial Quilt  255 The Basket and the Bow  258 Gay and Lesbian Elders Active in Minnesota (GLEAM)  259 The Bisexual Connection  260 The BECAUSE Conference  261 Minnesota Men of Color  263 BiCities! 265 Lavender Hills and the Swish Alps  267 Homo Heights  270 Shades of Yellow  273 The Iron Range GLBTA  275

Preface

Preface This book begins with an end of sorts. As I finished the manuscript for Land of 10,000 Loves in May 2011, I watched live video-feed of a debate taking place in the Minnesota House of Representatives. Politicians from the state’s Republican and Democratic-Farmer-Labor parties discussed placing a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage before the voting public. As the echoes of singing LGBTQ activists rang through the magnificent halls of the state capitol, Representative Steve Gottwalt (R) took the microphone and explained why he pushed for the amendment as a ballot initiative. “Mr. Speaker and members, this bill places before the people of Minnesota, on the 2012 general election ballot, the question: ‘Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?’ ” “This is current state law,” Gottwalt stressed. He continued: If the people of Minnesota decide in favor of this question, nothing will change. However, we know that there are attempts to redefine marriage in the legislature and in our courts, and so this question allows the people of Minnesota to decide whether or not the current definition should be placed more permanently in our state constitution. Mr. Speaker and members, this is a very important issue for so many Minnesotans, and it is an issue that should be decided by the people of Minnesota, not by politicians, not by a limited number of judges. Thirty other states in our nation have done this same thing and placed this definition in their constitutions. This is not about hatred. It is not about discrimination, or intolerance. I have faith we as Minnesotans can have a reasonable dialogue on this issue characterized by respect and decency, and allow the people of Minnesota to decide.

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Gottwalt and other advocates of the constitutional ban had produced an elaborate myth to justify their discomfort with change. They believed that heterosexual marriage was an undisturbed relic from antiquity and insisted that expanding the definition of local marriages would result in nothing less than an unmitigated national disaster. But the argument of Gottwalt and company is flawed; uncovering this supposed relic and analyzing its surroundings reveals how much Minnesotan marriages and families had already changed. Long before the representative began to speak, and long before the issue of “gay marriage” emerged when two young men applied for a marriage license in the early 1970s, the institution underwent several redefinitions. My ancestors, Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark and Horatio Phillips Van Cleve, were notable figures in local history. Born in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, in 1819, Charlotte was one of the first European American immigrants born in the Upper Midwest. Horatio became a general after commanding the Second Minnesota Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War. Charlotte’s marriage to Horatio, while certainly not arranged, maintained the social expectations of their time. They married

Left to right: Evie Schaller, Leslie Allen Van Cleve, Horatio Philips Van Cleve II, and Audrey Van Cleve, ca. 1960. Partners for decades, Evie and “Betsy” shared a domestic life and attended family functions together. H. P., a former Minneapolis alderman, dedicated his career to the eradication of vice in the Gateway District before he divorced his first wife and married Audrey. Author’s photograph.

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within their social class when marriage to an Irish, Scandinavian, or German immigrant was unthinkable. Now, this class- and nationality-based marriage tradition is unthinkable. Many years passed, and their grandson, Horatio Phillips Van Cleve II, became an alderman representing Minneapolis’s Second Ward in 1933. Serving until the end of World War II, he built a career fighting against the growing shadow of vice in the Gateway District. In a publicity stunt, he visited a brothel undercover and waited until the occupants incriminated themselves before the police stormed in. But while he presented a moralistic persona, the crusader’s marriage to his wife had already fallen apart. He filed for divorce in 1932—an act that was becoming more common at that time. He remarried a sprightly woman named Audrey, and by all accounts the family was much happier as a result. My father, the alderman’s grandson, had a particular fondness for his Aunt Leslie Allen, “Betsy,” the alderman’s only daughter. She followed professional baseball with a ferocity that almost matched his, and they spent considerable time arguing the statistical merits of her Yankees and his Cardinals. Although his parents and grandparents never discussed it openly, my father observed that Betsy’s longtime female companion, Evie Schaller, was actually her loving partner. The two women attended family gatherings together, and Evie was as much a cherished family member as anyone else. So it was only natural that my parents named their daughter, my twin sister, Leslie Allen, but we always call her Betsy. The Van Cleve family, an old contributor to Minnesota family tradition, is by no means traditional. Its story, and the stories of countless old and new families, is at odds with the “tradition” embedded in Gottwalt’s myth. Such family histories intermingle with our state’s history, which in turn intermingles with queer history. Like many of our lakes, it is often difficult to determine where our families, our histories, and our loves end, and where others begin. The boundaries continue to change, as they have for almost two hundred years here in Minnesota.

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Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments To Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, for the many opportunities he eagerly provided; Barb Bazat, Kathy McGill, Kris Kiesling, Arvid Nelson, and other staff at Elmer L. Andersen Library, especially Tim Johnson, whose help was instrumental; Brenda Helt, whom I aspire to be like one day; Eric Colleary, whose descriptions of archival material inspired me; Beng Chang, for organizing a “talk” that became this book; Regina Kunzel, the late Dr. Judith Martin, Ian Muehlenhaus, Kevin Murphy, and Beth Zemsky, who each gave me very useful tools; James Sanna and Andy Birkey, who carry on an essential tradition; Pieter Martin, who helped in the creation of this book; Jason Ruiz and an anonymous reader, whose insights helped shape it. To my mother, Judy Van Cleve, who ardently supported my every childhood drag pageant and helped me through every bullying incident; my father, John Van Cleve, who gave me wisdom, patience, and a lasting fondness for J. R. R. Tolkien; my stepmother, Audrey Van Cleve, who was loving and patient when I needed those virtues most; my aunt, Nancy McInroy, who showed me that the power of love transcends genetics, space, odium, and time; my sister, Courtney Van Cleve, who blazes an inspiring trail of confidence I both admire and envy; Betsy, my twin, who constantly inspires me to match her generosity, fortitude, and grace; Denise, a grounded force of kindness in my life; and my uncle, Kris Wyrobek, who made this project possible through openhanded financial support. I hope that my uncle’s children will know him as the kind, giving, and supportive man that he will always be. Finally, I remember a wonderful southern lady named Bernice Wynn, who passed away before I could thank her, in person, for everything. Many good friends kept me sane during this project: Abby, whom I am so proud of; Dave, who shares my love of all things ludicrous; Freweyne, a true American

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and my close confidant; Max and Zekey, who ensured that I never took myself too seriously; Molly, who taught me how to dance; Rel, who taught me how to laugh; and all the rest—you know who you are! I thank everyone at the University of Minnesota Press who participated in this book’s creation. The Press has gained a well-deserved reputation as a center of queer scholarship.

Introduction

Introduction More than one and a half million books, photographs, films, and other historical artifacts rest eight stories below Elmer L. Andersen Library on the University of Minnesota’s West Bank, a campus near downtown Minneapolis. Below the surface, professional archivists keep the library’s holdings in twin caverns that offer two football fields’ worth of storage space. The secure facility is moisture controlled, kept at a constant cool temperature, pressurized, and wrapped in a thick layer of rubber to ensure that unwanted moisture stays outside. In a distant corner of the underground facility, a lone quarter-sized rainbow sticker guards one of the world’s largest repositories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) thought, art, and history. Kept in an enclosed room for additional security, the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection offers one of the most comprehensive archives of international queer history in the world. Amid the collection’s many rows of shelving, a charred volume by the Marquis de Sade—rescued from smoldering remains of the Magnus Hirschfeld library in Hitler’s Berlin—rests in an acid-free container just feet from a flyer with the words “Get the Mafia and the Cops out of Gay Bars!” emblazoned across it. Saved from the landmark Stonewall Riots in New York, the flyer is part of an estimated forty thousand–item collection of materials in dozens of languages, one that accounts for thousands of years of historical knowledge. Local history (including most of the information in this book) rubs elbows with national and international artifacts in the safety of the underground bunker. Buttons from every Twin Cities Pride celebration sit in glass cases below a collection of glassware that includes a mug from A Woman’s Coffeehouse. Piles of newspaper clippings await the thoughtful hands of a volunteer “processor” and include a 1967 story that discusses Dr. Hasting’s

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Transsexual Research Project. In an acid-free cardboard tray, an ordered line of VHS tapes contains almost a decade of BiCities!, the nation’s only television show dedicated to the discussion of bisexual issues. The collection, storage, and description of an international queer archive pose innumerable quandaries that are addressed in this book. Not the least of these, one must continually ask: What is historically significant, and what is not? When and why is information rejected on the grounds that it is not appropriate, not “queer” enough? Do some stories and experiences take precedence over others? If so, who decides the order? Another question mirrors the dilemmas of queer scholarship: At what point does queerness end? Like the archive, Land of 10,000 Loves is a wide-ranging assemblage of artifacts, personal histories, and scholarly work that highlights commonalities in Minnesota’s queer, geographic, and chronological expanses. This book is a collection of short stories, illustrations, and photographs that acts as an introduction to local queer history; it gives basic information about people, places, and events that have shaped the local queer community and places the stories into thematic chapters that follow a rough chronology. Some stories have been all but forgotten and will surprise almost everyone. Others identify well-known phenomena (such as the Twin Cities Pride celebration) and position their histories in a broader context. Too often, this information has vanished; by institutional indifference or active destruction, queer histories often become the hardest to save. An illustrated, concise, and regional queer history is important because the local LGBT community has been consistently maligned, misrepresented, or ignored. Too often, myths like the “homosexual recruitment” of children—made famous by Anita Bryant in the 1970s—have been embedded in the national consciousness. Similarly, the queer experience, particularly the gay male experience, has been oversimplified as licentious, drunken, and vacuous. Gay bars, while important as sites of sexual expression and community building, are not the only kind of queer space that has existed in Minnesota. Nonalcoholic dance parties, parade routes, bookstores, theaters, community centers, office buildings, and the great outdoors have all accommodated queerness. The Twin Cities, though home to the highest concentration of queer people, are not the only places where queerness has manifested. Small towns and cities in greater Minnesota, from the tiny township Ma­nannah in Meeker County to Duluth, have witnessed fascinating queer historical moments since the mid-nineteenth century. Finally, most of this book documents queer history since the 1950s because surviving sources only go back that far, but that does not sug-

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gest that queerness had appeared from thin air. A number of stories suggest that queerness existed and evolved long before Minnesota became a state, a territory, or an outpost in foreign land. But these misconceptions—and many others—remain, so it is time to broaden the concept of what is queer here. An absence of queer stories is especially noticeable in the large body of historical writing that focuses on Minnesota history. Some stories were scattered in a handful of local history books until 2001, when Ricardo J. Brown’s account of St. Paul, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s, detailed the remarkable lives of gay men and lesbians in St. Paul during the 1940s. Nine years later, the Twin Cities GLBT Oral History Project wrote Queer Twin Cities, and extensively documented the queer history of Minnesota’s largest metropolitan area. Using both of these works as a foundation, Land of 10,000 Loves is an expanded and illustrated regional history that spreads across space and time, in order to demonstrate that the entire state has been queer, to a certain extent, since the very beginning. In Archive Fever, French philosopher Jacques Derrida notes that “there is no political power without control of the archive, if not of memory.” Because many queer archives are the only repositories in their regions, the fate of many histories rests solely on their shelves and in the hands of a select few. But archives are not dispassionate accounts of previous realities, and they do not completely represent all queer experiences. Instead, they are reflections of their founders and the people who work within them. Not bound by professional standards that did not yet exist, the early collectors of queer artifacts saved the things that they liked and discarded the things that they did not. Even under the auspice of professionalism, archivists and curators make innumerable daily decisions that determine cultural memory. Historians, in turn, write histories that are based on the decisions of those archivists. In the past two decades, many queer community archives have become involved with universities and other academic institutions to ensure their survival. Universities provided quality storage space, as opposed to a collector’s home, apartment, or storage unit. They offered expensive acid-free supplies, which prevented items made of poor-quality paper from “burning” a yellowish imprint onto the surrounding material. Perhaps most important of all, they brought queer collections into a professional academic environment of students, teachers, and researchers. The transfers were not always smooth. Many involved with Jean Tretter’s archive feared that the community would lose control of its own history if the University of Minnesota became the intellectual owner. Meanwhile, University

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librarians and administrators feared that admitting Tretter’s collection would anger Elmer L. Andersen—a former Republican governor, and the man donating large sums of money to build the archival library. For months, each party proposed and rejected transfer agreements. During this time, Jean Tretter took several of his most remarkable artifacts to Andersen’s home, and the old governor, a man who loved to learn new things, promptly expressed his support for the new collection. Finally, the University and the community reached an understanding: the state’s largest institution would begin an international archive using Tretter’s collection as a base, and Jean Tretter himself would accompany the collection to its new home, where he would work as a part-time curator. Perhaps most important of all, the agreement maintained a “Hirschfeld Clause.” Named for the man who built the institution that burned at the hands of the Nazis, the clause stated the University’s paramount responsibility. It would package and ship the collection to another location—regardless of where in the world it was—in the unlikely event that the University no longer wanted it. Thus, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter found himself with endless possibilities at the helm of a new collection. He used the University’s resources and infrastructure to accelerate his collecting habits, and he invited a horde of other collectors to visit Andersen Library and donate their material. Concerned with their own affairs, the librarians left him largely to his own devices. Without a college degree or professional library training, Tretter relied on his international community connections and self-taught knowledge to collect an exponentially expanding amount of material. Several years had passed by the time I walked into the office of “Special Collections and Rare Books,” and I could immediately see a substantial problem. Sitting in a cubicle instead of an office, Tretter was surrounded by teetering piles of paper that covered every vertical and horizontal surface. Rainbow stickers, pornography, photographs, newspapers, printed e-mail correspondence, softballs, soap bottles, and magnets jutted from the roiling surfaces of paper that spilled onto the floor. Only a chair, a keyboard, and a computer monitor emerged from the mess. I assured myself that the cubicle was just a reflection of daily queer archival work. Surely, I thought, the collection itself was in a better state of organization. I was wrong. After riding in an elevator eight stories down, and following Tretter through the disorienting underground passages, I walked into the Tretter Collection only to stumble on a pile of early Advocate magazines that sat on the concrete floor. “You are now surrounded by forty thousand years of GLBT history,” Jean said as we meandered through the aisles. Sporadically, he picked up artifacts

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Jean-Nickolaus Tretter sits on the floor of his apartment shortly before moving the last parts of his collection to the University of Minnesota. Now located in Elmer L. Andersen Library, the Tretter Collection is one of the largest repositories of its kind in the world.

and gazed at them while describing their significance, and I saw an expression of love and pride flicker in his bespectacled eyes. Several aisles had been made impassable by precarious stacks of boxes, papers—even a laundry basket full of videos—and I asked how many people worked at the collection. “Just me, ya know,” he said. “That’s why it’s so nice to have students come in and help!” And so, in a matter of days, I found myself surrounded by my own piles of paper and loose artifacts. Within weeks, these began to take shape as the Twin

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Cities Pride Collection, and in a matter of several months, I had organized one of Tretter’s largest collections. Throughout this time, I bothered him with questions about the random pieces that I found. Always gracious, he stopped whatever he was doing and told me novelistic stories about the history of Twin Cities Pride. We built a strong rapport, and I began to expand my understanding of the collection’s inner workings. I also expanded my knowledge of local history and, after many projects and innumerable volunteer hours, Jean convinced his superiors to hire me as a library assistant. One of my early projects as the Tretter Collection’s assistant concerned the archive’s “Framing Our Lives” exhibit, a series of themed panels that illustrated queer figures and events from history. The exhibit dated to the late 1980s, when Tretter purchased foam whiteboards, construction paper, and photocopied portraits of such figures as Alexander Ramsey, Gertrude Stein, and Oscar Wilde, and pasted them alongside small captions that he wrote himself. Although carefully constructed, the laminated panels showed serious signs of deterioration by the time I began working with them. They had traveled with the archivist to pride celebrations in Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Scandinavia, and several cities across the United States. The University of Minnesota Libraries gently pushed Tretter to use its resources to transform his panels into a museum-quality production. I worked alongside other student volunteers researching the original panels, updating their information, and working with the library’s resident exhibit maestro, Darren Terpstra, to produce new panels that could be stored digitally. Unlike their whiteboard predecessors, the new panels were larger and uniform in size, brilliantly designed, and could be reprinted on paper whenever needed. Tretter took a supervisory role and supplied me and other students with two key instructions. Supposedly in compliance with standards of the Smithsonian Institution, the captions were to include no more than three hundred words, and to make the panels more interesting, Tretter asked me to find images in the archive that were also in the public domain. While working on “Framing Our Lives,” I used a simple method for writing about queer history. I wrote a series of short and descriptive independent articles using archival material, oral histories, and scholarship; I found compelling images that complemented the text; and I arranged the articles into themes with brief introductions. The result was an encyclopedic assemblage of information that can be read linearly or without direction. The new exhibit made its debut at the Twin Cities Pride festival’s “History Pavilion,” and the response was profound. Countless

The second Twin Cities Pride March in 1973 helped to establish local pride celebrations as an annual barometer of the queer community. Photograph by Jim Chalgren.

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people walked up to Jean Tretter and thanked him for preserving so much of the community’s history. “Framing Our Lives” is an example of public history, a developing field that meets the public “where they are,” and strives to produce and present history to the largest group possible. Keeping with this concentration within the history discipline, I limit my analysis of archival material and oral histories in order to maintain clarity and tell the largest number of stories possible. I assume a certain amount of unfamiliarity with the concept of local queer history, and I offer information

Participants in the 1982 Pride parade march down Hennepin Avenue by the I-94 exchange on the way to Loring Park. Photograph by John Yoakam.

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to everyone: from a questioning teenager who picks up this book out of curiosity, to people who have lived in Minnesota their entire lives and remember the first time they walked into the Nineteen, took a drive to Honey’s roadhouse, read about the Transsexual Research Project, or encountered ignorance after coming out as bisexual. Nonetheless, it is important to note that Land of 10,000 Loves raises important questions about the inclusion and exclusion of historic information. Like any archival collection, the histories and stories that I have collected reflect my own concept of what is historically significant. My concept of history has largely been informed by the scholarly discourse on queer theory, while also shaped by Tretter and other collectors who created and edited the University of Minnesota’s archive. While this book uses academic scholarship to contextualize Minnesota’s many queer identities and behaviors, I avoid using the jargon of queer studies. The discipline’s terms are certainly not invalid or unnecessary—indeed, they are essential to academic discourse; rather, their use risks obscuring more basic themes that remain mysterious to most of the Minnesota population. In that vein, I also interchange words and definitions like gay, GLBT, queer, and so on throughout this text without announcing the epistemological rationale behind each terminological change. I make every attempt to use the language of the era; when this is not appropriate, I rely on queer as an adjective that describes phenomena that troubled the heterosexist illusion of normalcy. Because white gay men and, to a lesser extent, white lesbians have retained the largest portion of power and resources, they have produced and preserved many queer memories. I occasionally ignored well-documented organizations and individuals in favor of discussing less-known experiences. The incredible story of Ann Bancroft, several cruising grounds, Lavender Magazine, and the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus were not included in favor of describing Minnesota’s groundbreaking two-spirit movement, drag shows at the Nicollet Hotel, and the inspiring story of Lacoco Villeda. For several stories, especially those pertaining to people of color, bisexuality, and histories before the 1960s, I looked past the Tretter Collection and consulted other sources of historical information. In this book, more than one hundred separate “entries” are arranged according to their creation date. Of course, dates are very difficult to establish here because so many places and events actively obscured themselves to stay safe, open, and free from trouble. I employ different narrative styles—sometimes using archival description, sometimes taking a journalistic tone, sometimes focusing on an oral history—to maintain a textured description of queer Minnesota. The entries are

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illustrated by approximately 130 photographs, artworks, and pieces of ephemera. Selected out of thousands of possibilities, the images were chosen because they are compelling, emotional, or even amusing, and because they depict diversity in ways that no text could capture. Each of the seven chapters begins with an introduction that explains a theme. The first two chapters summarize local history before the Second World War, but with a twist, and the other five break from rigid chronology and begin with brief introductions that explain the unifying theme. It is important to note that my approach to this book has faults. To present a collection of interesting stories, I had to limit, ignore, or—in rare cases—excise information in order to write a clear narrative. Subsequently, many alternative perspectives are not included—not because they are unimportant or wrong, but simply because the space is limited. Thus, no passage or statement should be considered definitive, and this book should not be considered a comprehensive history. Instead, it should be the beginning of more scholarship and the instigator of further discussion. I did not have the space to detail the rich stories of long-lived organizations like Twin Cities Pride, the Minnesota AIDS Project, and OutFront Minnesota. For those organizations, I focused on a particular event or on a handful of stories that outline the organization’s past. I also imposed geographic limits on the content of this book. For example, gay and lesbian Minnesotans created a series of settlements along the Mississippi River in Wisconsin—in towns like Stockholm and Maiden Rock—but their inclusion would weaken this book’s Minnesota-based narrative. There is one exception: the Main Club, while technically located in Superior, Wisconsin, is a bedrock of Duluth’s queer community. To exclude it because of a state boundary would deny an essential aspect of queer Minnesota history. When I made selections for this book, I was routinely reminded of the dilemmas that I faced while working with the Tretter Collection. Blending oral histories, archival descriptions, newspaper accounts, and the work of other historians, this text poses the same quandaries and issues as queer archives do. What is significant to queer history, and what is not? The first chapter is a series of early events and places that each ask, “What Is Queer Here?” Beginning with the next chapter, “How We Kept Warm,” one can observe a solidification of distinct identities that developed largely through the activism detailed in “Act Up Here,” the eroticism described in “Erotic Cities,” and through public queerness—the focus of “Come Outside.” The last two chapters, “The Lavender Tower” and “Building Community,” show how the LGBT acronym

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developed, and how it became an illusory representative of a cohesion that has yet to exist. Artists, intellectuals, and community leaders questioned their queerness and pushed it against the norms of heterosexuality. “What Is Queer Here?” transforms into a question famously asked by the first issue of Lavender Magazine: “What’s Normal, Anyway?” Like the curator of any historical collection—written or physical—I hope that my work will be used and appreciated for many years. However, this dream is tempered by the realization that history books have a nasty habit of being contested and becoming dated. Above all, I believe that this work will reveal the need for greater investment in our local historical resources: Quatrefoil Library, the Tretter Collection, and the University of Minnesota’s GLBT Studies program. Without a vigilant cognizance of our history, and without direct participation in its production, our histories may become buried under their own unsupported weight. Worse yet, they may be forgotten entirely.

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What Is Queer Here?

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What Is Queer Here? Looking for Experiences in Early Minnesota Having attracted the attention of a squabbling succession of world powers, the Upper Midwest region (often identified as the Dakotas, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) soon became the site of a race to secure the headwaters of the Mississippi River. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, existing Native American nations witnessed successive periods of encroachment from the French Empire, the British Crown, and a westward-spreading nation called the United States of America. Europeans and Americans wrested control of the river and, often through horrific measures, overtook the rest of the region. The race for control of the Mississippi ended in 1819, when the U.S. Army established an isolated fort near the Falls of St. Anthony to secure American interests in the area. The fort protected modest settlements that developed into towns and cities, and these contributed to a patchwork that would later become Minnesota. Fort Snelling is, in many respects, the place where the state began. Indigenous people had developed nuanced spectrums of gender and sexuality, and European colonizers judged these according to their own beliefs. Their observations ranged from bemusement to disgust, and their reactive punishment came swiftly. In particular, Americans did their best to extinguish any form of deviance from Judeo-Christian interpretations of sex and sexuality among Native people. Fort Snelling, a problematic site of state history, served as a base of operations for the systematic removal and destruction of Native American societies and cultures. In 1862 and 1863, the fort operated an internment camp for approximately 1,600 “noncombatants” (women, children, and the elderly) during the U.S.–Dakota War.

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The United States spread from coast to coast during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, growth that led to more efficient communication systems and means of conveyance. In part, the development of railroads and other transnational networks allowed the arbiters of “normal” sexuality—politicians, academics, physicians, teachers, and ministers—to convene and discuss national trends in sexual immorality, hygiene, and education.1 Their vocabulary on the subject, however, was comparatively limited. Although the German words Homosexualität and Heterosexualität existed, they would not achieve currency in the English language until the 1950s.2 Even long-familiar derogatory identifiers, such as sodomite, faggot, bulldyke, and pansy, were understood only in isolated corners of the English-speaking world.3 Before delving into Minnesota’s queer past, several terms should be defined in historical context. The word gay, while essential in the twenty-first century, was not widely used in its current sense during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; it will not be used here to describe these earlier times. Similarly, words like lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or straight are generally inappropriate in any historical analysis before the Second World War, unless individuals used that language. Left without such words, it is at first difficult to know how to proceed. What word can be used to describe sexual activity between members of the same gender? Can it also identify alternatives to the male–female gender dichotomy? Would those described by the word actually identify with it? Or would the word act as an artificial border that contextualized a spectrum of identities as it left them undisturbed? The admittedly imperfect answer is a word with a past of its own. A derogatory descriptor in the mid-twentieth century, the word queer has been embraced by scholars as appropriate for historical analysis. Shorter, more elegant, and ultimately more descriptive than the acronym “Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/ Questioning/Intersex” (LGBTQI), queer efficiently describes a host of identities that challenge the existence of sexual normalcy and the dominance of the gender dichotomy. A still fluid term, queer functions as an adjective when it is used to describe historic figures, places, and organizations. The word provokes and simultaneously defines the social order by calling its assumptions into question. Queer has come to describe many who are not easily categorized using contemporary terms. Concerning early examples of alternative sexual expression in Minnesota, “What is queer here?” is a question that often cannot be definitively answered. The

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following entries describe individuals, places, and phenomena from a time before sexual definitions became fixed and clinical. My selection process was necessarily informed by a certain amount of speculation, and—especially concerning Rondo Avenue and Sumner Glenwood—I also attempted to shed light on often-underrepresented populations. This chapter is a broad sweep of history that begins in the curious accounts of French explorers and ends at Fort Snelling as the garrison prepared to send a generation of men to the Second World War. At the war’s end, a changed generation of men returned to a changed generation of women. Like other parts of the country, Minnesota became a profoundly difference place when the boys came home.

The “Curious Compound between a Man and a Woman” Ozaawindib of Leech Lake, Greater Minnesota (ca. 1800)

Native American civilizations developed diverse sexualities, permitted and even encouraged gender variation, and developed sophisticated social structures long before Europeans arrived in the “New World.” Among scores of tribes and nations, including the Dakota and Ojibwe, certain individuals possessed a duality of spirit. Men who behaved like women and women who behaved like men were mystics, matchmakers, healers, leaders, truth sayers, and warriors. George Catlin, the great Pennsylvanian painter, traveled through many parts of North, Central, and South America and wrote a book, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians, in the 1840s. His work provides extensive observations on Native American life that survive as one of comparatively few accounts of indigenous cultures before colonization. Considered to be characteristic of early ethnography, his work is highly regarded but occasionally contradictory. Catlin used, for example, problematic words like savage and primitive to describe the diversity and humanity of indigenous societies. According to Laura L. Mielke, author of Moving Encounters: Sympathy and the Indian Question in Antebellum Literature, “Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and Catlin desired intimate knowledge of American Indians but found that knowledge too unwieldy and too volatile for comfort.” 4 Catlin’s brief account of a “Dance to the Berdache” reflects the painter’s discomfort with some events that he witnessed. One of his many paintings depicts Sac and Fox warriors dancing around a “berdache,” or a man/woman, during an annual

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feast that indicated the berdache’s power. In The Spirit and the Flesh, Walter Williams notes that Catlin learned of the berdache’s sexuality; only warriors who had sex with the berdache were allowed to dance: “While some anthropologists have used Catlin as evidence of the berdache’s low status, there are many contradictions in his claim. Simply by virtue of being offered a feast, the berdache was accorded a high status. And the men who voluntarily got up to dance did so because there was a certain status in being the sexual partner of the [berdache].” 5 Catlin wrote a short caption for his sketch, which now hangs in the Smithsonian, that further reveals how he misinterpreted the event: This [funny and amusing scene] is one of the most unaccountable and disgusting customs that I have ever met in the Indian country, and so far as I have been able to learn, belongs only to the Sioux and Sacs and Foxes—perhaps it is practiced by other tribes, but I did not meet with it; and for further account of it I am constrained to refer the reader to the country where it is practiced, and where I should wish that it might be extinguished before it be more fully recorded.6

Catlin was not the only European descendant to witness such behavior in this period. From 1799 to 1814, Alexander Henry, a fur trader working with the North West Company, wrote about his day-to-day adventures in a journal published in 1897. Early in his writings, Henry refers to Ozaawindib, a “Berdash” he met near present-day Leech Lake, with relatively little interest. He refers to Ozaawindib with feminine determiners (or articles), a practice not common among Europeans at the time. Perhaps anticipating the confusion of readers, Henry’s editor felt compelled to write a defensive explanation of the author’s passing mention, noting, “A berdash is any young man who affects the ways of a woman, and suffers himself to be used as such [he refers to Catlin’s work]. It is curious to find the name in the list with the feminine article.” 7 He also mentioned that a companion on the expedition, John Tanner, had more to say about Ozaawindib: “This man was one of those who make themselves women, and are called women by the Indians. There are several of this sort among most, if not all the Indian tribes; they are commonly called A-go-kwa, a word which is expressive of their condition. This creature, called Ozaw-wen-dib, (the yellow head,) was now near fifty years old and had lived with many husbands.” 8 The American government made every effort to extinguish berdache dances and other traditions in tribes across the United States. Federally administered reeducation programs were particularly destructive—the government forcibly took

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“This is one of the most unaccountable and disgusting customs that I have ever met in the Indian country,” wrote painter George Catlin to describe his 1860s sketch Dance to the Berdash. Catlin’s unwillingness to comprehend what he saw is evident in his depiction of the subjects’ faces. Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.

children from their parents’ homes, prohibited the use of Native languages, and criminalized gender nonconformity. Agents even cut off the berdaches’ long hair and forced them to wear men’s clothes.9 French explorers first used the word berdache to describe Native American men who identified, behaved, and were addressed as females. Stemming from berdaj, a Persian word for “intimate male friend,” the word was originally used in French to identify male prostitutes who “succumbed to sodomy.” Berdache (alternately spelled Berdash) was one of the few French words that described same-sex sexuality in the eighteenth century. Since the French were essentially the first European colonizers to explore the northern interior of the North American continent, their preliminary encounters with Native American “men/women” prompted their term to become the European standard. Early scholarship used berdache to describe “homosexuality” or “queerness” in America’s indigenous societies until Native American activists and scholars rejected

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the word. Berdache has etymological ties to derogatory words that once meant “kept boy” and “male prostitute.” 10 As if this connection were not problematic enough, the word also describes perceived male forms of Native gender variance. In TwoSpirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality, Jason Cromwell asks an unidentified Cherokee/Caucasian FTM (female-to-male): “What about female ‘berdache’ and passing women?” The respondent answers: As I understand the term, “female berdache” is a complete misnomer. “Berdaches” were males who were labeled “berdache” by outsiders. From what I’ve read, berdache means “kept-boy” or “male prostitute.” How, then, can there be such a thing as a “female berdache”? What would that be? A female “kept-boy”? A female “male prostitute”? I can’t identify with such a term. First, because I’m not a female, except biologically. Second, I’m not a “kept-boy” or a “male prostitute.” 11

In 1988, a group of Native Americans organized The Basket and the Bow, the first of what became annual two-spirit gatherings, to restore the important social functions of two-spirit indigenous people. At the third annual gathering in 1990, Native American activists suggested using the term “two-spirit,” which more accurately described the identities of Native Americans and the customs of their ancestors.12 According to Will Roscoe in Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America, two spirit is an English translation of the Anishinaabe/ Ojibwe term niizh manitoag.” 13 Since its creation, “two spirit” has helped Native activists restore the significance of their cultures.

“An Insane, Foul, and Unsexed Woman”

Lucy “La Roi” Lobdell in Manannah, Meeker County (1856–58) In 1877, the New York Times published a provocative article describing the misadventures of a “voluntary outcast and . . . an insane, foul, and unsexed woman.” 14 The piece introduced Lucy Ann Lobdell, who married for financial reasons at seventeen but whose husband left her with a newborn daughter. Impoverished, she abandoned the baby at her parents’ house and lived in the forests of New York during the 1850s. Lobdell’s hunting prowess and survival skills later supported a nomadism that brought her to Minnesota for a short time. Lobdell wrote a small narrative about her experiences as “the female hunter” of upstate New York. Published “by the authoress” in 1855, her memoirs include

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stories about her husband, her daughter, and hunting in the wilderness before she left for Minnesota. The work was supposed to be the first of two volumes, but the second was possibly never written or has never been found.15 Explaining why she left home as a man, Lobdell cited the exhausting work that she and other women faced in an unending endeavor to feed, clothe, and watch over half a dozen children while appeasing a temperamental husband. According to the narrative, she dressed as a man to earn better wages doing “men’s work.” In the context of rationalizing her ruse, she writes: And, now, I ask, if a man can do a woman’s work any quicker or better than a woman herself; or could he collect his thoughts sufficiently to say his prayers with a clear idea? No; if he was confused and housed up with the children all day, he would not hesitate to take the burden off his children’s shoulders, and allow woman’s wages to be on an equality with those of the man. Is there one, indeed, who can look upon that little daughter, and feel that she soon will grow up to toil for the unequal sum allotted to compensate her toil. I feel that I cannot submit to see all the bondage with which woman is oppressed, and listen to the voice of fashion, and repose upon the bosom of death.16

In search of work and a new life, Lucy traveled to the Minnesota Territory when the Upper Midwest was still largely a wilderness with plenty of work for unskilled laborers. She paid for the trip by offering music lessons and donned male attire and a man’s identity before arriving in St. Paul in 1856. Lobdell soon met one of very few documented male friends at the capital, a jack-of-all-trades named Edwin Gribble. To mark the twentieth anniversary of Meeker County, Minnesota, in 1876, Abner Comstock Smith wrote a book titled A Random Historical Sketch of Meeker County, Minnesota. More like a collection of shorter sketches, Smith’s book includes Lobdell’s story—no doubt a sensational historical moment—using a handful of pages. Smith describes Gribble’s brief friendship with the traveler, who presented a man’s persona throughout their relationship. After sleeping in the same space as Lobdell, which was acceptable among male friends, Gribble apparently feared that others would assume that he knew Lobdell’s secret and engaged in extramarital sex. Smith writes: At this time Gribble occupied a claim on the upper shore of Lake Minnetonka, . . . and adjoining him was a claim which had been jumped by a man, who employed Lobdell to occupy it in his absence. . . . This was about the time that Gribble and Lucy got pretty thick, tramping together through the woods in pursuit of

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Two undated photos of Lucy “La Roi” Lobdell. In the first image Lobdell is adorned in Native American costume. Lobdell spent time with Native Americans while traveling west, and briefly settled in Minnesota. Dressed as a man, Lobdell lived in Manannah in Meeker County until residents there discovered that “La Roi” was a biological woman named “Lucy.” Tried for lying and impersonating a man by the townspeople, Lobdell was not found guilty in court but was ostracized nonetheless, and the court ultimately paid for a return trip to Lobdell’s native New York. Photographs courtesy of Susan Crawson Shields and Bambi Lobdell.

game, and sleeping together under the same blanket when they woed [sic] the gentle goddess of slumber under the umbrageous forest trees around [Lake] Minnetonka. But Gribble didn’t dream that Lucy was a lone female, and hence he felt that his familiarity with her entitles him to a suspension of public opinion until he can prove his innocence of any evil intention.17

Eventually growing restless, and tired of Gribble’s “pretty talk,” Lobdell traveled northwest to the township of Manannah in 1857. Once there, Lucy demonstrated a “handiness with anything” as a boarder and slept in beds that were designated for men’s use without arousing suspicion. Around this time, Lobdell changed names— from “Lucy” to “La-Roi,” in hopes of further obscuring what others later perceived to be a biological incongruity.

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It is difficult, and probably inappropriate, to use gendered language when describing Lobdell’s experiences after that name change. This is because it is unclear to what extent s/he believed in a supposed mental illness that psychologists later diagnosed. In 1880, the vagabond was admitted to a mental asylum and became the subject of an 1883 case study by P. M. Wise, who noted that Lobdell and another woman had lived in “the quiet monotony of . . . lesbian love.” 18 That study, published in Alienist and Neurologist, was among the first published articles that explicitly identified “lesbian” behavior in medical terms. If Lobdell supported that diagnosis, then it would be wisest to use feminine words because, in that hypothetical instance, Lobdell believed that she was a sick woman. If Lobdell rejected the diagnosis and staunchly defended adopting a man’s identity, then using male words would be the best option. Today, it is difficult to decide which term, or absence thereof, is appropriate. Instead of a linguistic stalemate, this situation provides an opportunity for considering alternative ways of discussing identity. Often, referring to a person’s name is specific enough. But, to avoid repetition, identifying the person by occupation, age, or condition is another alternative—one that is more descriptive than relying heavily on the words she, her, hers, and herself, or he, him, his, and himself. Certain neologisms have been invented as gender-neutral substitutes: of many, the words ze, hir, hirs, and hirself are possibly the best known. However, the words are so rarely used in everyday speech that they are unhelpful when attempting to describe a historical identity. The only exception to the rule concerns historical works; without much detail, Abner Comstock Smith simply notes, “In the summer of 1858, by accident, ‘Satan, with the aid of original sin,’ discovered and exposed her sex.” 19 Lucy Lobdell’s ruse lasted for just over a year, and the scandal rocked Manannah after residents discovered (what they perceived to be) Lobdell’s femininity. Arrested and put on trial for “being a woman, falsely [impersonating] a man,” Lobdell faced a jury that was relatively broad-minded for the era. The jury decided “the right of females to ‘wear the pants’ had been recognized since the time of Justinian.” Lobdell was found innocent of any crime, but the citizens of Meeker County evidently reached a somewhat different verdict. At the public’s expense, the court returned Lobdell to New England, where the asylum awaited.

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What Happened at the Ramsey House?

Was Alexander Ramsey Queer? St. Paul (ca. 1870) Within decades of its founding, St. Paul became the stomping ground for influential politicians, railroad tycoons, lumber barons, and real-estate moguls, many of whom had political aspirations that often resulted in bitter partisanship. One such character, Ignatius Donnelly, was a formidable Irish-American political force who became a divisive figure in state history. Donnelly was Minnesota’s first lieutenant governor under Alexander Ramsey, who became the first territorial governor in 1849, and the new state’s second governor in 1860. Donnelly and Ramsey began their political relationship as good friends, but the amity deteriorated when both men ran for the same open U.S. Senate seat.20 Donnelly began to hate his old colleague after several newspaper attacks by the Ramsey-supporting Pioneer Press that identified Donnelly as “the nastiest and most foul mouthed wretch who ever had a seat in the American Congress.” 21 Perhaps in the spirit of bitter retaliation, Donnelly wrote in his diary that Ramsey had sex with his coachman following the death of Mrs. Ramsey. Supposedly, the coachman blackmailed the former governor after the incident, and the old man paid him off to keep quiet. Donnelly’s diary entry came to light long after both men had passed away in the early twentieth century. Hy Berman, an emeritus professor of history at the University of Minnesota, came across the passage in 1976.22 Berman contacted his departmental colleague Allan Spear and asked the future state senator for thoughts about the passage; Spear told him he “didn’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole.” 23 Without Spear’s support, Berman dropped the subject. Word got out to the Twin Cities Gay Pride Committee and, perhaps at Spear’s secret urging, the committee published an article in its annual pride guide that “a history professor” found evidence that Ramsey was a historic (capital “G”) Gay figure. In the era of Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign and antigay actions, the gay rights movement seized on the information and used it to establish precedent for the existence of an innate “Gayness.” 24 It took almost two decades for Donnelly’s claim to attract much attention outside of the gay community. In 1992, local historian Jean Tretter recounted the story from Ramsey’s supposed sexual past and claimed him as a gay figure at the Twin Cities Pride Festival. Hosting his first “His-tory Her-itage Pavilion,” Tretter produced a small display board about Ramsey’s sexuality, which included a portrait

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Alexander Ramsey, Minnesota’s first territorial and second state governor (left), and his political rival Ignatius Donnelly. Accused by Donnelly of having sex with his stable hand, Ramsey had been claimed a century later as a “gay” historical figure by some gay activists, including Jean-Nickolaus Tretter. According to retired University of Minnesota historian Hy Berman, Ignatius Donnelly confided the Ramsey rumor to his journal. The same journals reveal that Donnelly identified James J. Hill as a pimp, and other Ramsey supporters as male prostitutes. Ramsey photograph by William Cogswell; both photographs courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

and a short caption, to “show that gays have been around all through history and are an ongoing part of society and culture.” He added: “We’re not trying to do dirt to Alexander Ramsey. We’re paying him the homage of being part of our community.” 25 Staff members at the Minnesota Historical Society in 1992, including the manager of Ramsey’s mansion (now a museum), acknowledged the persistence of the “rumor,” but added that they “cannot imagine [Ramsey] putting anything like that in his journals.” 26 Nick Coleman, a longtime Twin Cities newspaper columnist, roundly criticized Tretter’s claim. “Ramsey founded practically everything in Minnesota, so you can understand why gay activists might be eager to claim him,” he wrote after seeing the exhibit.27 Before noting that the former governor was responsible for acts of genocide committed against Minnesota’s Native Americans (thus an unimpressive “gay” hero), he opined:

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The gay festival’s appropriation of Ramsey says more about the ugly practice of “outing” than anything about Ramsey’s sexuality. “Outing”—revealing the homosexuality of persons who have not chosen to announce their gayness—is a crude tactic practiced by some militant gay activists. I suppose that if people are going to be treated brutally, it’s best to do it to dead people.28

Acidity aside, Coleman’s basic point supports a queer critique of Tretter’s appropriation. Married for decades, and the father of three children, the statesman spent most of his life without challenging the sexual expectations of his time. Only after his wife’s death did he ostensibly partake in same-sex erotic behavior. Donnelly’s private thoughts are themselves suspect because hatred surely infused them. He made sexual allegations about other political enemies as well—he once suggested that railroad tycoon James J. Hill commanded a legion of “bearded courtesans,” and also confided that Hill’s supporters, Patrick Kelly and Michael Doran, were male prostitutes.29 Ultimately, Ramsey’s supposed sexual proclivities are both unknowable and irrelevant—Ramsey’s “outing” is significant because of Tretter’s version of history, one that constituted an important rethinking of the past that attempted to “make Minnesota gay from the get-go.”

An Aesthete Slept Here

Oscar Wilde's Visit, Twin Cities (1882) In the spring of 1882, a well-dressed intellectual stepped from a steaming train on his first—and last—visit to Minnesota as a stop on his national lecture tour. A native of Ireland, the young man had spent the past several months enduring indifference, ridicule, and outright hostility from top American colleges and major newspapers. The Minneapolis Tribune was no better: the daily announced his visit with an appalling headline: “Arrival of This Much-Talked-of Young Man in this City Yesterday Afternoon: He Tells a Small Audience in the Evening What He Knows about Decorative Art: AN ‘ASS-THETE.’ ” 30 Probably exhausted, he passed through one of the city’s homely train stations and stepped outside. Naturally, the organizers of Wilde’s tour booked the star attraction a room in the city’s best accommodations. At the time, this meant a two-night stay at the Nicollet House, a hotel that would later become the Nicollet Hotel.31 Though opulent by today’s standards, the Nicollet did not meet the aesthete’s expectations; the

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St. Paul Globe reported that he “was shocked by our buildings, by the mud in the streets, and especially by the rooms and furniture in the hotels.” 32 Oscar Wilde was undoubtedly horrified. Accustomed to the finest comforts in one of the world’s most sophisticated cities, he was seeing the center of Minneapolis during one of its ugliest periods. Choked by horse-drawn traffic, the unpaved dirt streets were ankle deep in dirty slush and horse manure. A slew of hand-painted signs jutted from uninspired downtown storefronts: Even one of the city’s only memorable structures, city hall, seemed dirty and helpless. Wedged into a mindless grid of treeless thoroughfares—Nicollet Avenue, Hennepin Avenue, and Second Street—that first municipal building attempted to mimic French architecture with pathetic results. Electricity would not be introduced to the city’s streetcars for another seven years, and Loring Park, one of the city’s first sizable green spaces, was just a plan on paper.33 Obviously not interested in making a good impression, Wilde expressed his disdain for local urban life to less-than-full houses at the Minneapolis Academy of Music and at St. Paul’s Grand Opera House. During both speeches, Wilde barely deviated from the script; he repeated his lines monotonously to the ceiling, in order to avoid noticing the snickers of his audience. 34 Boredom, disdain, and exasperation were thankfully not Wilde’s final impressions from the young Twin Cities. After finishing his lecture in St. Paul, the young aesthete spent an evening attending the St. Patrick’s Day rally in St. Paul, where he met his greatest fan in Minnesota: Bishop John Ireland. A fellow Irishman, the bishop was in the process of building a powerful community of Irish immigrants— at one time, one of the most despised ethnic groups in the United States.35 Thrilled by the presence of an Irish intellectual, the bishop invited Wilde onstage with him and proclaimed that pride in Wilde was the same as pride in Ireland.36 Perhaps relieved by Ireland’s support of his work, Wilde thanked the future archbishop with an autographed photo before he left the Twin Cities for places further west.37 Thirteen years later, after returning to London and writing The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde faced a humiliating trial. The father of his lover, a young Lord Alfred Douglas, had accused the aesthete of “sodomy.” 38 Convicted for “acts of gross indecency between men,” he was sentenced to two years of hard labor, and died in 1900. His name, Oscar, became a euphemism for “male homosexual,” his many mannerisms and modish dress became sources for ridicule, and his work was overshadowed by his personal life for many years.39

Oscar Wilde gave this autographed photograph to Bishop John Ireland during a visit to the Twin Cities as part of a national lecture tour. The future archbishop invited Wilde to a St. Patrick’s Day rally in St. Paul, where he touted the young aesthete’s contributions to Irish literary culture.

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Measure Once, Hang Twice

The Death of William Williams, St. Paul (1906) On a spring night in 1905, a distressed young man entered St. Paul’s central police station and asked the officers to send an ambulance to a nearby apartment building. William Williams hysterically told the policemen that he had just shot his best friend, Johnny Keller, and Keller’s mother after an intense argument. Arriving at the scene, the officers found Johnny’s nude body with two bullet wounds in his head and neck; Johnny died that afternoon, and his mother died eight days later.40 The shocking double murder became one of Minnesota’s most infamous crimes after the public came to understand the nature of Williams’s relationship with the teenage Keller. An itinerant laborer with a prison record, “Bill” Williams traveled around the mines, mills, and industrial urban areas of the northern plains; his nomadic lifestyle likely involved the unsanitary living conditions common to “indigents” of the era. In due course, Williams was admitted to St. Paul’s City and County Hospital with diphtheria in 1903—there, he and Keller were given neighboring beds. Within months, they became housemates and companions who vacationed together in Winnipeg.41 This close relationship roused the ire of Keller’s father, who considered their behavior unnatural. The senior Keller bluntly told Williams that his son was better off without his company, even if that required Johnny’s placement in a reform school. The father’s rejection of Williams was not absolute, however—in at least one documented instance, he asked Williams for a sizable loan.42 Based on letters unearthed by John Bessler, it is clear that Williams felt the emotional attachment more strongly. He once wrote: “I want you to believe that I love you now as much as I ever did, and think you intend to do what is right, and that everything will be all right soon.” 43 At the behest of his parents, young Johnny Keller ignored Williams’s letters, which became increasingly ominous. The threats culminated that April night, when Williams paid a (presumably unannounced) visit to his teenage lover. At Williams’s trial—following a failed insanity plea—the jury sentenced him after five hours of deliberation to death by hanging. Williams appealed the sentence, but the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed it.44 On the day of his death in February 1906, the twenty-seven-year-old was reportedly polite and friendly with his captors. “William Williams, for his part,” writes D. J. Tice in Minnesota’s Twentieth Century, “won surprising admiration for his dignity in facing his punishment. The latter-day observer imagines that a homo-

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sexual who murdered his underage lover would have represented perfect, diabolical villainy to puritanical turn-of-the-century Minnesotans. Yet William’s stoic bearing conferred upon him something approaching nobility, at least in the newspapers.” 45 It is entirely possible that reporters ignored, misunderstood, or even accepted the doomed relationship and were merely witnessing a dignified acceptance of punishment for the actual crime—murder. Beyond a doubt, they were unfamiliar with the term “homosexual,” or even with the general idea of polarized sexualities.46 Williams never used that term to define himself, nor did he refer to a “sexual orientation.” Instead, he used his last words to declare that his relationship with Keller was a friendship that never involved “improper relations.” 47 The hanging did not take place as planned. The Ramsey County sheriff led Williams to the basement of the county jail, walked him to the top of the platform, secured the noose, and released the trapdoor, but Williams dropped to the floor. Three deputies immediately hoisted Williams above the floor—by hand—until the convicted murderer died after fourteen and a half minutes of struggle. Watching his client die, Williams’s attorney, James Cormican, said that the execution was “a disgrace to civilization.” 48 Ultimately, the rope was not the sheriff’s only error. He had invited reporters to witness the event, and he allowed them to observe every gruesome minute. Their reports horrified Minnesotans across the state, captured national attention, and helped Minnesota toward repealing capital punishment in 1911.49 The old jail where Williams died remained a dark wing of St. Paul’s city hall until it was demolished for an addition in 1980.50 The old building, like William Williams, has become a fading memory.

Crossroads at Seventh and Robert

The Emporium and Golden Rule Department Stores, St. Paul (1914–1960s) Sexual encounters between men—and beyond the bedroom—are age-old, ubiquitous, and frequently misunderstood facets of urban life. Often called “cruising,” this highly secretive behavior typically uses spaces that quietly blend the public and private spheres within otherwise bustling environments. Parks, downtown theaters, malls, and roadway rest stops are examples of preferred sites, though anywhere is possible. In the past, cruising involved more than just sites for sexual release. The practice was once part of the “demimonde,” or the twilight world, in

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which men associated with others like themselves before contemporary gay social activism began in the early 1950s.51 Department store restrooms provided semiprivate refuges of sexual adventure within busier surroundings. In the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, local stores were the retail anchors of vibrant central business districts. Thousands flocked to the mazelike palaces of consumerism (especially during holiday seasons) for everything from books to beds, television sets, long underwear, three-piece suits, and Christmas hams. St. Paul businessmen constructed major department stores in the 1890s and 1900s—a time when the capital city fiercely competed with its western twin for shoppers. Bannon’s, the Emporium, the Golden Rule, Mannheimer Brothers, and Schuneman’s were once household names that lined Seventh Street—the city’s busiest commercial thoroughfare. Occupying most of a city block, the Golden Rule department store represented high-end shopping for St. Paul residents. In the first half of the twentieth century, department store basement toilets were among the Twin Cities’ most notable sites for queer male sexuality: In his memoir, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s: A Gay Life in the 1940s, Ricardo J. Brown recalled that St. Paul’s cruising nexus was the “busy” basement toilets of the Golden Rule.52 Like all other sizable department stores in the United States, the Golden Rule and its neighbor across Robert Street, the Emporium, were enormous. By nature of their service, both buildings subdivided into scores of smaller rooms and enclaves. The stores’ customers far outnumbered their employees, and, as heated buildings, they were among the few wintertime cruising options. Men with the appearance of financial means would spend hours meandering through several floors of merchandise in search of male sexual partners. Employees did not have the means of surveillance to stop furtive sex in men’s restrooms at certain off-hours—and some were probably participants themselves. As central points of St. Paul’s crusing activity, local department stores promised sexual release for men, but only with considerable risk of discovery. But they were also sites where double lives could be exposed by everyday interaction. As Brown notes, closeted women also risked exposure, threatening their carefully constructed public faces. He remembers running into his friend Ruth, a butch regular of St. Paul’s Kirmser’s bar, with her mother: I saw Ruth downtown in the Emporium. I didn’t recognize her at first. She was standing by the main floor escalator and, as I came up to say hello, I realized that

The Emporium Department Store featured a basement tea room that drew men from across the region to its bathrooms for anonymous sexual encounters. The term “tea room” became popular slang for any public toilets that hosted samesex sexual activities. Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

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she was with the older woman standing beside her. It was her mother. She had brought Ruth downtown shopping. After Ruth introduced us, we stood there for a few minutes talking. It was hard for me to concentrate on what the mother was saying, because I was trying not to stare at Ruth. Her cheerful, unassuming confidence was gone. She stood there, stricken, our stocky little packer from Kirmser’s, in a pink dress with a lot of buttons on it, in ladies’ shoes and nylon stockings, her face pink with embarrassment, her lips painted. She was almost cowering, as if she were trying to draw in upon herself, to somehow conceal this awful exposure.53

The story of helpless Ruth underscores how “the girls” of the 1940s, especially butch women, were expected by their families to navigate popular downtown sites in ladylike garb. Mistaking Ruth’s discomfort for one of “girlish” shyness, the mother continued to talk to Brown in an “almost predatory” way until her daughter wrested her from the uncomfortable scene: I wanted to leave, but I didn’t know how to escape from the mother. I wanted to send Ruth a message. I tried mentally to communicate this message to her: I will never tell anyone that I saw you like this.54

St. Paul’s department stores closed one after another in the late 1970s after long periods of decline. Today, the Golden Rule gloomily remains to remind Seventh Street (or “Seventh Place”) of the era before “Town Square,” which closed two critical blocks in 1980. The Emporium’s building also survives, but its ornate terra-cotta is presently covered with a glass veneer. In a sense, the decline of department stores and the decline of sexual activity within their walls were intertwined and reflected broader societal changes. As the Emporium and Golden Rule hemorrhaged customers in the 1960s and 1970s, cruisers migrated to gay-operated bars and to the public parks.

Queerness Lost

Good-time Parties on Rondo Avenue, St. Paul (1920s–1950s) From the 1920s until the Civil Rights Act of 1968, many neighborhoods in the Twin Cities prohibited homes sales to black and Jewish families.55 In some cases, members of the white majority openly intimidated Minnesota’s black families when they attempted to move outside of residential districts that were designated for

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them.56 With few other options in St. Paul, the disadvantaged black population concentrated within the city’s “less desirable” sections, especially a neighborhood centered on Rondo Avenue. Running from Rice Street to the Midway District, Rondo was home to neighborhood businesses, churches, and homes and was served by a streetcar line with downtown connections. Demolished for construction of Interstate 94 in the early 1960s, Rondo became emblematic of local racial injustice and poor urban planning. For some, such as sociologist Calvin F. Schmid, Rondo represented the heart of an impoverished ghetto of substandard housing and moral deterioration. To others—particularly people who actually lived there—Rondo represented the commercial heart of the capital’s most integrated and vibrant population. In 1927, native son Roy Wilkins compared Old Rondo to the great black districts of the Jazz Age. The future executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) invited people to “imagine a community where a riot of warm colors, feelings and sounds with sight would make one from the rural portions of the South feel at home, or a person from Harlem or State Street feel at ease. Then call it Rondo.” 57 Like the commercial corridors of Harlem and Chicago during Prohibition, Rondo’s social status as a “Negro District” fostered startlingly limited options for gainful employment. This created a vacuum of respectability and an absence of “honest” money that encouraged the growth of unlicensed vending. A coexisting underground social scene flourished. St. Paul was a well-known refuge for illegal activity during Prohibition. Such infamous figures as John Dillinger, Babyface Nelson, and Machine Gun Kelley used St. Paul as a hideout, provided that they kept a low profile, under a mutual understanding with the police that was known as “The O’Connor System.” 58 This illicit enterprise characterized a unique period in American life when illegal behavior was in vogue. Historians usually identify the secret bars that served bootlegged liquor as “speakeasies,” but other underground gatherings were evident in “rent parties,” “good-time flats,” or “good-time houses.” St. Paul’s version of those parties took place in one of the Rondo neighborhood’s many single-family homes.59 In Days of Rondo, Evelyn Fairbanks writes about her experience in St. Paul’s good-time houses; these stories suggest a strong correlation between those gatherings and “queer” gatherings that were also subject to raids: Another business for [Rondo’s] entrepreneurs were the “good-time houses” (now called tippling houses) which were popular among my crowd, although they were

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subject to raids. There were several, but probably the most notorious was Good Daddy’s, which continued to operate into the 1950s. His success was in no small part related to his downtown connections. No one knew exactly what those connections were, but we did know that they were effective. We had all partied at Good Daddy’s, heard the phone ring, and seen Good Daddy turn the jukebox off and announce that we would have to leave because he was going to be raided.60

Illegality, corruption, and the specter of police raids made “good-time” parties similar to other American house parties where known queer behavior took place. In Queer Noises: Male and Female Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Music, John Gill notes that Bessie Smith’s experiences in Detroit’s buffet flats are exemplary of what the parties offered: “The buffet flat that Smith took her girls to in Detroit was one that she would later immortalize in her ‘Soft Pedal Blues.’ As in most buffet flats, which were also known as good-time flats, bootleg liquor was in constant supply, gambling a common pastime, dope . . . plentiful, and the sex, participatory or spectator, as variable as the imagination. . . . In a recorded interview with [Chris] Albertson [on his record AC/DC Blues], . . . Ruby [Walker, Smith’s niece] described the clientele as ‘nothing but faggots and bulldykers.’ I should stress that these to her are merely colloquial terms, used without any malicious or pejorative tone, and simply as descriptive street slang.” 61 The general secrecy of St. Paul’s good-time parties has prevented historians from discovering explicit references to queer activity, at least in the same way that such behavior has been documented in Detroit, Harlem, and other urban areas. In her book Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism, Anne Enke, a University of Wisconsin history professor, noted that she could not find material on early black queer experiences in Minnesota. “In the Twin Cities,” she notes, “African American women occasionally went to licensed white gay bars as individuals or with white friends but never in large groups. Particularly by the mid-1960s, after the new I-94 freeway displaced the black speakeasy-rich neighborhood of Old Rondo in St. Paul, house parties provided the predominant venue for gatherings of black queers.” 62 But Enke goes no further on the subject of Rondo’s parties: “I have discovered very little written or oral information about those spaces and do not include them in my analysis.” 63 In 1961, local officials used state money to demolish Rondo’s northern blocks. Following the demolition, the federal government agreed to build the freeway, even with other available options. Planners had identified a less destructive but more expensive route that would have run alongside railroad tracks to the north of Uni-

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versity Avenue. Residents of the bisected neighborhood scattered and, possibly, a unique queer culture was lost before it could be recorded.

Chocolate Dandies

Josephine Baker at the Metropolitan Theater, Minneapolis (1925) Although the Civil War ended the practice of slavery, legalized racial bias persisted for decades in America—“Jim Crow” laws in the old Confederate states supported intense civil injustice in the South, which exacerbated an already hellish experience for many African Americans. At the same time, industrial development in Northern cities exploded, and this growth demanded a constant supply of affordable labor. Thus, the period from the 1910s to the 1930s formed the “Great Migration,” as African Americans left areas such as the Louisiana Bayou, the Mississippi Delta, and the “Black Belt” of Alabama for Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, New York, and St. Louis.64 By the 1920s, and particularly in Harlem, a “renaissance” of African American culture emerged with the substantial assistance of notable musicians and writers.65 Minneapolis and St. Paul witnessed little of the first wave of migration because migrant black populations found fewer employment opportunities in Minnesota.66 As Julia Robinson-Harmon writes in the Encyclopedia of the Great Black Migration, “The most striking thing about the Great Black Migration with regard to the Twin Cities was how comparatively few migrants settled there.” 67 Though far-removed from the urban epicenters of jazz, the Twin Cities enjoyed the visits of “colored revues” during the 1920s owing to a long-standing interest in theater among established local families. The Twin Cities maintained dozens of performance venues for decades—downtown St. Paul offered eleven theaters in 1928 alone 68—and traveling runs of Broadway shows headlined both cities on a weekly basis. In 1925, the Minneapolis Metropolitan Theater (near Third Street South and Marquette Avenue) attracted a weeklong performance of The Chocolate Dandies, a musical comedy about a horse race cowritten by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake. Announcing the opening night in late February, the Minneapolis Journal promised that the Harlem-based performance would “lighten the midwinter gloom that has been hanging over the theater.” 69 One of the show’s brightest female stars was none other than Josephine Baker, a popular singer, dancer, and actress who later found fame for her exotic seminude performances in Paris.70 The Journal was not

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impressed by Baker’s first major role on the stage; it merely noted that “an unfortunate young woman, with shellacked hair, strives to simulate comedy antics in the matter of Charlotte Greenwood,” a popular white actress in comedies at the time.71 Like Sissle and Blake’s first production a year earlier, Shuffle Along, much of Chocolate Dandies was directed at racial expectations of white audiences. The Journal noted this, if only indirectly, by commenting that the numbers and comedic scene in Chocolate Dandies would not last in memory as long as Shuffle Along, calling it “a colored show without a razor.” In the Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, Nadine George-Graves notes that some acts “resembled white productions too closely and lacked the expected black style.” 72 To the Minneapolis Journal and audiences, it seems that both the actress and the play disappointed racially biased expectations. The review of Baker’s performance did not hamper her career in the slightest; she went on to become one of the world’s most iconic performers. Baker’s reluctance to discuss her sexual past candidly makes her a challenging addition to queer history, as her sexual relationships with women cannot be categorized. In a 1994 interview with Lance Loud, one of Baker’s twelve adopted children—part of a “Rainbow Tribe” from many corners of the globe—JeanClaude Baker noted that “Whenever she was in the mood, she’d just go out and pick up some girl.” 73 According to her son, who conducted substantial research and innumerable interviews, Baker had numerous affairs with women throughout her life, from Parisian street walkers to Colette, author of the 1944 novel Gigi.74 Jean-Claude’s book, Josephine: The Hungry Heart, revealed that Baker purposely obscured her sexual past as part of a carefully constructed public image.75 Reviewing this book in the Gay and Lesbian Review, Lester Strong notes: “As for her queer life—well, most of the biographies, including her own memoirs (ghost-written by others) and the 1991 HBO film bio The Josephine Baker Story, starring Lynn Whitfield, simply ignore it.” 76

Kings for a Day

Drag at the Nicollet Hotel, Minneapolis (1925–90) A dozen high-class hotels opened in the downtown Minneapolis “Loop” during the first quarter of the twentieth century, but none could rival the largest of them all. In 1923, the old Nicollet House fell to the wreckers and was replaced by an Art Deco palace: the New Nicollet Hotel. Often referred to as the Nicollet, the hotel continued its predecessor’s tradition for more than six decades.

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Downtown hotels across the United States accommodated sexual nonconformity well into the 1950s, principally because they maintained an interesting combination of transience, anonymity, and social respectability.77 According to Ricardo J. Brown, the old Radisson Hotel and its Viking Room bar (on the site of a more contemporary Radisson Hotel) attracted “ ‘ribbon clerks,’ fashionable and pretentious faggots who worked for peanuts in Dayton’s department store next door.” 78 The Nicollet’s history in this regard is, perhaps, best summarized by a notable visitor who was rumored to have had relationships with other men: Cary Grant stayed at the hotel with other participants in the Hollywood Victory Caravan making its way to Washington, D.C., in 1942.79 Although Oscar Wilde and Cary Grant are perhaps more striking examples of prewar boarders, they are not the only indicators of nonconforming behavior in the local hotel scene. Just as cities were building their largest and grandest hotels, women were becoming active participants in newly stylish venues. The Minneapolis Journal caught on to Minnesota’s changing social climate and expanded its long-standing “Women’s Organizations” column to a section of several pages. By that time, women’s social organizations constituted a powerful, charitable, and socially conscious force in local politics. Unlike the society section, which continued to announce upper-class marriages and offer fashion advice (as it had for decades), the women’s section published the event schedules, opinions, and general goings-on of college-educated urban women. Some of the events hosted a particular brand of gender nonconformity that only took the stage when members did. Women’s clubs frequently produced humorous skits to call attention to an issue or to celebrate an event, and society women took male roles. Wearing everything from suits, fedoras, and slicked-back hair to overalls and false facial hair—and playing parts that ranged from Peter Pan to circus ringleaders to mechanics—women wore male drag to amuse and entertain other society members. Without men to play “male roles,” club members cheerily donned drag and thought little of it. Instead of suffering from abuse and vicious rumors—as midcentury “drag kings,” “bull dykes,” or “tomboys” later would—1920s women adopted male characteristics and became androgynous. “The mystery and seductive potential of the androgynous body,” writes Rebecca Arnold in Fashion, Desire, and Anxiety, “slim and youthful yet knowing and self-aware, was emblematic of the inter-war period and of the search for the ‘modern’ woman, who could encapsulate the shift towards a public dynamic femininity.” 80 Of course, there is a difference between a permanent

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Four members of the Minneapolis Woman’s Club perform a comedy skit in the Nicollet Hotel, ca. 1925. Donning the attire of the opposite sex was acceptable in certain social contexts before it became a predominantly queer form of expression, “drag,” in the 1960s and 1970s. Photograph by the Minneapolis Star Journal; courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

androgynous body and impermanent androgyny expressed through innocent interwar drag. However, both share a common limit; society only accepted androgyny in certain people and in certain contexts.

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“Drag” has changed in many ways. Society women of the 1920s permitted drag performances at their social gatherings because they had the clout to do so. Later in the century, working-class women who dressed in men’s clothing faced police brutality when they visited gay bars. Today, many gender-based strictures have lessened, but they have not disappeared entirely—drag is still only permitted sporadically and within generally understood limits.

“Who’s Fannie? Local Girl?”

Gertrude Stein Visits the Women’s City Club, St. Paul (1934) In 1934, Gertrude Stein returned to the United States after writing The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, the hugely popular book that presented Stein’s life as if her lover wrote it. The author, poet, and doyenne of a “lost generation” of expatriates in Paris addressed students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison near the end of a national lecture tour she and Toklas organized. Then, having taken “a marvelous flight in a tiny plane over the snowed prairie,” 81 they checked in at the Hotel Lowry in early December with plans to later address an audience of 450 at the St. Paul Women’s City Club—a sleek, modern structure at St. Peter Street and Kellogg Boulevard. Impressed by the aerial view of the landscape of western Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota, Stein wrote to her friend, playwright Thornton Wilder, “I am still all filled up with the xtraordinary symmetry of it, as a whole and in detail.” 82 Stein’s visit was front-page news in Minnesota’s capital city. The Pioneer Press visited Stein and Toklas at the Hotel Lowry shortly after their arrival. Reporters addressed the “formidable” Stein as she was “wriggling around on the soft, ornate divan in her flower-heaped hotel suite,” and they immediately brought up what they hoped would be the beginning of a sensational joust.83 Fannie Hurst, a popular novelist at the time, had recently visited the Twin Cities and remarked that her contemporary “has the look in her eyes—and they’re just a couple of ordinary eyes—of a woman who has been kept on the farm too long.” Hurst added that she found Stein to be an embarrassment, though the two had never met.84 The paper sellers repeated Hurst’s comments to “Gertie,” perhaps in hopes of an intellectual catfight. Reportedly, after her “quick, brown eyes” became “dark pits of dismay,” she scratched her short gray hair and responded with a simple question. “Fannie Hurst?” she asked. “Local girl? Does she live in St. Paul?” Before reporters could quiz her knowledge of popular authors, Toklas’s helpful

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voice rose from behind a wall of flowers. “Oh yes. You know, the writer—Fannie Hurst.” Stein replied with a curt “no,” and the reporters wisely dropped the subject. The Pioneer Press later noted that “after that, no one quite had the nerve to discuss any other writer than Miss Stein.” She flummoxed the papers further when she informed the reporters that news media poorly mimicked her writing style. “They do, but they can’t.” And then, “Simple, isn’t it?” she asked. Her lecture audience was larger than expected that night—Toklas noted that an unexpected five hundred people were attending Stein’s lecture on English literature. Perhaps slightly upset by the development, the poet addressed the crowd late because she brought the wrong lecture with her—she was admittedly nervous about how the large group would receive her untrained speaking style. But it all did little to affect her reception, if only because she charmed the audience by exuding confidence and casually admitting, “We’re amateurs at this business.” 85 Perhaps still smarting from Stein’s earlier comments, and the failed attempt at creating a literary brawl, the Pioneer Press complained that “few lucidities [were] found hiding” in her lecture. Reporter Frances Boardman criticized the author’s close reading from a typewritten manuscript, which supposedly contained a “twilight of the gods” speech (it is unclear what that was supposed to mean). “It’s any man’s guess as to the sense, if any,” Boardman wrote. Opining that there was “nothing original” about Stein’s “sketchy review” of English literature, the reporter filled a good deal of space focusing on the speaker’s plain dress—“it was a dress, not a gown, nor yet a frock”—the appearance of her short hair, and the behavior of her “nervously straying left hand.” 86

Hidden Messages in the New Deal? Clement Haupers, St. Paul (1929–82)

Clement Haupers was St. Paul’s twentieth-century renaissance man. Born in 1900, the notoriously frank and obstinate artist, administrator, printmaker, and teacher began a lifelong career in art while working as a clerk for the Chicago, Milwaukee, and Pacific Railroad. The railway offered free passes to its employees, and—following the advice of a librarian in the James J. Hill Library—Haupers took the first of many weekend trips to Chicago’s famous Art Institute. He already had considerable artistic ability, but visits to the Institute provided the young man with what

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amounted to free lessons from the masters. By his late teens, he knew that art was his life’s calling.87 Haupers’s dedication and energy were soon apparent at the Art League of St. Paul, a weekend painting club run by Clara Gardner Mairs, who was twenty-two years Haupers’s senior.88 Before long, the two were inseparable companions; in 1923, they traveled to Paris and studied under the French Cubist André Lhote. Five years later, they crossed the Atlantic again to spend time in France, Italy, and Morocco during a period of conflicting schools and -isms in the visual arts.89 Haupers’s gifts might well have led to a successful career in Chicago, New York, or Paris, but the call of home was too strong. He and Mairs returned to St. Paul in 1929, remodeled a single-family house with downtown views at 377 Ramsey Street, and settled into separate apartments (each with a private studio). The St. Paul Gallery and School of Art (SPGSA, later, the Minnesota Museum of American Art) was a nexus of the Grand Old City’s small but prolific community of artists. There, Haupers became a particularly influential full-time instructor at a school, one of many institutions in midsize cities that popularized regional varie­ ties of distinctly American artistic work. After serving as the director of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Arts Project in Minnesota (1935–43), Haupers returned to the school and taught full-time until his retirement in the 1970s. Haupers’s relationship with women is perhaps best summed up by his description of life with Clara Mairs during a recorded conversation with other male friends: “Look kids, I spent 42 years with one. I don’t know whether I loved her or not we just kept going. Oh, we fought. If we didn’t have separate apartments here ugh! But we made it. A community of interests is important.” 90 Ricardo J Brown recalled one of the fights between the couple in his book The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s. A regular of St. Paul’s downtown gay bar in the 1940s, Haupers befriended Brown and his friends, often regaling them with stories of his travels and impressing (or irritating) them with his sharp wit. One day, Brown remembered visiting the artists’ house as a model: Once when I was there, Clara rapped in the door, calling out, “Haupers!” Clem skittered about like a guilty schoolboy. He grabbed a gallon jug of red wine from a table near where we were sitting, hid it behind him, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and hastily opened the door for the impatient Clara. “Haupers, have you been drinking?” she demanded. With the gallon jug of wine behind him, half-empty from the afternoon’s tippling, and with the cheap wine heavy on his breath, Haupers loudly denied any

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Clement Haupers, 1930. Haupers had relationships with men and women while studying art in Europe and the United States. He directed the Federal Arts Project in Minnesota from 1935 to 1943. Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

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such shenanigans. Clara glanced at me, glared at Haupers, and then, without another word, in a silence that reproached us far more than anything she could have said, she stomped back upstairs. Clem shut the door, put the jug of wine back on the table, and resumed our conversation without even mentioning the interruption. I hardly listened to anything he said. All this time, I’d thought of Haupers as almost kinglike in his appearances at Kirmser’s, but here at home, with Clara clearly in charge, he was just a bad boy. They had been together for many years and in many places before they returned to Clem’s hometown of St. Paul. The slight scandal of the two of them “living in sin” only seemed to enhance their reputations as real artists.91

Numerous sources, including Brown, former students, and the executor of Haupers’s estate, refer to the artist’s many relationships with women and men throughout his life. He rejected any adherence to a particular philosophy, and he developed a staunchly distinct personal identity long before the “gay,” “straight,” and “bisexual” categories existed. Free from restrictions and expectations, he lived a truly bohemian life based on the same principles on which he based his art. Beauty and artistic value, he noted, were evident everywhere, in everything, and in everyone. Haupers’s longtime, unmarried, and childless relationship with a much older Mairs was itself “queer” for its time in that it diverged from the status quo. His divided home contrasted starkly with the archetypal nuclear family. The artist’s relationships with men place him even closer to other “queer” people and places, but it is important to note and respect his consistent rejection of association with other identities. Clement Haupers did not identify as either gay or bisexual. Neither did many men like him who, though married or otherwise committed to female partners, had sexual or romantic relationships with other men. Ultimately, Haupers wanted to be remembered as a great painter: “it is my hope that in viewing my paintings, the spectator will share with me the belief that the world God gave us has much in it for us to enjoy.”

The “Seduction Station”

Fort Snelling, Minneapolis (1941–45) Situated on a bluff overlooking the convergence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, Fort Snelling was originally built to secure American economic interests in

Induction, an etching by Clement Haupers, 1981. Decades later, Chuck Rowland recalled admiring Army inductees with fellow medical inspectors at the Fort Snelling Induction Center during World War II. Purportedly, most of the examiners were gay men. Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

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“the netherlands of the Northwestern Territory” following The War of 1812.92 The fort was never directly involved in battle; instead, it functioned as an outpost for the military occupation of Native American lands and as an internment camp for prisoners of war.93 As a safe haven for some, the fort represented military protection of “St. Anthony” and “Pig’s Eye,” or Minneapolis and St. Paul, the twin riverside villages established in the 1830s and 1840s. Immigrants settled by the thousands over the subsequent years, the American frontier moved farther west, and the fort’s importance as a garrison diminished. By the 1850s, the state’s only foreign neighbors were unlikely to attack; Fort Snelling had become an expense without obvious purpose and was abandoned in 1858.94 Sold to the public, it was slated to be demolished and redeveloped as residential property. But in 1861 the attack on Fort Sumter changed the building’s fate: it became Minnesota’s main military assembly and embarkation point at the outbreak of the Civil War.95 After the Confederacy surrendered in 1865, the military continued to use Fort Snelling as the main base and training site for Minnesota national guardsmen. During the anxious 1930s and early 1940s, the United States watched as the European powers collided. A surprise attack—the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941—forced the country into preparations for conflict in both Europe and the Pacific Ocean: the Second World War. Pearl Harbor sent Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt scrambling to prepare an unprecedented military effort; men from all parts of the country—who had registered for the draft only two years before—found themselves bound for central military induction stations. Located between Minnesota’s major cities and boasting a proud military heritage, Fort Snelling became an obvious site for this process.96 In Coming Out under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two, Allan Bérubé argues that the Second World War was a watershed period in the development of gay and lesbian communities.97 Induction is particularly significant to queer history because of its undiscriminating nature: the government expected every able-bodied Minnesota male to appear at Fort Snelling for inspection. This forced men out of their usual lives and away from their families; many who secretly desired relationships with other men suddenly had an unexpected chance to have a different life. Men who had spent their young adult lives without knowledge of sexual subcultures found themselves among those who knew every detail. Of course, the United States military did not encourage homosexual experiences. The primary purpose of induction stations was to screen out those deemed

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physically or mentally unfit; in almost every instance, homosexuals who admitted their desires were rejected.98 “Most [gay veterans] did not want to be rejected for military service or stigmatized as queer in their hometowns,” writes Bérubé. “Lying to pass as heterosexual, even to ‘the discerning psychiatrist for a period of five or ten minutes,’ as one gay man wrote shortly after the war, came easily to men who ‘had been successfully practicing concealment from families, employers, friends, and others for many years.’ ” 99 In Minnesota, Fort Snelling held a unique distinction: Chuck Rowland, future cofounder of the Mattachine Society, recalled in an interview with Bérubé that, “with the exception of the Master Sergeant, who ran this whole vast operation, every single person—corporals, sergeants, staff sergeant, tech sergeant, all the department heads were gay and were all guys in the single gay bar in Minneapolis [the Onyx Bar], . . . and they called [Fort Snelling] the ‘Seduction Station’ . . . we’d look out [the windows] and see this row of thousands and thousands of guys coming in to be inducted. And they used to—and whenever there’d be a line, one of the guys would say, ‘Hey, hey, come look. Look, look at those beautiful young things going over to Europe to be killed. Terrible, terrible thing.’ ” 100 Bérubé notes that the relative permission in Minnesota’s induction center did have its limits: “when others were around, Rowland recalled, the gay clerks related to each other ‘pretty carefully.’ When a new gay man was assigned to the office, you’d recognize each other by a glance, maybe a smile and then that was it. You had established the fact that you knew each other and you knew what you knew.” 101 With men like Rowland at the helm, Minnesota was likely an easier point of entry to military service, even if it was the psychologists who determined a person’s sexual orientation.

How We Kept Warm

2

How We Kept Warm Queer Life in the Vice Districts of the Twin Cities On October 23, 1953, a procession of bulldozers rolled onto Hennepin Avenue and passed aging theaters, seedy hotels, and old office blocks on the way toward Minneapolis’s riverfront.1 Stopping in front of a Beaux Arts pavilion in the wedge-shaped Gateway Park, the wreckers met a crowd that had gathered to read the building’s grimy epitaph, placed years before as a welcome message: “The Gateway: More than her gates, the city opens her heart to you.” 2 With colonnades, public toilets, and a fountain, the Gateway Pavilion represented an early, but failed, attempt to add class to the area. Though rich in history, the Gateway District had long been a magnet for itinerant workers who lived transient lives in search of seasonal manual labor.3 Prostitution thrived there.4 By the 1950s, bars, liquor stores, and pawnshops were common, and both architectural jewels and more utilitarian buildings that once housed Minnesota’s burgeoning industrial economy had become cheap, tattered, and dirty. The down-and-out districts of Minnesota’s largest cities had been fading for more than half a century. By the late nineteenth century, Minneapolis and St. Paul had conjoined into one metropolis that drew a constant stream of industrial manpower into their already swollen tenements. Business and civic interests started to move from the old riverside commercial districts and built “new downtowns” several blocks away, creating a vacuum of cultural status and economic investment in their wake.5 In downtown St. Paul, a collection of essential urban businesses once stretched along Third Street between the upper and lower riverboat landings, but this commercial area fell out of favor as the downtown center moved away from the river.6 In Minneapolis, the intersection of Hennepin, Nicollet, and Washing-

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“Vice Areas, Minneapolis: 1936” from Calvin F. Schmid’s study Social Saga of the Two Cities. Schmid’s thorough analysis of social and geographic phenomena in the Twin Cities included a study on the development of local vice districts. Each district identified in this map became an area of queer settlement over the following four decades.

ton Avenues—the former nexus of the entire city—was replaced by a new center near the intersection of 7th Street and Nicollet Avenue.7 Marginalized populations moved into the abandoned areas: indigent laborers, prostitutes, people of color, gamblers, alcoholics, and sexual nonconformists surfaced in each city’s “old town.” These areas developed into “vice districts” and, in many ways, they also became the twin centers of queer life in Minnesota.8 Accounts from the time indicate that both the Gateway District and downtown St. Paul’s eclectic midsection were open to homosexual men—with some limitations. While narrating his home movies of the Gateway District in the mid-1950s, John Bachich, former owner of the Sourdough Bar on Washington Avenue, noted that an elderly man named “Doc” was “one of the gays . . . in fact, he was the old man of the gays,” adding, “He was quite a character.” 9 David Rosheim, another

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chronicler of the area, recalled that the Sourdough was one of few bars that knowingly served gay men.10 Along with patrons of the Dugout Bar and some customers of the Trocadero Bar, Rosheim’s gay patrons risked robbery, physical attacks, and blackmail when they ventured to and from such safe havens.11 Adds historian Larry Millett in his book Lost Twin Cities: “not all of [the Gateway’s] drinking establishments were rotgut dives, and some—such as the Persian Palms Nightclub— attracted a middle-class clientele searching, often with considerable success, for a taste of sin. The area also featured bars that catered to blacks, gays, and others not welcome in mainstream Minneapolis.” 12 The Gateway District’s substandard housing and sin-seeking population ultimately proved too much for the city of Minneapolis, and the Gateway Pavilion’s destruction by bulldozer proved to be just the beginning. From 1958 to 1962, with the assistance of federal money, the city demolished more than 180 buildings 13 and evicted more than three thousand people14 who only received five dollars and free housing advice on their way out.15 While the Gateway was being demolished, St. Paul was attempting its own version of urban renewal.16 The city demolished and rebuilt a large percentage of downtown land within the area bounded by 7th Street, Jackson Street, Kellogg Boulevard, and Wabasha Street from the 1950s to the 1980s.17 The demise of old vice areas in both cities sparked an unanticipated shift in both queer and straight people who had lived or socialized there.18 Over time, the destruction of both districts contributed to the development of new gay and lesbian residential areas and social institutions that coincided with a new era of societal visibility. Regardless of their intent, urban renewal programs pushed gay men, lesbians, and gender nonconformists to new districts of the two downtowns. Bars, bathhouses, erotic bookstores, and X-rated theaters followed along Hennepin Avenue to Loring Park and Uptown in the decades following the destruction of the Gateway. St. Paul’s more compact center made for a nonlinear shift; gay uses largely abandoned the downtown area and reappeared on Grand Avenue. Of course, a queer presence remains in both the Gateway and downtown St. Paul, but it is drastically different than it was earlier in the twentieth century.

The Last Chance

Rice Park, St. Paul (1849–1962) Prehistoric glacial melt wore away the Mississippi River’s steep bluffs at a site that became downtown St. Paul. Over time, the constant erosion of melting ice pro-

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duced two amphitheater-shaped recessions that sloped to the river’s edge. American settlers built two steamboat landings on the flat riverbanks, and the new town began to ship goods down the waterway to larger cities farther south. Secondary businesses soon appeared to assist that delivery—insurance, banking, and warehousing, which in turn financed large-scale manufacturing, railroads, and other economic foundations of the city’s expansive growth. Although simple geography enabled St. Paul’s birth and development, it eventually limited the latter. The city’s small, dense downtown is about half the size of central Minneapolis. St. Paul’s civic fathers presciently reserved three blocks for public space early in the city’s history: Irvine Park, near the “Upper Landing”; Smith Park, near the “Lower Landing”; and Rice Park between the two. Naming St. Paul’s oldest such green space after himself, Henry Rice platted it as a new development—with a public square in its center—that was superimposed on the city’s original grid at a 45-degree angle. Rice’s park was a homely sight for decades; it had no trees until 1860, and its first pair of squirrels had to be imported from Memphis in 1873.19 Police regularly chased cows and rug beaters out of the park in order to maintain its respectability,20 but oddly enough, prostitutes were allowed to set up shop. In the late nineteenth century, Nina Clifford, St. Paul’s “celebrated madam,” ran a bordello at the southern end of Rice’s western border, Washington Street, when the road was actually lined with brothels.21 A much-discussed tunnel between Nina’s house and the Minnesota Club supposedly ensured that the city’s elite could enter the brothel unseen, but recent searches have failed to uncover any tunnel.22 By the early twentieth century, Rice Park was surrounded by the city’s architectural gems. The federal customs house (a “misplaced Rhine castle”), James J. Hill’s Italianate Central Library, the wing-shaped Hotel St. Paul, a stolid city auditorium (replaced by the Ordway Center), the terra-cotta Hamm Building, and the streamlined headquarters of the Northwestern Bell and Telephone Company all roosted high above the river, and elbowed with their less-than-reputable neighbors. Rice Park sat at a crossroads where working-class citizens crossed paths with office managers, public officials, nearby apartment dwellers, indigent laborers, hotel guests, and library patrons. As a public space, it became one of the Twin Cities’ earliest cruising grounds because, at night, it was a quiet refuge amid noisy junctions.23 Men from different backgrounds could meet, engage in a variety of activities, and depart anonymously. Local lore has it that Oscar Wilde himself used the park for cruising in 1878, though his brief stay in Minneapolis in 1882 makes this legend highly unlikely.24

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Perhaps Minnesota’s oldest cruising ground, Rice Park became a setting for some of St. Paul’s grandest buildings, including the Telephone Building (left) and the James J. Hill Library (right). Before these buildings appeared, Rice Park was the epicenter of a lively brothel district that stretched along Washington Street. Photograph by the St. Paul Daily Dispatch and Pioneer Press; courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

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Unlike Minneapolis’s expansive Loring Park, Rice Park’s small size and busy surroundings actually hampered sexual activity, especially compared to more private spaces elsewhere in St. Paul such as the Coney Island restaurant, the Golden Rule Department Store’s toilets, or the Bremer Arcade. Rice Park became a place of summertime desperation, “The Last Chance,” as Ricardo J. Brown recalled in his memoirs, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s.25 As was the case at every cruising site, the park was a potentially dangerous option for men who had sex with men. Stocked with drunks, “poor, anonymous men,” and cops, the jewel of Uppertown was occasionally the first stop on a path that led men to arrest, humiliation, family rejection, and ostracism.26 According to Max Winkel, a teenager who wrote a brief history of Rice Park for Ramsey County History magazine, “civic-minded women” intervened in the early 1960s and organized a major reconstruction project. The project replaced plantings that once hid many clandestine meetings with a brick plaza and a water fountain. The large open space created a sizable opening in the very middle of the block,27 and Rice Park became a preferred spot for sunny midday lunches. Cruising activity promptly moved to quieter locations outside of downtown.28

Killer Queen

The James Montague Murder, Minneapolis (1908) In the summer of 1908, police responded to a disturbance on the east side of Nicollet Avenue between Washington Avenue and Fourth Street. James Montague, a sixteen-year-old boy dressed to the nines in women’s clothing—complete with shaved head and wig—had walked up to a middle-aged man with gun in hand. In the dead of night, Montague shot A. P. Camden, an elevator builder, at close range after Montague enjoyed a show at the Bijou Theater.29 A Minneapolis patrolman took the youth into custody and, as part of the booking process, the officers measured more than a dozen parts of his body and noted the measurements in a “Bertillon Book.” These ledgers recorded body measurements for identification before the advent of fingerprinting—and complemented the use of mug shots by the late nineteenth century.30 In most Bertillon entries, the arresting officers included a short description of the crime. In Montague’s case, the officer mentioned Montague’s wig and the style of his dress as a bemused—almost appreciative—afterthought. He also included a clipping from the Chicago Tribune

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that excitedly proclaimed Montague “Existed as a Boy but Slew as a Girl,” adding that he was “possessed of a dual personality, with each element battling for supremacy.” 31 In another report, the paper attempted to explain what had happened: A. P. Camden, an elevator builder and for fifteen years a resident of St. Paul, was shot and instantly killed late last night in front of the store at 315 Nicollet avenue, by James Montague, 16 years old. Camden was a total stranger to Montague. As the man passed the boy he [Montague] took the revolver from his pocket and without reason of provocation, shot Camden in the head, and the victim fell dead at his feet. The murderer then walked away whistling, but was followed by messenger boys who had

James Montague, sixteen, after he was convicted of murdering a middle-aged man in 1908. Montague shaved his head to wear wigs and dressed in women’s clothing, but this portrait suggests a lice problem at what became his permanent home—the St. Cloud Reformatory. Photograph by George E. Luxton; courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

witnessed the tragedy and was captured at Nicollet and Washington avenues by Patrolman R. E. Champlin. At the time of the shooting, the boy wore some articles of woman’s apparel. His story today in the sweatbox was a fantastic tale of boyish adventure and depravity. This story, which the police believe is true only in part, is being checked up carefully by detectives. The prisoner is clearly insane.32

The paper reported that Montague’s victim had a “premonition” about his death weeks earlier. Before the fatal evening, he had mysteriously confided to his family that he felt his life was in danger.33 The paper assured readers that Camden was unacquainted with Montague before being shot and had no idea what was coming, but offered no definitive proof that this was the case. In their report, the police originally suggested that the two were strangers, yet the authorities only became involved with the two men after Camden was shot. Neither the police nor

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the papers quoted anyone who said that the two had never met before. If later, documented sexual activity in local downtown theaters was a continuation of an older pattern, then Camden may have known he was in danger because he was running a risk by frequenting Minneapolis’s rowdy burlesque houses. If the youth “knew” Camden from earlier in the evening at the Bijou, then the murder might have resulted from an exchange in sexual services that went awry. Of course, regardless of the time period, the crime’s possible sexual nature, or any other circumstances, Montague was arrested because he murdered a grown man in the center of Minneapolis. His flagrant challenge to gender norms did influence his treatment by the police, however, as well as his confessions, conviction, and incarceration. The Chicago Tribune noted that Montague told his “fantastic tale of boyish adventure and depravity” during interrogation “in the sweatbox.” Sweatboxes, an interrogation procedure that involved placing suspects in a small room and then subjecting them to abuse and misleading questions, was a hotly debated practice that produced unreliable results. “Ordinarily the torture—for it is nothing more—is specially devised to fit the particular case under consideration,” wrote the Chicago Public in 1902. “If the police are satisfied that any person possesses information which may reveal the principals or participants in a great crime, they will get it and they feel justified in employing any means, no matter how severe and cruel, if it will result in a confession.” 34 If the Chicago Public was correct, then Montague’s unspecified confessions of “depravity” could have included anything the officers imagined, suspected, or wanted—indeed, the police themselves questioned whether or not the teenager was being completely honest.35 On the other hand, the youth could have truthfully admitted anything from same-sex desire to male prostitution, and the officers might have been simply too uncomfortable to report it. Ultimately, the court accepted Montague’s admission, and he was sentenced to life in the Minnesota State Reformatory in St. Cloud.

Ciphers and Cigarettes

The Coney Island, St. Paul (1923–98) St. Paul’s many urban renewal projects removed numerous buildings that fostered urban interaction at all hours, including Art Deco theaters, stately department

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stores, family-owned businesses, and affordable housing. From the 1960s onward, much of a century’s worth of historical development vanished as the capital city cleared space for freeways, established its skyway network, and rebuilt the central core.36 Other large urban renewal projects claimed entire city blocks and in the process countless establishments that were similar to the Coney Island Restaurant vanished forever. The range of people who gave these streets life—office workers returning home, workers on their way to midnight shifts, theatergoers looking for a snack—vanished as well, and a discomfiting quiet replaced the former vibrancy of St. Paul’s nighttime streets. As is the case with many short-order cafés across the nation (including St. Paul’s famous Mickey’s Diner), the Coney Island’s late hours, highly diverse clientele, and undiscerning staff made it a prime location for cruising and male prostitution.37 Complicated preparations preceded such interactions: patrons typically met nearby, entered the eatery, assessed the risk of coming on to their prospective companions, and, barring a mistake or police intervention, retired to a third location for sex. In his memoirs, Ricardo J. Brown recalled the Coney Island’s reassuringly familiar ambiance: “The odor in the Coney Island was overwhelming, a mixture of cold grease, bitter coffee, sour beans, and raw onions, a stiffened, sudden assault on the nostrils, like smelling salts.” 38 Minnesota’s cold climate made year-round outdoor cruising all but impossible; like other northern cities, many of St. Paul’s sexual adventures took place in interior spaces that blurred the line between public and private spheres. Minneapolis and St. Paul had only a couple of gay bars each before the 1960s. Thus, gay and bisexual men in the Twin Cities typically met in places that operated under the assumption of heterosexual patronage. Outright communication or signs of interest (including rubbing legs, holding hands, dancing together, hugging, and kissing) led to immediate expulsion from the establishment or, in the occasional severe case, a trip to the local workhouse.39 Brown recalled that, owing to the dominance of heterosexism in social interactions at the time, lesbians were unable to use the Coney Island in the same way that men did: “dykes did not like to hang around the Coney Island. If they did come, even in pairs, they would sit with some of us so it looked like they were ‘with’ somebody, because nice girls did not go unescorted into the Coney Island.” 40 To avoid suspicion, men used codes, key words, or secret body language that only those “in the know” understood. Codes were in use across the United States, with regional variations. In Minnesota, a reliable method of communication involved a

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pack of upturned Pall Mall cigarettes, which carried the slogan “Wherever Particular People Congregate.” 41 If one man was interested in another, he placed the pack upside down in the other’s eyesight. The object of desire would either observe the gesture without giving it a second thought or he would respond by doing the same with his pack of Pall Malls. The Coney Island closed for regular service in 1998. Its passing marked the end of two eras. The first, St. Paul’s capacity to host nocturnal adventures, faded as the downtown area fell into a slumber. The second, an age of secret codes and gay dialects, began to vanish in the capital as the prevalence of gay liberation reduced the need for covert messages, and is now a fading memory.42

“Periods of Growth”

The Hennepin Baths, Minneapolis (1925–79) At the time of its construction in 1886, the Lumber Exchange Building was the tallest structure in Minneapolis. Built to house the financial transactions of the city’s booming lumber industry, the Exchange was originally an out-of-scale elevenstory monolith that towered above Hennepin Avenue’s low-rise buildings.43 An 1891 addition expanded the facade along Hennepin to give the structure its present dimensions, and the addition added a second address and created a curious interior composition.44 An exterior door provided direct basement access to a windowless, subterranean maze that, in the absence of other options for the space, became the cavernous Hennepin Baths in 1925.45 At the time, private restrooms with bathing options were not available to all citizens. Many downtown hotels only offered their guests hallway toilets, often one per floor, and some older establishments did not provide hot water for bathing. National campaigns to improve personal hygiene led to growing expectations of bathing facilities, and public baths became commonplace for those who could not afford private bathrooms.46 While a majority of bathhouses were bare-bones affairs “designed only to ‘sanitize’ [their patrons] as quickly as possible,” 47 a smaller middle-class market emerged, and palatial bathhouses appeared in urban areas, including the Twin Cities. Many offered architectural flourishes with Turkish, Greek, and other Mediterranean themes, in order to give patrons a sense that they were taking a short vacation, and to echo the ancient practice of public bathing.48 Attendance at local public baths was an acceptable—even respectable—social

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activity. In fact, some of the Twin Cities’ more notable bathhouses were located in upper-class districts, including two on “Hennepin Boulevard” as it meandered between Franklin Avenue and Lake Street, one that opened onto Lake Calhoun across from the Calhoun Beach Club, and another that rested at the foot of St. Paul’s Cathedral Hill.49 Women and men bathed separately: as late as 1960, the Hennepin Baths offered a “private ladies section,” Turkish, Russian, and Finnish steam baths, a swimming pool, showers, and “massages by experts.” 50 Patronage of public baths declined as larger segments of American society began to expect private bathing on a regular basis.51 From the 1920s to the 1940s, the slow decline of that “respectable use” made the presence of same-sex sexuality increasingly apparent. The Hennepin Baths gradually lost all social respectability and became a den of “tuskers,” that is, older men, and the male prostitutes (“hustlers”) who made a living servicing them.52 During a short trip to the Twin Cities, one visitor to the Hennepin Baths recalled: It was an old bath, and it hadn’t been modernized, ever. It had old-fashioned vaulted ceilings and a steam room, like you would imagine a high-class men’s club to have had around the turn of the century. Too bad some queens didn’t get hold of this place, it could [have been] turned into a campy place with a little imagination. The TV room had about a dozen men in it watching the tube. If you added all of their ages together, it would have totaled at least a thousand. Two old queens sat next to each other on an old sofa, and they were holding hands. “Isn’t that sweet,” I said. “Makes a girl look forward to the golden years, doesn’t it?” . . . They had the most unusual sauna room I’ve ever seen. First off, it was very hot—had it not been for the wooden slatted floor, you would have fried your feet. It was dark in there, and when my eyes adjusted I noticed about 6 steel tables. They looked like massage tables, but had no linen. Just these flat steel tops, with the [temperature] they would have made great grills in a diner. I began to feel a little weird . . . and I started to think, if that door was stuck and I couldn’t get out, I’d eventually bake to death! We found one hustler with acne displaying himself in his open room. We wished him good luck and left post haste.53

Another participant, a married man, remembered the Hennepin Baths as a site of “empty” sexual practice that led to heterosexual bliss: [My wife and I] reached a ho-hum stage after several years and several children. I was sent to a seminar to Minneapolis. Tramping up Hennepin Ave. the first night, looking for some kind of excitement, I noticed one neon sign for Hennepin

Once Minnesota’s tallest building, the Lumber Exchange became part of a mix of urban uses that made Hennepin Avenue one of the liveliest streets in the state. Located in the building’s basement, the Hennepin Baths served the hygiene needs of urban residents for decades until the advent of private bathrooms left the space to the amusement of queer men. Photograph courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

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Baths with a big arrow pointing down some basement steps . . . I sensed it was gay because of the rather extreme appearance of some of the men lounging around. I was excited, tense, and nervous. I asked someone where the steam room was and my voice was tight, my breath quick . . . after a bit everyone trickled away, except for this one young blonde guy. He came and stood in front of me, then slowly reached out and delicately ran the back of his finger nails along the inside of my upper limbs, without touching my genitals. It made my blood leap! I stammered an invitation for him to come to my room . . . I spent every free moment during that seminar at the baths. [Now] that my wife has found out about my bisexuality, we have glorious, refreshing sex life, full of variety, spontaneity, and love, and I find that my homosexual experiences pale by comparison. They were a sexual education, a period of growth, but rather empty and unsatisfying.54

The Hennepin Baths’ gay patronage kept the establishment from closing for just over a decade. After years of neglect, the Lumber Exchange underwent an extensive renovation in 1979, and the Hennepin Baths closed after fifty-four years in business.

Scrawled Messages

Union Bus Depot, St. Paul (ca. 1930s–1958) The relative anonymity of regional, national, and international travel made major transit nodes a venue for sex between men. In particular, sexual activity in Greyhound Bus stations was prevalent in locations that ranged from West Hollywood, California, to Jackson, Mississippi.55 Such sites regularly attracted the attention of undercover vice-squad officers, who actively entrapped men by exhibiting themselves in order to capture other men in the act.56 Interestingly, sex between men was likely only one form of same-sex desire at the American bus depot. In their essay “The Greyhound Bus Station in the Evolution of Lesbian Popular Culture,” Angela Weir and Elizabeth Wilson note that bus stations released men and women from the confines of traditional family life, and that lesbians and gay men were becoming more mobile in the postwar United States.57 St. Paul’s bus terminal opened at the behest of St. Paul’s business leaders, who complained that existing interstate bus service largely terminated at Minneapolis’s Great Northern Depot, and thus unduly favored the western city.58 The Northland Transportation Company, a subsidiary of the Great Northern Railway, operated

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most of Minnesota’s bus service, and in 1926 it appealed to the state for permission to operate buses between the two cities.59 Twin Cities Rapid Transit objected because its trolleys held a monopoly in the intercity transportation business. But the Northland Transportation ultimately won its case and expanded its service to cities across Minnesota.60 Buses from across the state started to roll into the capital, and downtown St. Paul became a multimodal hub of Minnesota transportation. Wedged between an odd but charming intersection of St. Paul’s downtown streets near Rice Park, St. Paul’s Union Bus Depot sat amid a mélange of streetcars, theaters, public buildings, and storefronts. Buses from all over the country deposited traveling men and women at what was also the epicenter of a hidden geography. Within blocks of the new Union Depot sat the Coney Island Restaurant, Kirmser’s Bar, the Golden Rule/Emporium Department Stores, and the Bremer Arcade. The depot was a gateway that brought men from all over the Midwest to Ricardo Brown’s St. Paul, a clandestine underground of sex, friendship, and fear. Furtive sexual activity among men gave rise to alternate methods of communication apart from social norms. Spoken in the language of bathroom graffiti, notso-discreet messages proclaimed sexual preferences and guided intended readers to unadvertised meeting spots. Ricardo J. Brown recalled that the urinals of the St. Paul Greyhound station offered the only publicity for Kirmser’s Bar; scrawled messages such as “69 at Kirmser’s Bar” were cryptic enough to pass all but the most discerning eyes.61 In the mid-1950s, St. Paul’s Union Bus Depot relocated to Ninth Street and St. Peter Street. Its original site was demolished in 1959, and, in Larry Millett’s words, it became home to “a small plaza so crowded with artsy ‘features’ that it doesn’t work well as a place for people.” 62

A Great Hideaway

The Garrick Theater, St. Paul (ca. 1930s–1950) Continuing the tradition of St. Paul’s many opulent theaters, St. Paul’s Grand Opera House began its long run in 1880 with the city’s “leading families” in attendance.63 At the southeast corner of St. Peter and Sixth Street, facing Rice Park, the opera house constituted a bastion of respectability in the once-disreputable prostitution district. Its popularity helped shift the presence of the city’s upper class to Rice Park, but not for long. In 1889, a fire broke out in the theater’s coatroom, and the building’s burned shell appeared to be a complete loss.64

A photograph of the Garrick Theater’s interior, taken from the stage shortly before demolition, shows a multitude of hiding places where men could have sexual encounters with one another. Located near Rice Park, the Coney Island, and Kirmser’s Bar, the former opera house showed second- and third-rate movies before it was replaced by a parking ramp. Photograph by William Bowell; courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

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Instead of demolition, investors renovated and renamed the theater. The Garrick opened in 1905, and showed first-run movies in the 1910s and 1920s, including a talking version of Birth of a Nation.65 Newer movie palaces soon took the Garrick’s business, especially during the Roaring Twenties, and the theater eventually took to showing second- and third-run films for cheap admission. Sexual activity picked up in the era of decline during the 1940s and 1950s, when run-down movie theaters became sites of adventure. The St. Paul Pioneer Press’s movie critic, Bill Diehl, remembered that “they played the very lowest (tier of movies), they played triple features, and you could get in for about 15 cents. It had been a marvelous shell of a theater, and it had little loge seats, just like in an old-time legitimate theater. . . . The joke around town was, you buy a ticket at the Garrick Theater, and you’re never seen from again.” 66 With most of its grandeur faded but still intact, the Garrick’s hideaway was a men’s “lounge” where men in the know approached one another for sexual activity.67 Movie-theater patronage was different from that in other locations, because certain showings and showtimes were likely to attract sizable audiences of single men. Theaters were also prime locations for cruising because their bathrooms were usually occupied when two films were playing at the same time. This was an important fact: men who used them for sex—many of whom were married—risked arrest, violence, robbery, and the loss of livelihoods if they approached the wrong person. The level of danger involved with cruising in the Garrick during this era was very different from similar activities in explicitly gay theaters twenty years later. Despite these risks, sexual activity persisted until the Garrick closed and fell to the wreckers when the city of St. Paul folded the Garrick’s site into the rest of its block for a parking structure in 1950. The Garrick Ramp replaced the building and took the lost theater’s title. But then that structure also fell, in the late 1990s, to prepare for the Lawson Law Office megablock, a site that may (or may not) be bereft of the queer activity that the Garrick once fostered.

Evening Crowds

Kirmser’s Bar, St. Paul (1936–54) Without Ricardo J. Brown, author of The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s, Kirmser’s Bar would have vanished from memory, a fate that many gay and lesbian bars from the early twentieth century have suffered. Brown, a working-class Minnesotan, is frank about “the only place we had” during the vibrant days of downtown St. Paul.

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Wabasha Street in downtown St. Paul between Fifth and Sixth streets. Now the site of the EcoLab corporate campus, the block was once home to a gay destination named Kirmser’s. Presumably located to the left of the “LIQUOR” sign, Kirmser’s catered to working-class men by day and welcomed gay men and lesbians at night. Photograph by the St. Paul Dispatch and Pioneer Press; courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

With only two dirty restrooms, limited seating, and a jukebox, the bar was quietly stuffed into the subdivided first floor of a nineteenth-century commercial structure. Kirmser’s home was similar to many buildings built before strong municipal fire codes: affordable and dangerous, the establishment only had one exit—the front door. From the outside, it was a nondescript tavern on Wabasha Street in the noisy heart of St. Paul’s commercial center. The bar’s no-nonsense proprietors, an older German couple, welcomed their working-class clientele with few frills and a staid ambiance. Straight customers, among them “day laborers, cabdrivers, old clerks, pensioners, railroad men, and a few tough old barflies,” used the front of the establishment during the day,68 and gay and lesbian customers kept to the booths in

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the back. The latter purposely restrained themselves from nonnormative behavior. There were no dance floors full of men dancing together, no same-sex displays of affection, no drag queens. Brown and his pals only congregated after work, and after dark. All patrons dressed in accordance with the gender-specific fashion dictates of the time; men wore loose-fitted slacks and cropped hair, while the “girls” wore makeup and bright red lipstick. Outlandish dress and behavior would have raised suspicions from outsiders, and the display of gender-bending effeminacy or masculinity risked scrutiny that could result in rumors and job loss, in an age when employment was a precious gift. Brown recalled only one instance when the unwritten rules were broken. During the 1946 Winter Carnival, a mere exclamation was enough to upset the tenuous balance that patrons maintained with their hosts: The Edstrom brothers had come in with two other old aunties shortly before closing time, and they positioned themselves in the rear of the place, by the jukebox, to look over the prospects. They were dressed in their usual Saturday night finery, and they were a little giddy with the carnival spirit. Picking the perfect moment when the jukebox was changing records after a rousing “Beer Barrel Polka” by the Andrews Sisters, when there was a lull in the music and the conversation was low, Laverne Edstrom suddenly screeched out his challenge: “I’ll suck any cock in the house!” . . . We watched, breathless, as Mrs. Kirmser, her back arched and her shoulders thrown back, in her usual nunlike black, waddled grimly through the crowd to confront the culprit. She stood there, just inches away from Laverne, one arm on her ample hip, and she raised her other arm right up under Edstrom’s nose to shake a thick forefinger at him. “Tch! Tch!” she scolded. “Sich langwidge.” Then, to our astonishment, she went back about her business, simply walked away and started picking up empty beer bottles from nearby tables.69

Aside from Brown’s memoirs, the bar’s only lasting legacy had little to do with the establishment itself. In the 1940s, the four Knutsen Brothers spent an evening at “Kitty Kirmser’s” devising a social extravaganza on an unprecedented scale. Their meeting led to the creation of the Holiday Club, an organization dubbed “the oldest gay group in the cities” that organized annual drag balls around the Christmas holiday.70 With a curious mixture of straight and gay participants, the brothers’ soirées began a tradition that served as one of the Twin Cities’ major gay social events for

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more than four decades. They functioned as a “pride” event of sorts, before the festival’s beginning in 1972. Pressure from the Internal Revenue Service led the Holiday Club to disband and, according to the memories of “a 76-year-old gentleman” in 1979, the Knutsens attempted to give the organization’s $3,500 holdings to charity.71 No charity would accept the money, so the brothers made a trip to Lund’s grocery, purchased hundreds of grocery baskets, topped with containers of caviar, and gave them to the poor.72

The Old Hangout

The Dugout, Minneapolis (1939–59) From the Depression until the late 1950s, the Dugout served a significant gay clientele, unlike almost all other Minnesota bars of the era. Like the Sourdough Bar on nearby Washington Avenue and Kirmser’s in St. Paul, the Dugout was owned and operated by a married man who permitted a congregation of gay regulars. As its name implied, the bar’s male, working-class patrons were more apt to discuss baseball statistics than anything related to their sexual preferences. It was a popular hangout for veterans of the Second World War who maintained a clandestine community in Minneapolis after returning home.73 Located in the Gateway District, the Dugout’s location, character, and clientele were at odds with the old Hotel Radisson’s Viking Room on posh Seventh Street. The Viking Room was a haven for sexually explicit and effeminate men—“ ‘ribbon clerks,’ fashionable and pretentious faggots who worked for peanuts in Dayton’s department store next door.” 74 The geographic separation between the two bars represented a long-standing divide among queer men, one that separated identities and behaviors according to one’s capacity for “straight acting.” Gender policing was not limited to the men—lesbians may have frequented the Dugout, but their participation was socially and legally restricted. A Minneapolis antiprostitution law prevented women from entering bars without male escorts, thus lesbian couples were forbidden from using bars as sites of socialization outside of the heterosexist structure.75 The Dugout’s address was once part of a respectable building located in the heart of downtown. Built as Harmonia Hall in 1884, the largely forgotten auditorium was home to Minneapolis’s oldest chorus, the German Harmonia Society, precursor of the Minnesota Orchestra.76 Across the corner stood Minneapolis’s beloved

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In this interior view, the married owner of the Dugout Bar (right) poses behind the bar with daytime patrons, ca. 1950. Like other Gateway bars in the 1940s and 1950s, the Dugout attracted gay and bisexual men after dark, and only under strict rules that prohibited gender nonconformity. The Dugout stood across from the fabled Metropolitan Building and suffered a similar fate; it fell to the wreckers in the early 1960s. Nostalgic patrons rummaged for bricks in the rubble and kept them as keepsakes.

Metropolitan Building, a Richardsonian Romanesque pile that was the briefly the city’s tallest structure in the 1890s. The area surrounding Second Avenue South and Third Street was a grid of intersecting streetcar lines, at a time when public transportation was privately run, and its presence attracted business and prestige. Located at the center of it all, Harmonia boasted 195 members, two choirs, instrumental ensembles, and theatrical performances.77 The Society banned consumption of alcohol and tobacco during productions, so as not to distract the audience from talented members’ accomplishments.78

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The building’s distinctive cupola vanished by the 1910s (a fate suffered by many costly Victorian adornments), and the Gateway District’s negative reputation encompassed the intersection during the 1930s. Minneapolis’s German-American population began to integrate with other nationalities in the melting pot, and its second and third generations lost interest in traditional choral music. The Harmonia Society disbanded, and its quirky structure fell into disrepair. Although it was centrally located, the building was outdated and was eventually subdivided for rental by a range of tenants. As it become more affordable, Harmonia opened its doors to businesses that ironically served the very substances that the Society had banned years before. The Dugout called the address its home from 1940 to 1959, until the building fell under the jurisdiction of the Gateway Urban Renewal Project. As the wreckers tore Harmonia apart, the Dugout’s nostalgic patrons purchased loosened bricks as souvenirs.79 The old auditorium’s block languished for two decades as a surface-level parking lot until it was replaced by a low-rise office block in 1979. Today, the Dugout’s address is part of an empty stone plaza for a glass office building.

Always a Tie, Always a Handkerchief The Onyx Bar, Minneapolis (ca. 1938–45)

Located in a former pharmacy at the southern corner of Third Street and Hennepin Avenue, the Onyx was a central watering hole for a generation of Minneapolitans during the 1930s and 1940s.80 Its most notable known regular, Chuck Rowland, first came out to himself in the dingy establishment with his lover, Bob Hull, in 1940. Rowland later moved to Los Angeles and joined Hull, Rudy Gernreich, Harry Hay, and Dale Jennings to form the nation’s “homophile” organization. Initially called the Society of Fools, the group became the Mattachine Society, named after French countrymen who wore masks during protests against their rulers. Mattachine became an international organization with chapters in many major cities (though not in Minnesota), and was largely responsible for the political mobilization of an entire generation of queer men. Its founders became historical figures in their own right. In a 1984 oral history interview with Allan Bérubé, Rowland recalled his life

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before Mattachine, when the Onyx was the center of Minneapolis’s well-dressed gay social scene: It was a ratty old storefront bar. Dirty, smelly, it had wooden booths on both sides. Before the war . . . you didn’t go to gay bars wearing Levis and boots and leather jackets or ratty clothes. You dressed up in your finest. And if you had—green was a very popular color, it was believed by some people to identify homosexuals to each other, and so there were green suits very often, green ties. But I remember how everyone would dress to go out and cruise the bars. Always a tie, always a handkerchief to put in the front pocket. A lot of jewelry if one had jewelry. Even this ratty storefront . . . was very much a dress-up place. Asked if the bar changed during the war, he replied, “Well, of course there were more uniforms, but the same people seemed to go there! I remember one night, a pretty good friend of mine . . . had a very low draft number and was drafted very, very early, and he got into the cavalry [which still included horses] and he came into the bar one night. I didn’t know he was in town; he was assigned out in . . . the wilds of Kansas out there. And I thought he—I knew him and I thought he was good-looking, not devastatingly good-looking, but nice-looking. He walked into the bar this night, I remember, with his boots and his spurs and his cavalry hat and the whole god-damned outfit and the braid. And he was beautifully tanned, of course, because he’s been out—and he just—everything stopped dead cold! As he walked in, I was sitting at—sort of the end of the bar and he walked right up to me . . . what a sensation he created. I hadn’t been in Minneapolis for, like, a year and a half, but it seemed to be the same people . . . there were a number of University professors who would frequent the bar, and I had a lot of friends who were musicians, pianists, and organists and that sort of thing. And they would be at the bar . . . some were close friends, and some were just nodding acquaintances.81

The Onyx closed in the late 1940s, and its site became a part of the Minneapolis Central Library in the 1960s. Were it not for Bérubé, the bar would have vanished from memory entirely.

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Toilets Big Enough to Stand In

The Bremer Arcade, St. Paul (ca. 1940s–1998) An anchor in downtown St. Paul for 112 years, the Bremer Arcade was part of the capital city’s bustling downtown core. It shared the intersection of Robert and Seventh Streets with three department stores (including the Golden Rule and Emporium department stores) and the Ryan Building, which adjoined the Ryan Hotel—St. Paul’s grandest accommodation. Renamed in honor of Otto Bremer, a community banker who later founded one of St. Paul’s strongest philanthropic organizations, the arcade was an example of what was once a common component of American urban life. Shopping arcades were precursors to contemporary shopping malls: the buildings offered several stories of professional offices, cafés, haberdashers, tailors, hairdressers, cigar stores, and doctors’ offices.82 The Twin Cities’ other notable buildings of this type are the Endicott Building (designed by Cass Gilbert, architect of the Minnesota State Capitol), and the (demolished) Loeb Arcade in Minneapolis. The Bremer Arcade’s facade included Greek ornamental patterns and wide windows that looked out onto the street. Within, the building provided all the necessary conditions for sexual activity among men. Like the neighboring department stores, the arcade was open most of the day, it was a place of constant patron turnover, and it provided a small space for men in the know to meet clandestinely. The intersecting streets constituted a main crossroads of St. Paul’s busiest streetcar lines—Seventh supported the Fort Snelling–Maria, Randolph–Hazel Park, St. Clair–Payne, and Dale–Phalen lines, while Robert was used by the St. Paul–Minneapolis, Como–Hopkins–Harriet, and Rice–South St. Paul lines.83 As a result, the intersection was a meeting place for populations that came to downtown from all corners of the city. Like the Gateway in Minneapolis, the intersection of Seventh and Robert was a cultural watering hole of class, race, and sexual experience. Ricardo J. Brown recalls the Bremer Arcade as a part of St. Paul’s sexual underground. He describes his “territory” as “some of the toilets of St. Paul,” including “the second-floor toilet in the Bremer Arcade across the street [from the Golden Rule], its massive, old, porcelain, floor-length urinals big enough to stand in.” 84 The building’s plumbing fixtures added an element of ease to downtown cruising. Without the partitions that typically accompany more contemporary and smaller urinals, men used the arcade’s spacious facilities to exhibit themselves freely. Otto Bremer’s arcade outlasted the trolley lines, the department stores, the

Shown here in 1917, the Bremer Arcade was one of St. Paul’s many shopping destinations. Downtown shopping arcades began to lose customers when the rise of suburban shopping malls drew customers away from the urban core in the 1950s. As neglect set in, men used the men’s restrooms for sexual activity. Photograph by Charles P. Gibson; courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

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hotels, even a segment of Seventh Street itself, and retained its healthy pedestrian traffic for most of the twentieth century. But in 1992 the structure faced an opponent that represented decades of changing shopping habits: the suburban Mall of America became the largest enclosed shopping mall in the world. The competition from the “Mega Mall” and other newer shopping centers effectively sealed the charming old building’s fate. In 1997, the city of St. Paul demolished the Bremer Arcade to make way for the Minnesota Mutual Life Insurance Company’s thirteenstory headquarters.85 Although charming in its own right, the replacement lacks the commercial activity that its predecessor fostered for more than a century.

Many Voices in Many Rooms

The Gay 90’s Complex, Minneapolis (since 1957) Minneapolis’s most visible symbol of queer life is also one of downtown’s most noteworthy survivors. The Gay 90’s was once a nondescript building at the edge of the Gateway District that barely survived the federal urban renewal efforts of the early 1960s. For half a century, the structure was home to a slew of commercial operations, including an establishment that hides one of the Gateway’s darkest memories. The Casablanca Lounge at 408 Hennepin Avenue used a star-encrusted storefront that “borrowed” its cursive text from the famous Bergman and Bogart film. In the 1940s, the dive catered to transient men and adventurous urban “slummers.” The bar’s wild times turned sour one early July morning in 1945, when a labor organizer named Albert Schneider got into a barroom brawl with another patron.86 Schneider died at the scene after a fatal gunshot wound to the head, and his alleged murderer escaped to Mexico.87 The assailant eventually walked free after briefly facing trial, but the horrible night did little to sully the Casablanca’s reputation, which was bad to begin with. Fourth Street marked the southern boundary of the Gateway Urban Renewal Area; almost everything between the river and Fourth was demolished, while selected buildings along the south side of the street survived. Bars that served gay and lesbian clientele in the old district were forced to close after decades of operation, and a new group of people got in on the lucrative business. Business partners Allen “Al” Cohen and Richard “Dick” Gold purchased the Happy Hour Bar in 1957, and gay patronage relocated to the new site almost immediately.88 The Happy Hour

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The Casablanca, shown here in 1945, was one of many jazz joints in the Gateway District. Built in the 1920s, the Casablanca’s building soon became home to a slew of bars. The Happy Hour, one of Minnesota’s oldest extant gay bars, opened to the left of this space in 1956. Photograph by the Minneapolis Star Journal; courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

began as an isolated address with potentially hazardous tenants; gay and bisexual men took great care to avoid the attention of the building’s other patrons, including customers of the Gay 90’s.89 At the time, “The 90’s” was a “straight” restaurant whose name did not imply queerness; it referred to a long-popular nickname for the 1890s—a nostalgically “happy” period of economic growth in America. The 90’s began to take its current shape during the disco craze when the former

The Gay 90’s opened as a strip club for heterosexual men in the 1960s. Patrons of the Happy Hour, a gay bar, avoided walking in front of “The 90’s” during this time, fearing that a coworker or family member would discover their secret. The Happy Hour expanded into the Gay 90’s during the disco craze and became the Happy Hour/Gay 90’s complex in 1976. Photograph by Norton & Peel; courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

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restaurant/lounge was “renovated” (perhaps a generous term) and turned into a disco in 1976.90 Cohen and Gold sold the Happy Hour/Gay 90’s to Mort Bloom in 1979 for one million dollars, and a younger crowd of men began to patronize the new dance club.91 The Bloom family took ownership of the entire building and immediately set about expanding the establishment, with hopes of setting up a piano bar and French café. Although he was inexperienced in gay bar ownership—the French café idea never came to fruition—Bloom had high hopes as well as respect for his patrons: “When I came in here, I didn’t know nothing about gays or anything like that. I loved it here. There’s never any hassles. I’m not afraid to take my wife or anybody else here, and I’m proud to be an owner. We are a part of this gay community now.” 92 The disjointed growth and interior development of the Gay 90’s led the building to become a cohesive complex of distinct gay bars. Especially during the 1980s and 1990s, the complex became a patchwork collection of spaces that appealed to subgroups within the queer community. Some of the bars include the original Happy Hour Bar—which assumed the unfortunate title of “the wrinkle room,” because of its older clientele; the Gay 90’s “Theatre Café”; several dance annexes that played specific music genres; a reincarnated Casablanca show lounge; the Blue Angel Bar—for the “Leather/Levi” set; and Gasm, another leather bar. The complex also hosted meetings and acted as a sort of shopping arcade that included Goliath’s Leather Emporium. The retail mall was one of several impermanent ideas that included the “90’s Choice” beer brand—a micro-brewed house beer that donated ten cents per case to HIV/AIDS-related charities in the early 1990s.93 Although mostly unsuccessful, the experiments indicated early ideas that stretched the boundaries of the traditional marketplace. With terra-cotta ornamentation, a prime location, and a rich history, the Gay 90’s complex is a landmark that represents the Gateway District’s lasting legacy for the city of Minneapolis and its queer community. Unfortunately, the building’s affordability, which led to the Happy Hour’s establishment in 1957, did not help the structure’s historical integrity as time passed. Decades of cheap renovations created a mazelike and cloistered interior, and plywood boards replaced the building’s original windows. New owners purchased the complex in 2008 with promises for extensive renovations.94

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Porn as Power

Directory Services, Incorporated, Minneapolis (1967) Conrad Germain and Lloyd Spiner began Directory Services, Incorporated (DSI) near the end of an era when distributing illicit sexual material was a dangerous business. Almost a century earlier, in 1873, the antiobscenity activist Arthur Comstock, a United States postal inspector and founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, had successfully convinced Congress to pass the Comstock Act. The act banned the shipment of “immoral” materials through the postal service; at the time, this included contraceptives, information about abortion, nude illustrations, and, of course, pornography. A host of states followed suit with additional regulations, which became collectively known as the Comstock Laws.95 Perhaps unintentionally, the Comstock Laws vaguely defined the boundaries between illicit material and acceptably risqué art. The laws codified obscenity according to the materials involved in each case, varying from those with “dominant theme of the material [that] taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest,” to those “utterly without redeeming social importance” to an “average person, applying contemporary community standards.” 96 Enforcement of the laws was exceedingly difficult to predict; a vast amount of innocuous material could be considered “obscene”—including store mannequins left “naked” for a brief period—and many producers ran the risk of prosecution if they published material that did not meet the standards of an invisible postal arbiter.97 Publishers, particularly of homosexual material, learned tricks that toed the line between permission and prosecution; magazines came in misleading packages that featured “bodybuilding” themes or “girlie” covers to throw off inspectors. Such tricks ultimately failed as postal inspectors got wise to new tactics. But by the late 1960s, challenges to the Comstock Laws mounted. In the days of an awakening sexual consciousness, people wanted porn, and they were willing to fight for it. In 1967, DSI brought Minneapolis to the forefront of the obscenity fight when the federal government sued DSI for violation of the Comstock Act, and DSI fought back. Thomas Waugh, author of Hard to Imagine: Gay Make Eroticism in Photography and Film from Their Beginnings to Stonewall, notes that DSI was an energetic supplier of many magazines—including Male Nude Portfolio, Tiger, Butch, Vagabond, and Galerie—as well as stills, movies, books, and other merchandise. Waugh notes that the company’s proprietors “resolved to fight with every resource at our command this attempt by the Federal Government to suppress our

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Unlike other publications that hid images of nude men behind covers of scantily clad women, Butch and other DSI titles published images of naked men on front and back covers. Many titles did disguise their intended pornographic purpose behind the auspice of more “reputable” interests, such as bodybuilding or photography. Butch blurred the line between art and obscenity as defined by the Comstock Act, and DSI was prosecuted by the federal government in 1967.

magazines—not only for ourselves, but for those others, less able to defend themselves, who also suffer intimidation, and coercion at the hands of bigots, the censors, the enemies of freedom, who are forever attempting to reshape society—by fair means or foul—into their own twisted image of what it should be.” 98 DSI worked with the Mattachine Society to form a group of expert witnesses that countered the prosecution’s panel of critics and blackmailed homosexuals, which argued that the publications in question were of no artistic value and thus devoid of cultural merit.99 The judge acquitted DSI of all twenty-nine counts, spared its owner from a potential sentence of 145 years in prison, and set in motion the repeal of antiobscenity laws. He ruled: “The right of minorities expressed individually in sexual groups or otherwise must be respected. With increasing research and study we will in the future come to a better understanding of ourselves, sexual

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deviants, and others.” 100 DSI moved to Burbank, California, in 1970 and continued to produce material for the rest of the decade.

“Can You Believe That a Reverend Would Attack Me?” The Hotel Andrews, Minneapolis (September 11, 1976)

Even in its heyday, the Hotel Andrews could not compete with the size of the Nicollet Hotel, the grandeur of the Radisson, nor the appeal of the Curtis and the Leamington hotels, which hosted large conventions. The Andrews’s niche as an affordable alternative made it the go-to option for cost-conscious businessmen, budget tourists, and small-scale meetings for trade groups. At the edge of the Gateway District (and like the Gay 90’s across Hennepin), it was spared from an urban renewal program that demolished entire blocks across Fourth Street. Like its neighbor, the Lumber Exchange, the ten-story Andrews was a behemoth, and its sheer size may have challenged demolition plans that predominantly involved low-rise structures that could be cleared easily. The Gateway’s demise affected business at the hotel; many of the area’s displaced indigents simply moved to available buildings on or near Hennepin Avenue.101 A number of changes downtown—namely, the grand opening of the Sheraton-Ritz in 1963 and a severe reduction of service at the Great Northern Depot—reduced middle-class patronage of the Andrews. The hotel’s reputation slid, the building declined, and a “disreputable” crowd moved in. On September 11, 1976, Father James Kirpatrick of Center, Texas, attended a church conference in Minneapolis. After taking in the sights by car, the Episcopalian priest spotted a teenager on the street and invited the young man to join him. The youth, Daniel Lee Moe, had been smoking hashish. Moe and Father Kirpatrick drove to the Andrews, and the two made their way to the priest’s room. They got into a heated argument in the early morning hours, and the hustler stabbed Kirpatrick a dozen times with a knife. When police arrived at the scene at 4:45 A.M., they found the priest’s body and arrested Moe. In its article, the Minneapolis Star neglects to mention that sexual favors were likely involved; Integrity, the Gay Episcopal Forum, cited a criminal complaint against Moe, who allegedly told officers that “[Kirpatrick] picked me up, man; he wanted sex, man; and he started stabbing me.” 102 The seventeen-year-old also exclaimed to a friend at the scene, “Can you believe that a Reverend would attack me?” 103

Late in its eighty-year life, the Hotel Andrews became part of a new queer epicenter that appeared after the demise of the Gateway District. Close to the Happy Hour/Gay 90’s, the Copper Squirrel, the Sandbox, Club Cabaret, and other gay bars, the Andrews was a lasting relic that sat at the very edge of the old Gateway before it was imploded in 1984. Photograph by Norton & Peel; courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

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In January 1977, Moe pleaded guilty to murder in the third degree.104 At his trial, he again claimed that Kirpatrick used the knife against him first. The judge ignored his claims and sentenced him to twenty years in the state reformatory in St. Cloud. The Kirpatrick murder came at the worst possible time for the Andrews. Already contending with a negative reputation as one of Hennepin Avenue’s “fleabag” hotels, the building had become a dilapidated eyesore that was now saddled with a reputation for danger. Downtown Minneapolis was in the midst of a second wave of urban renewal that claimed other hotels of the same vintage: in 1973, the Hotel Sheridan at Eleventh and Marquette Avenue fell to make way for Orchestra Hall,105 while the Dyckman was imploded in 1979 and replaced by City Center.106 And in 1982 the Radisson—arguably the grandest of them all—fell in preparation for a larger and more modern replacement.107 The Andrews, strangely, outlived most of its competitors, but eventually it was also imploded, along with a small structure wedged between the hotel and the Lumber Exchange, which once housed the Copper Squirrel, a short-lived strip club.108 At present the site is a parking lot.

The Palace Dive

The Brass Rail, Minneapolis (since 1973) The Brass Rail at 422 Hennepin Avenue is one of the last buildings of its kind in downtown Minneapolis. Built in 1901, the leaning four-story structure dates to the heyday of “Bridge Square,” a riverside district named after the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.109 Initially, the structure was part of a building row that bookended the property of millionaire Levi M. Stewart, an “eccentric recluse” who lived his life as a bachelor in a pioneer home that he built in the mid-nineteenth century.110 Despite the meteoric rise of the property’s value, Stewart refused to demolish his simple frame dwelling and sell his quarter of the Brass Rail’s block. For decades, Stewart’s residence forced Minneapolis to grow around the parcel of land, and buildings with Hennepin facades were forced to wedge themselves in to make use of limited space. Stewart’s land was sold to developers after his death in 1910. His home vanished, replaced by the Palace Theater and, later, by the Gay 90’s building. The latter structure opened in 1922 as a burlesque house with “Brass Rail Lunch” on the street level.111 Built in the heyday of vaudeville, the Palace helped solidify Hennepin Avenue as the main street of Minneapolis’s entertainment district. Success

Pictured in 1929, The Palace Theater housed a lunch counter named “Brass Rail Lunch.” The lunch counter moved 100 feet down the street in the 1930s, became a gay bar in the 1970s, and remains as one of the last survivors of the Gateway District. Photograph by Norton & Peel, courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

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was not always a sure thing for the city’s new theaters, however; elaborate venues like the State, the Pantages, the Uptown, and the Palace included general commercial space to ensure that there was some kind of financial return during the nonperformance hours. The lunch counter’s simple name referred, unsurprisingly, to its brass foot rails, a common addition to old-fashioned bars that added a touch of class and respectability. Countless establishments across the United States have shared the name. The Brass Rail moved a few buildings south—to its present location—during the Great Depression. City directories show that the bar retained its name despite changes in ownership over the next forty years. Like the Town House bar in St. Paul, the Brass Rail changed into a gay bar when business slowed in the early 1970s. Sam Sampson, a former bartender, recalled that local bus schedules were a deciding factor in the change: The city of Minneapolis changed the buses to stop every other block. And it used to be, when the bus stopped right in front of [the Brass Rail] they would grab a drink on their way home before they hopped on the bus, so then they’d say they missed the bus or something. The Brass Rail, their big deal was the giant doubles, they had double shot glasses. And the ice machine only made those big ice cubes, so they’d put in three ice cubes and then pour. People thought they were getting a double shot, or they accepted it for what it was. Beer was a quarter . . . and it was amazing, I’d open up on Saturday mornings and there’d be people lining up to come in and have a beer at nine o’clock. But anyway, when the bus moved to the other stop, the business died down, but the [Gay] 90’s and the Happy Hour were still going great. So Peter Kosmas, the owner of the Brass Rail, decided it was going to turn into a gay bar. Previously, they had Bill the bartender . . . who was like an authority on World War II. And so all these guys that worked in the Warehouse District would come and argue about World War II . . . and he knew the generals, and he knew the battles, and he knew all this other stuff . . . when they had to catch their bus on a different block, they just didn’t come in. It was a long bar . . . with a brass rail, and Pong [one of the earliest arcade games], they put Pong in while I was bartending, and “Tie a Yellow Ribbon around the Old Oak Tree,” that country western song, played constantly. But one weekend, Peter Cosmos changed it so the bar was in the front, and in the back he put a grand piano, and so then it was a gay bar.112

The piano and the changes in local bus schedules turned the Brass Rail into a

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successful option for nightlife at a time when disco ruled most of the dance scene. It gained a reputation as “a small bar, friendly, kind of a queer Cheers” after two decades of operation.113 During that time, few interior renovations turned “The Rail” into a lone survivor of the Twin Cities’ gay dive bars. Drag shows, karaoke, and regulars kept the bar afloat during the 1990s, but the bar’s unassuming atmosphere fell victim to the owner’s gentrifying ambitions in the 2000s. An extensive renovation eliminated the bar’s “grungy bathrooms,” and rebuilt the space to appear more sophisticated.114 Thecolu.mn, a queer Minnesota online news blog, posted a story about this renovation in 2009, and former regulars of the bar commented on the story with disgust. “I hope your classist, chocolate martini serving, bullshit bar closes,” wrote one dissatisfied customer. “And, hopefully, in its place, a new dive bar can open up, where people aren’t judged on their race, class, or clothing, but rather by their ability to smile and chat with their neighbor.” 115 Another respondent suggested that the change was indicative of a larger queer societal change: “The old Brass Rail was a working class gem now replaced by something that looks like the bathroom of a shitty Las Vegas hotel. This is steeped in a homonormativity which reflects the delusional desires of Midwest gays to create some sort of narrative of ‘arriving.’ ” Mocking those who like the change, the commenter added, “ ‘Isn’t it great we don’t need those dive bars? That is something of the past, now we can have cute upscale bars.’ ”  116 The renovation of the Brass Rail suggests that the very last remnant of the old Gateway has finally vanished—both physically and figuratively. For many decades after the District’s demolition, queer bars were the last architectural vestiges of a lost urban neighborhood; within these spaces, people interacted with one another in a comfortable, if secluded, way that crossed the boundaries of class, race, and gender.

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Act Up Here A Legacy of Activism On July 17, 1974, the seven-member St. Paul City Council extended human rights protections in employment, housing, public services, and accommodation to include cases of sexual preference. Writing in the midst of the Watergate scandal, the St. Paul Pioneer Press dedicated one-quarter of the paper’s fifteenth page to the story. Councilman John Christensen, who sponsored the gay rights ordinance, responded to the objections of religious leaders who argued against it for more than an hour.1 “I’ve heard a lot of religion and morality this morning,” he said, “but we have a constitutional question here I’d like to get into.” Citing the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law, he added: “It is my opinion that not to offer protection of this ordinance when it is asked for by citizens who feel oppressed is to selectively take away rights and may be an unconstitutional act.” 2 The ordinance was a plank in the Democratic-FarmerLabor (DFL) Party platform that year, and it passed 5 to 1 without scandal and with little evidence of intrigue.3 Barely a month after Minneapolis enacted its own human rights ordinance, St. Paul became the second city in Minnesota to legalize gay rights, and one of the first in the nation. Three years and three months later, a jubilant Anita Bryant sat with her husband in Des Moines, Iowa, before a slew of news reporters, clicking cameras, and broadcasting equipment. The face of the “Save Our Children” campaign planned to attend a religious conference, but she paused to briefly discuss her recent victory against a similar ordinance in Florida’s Dade County—home to the city of Miami. With Bryant’s help, Florida voters overturned the measure by 69 percent to 31 percent.4 As she had said in the past, Bryant assured the media that her efforts came from Christian love—not, as many gay rights activists claimed, because she was filled with fear and hatred of something she did not understand.

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“If we were going to go on a crusade across the nation to try and do away with the homosexuals,” she said as news cameras rolled, “then we certainly would’ve done it on June the 8th after one of the most . . . overwhelming victories in the country. Um, but we didn’t, we tried to avoid it, and went into a place called Norfolk, Virginia, and we met with protests and all kinds of problems, and every—” 5 As she spoke, a shadow crept across the singer’s face and—before she could stop talking—a hand suddenly pushed a banana cream pie into her face. A chorus of shocked “Ohs!” erupted from the journalists, the cameras began snapping furiously, and Bryant covered her face with her hands. “Well, at least it’s a fruit pie,” she said, wiping the dessert from her eyes. Her husband, Bob Green, was serious: “Let’s pray for him right now. Anita? Anita, why don’t you pray? It’s alright.” As her husband put his arm around her shoulders, she did just that. “Father,” she began as whipped cream dripped down, “we want to thank you for the opportunity of coming to Des Moines. I want to ask that you forgive him, and that we love him, and that we’re praying for him,” her voice trembled, “to be delivered from his deviant lifestyle, Father. And I just . . .” But, before she could continue, she broke into sobs. Thrust by Thom Higgins, a young activist who drove from Minneapolis to give Bryant her “present,” the banana cream pie became a symbolic turning point in the national struggle for gay and lesbian rights. During the decade that led up to that fateful day, Minnesota had developed an underground reputation as a national center of gay activism. The pie incident wasn’t the first to propel Minnesota activists into the center of the national spotlight. Seven years earlier, Jack Baker and Michael McConnell made headlines when they became the first same-sex couple in the United States to apply for a marriage license. In the years that followed, activists such as Tim Campbell, Brian Coyle, Janet Dahlem, Steve Endean, and Karen Thompson each left their mark on the local political landscape, while such organizations as the Lesbian Feminist Organizing Committee (LFOC), the Minnesota Committee for Gay Rights, the Minnesota Family Research Council, ACT-UP Minnesota, the Bisexual Organizing Project, and the Twin Cities Trans March took action and countered the myth of a complacent “Minnesota Nice.” Often, the actions of local activists had serious political ramifications. On May 22, 1977, the Minneapolis Tribune carried a front-page article announcing a visit by the notorious celebrity: “Anita Bryant, the focal point of a national crusade against gay rights legislation, came to Minneapolis Saturday. She came to help open a fruit plant.” Located in a southeast Minneapolis industrial park, the Bergin Wholesale

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Organized to “welcome” Anita Bryant to Minneapolis in 1977, National Fruit Day demonstrated the retaliatory impact of antigay rhetoric. Attended by hundreds, the rally was one of the largest ever held by gay and lesbian Minnesotans at the time. This bumper sticker refers to Bryant’s work as a spokesperson for the Florida Citrus Commission, which ended after her efforts to repeal gay rights backfired on her.

Fruit Company at 747 Kasota Avenue SE sat in the middle of an isolated railroad frontage street that stretched for more than a mile without interruption. Bryant, the spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission, arrived to promote the new factory with a few songs. Concerning Bryant’s use of the word fruit to identify gay men and lesbians, the paper quoted her husband, Bob Green: “ ‘We try not to use any slang words like that,’ was all the singer’s husband would say about the word problem. ‘Oh, we used to joke about this stuff, but there’s really nothing funny about being gay.’ ” The paper added: “The Twin Cities gay community did not share Bryant’s compunctions about the word and declared yesterday ‘National Fruit Day.’ ” 6 Organizers of National Fruit Day took advantage of the long road and lined it with more than 750 protesters who “welcomed” Bryant and her entourage to Minneapolis.7 “We are a visible sign of our self-respect,” wrote the National Fruit Day’s organizing committee, which included Karen Clark and Terry Couch with the LFOC; Tim Campbell, the future editor of the GLC Voice; the Rev. Joan Johnson of the Metropolitan Community Church; Steven Endean, and others working with the Minnesota Committee for Gay Rights. “We protest the use of false patriotism, distorted religious argument, irresponsible emotionalism, and the unethical use of Vitamin C that Anita Bryant represents.” 8 The Minneapolis police were on the scene to keep peace between the gay activists and a smaller number of Bryant supporters: officers only intervened when a

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young man attempted to give Bryant a bag of rotting grapefruits. Possibly unaware of her husband’s earlier comments, the singer reacted by muttering “Bitter Fruit. Bitter Fruit” under her breath.9 This chapter focuses on activist organizations and moments of protest that reflect the historic diversity of Minnesota’s queer political landscape. While the marriage of Jack Baker and Michael McConnell put Minnesota on the map, National Fruit Day exposed antigay vitriol and prompted a display of political power that had never been seen before in the state. Just a few months later, the sad fate of St. Paul’s 1974 ordinance suggested that the fight would not be easy; substantial gains of queer activism would be met with an equally aggressive counterforce for decades. Local politics, much like national politics, follows a cycle of progress and retreat. Progress can mean many things, including uninterrupted protest marches, political representation, and favorable court rulings. Retreat can entail organizational dysfunction, unfavorable voter referendums, and, at the time of writing this book, possible restrictive marriage definition amendments to state constitutions. From the antics of National Fruit Day to the intricate work of OutFront Minesota, local political struggles suggest the dreams and highlight the realities of thousands in the state.

Origins of Love

Jack Baker and Michael McConnell's Marriage License (1970–72) Fresh from his work with the group Fight Repression of Erotic Expression, an aspiring law student named Jack Baker and his lover, a librarian named Michael McConnell, stood in line at Minneapolis city hall and did the unthinkable. With promising careers before them and the push of nascent gay liberation behind, the two twenty-eight-year olds filled out the requisite form, paid ten dollars, and applied for a marriage license. It was May 18, 1970.10 Undoubtedly anticipating what in fact happened, the two men’s act—submitting the first same-sex marriage application in U.S. history—was rejected by the acting clerk of court, Gerald R. Nelson, who declared that he had “no intention of issuing a marriage license” to the pair.11 As a public servant, Nelson was representing his superiors in local government. He was following the advice of George Scott, the Hennepin County Attorney, who opined that same-sex marriage would precipitate nothing less than “an undermining and destruction of our entire legal concept

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Michael McConnell (left) and Jack Baker became the first gay couple to file for a marriage license in the United States on May 18, 1970. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled against their union, and established a state precedent against the legalization of gay marriage. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case “for want of a federal question.” Photograph by R. Bertrand Heine; courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

of family structure in all areas of law.” 12 Determined to extract an official legal ruling, the men brought an action before Judge Stanley Kane, who also denied their application and ruled that their interpretation of marriage law could not be considered “in isolation from other laws governing the marriage relationship,” which explicitly denoted marriage as the exclusive domain of heterosexual partnerships.13 It was the early days for gay organizing in Minnesota. The Baker/McConnell marriage application threatened to shatter the small gains that local leaders had tenuously built. The audacious demonstration politicized an institution that many leaders in the gay community considered off-limits. At the time, Allan Spear, a closeted gay historian at the University of Minnesota, rejected the application as the behavior of a “lunatic fringe,” and Steven Endean—who was slowly building the Minnesota Committee for Gay Rights—also distanced himself from the radical couple.14 Sodomy was still a punishable criminal act at the time, and the American Psychological Association still considered homosexuality a disorder worthy of

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classification in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Little published research and few voices supported gay men and lesbians in the first place. Sanctioning these relationships with the same privileges as opposite-sex couples would also require an extensive overhaul of Minnesota law. Baker and McConnell had no chance of success from the very beginning of their struggle. Indeed, they experienced a backlash. After applying for a position at the University of Minnesota Libraries in April and being hired as a cataloger at its St. Paul Campus, Michael McConnell lost his job before it even began. He promptly brought a lawsuit against the university after the institution’s Regents decided to deny his application “on the ground that his personal conduct, as represented in the public and University news media, is not consistent with the best interest of the University.” 15 According to an abstract of the case, “McConnell’s complaint alleged that he was offered the division head appointment in April 1970; that he accepted the offer in May 1970, but that the offer was withdrawn, pursuant to the foregoing resolution, after he and another male publicly applied for a marriage license at the Hennepin County, Minnesota Clerk’s office.” 16 McConnell won his discrimination case against the university, which proved to be a more significant—if less groundbreaking—legal struggle than his fight for same-sex marriage. After Hennepin County rejected their application, the two men went to Blue Earth County, where their marriage application was accepted shortly before the two had a small religious ceremony. Because their marriage was still ruled invalid in the state of Minnesota, the newlyweds appealed the decision of a lower court. With the help of the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union, they attempted to bring their case before the Minnesota Supreme Court, but it was dismissed in 1971. In 1972, almost twenty-five years before Bob Barr introduced the controversial Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the United States House of Representatives—an act eventually signed by President Bill Clinton—the United States Supreme Court rejected the appeal by Baker and McConnell on the grounds that it found a “want of a substantial federal question.” 17

Barriers Crossed

Allan Spear (1972–2000) Born in 1937, Allan Spear started his political career as a state senator during a Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) election sweep that took the State Senate and

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For more than two decades, Allan Spear and Karen Clark worked together in the Minnesota Legislature to ensure passage of equal rights legislation. Their efforts, and the work of their campaign volunteers, propelled Minnesota to the forefront of national LGBTQ activism. Advertisement from the 1994 Twin Cities Pride Guide.

House of Representatives in 1972; it was the first time in more than a century that a liberal political alliance had gained control of the state legislature. Under Governor Wendell Anderson, also a Democrat, Spear joined the legislature as it “passed Minnesota’s first minimum wage law, provided increased benefits and coverage under the workers’ and unemployment compensation systems, and gave public employees the right to strike.” 18 In his memoirs, Spear notes, “We made the income tax more progressive and created an income-adjusted property tax, popularly known as the circuit-breaker, to provide relief for low- and middle-income people. . . . We passed several bills dear to the hearts of my student constituents [at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis]: lowering the age of legal majority to eighteen, creating a student regent at the University of Minnesota, and decriminalizing the possession of a small amount of marijuana.” 19 Despite the relative dominance of Democrats in Minnesota government during the period, Spear notes that his reputation as “a wild-eyed radical from the university community” prevented him from authoring any bills. “The fear was that

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my name as the chief author of a bill would immediately stigmatize it as a crazy, irresponsible proposal and make it more difficult to pass,” he remembers. “It would take me a number of years to overcome this image and become a truly effective legislator.” 20 The transformation of Spear’s image began with a pioneering moment in American political history. In a move that attracted national attention, the state senator sat down with the Minneapolis Star on December 9, 1974, and announced that he was gay. The interview made Spear one of the first public officials to come out openly; he credited a similar revelation by Elaine Noble, a Massachusetts state representative who came out before she was elected in 1974, as his inspiration. “Everyone around the Capitol and the politically active people knew it anyway,” he told the Advocate. “I wanted to stop the tittering. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Nobody should have to talk about it on back stairways.” 21 Spear’s public admission allowed him to openly work on issues that he had previously supported quietly as an insider. With Steve Endean and others, he formed the Minnesota Committee for Gay Rights (MCGR), became the organization’s chair in 1974, and helped organize the 1974 Minnesota Conference on Gay Rights, which was attended by both local organizations and the National Gay Task Force. The same year, Spear and others with the MCGR attempted to pass an ill-fated human rights ordinance in the Minnesota legislature. Asked by the Advocate in 1975 why “an age-old rift in the Twin Cities gay community has been credited partly with the bill’s defeat,” he replied: “You don’t achieve legal change simply by confrontation. You have to work with the people who are going to decide whether that change comes about or not.” 22 After more than two decades of debate, Minnesota lawmakers added LGBT rights to Minnesota law. First proposed in 1972, the 1993 amendment to the Minnesota Human Rights Act extends basic protections in housing, employment, and health services to Minnesotans regardless of affectation preference or gender identity. During those two decades, Allan Spear built a reputation as a charismatic team player and formidable opponent; in 1993, he became president of the Minnesota Senate, and that same year Minnesota’s equal rights amendment crowned a generation’s worth of struggle for political rights. Having served twenty-eight years, Spear retired from political life in 2000 and spent the last eight years of his life with his longtime partner, Junjiro Tsuji.

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Not So Soft Cells

The Lesbian Feminist Organizing Committee (1975–81) In the mid-1970s, a young nurse and neighborhood activist named Karen Clark attended the Sagaris Institute in Vermont. Organized and attended by the likes of Blanche Boyd, Rita Mae Brown, Charlotte Bunch, Joan Peters, and Marilyn Salzman Webb, Sagaris was a months-long summer institute that sponsors hoped would become an influential lesbian feminist think tank.23 By the event’s second annual meeting, infighting, paranoia, and the understandable fear of FBI infiltration had undermined the Institute’s potential. It collapsed, and everyone went home.24 Undeterred by Sagaris’s failure, Karen Clark returned to her native Minneapolis and promptly created a forum for women to discuss the intersections of class, race, feminism, and sexuality in Minnesota.25 The Lesbian Feminist Organizing Committee (LFOC) emerged from those discussions; it embodied Clark’s ambition to mobilize a generation of women for neighborhood action. The collective of activists introduced its “Principles of Unity” by stating, “because we as lesbians are an oppressed minority—and because we believe it is impossible for any oppressed people to be integrated into the present social structures in any manner where all have equal access to power and resources, we are working for the destruction of patriarchy, and for the development of a system in which there is equitable distribution of power.” 26 Key to the realization of these principles was Clark’s innovative neighborhood organizing strategy. “Throughout 1979,” Tim Campbell, the editor of the GLC Voice, explained, “Clark was busy organizing lesbians in south Minneapolis into ‘cells’ so that they could become mobilized if the occasion presented itself.” Since their implementation in 1977, the LFOC’s cells gave lesbian feminists an opportunity to organize themselves and used local neighborhood newspapers as a means of advertising.27 Each cell responded to the direction of the “mother organization,” a collective that published the LFOC monthly newsletter and provided free workshops to future cell leaders. But each cell remained essentially autonomous and functioned independently. Using traditional communication networks, the cells attracted women from a variety of backgrounds as they grew size and number. From a band of apartment radicals in Minneapolis’s tiny and densely populated Stevens Square neighborhood to “Out-State Lesbians United,” an organization of lesbians who lived in Greater Minnesota, the LFOC became one of the best-organized lesbian collectives in the country.

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“Life in the hinterlands definitely has its gratifications,” wrote “Linn” in a letter to The O.S.L.U. Connection, “but a social life with the furry creatures of the woodlands is often lacking, and a social life with the area males (the other alternative) is no life at all! O.S.L.U. then has the potential for fulfilling women’s needs to come together, to form friendships, to enjoy an afternoon or weekend of shared joys, angers, the best vegetarian (thanks Karen & Patty) dish, a new artists release, a hayride, a canoe trip The Lesbian Feminist Organizing Committee . . . the topics and activities are as (LFOC) used Minneapolis’s strong neighborvaried as the women themselves.” 28 hood identities to its advantage. Organizing women into “cells,” the organization strengthened Janet Dahlem, a leader in the existing queer concentrations as it simultaneously LFOC, noted in an interview that mobilized a generation into political activism. This cartoon from a December 1978 newsletter reflects the group was “a massive community the LFOC’s intent to dismantle patriarchal power. organizing effort that also had this transformative model. When people came to us with needs, we were able to respond and create a committee or a subgroup that would work on that issue. We had a Lesbian Mother’s Legal Defense because a woman had lost her children to her heterosexual husband simply because she was a lesbian. Another [focus] within LFOC was the violence—now we call it hate crimes—being perpetuated against lesbians, and again because someone came to us [who] was chased and stoned because she and her girlfriend were holding hands.” Responding to the incident with self-defense classes, and to many other incidents by using the cells as a basis for mobilization, the LFOC was able to address and meet the unique needs of Minnesota’s lesbian community. Karen Clark’s neighborhood organizing efforts paid off for her personally when she made a successful bid for a seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1980. Representing South Minneapolis—where most of the LFOC cells were concentrated—Clark became one of the first openly LGBTQ politicians in Minnesota. Reelected for the fifteenth time in 2010, she is one the longest-serving lesbians in American government.

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“You Don’t Have to Be Gay to Support Gay Civil Rights, Just Human!”

The Minnesota Committee for Gay and Lesbian Rights (1974–ca. 1987) The history of Minnesota’s first powerful gay lobbying organization began in the early 1970s in the unlikeliest of locations. Working in the coatroom of Sutton Place, a gay bar at the edge of the Minneapolis Warehouse District, a young man named Steve Endean began his career by trying to politicize patrons as he returned their jackets. After forming the Gay Rights Legislative Committee with Jean-Nickolaus Tretter in 1974, Endean began developing a grassroots political action committee that would influence local politics for more than a decade. The Gay Rights Legislative Committee quickly adopted a new name, the Minnesota Committee for Gay Rights (MCGR), and attracted substantial attention in 1978. Asking what could be done about Anita Bryant and her local counterpart, a conservative state senator named Florian Chmielewski, the committee recommended that concerned citizens boycott Bryant’s employer, the Florida Citrus Commission: “The citrus commission has just announced that they are going to closely monitor sales to determine whether Anita’s anti-gay campaign has hurt business—let’s show them!” 29 At the same time, Bryant-supported endeavors in St. Paul prompted the committee to demand heightened vigilance among local constituents. “Monitor TV, radio, and newspapers on their coverage of gay rights,” a flyer directed. “If they do a good job, thank them. If they treat us unfairly, tell them.” 30 The committee also called on the patrons of gay and lesbian bars to have higher expectations of the owners: “Ask businesses that cater to the gay community what they are doing for gay rights. Do they allow signs to be posted? Do they make announcements? Do they sponsor benefits?” 31 By asking these questions publicly for the first time, and with unprecedented clout, Endean and the MCGR broke through a barrier that had kept gay rights out of state politics. The prospective repeal of St. Paul’s 1974 human rights ordinance, which granted some rights to gay people, loomed on the horizon in 1978. The MCGR produced a questionnaire asking each candidate running for public office about his or her stance on several issues. The candidates’ responses revealed that antigay sentiments had been acceptable on both ends of the political spectrum. Running for the U.S. Senate on the Democratic-Farmer-Labor ticket, Bob Short, the former owner of the Minneapolis Lakers who sold the team to Los Angeles, refused to respond, which the MCGR noted: “In his primary campaign, Short’s organization

Founded by Steve Endean, the Minnesota Committee for Gay Rights was one of the first gay lobbying organizations in the United States. The MCGR urged legislators to repeal local sodomy laws using entertaining and occasionally eroticized imagery before it disbanded in the 1980s.

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in Northeast Minnesota depicted [an opponent] as being ‘pro-homo’ compared to ‘pro-workingman.’ He actively solicited the support of Rev. [Richard] Angwin, organizer of the St. Paul effort.” 32 While some of the supposedly liberal candidates openly tarred “homo” support as evidence of “anti-workingman” values, most of the DFL candidates were described as either “supportive” or “ very supportive,” according to MCGR’s criteria, which included taking a position on the Briggs Initiative, a proposal in California that would have banned openly gay teachers from working in that state’s public schools. The Briggs question elicited a range of responses—from the curtly negative to the sardonic, from a handful of competitors in the Minnesota race. “Why do you think you have a right to be perverted?” asked Glen A. Sherwood, who later won his race for the district centered around Pine River in northeastern Minnesota. Another candidate, running for a district that included the southwestern city of Marshall, replied that he wanted to do “nothing, I hope!!” regarding gay rights.33 Despite the hostile attitudes of some, the committee continued working to slowly change the attitude of Minnesota voters and their representatives. Allan Spear, Karen Clark, and Brian Coyle were among a growing list of candidates supported by MCGLR (L—“Lesbian”—was added in the late 1970s), and the 1980s witnessed a groundswell of political activism among lesbian, gay, and other queer constituents. “We can no longer afford to say that gay/lesbian rights are someone else’s concern,” wrote MCGLR chairs Wallace Swan and Robert Anderson in 1986. The MCGLR ran its course and disappeared in the late 1980s, but its creator continued to rise in political prominence. In 1980, Steve Endean created the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organization. After working with the organization for thirteen years, he passed away from complications of AIDS in 1993.

Nails in the Door

Lutherans Concerned (since 1974) Lutherans Concerned for Gay People was organized in 1974 during a period of intense debate among American religious denominations regarding the emergence of vocal gay parishioners. Eight years earlier, in 1966, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), a synod headquartered in Minneapolis, issued statements that identified homosexuality as “contrary to God’s will” and described it as

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“warped.” To many church leaders, treatment and “cures” were the only acceptable response to what they believed was a homosexual “problem.” 34 Allen L. Blaich and Diane Fraser formed the first gay and lesbian organization for Lutherans in the United States with an initial meeting of a dozen attendees in Minneapolis. Their goal—to change church beliefs about homosexuality and its teachings related to the treatment of human sexuality—met with resistance from congregations with traditional convictions. “As gay Lutherans,” Blaich and Foster wrote, “we affirm with joy the goodness of human sexuality which God has given us . . . We are to be found in the pulpits and pews (and) the schools and offices of Lutheran churches and organizations throughout the land.” 35 Within a year of its inception, Lutherans Concerned spread its influence throughout the Upper Midwest, a stronghold of Lutherans in the United States. “We call upon our church to further a greater understanding of human sexuality in all its manifestations,” the organization wrote to the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald. “We ask our church to seek to remove prejudice and discrimination against gay women and men wherever it exists. We ask our church to receive and welcome us as it receives and welcomes others.” 36 By 1986, the unaffiliated Lutherans Concerned had some five hundred openly gay members, twenty-five chapters in North America, and a host of heterosexual supporters. “We don’t see ourselves as being separate,” said the group’s national secretary at the 1986 biennial conference. “We want our people to immerse themselves in the life of the congregations. I don’t think the gay community needs to get any more ghettoized than it already is.” 37 By inviting churches across the nation to “reconcile in Christ,” Lutherans Concerned had created a successful program in 1984. An interested church would publicly declare an “Affirmation of Welcome,” a simple gesture that allowed the church to accept everyone in a distinctly Lutheran manner—with little fanfare. In the 1990s, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America began to change its treatment of human sexuality, and Lutherans Concerned attracted national attention for its outreach programs. Fighting an uphill battle within a church that still considered homosexuality sinful, the group challenged a popular attitude that compassionate officials often adopted. Quoting a popular Christian saying, “Love the sinner, hate the sin,” some church leaders attempted to shroud their discomfort with same-sex sexuality and gender nonconformity behind an understanding of Christian love that turned a deaf ear (and a judging eye) to their queer congregants. But by 1993, the church was discouraging continued use of the “love the sinner”

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mantra, and noted that it had a “harmful effect on gay and lesbian people and their families.” 38 Lutherans Concerned reached a major milestone at the Minneapolis Convention Center on August 21, 2009. At the ELCA Churchwide Assembly, the Church voted 559 to 451 to grant ministers with same-sex partners the right to minister to congregations.39 That victory represented a significant change in the attitudes of many American Protestants and sparked discontent among conservative congregations that threatened to separate from accepting congregations and form new churches with old principles. At the time of this book’s writing, regional synods are cutting ties with one another—a move that could potentially reduce the church’s charities and social services.40

No Storm Can Shake Their Inmost Calm Dignity Twin Cities (since 1974)

Initiated by Father Henry LeMay at the Thunderbird Motel in Bloomington, Dignity Twin Cities began in 1974 as the newest chapter of a growing national organization. Founded by Father Patrick Nidorf in San Diego, DignityUSA sought to change the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching that homosexuality is a sin. “The Catholic gay people whom I had met were frequently bothered by ethical problems and identity with the Church,” Father Nidorf said, according to a twenty-fifth anniversary retrospective published by DignityUSA in 1994. “It seemed obvious that the Church wasn’t meeting the needs of the gay community.” 41 A hotel rendezvous, though necessary in the beginning, became unsatisfactory for Minnesota’s gay Catholics, who sought to congregate in sanctioned Catholic space. In 1975, the new organization struck a compromise with Archbishop John R. Roach of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. While local churches would continue to reject homosexuality in accordance with Vatican law, Roach allowed Dignity to use space in the Newman Center, a Catholic ministry located on the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities East Bank Campus. The tenuous cord between Roach and the gay community soon broke. In May 1977, the archbishop received a “Brotherhood Award” at a dinner for two thousand hosted by the National Conference of Christians and Jews.42 During Roach’s acceptance speech, a twenty-two-year-old named Patrick Schwartz threw a chocolate cream pie at the archbishop’s face on behalf of the Target City Coalition.43 Earlier

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Founded in 1974, Dignity Twin Cities challenged the Catholic Church’s stance against gay rights. The organization met in the Newman Center, the diocese-sponsored ministry at the University of Minnesota, until it was asked to sign a letter of agreement—asserting that homosexuality was “intrinsically disordered”—in the late 1980s.

that year, diocese lobbyists had helped defeat a statewide gay rights bill, and the Target City Coalition felt that the archbishop did not deserve his “brotherhood” award.44 The archbishop later confided that he “grew tremendously” after the incident. 45 “When the pie hit me,” he recalled, “I thought they’ve hit me with acid. One of the nicest moments of my life was when I tasted it and realized it was chocolate pie.” 46 Perhaps sensing the struggle to come, Dignity tried to move from the Newman Center to the Church of St. Stephen’s in winter 1977. “It is our experience that the home of a Dignity Chapter can radically change the outreach and the nature of the chapter,” wrote Dennis E. Dietrich in a letter to the South Minneapolis parish. “Dignity chapters that are located in a parish community are invariably as involved in the Catholic community as they are in the gay community. A look at various chapters around the country reveals that Dignity’s presence is an asset to any parish community.” 47 The parish voted 71 to 70 to refuse Dignity’s request, and the organization continued to meet at the Newman Center.48 Archbishop Roach was obligated to enforce the laws of the Catholic Church. In 1978, he issued a statement noting that the church recognized “the human dignity and worth of homosex-

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uals as persons,” and noted that they deserved “their basic human rights,” but he also warned that the church had repeatedly “expressed the conviction that homosexual activity, as distinguished from homosexual orientation, is wrong.” 49 Almost a decade passed, and the archdiocese continued to allow Dignity Twin Cities and other organizations that were unaffiliated with the church to use the Newman Center. Then, in 1986, the Vatican issued a letter to its bishops that proclaimed homosexual sex to be “intrinsically disordered” and forbade any form of church support to Catholic organizations that contested that stance. Trying to compromise once again, Archbishop Roach offered Dignity a deal; it would be permitted to use the Newman Center if it signed a letter of agreement with the church’s position on homosexuality. Dignity refused, left the center in 1987, and appealed to the Minneapolis Civil Rights Commission. The commission determined that the archdiocese discriminated against Dignity and awarded it approximately twenty-five thousand dollars in damages.50 “I personally remain a member of Dignity because I cannot acquiesce in my own oppression by a tremendously powerful religious institution,” wrote Brian McNeill, the group’s spokesperson. “As I read it, the Gospel of Jesus Christ calls me to stand up and fight against the Church’s oppression of myself, my sisters, and my brothers.” 51 Minnesota’s Court of Appeals overturned the commission’s decision in 1991, citing the church’s First Amendment rights. Dignity Twin Cities was forced to operate “in exile.” 52 Since then, the organization has survived but with little to no association with the archdiocese.

“Bitter Fruit, Bitter Fruit”

St. Paul’s Equal Rights Ordinance (1977–78) The Revered Richard Angwin, a pastor at St. Paul’s Temple Baptist Church, began a movement to repeal a 1974 City Council–approved gay rights law in the capital city. Through their organization, Citizens Alert for Morality (CAM), Angwin and his volunteers worked throughout the winter of 1978, “sometimes wearing ski masks against 20-below-zero cold,” and obtained 7,152 signatures to put the proposed repeal on a referendum ballot in the spring.53 The effort was countered by three organizations: the Minneapolis-based Target City Coalition, the St. Paul-based St. Paul Citizens for Human Rights (SPCHR), and the more established Minnesota Committee for Gay Rights. Already prone to infighting, the three organizations

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scrambled to mobilize volunteers as they simultaneously attacked each other for faults both real and perceived. To make matters worse, gay men and lesbians blamed one another for miscommunications that occurred throughout the campaign. “St. Paul Citizens for Human Rights was carefully planned [to give] women the chance to exercise leadership roles,” wrote Tim Campbell in the GLC Voice several years later, “but unfortunately, [St. Paul Citizens for Human Rights] lost the referendum vote overwhelmingly. Its board was criticized for refusing to make hay out of the fact that the Citizens Alert for Morality referendum attacked both gay rights and a section of the St. Paul ordinance that prohibited segregation in the schools. As a result, some men close to that battle charge that the ordinance was sacrificed to women’s hunger for power, that SPCHR lost sight of its goal.” 54 The proposed repeal eclipsed all other races in the April off-year election, including for mayor, and attracted national attention. Approximately 55 percent of voters turned out. The repeal passed. Shocked gay activists, who had organized a victory party at the St. Paul Hotel, watched in horror as unofficial polls came in showing the measure passing two to one. Many wept at the final tally: 31,690 voted to keep the ordinance, and 54,090 to repeal it.55 “Tonight we are angry, hurt, and dis­

Convinced that St. Paul voters would retain a gay rights ordinance in 1978, activist leaders from the Twin Cities prepared a “victory party” in the St. Paul Hotel after the polls closed. This picture captured their faces as they learned of their defeat by a 2-to-1 margin. Photograph by Pete Hohn for the Minneapolis Star Tribune; courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

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appointed in a system that allows people to vote on basic human rights while claiming to be based on the principle that everyone is created equal and entitled to equal protection under the law,” wrote Craig Anderson (in all capitals) on behalf of St. Paul Citizens for Human Rights.56 Perhaps anticipating changes ahead, a newly reelected Mayor George Latimer pleaded: “Please stay in St. Paul. As long as I’m mayor, each of you will be treated as a human being, which is what you are.” 57 Latimer’s words were not enough to keep many residents from leaving in protest. According to Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, a defiant fifty-year resident of the city, a slow and immeasurable exodus ensued to Minneapolis, where gay rights were not subject to voter referendums.58 Twelve years later, the St. Paul City Council approved a gay rights ordinance for the second time, one that survived a 1991 repeal effort and celebrated its twentieth anniversary on June 26, 2010.

A Tempest in a Tabloid

The GLC Voice, Minneapolis (1979–92) In the last two months of 1978, Bruce Brockway began Minnesota’s first gay and lesbian periodical in a newspaper format, the Northland Companion. The paper died after infighting slowed production; Brockway began another publication just months afterward.59 Positively Gay! lasted for only six issues, and with the seventh, Brockway handed the reins to Tim Campbell, who recalls: “Brockway quickly grew tired of journalism and found himself staring at the typewriter with too much to say to say anything. In November of 1979, he dumped the paper on yours truly, asking for nothing in return for back salary except the right to keep [the name] Positively Gay!, which he loved dearly.” 60 Campbell renamed the paper the Gay and Lesbian Community Voice, which was subsequently referred to as the GLC Voice. Campbell’s writing stoked the early fires that Positively Gay! lit under public officials and community members, but he added an angry edge that helped stir an entire generation into action. The GLC Voice, unlike earlier publications, aggressively sought content by provoking the Minneapolis Police Department and other homophobic institutions into revealing their true intentions. In his second issue, for example, the editor wrote “Vice on a Rampage,” an article that noted a spate of almost thirty arrests in November 1979. He reported that one of the bruised victims accused a police officer of

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calling him a “fucking, goddamned, cocksucking faggot.” In the same story, the unabashed newsman quoted a witness of a bookstore raid at Fourth Avenue South and Lake Street, who recalled: “Two plainclothesmen broke down the doors of two booths and dragged the people out.” Explosive reporting was not the GLC Voice’s only legacy. Despite making a name for itself by reporting on the thuggish behavior of the Minneapolis Vice Squad, it dedicated a substantial amount of its resources to an attempt to reduce the number of violent arrests in the Twin Cities. Often, preventative measures came in the form of advice to bathhouse and Established after the assassination of Harvey bookstore patrons. “The secret is not Milk, the GLC Voice became Minnesota’s first gay to give the bastards any psychologiand lesbian periodical with a newspaper format. Though it gained notoriety by challenging the cal power,” a bookstore regular told behavior of the Minneapolis Vice Squad, the GLC Campbell in 1980, “and not to think Voice defined itself by focusing on the spread of you have to cooperate with them or HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s, as this public service poster attests. enable their entrapment.” 61 In the wake of the beating of John Hanson and his partner, Rick Hunter, the GLC Voice became the first paper in Minnesota to publish photographs of victims of police abuse; regardless of sexual orientation, readers were horrified and took the point that “the next [bloody], injured face could be your own.” 62 Attention to the advent and spread of HIV/AIDS—and public inaction surrounding the disease throughout the 1980s—became the hallmark of the GLC Voice. Tim Campbell’s ferocious defense of PWAs (People with AIDS) and assault on uninterested public officials stemmed from the loss of founder Bruce Brockway, who died of AIDS complications in 1984.63 On May 25, 1987, the paper noted that 202 cases of AIDS in Minnesota had been reported, of which 113 had already resulted in death.64 Cutting through hysteria, Campbell used significant advertising

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space in his paper to promote safe sex and to repeatedly proclaim, “AIDS cannot, I repeat ‘cannot’ be spread by casual contact. AIDS can only be spread by needle sharing or by unsafe sexual contact.” 65 In the span of thirteen years, the GLC Voice ushered in an unprecedented era of queer political consciousness into Minnesota. “When I started The GLC Voice,” Campbell wrote in the final issue in 1992, “the only way to get news was via bar gossip and the level of gay consciousness here was zilch. That’s all changed now, and I think I did a lot to bring that about.” 66

Sharon Came Home

The Guardianship of Sharon Kowalski, Greater Minnesota (1983–91) A large locked door stood before her, separating the intensive care unit of St. Cloud Hospital from the rest of the building. Under the push-button intercom system to the left of the entrance, a set of regulations, posted by the hospital for the protection of its severely ill or injured patients, stated that only “family members” were allowed to visit patients in this unit.67

Facing the first of many legal, social, and physical obstacles, a woman in her late thirties named Karen Thompson walked from the locked door in frustration after pleading with hospital staff to open it. Within a hundred feet from the door, Thompson’s lover and housemate of four years, Sharon Kowalski, lay unconscious in a hospital bed. Kowalski and Thompson met in 1976 at St. Cloud State University. Thompson, an instructor in the Department of Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Sports Sciences, needed several years to understand her feelings for Kowalski; it was the latter who first identified their relationship as “gay” more than four years after they met.68 In winter 1979, the two women took a drive through greater Minnesota and proposed simultaneously. “She had fallen in love with an individual, Sharon,” wrote Casey Charles in The Sharon Kowalski Case: Lesbian and Gay Rights on Trial, “and even though her partner was for the first time a woman, Karen felt that gender was irrelevant.” 69 Gender became relevant soon after Greg Yeager, a drunk driver with a blood alcohol level of 0.22, struck a car carrying Kowalski, her niece Melissa, and her nephew Michael head-on. Melissa’s injuries were fatal; Michael’s were critical. Sharon suffered an injury to her brain that would never completely heal.

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Karen Thompson (left) sued the parents of Sharon Kowalski (right) after they refused to allow Thompson to visit Kowalski in her hospital room. Incapacitated by a car accident in 1983, Kowalski became the center of a case that made its way to the Minnesota Court of Appeals in 1991. Photograph copyright 2011 Star Tribune/Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Problems arose when Sharon’s parents, Don and Della Kowalski, notified Thompson that they were moving Sharon to Hibbing, Minnesota, which was closer to the married couple’s home on the Iron Range. Karen wrote a letter to the Kowalskis that revealed her love for Sharon and notified them that she should have a say in her lover’s health-care decisions. Minnesota law did not guarantee any rights for homosexuals, and Thompson’s letter incensed the parents, who pursued legal action to ensure that Karen had little to no involvement in Sharon’s life. Legal battles and confrontations in front of a still-recovering Sharon ensued throughout 1984. Karen sought the help of the Minnesota ACLU, which gave a friend-of-thecourt brief to the presiding judge. Expecting that her story had already received media attention, Thompson traveled to Ohio, intending to “come out” to her parents. Her father lent his support after showing her a letter that “outed” her, sent anonymously from northern Minnesota.70 To offset her legal fees and raise awareness about the larger issues that surrounded her case, Thompson and her supporters created a legal defense fund that

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asked a fundamental question: “Why Can’t Sharon Kowalski Come Home?” In the midst of the AIDS crisis, when the partners of ailing gay men were struggling to secure visitation rights from homophobic parents, the Kowalski case provided a lesbian counterpart to the legal issue of partnership rights. Did the committed same-sex partners of incapacitated patients have the same rights as legal spouses? In December 1991, a Minnesota appellate court identified Thompson as the legal guardian of her lover. The decision established some legal precedent, but more importantly, it indicated that gay and lesbian relationships were slowly becoming legally recognized in the United States.

“For Me, This Is Not Easy” Brian Coyle (1983–91)

A small collection of letters, newspaper clippings, and pamphlets covered with smiling pictures of a mustachioed man rests in an acid-free box in the University of Minnesota’s Tretter Collection. Labeled unceremoniously “Coyle, Brian,” the container holds a unique perspective on the life a memorable Minnesota activist. Unlike the official Brian Coyle Collection at the Minnesota Historical Society—created and edited by the man himself—the Tretter Collection maintains an amalgamation of materials that others collected. The mementos, saved to remember a prominent and controversial figure in Minnesota's queer history, highlight important milestones in a political career and personal life cut short by HIV/AIDS. A 1983 pamphlet comes from the early days of Coyle's political career, when he lived in the hulking Cedar-Riverside complex in Minneapolis. A collection of high-rise towers by the West Bank campus of his alma mater, the University of Minnesota, the new development added both subsidized housing and high-end apartments to the radical neighborhood where Coyle had worked to establish a "Free University" in the late 1960s.71 “Brian Coyle is the only candidate with more than 2 years of actual experience in 6th Ward neighborhood organizations,” the pamphlet reads. “As a four term delegate to the Cedar Riverside Project Area Committee (CRPAC), he has consistently demonstrated the rare ability to be out front on the issues, while achieving concrete practical results in day-to-day work. His neighbors know that Brian has worked to replace the priority of large scale development and luxury housing to community-based development and affordable housing.” 72

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The first openly gay member of the Minneapolis City Council, Brian Coyle, represented some of Minneapolis’s densest and most diverse neighborhoods. Coyle’s controversial support for the closure of downtown bathhouses distanced him from some of his constituents. He passed away from complications of AIDS in 1991.

Following several unsuccessful bids for public office—including runs for the U.S. Senate in 1978, mayor of Minneapolis in 1979, and alderman of Minneapolis’ Sixth Ward in 1981—Coyle’s second run for the Sixth Ward was a success, and she began the first of three terms. At the time, the Sixth Ward’s boundaries resembled a necklace that curled along the southeastern edge of downtown—including the Wedge, Whittier, Stevens Square, Loring Heights, Elliot Park, West Bank neighbor-

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hoods, and a large part of the old “gay ghetto”—so Coyle’s candid gay identification only had a positive impact on his election. In 1988, Coyle voted for an ordinance that curtailed “public” sexual activity in commercial buildings, a move that effectively prevented the city's last bathhouse, the Locker Room, from conducting business. “For me, this is not easy,” he said after the vote. “I have some people who won’t speak to me. This is one of the tougher issues because it’s so emotionally laden and passionate. It deals with the stuff of life and death . . . I’ve been taking flak on it for months.” 73 By helping to kill the last gay erotic business from the 1970s, and helping Minneapolis to establish Minnesota’s first domestic partner registry in 1991, Coyle inadvertently helped the city “monitor, document, and interrupt public sexual acts, even as it extended new medical, vacation, and retirement benefits to those able to legally prove they lived in committed, domestic, monogamous relationships,” a trend identified by Ryan Patrick Murphy and Alex Urquhardt in Queer Twin Cities.74 On April 22, 1991, Brian Coyle wrote a public letter to his friends and colleagues announcing that he was struggling with a compromised immune system. “I found out in 1986 that I was infected with the HIV virus which causes AIDS,” he stated. “In retrospect, I guess I suspected that some-­ thing was wrong with my body as early as 1981 or 1982 when skin rashes occasionally appeared. But we didn't even know what HIV was then or that it was already in our midst.” His health declined almost immediately after the announcement, and he died on August 23, 1991. To commemorate his work as the first openly gay member of the Minneapolis City Council, 125 people—including Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton, State Representative Karen Clark, and State Senator Allan Spear— attended the unveiling of a bronze bust created in his likeness in 1996.75 The bust continues to gaze at passers-by from the elaborate lobby of Minneapolis's city hall.

A Berean League

The Minnesota Family Council (since 1983) Led by Wayne Olhoft, a former state senator who represented western Minnesota in the 1970s and early 1980s, the Berean League of Minnesota began in 1983 to “research, communicate, and promote Biblical principles.” 76 Named for a parable in the book of Acts, the league felt a connection to the fabled citizens of Berea, who diligently studied scripture and lived according to its laws. “Chairman of the

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league’s board is Wendell Brown, an insurance agent,” wrote Equal Time in 1985. “The rest of the 15-member board reads like a Who’s Who list of fundamentalist ministers, including the Rev. Richard Wiens, the Rev. Bruce Harpel, the Rev. Bruce Talso, and the Rev. Guinten Alfors. Its advisory board includes more ministers along with former Governor Al Quie, former state Rep. Glen Sherwood and Gloria Washburn, past president of Women’s Concerns.” The Berean League attracted the attention of J. C. Ritter, a reporter with Equal Time, when the organization reportedly spent twenty thousand dollars on a selfpublished report asking, “Are ‘Gay Rights’ Right?” 77 Written by Robert Magnuson, the report was a response to local gay and lesbian attempts to obtain basic rights and repeal the state’s sodomy law. “That homosexuality has detrimental impact on non-homosexuals can no longer be seriously disguised,” wrote Magnuson in a 1985 draft. “The influence of homosexual conduct can be broken down into injuries to: 1. Others by ‘spillover effects’ 2. The homosexuals themselves 3. The latent homosexuals recruited into overt conduct 4. Society at large.” 78 Concerning “spillover effects,” the report claimed that “homosexuals threaten communities with hepatitis, exotic infections and, not least AIDS,” and added, “Clearly, such acts are not ‘victimless crimes.’ ” 79 With reference to “homosexuals themselves,” the author claimed that “only one percent of homosexuals have had fewer than 8 lifetime partners; 75% of homosexual men report more than 30 partners, although not one heterosexual man surveyed has done so.” After claiming that “many homosexuals have talked about the ‘recruiting’ of apparent straights into homosexual behavior,” he implied that the “threat” of homosexuality on “society at large” was nothing less than child molestation. “The FBI claims pedophilia is a growing sub-culture because of the lobbying effort of groups who advocate for ‘children’s sexual rights,’ ” he wrote. “At the forefront of this battle are the homosexuals. And, like militant homosexuals generally, the homosexual pedophile is promiscuous.” 80 The organization changed its name in 1992 to the Minnesota Family Council (MFC), a name with no scriptural associations, and continued to push a conservative social agenda for the state. In 1995, the MFC spoke out against banning Christmas celebrations and prayer in public schools and it organized a massive media campaign in 1997 that recast the group as a mainstream Christian organization. By publicly promoting issues unrelated to LGBT rights legislation, the MFC successfully convinced the voting public that it advocated for majority sentiment. The tactic worked: the group’s newsletter, The Pro Family News, jumped from a

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distribution of fifteen thousand to more than a hundred thousand copies, and the organization purchased its first television ads, which asked the state legislature to give a $1.4 billion surplus to the public.81 The MFC’s advocacy of public school prayer and conservative state budget solutions ultimately proved to be of secondary concern. As a spate of gay marriage prohibitions spread across the United States beginning in the late 1990s, the council reintroduced a less strident version of its old position against legalizing various forms of same-sex behavior. In the spring of 2011, it lent its support to a legislative effort to have the voters decide in 2012 whether or not a ban on gay marriage should be approved as an amendment to the state constitution.

Roots with Meaning

Gay Community Services, the GLCAC, and OutFront Minnesota (since 1973) Shortly after he began Gay Community Services (GCS) in 1973, a counselor named Jim Frost met a traveling man named John Yoakam, who had recently graduated from the Chicago Theological Seminary. Disheartened by rejection when the Methodist Church took a position against homosexuality at its 1972 General Conference, Yoakam left without ordination and found a job with GCS in 1973. Yoakam fell in love with Frost and the couple helped establish a key organization in Minnesota’s gay and lesbian community. “I feel fortunate that I am in Minneapolis,” he confided to his journal in the fall of 1973, “where I feel the climate for personal growth to be very good. And perhaps, roots will have more meaning as I grow deeper into relationships with others.” 82 While other community service organizations were only beginning to take root in the late 1970s and early 1980s, GCS was gaining “nationally recognized experience and expertise in dealing with the special problems its client population encounters.” 83 It took several years for the organization to add the word lesbian to its name, but it finally became Lesbian and Gay Community Services (LGCS) and expanded its program to a multifaceted social-service agenda by the early 1980s. However, like many of the leaders in Gay House, some of Yoakam’s colleagues at Gay Community Services had difficulties establishing proper boundaries between themselves and the people they served. Sexual misconduct, infighting, and constant financial strain ultimately pushed Yoakam away from GCS and into a more fulfilling

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occupation as a gay educator and counselor at the Neighborhood Counseling Center, an outreach program funded by Abbott Northwestern Hospital.84 After more than a decade of important work, LGCS folded in 1986. Concerned for Minnesota’s lesbian and gay community during a period of crisis, Hennepin County officials initiated a community program called the Task Force on Community Social Services for Gays and Lesbians (TFCSGL). According to TFCSGL member Ann DeGroot, the organization gave the Twin Cities gay and lesbian community an opportunity to “say goodbye to organizations such as LGCS, Christopher Street, and the Lesbian Resource Center . . . We looked at what we learned from [the earlier organizations] and what we missed,” she told Equal Time in 1986.85 By 1987, DeGroot had become the director of the newly formed Gay and Lesbian Community Action Council (GLCAC), a catalyzing organization with two specific goals: “The coordination of services for Lesbians and Gay men through already existing agencies/programs and [the] creation of ways to meet the needs of the Lesbian/Gay community when those gaps exist.” The GLCAC’s function as a grassroots coordinator demonstrated how far Minnesota had come: only a handful of gay community organizations existed in 1970, but less than two decades later, there were so many distinct groups that an umbrella organization was needed to streamline their services. In assuming this responsibility, the GLCAC positioned itself as the primary point of contact and mediation as the community entered a more sophisticated phase of development. The GLCAC’s initial organizational structure fostered a number of committees—Advocacy, Community Education, Communications, Program Development, “Planning,” and others—that offered support for community organizations in all stages of emergence and growth. From establishing a telephone help line that provided peer counseling and referrals to hosting panel discussions on racism within the community, the young organization used the professional experience of its seasoned board and task force members to widen the consciousness of Minnesotans beyond their own social, geographic, and ideological limitations. An essential step toward realizing this goal was to determine how large and diverse the community actually was. In 1984, Brian Coyle called for a needs-assessment survey in Minnesota that was similar to one that had been completed in Boston, but such an assessment would require a collaborative effort among local gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities.86 It also had to reach a representative segment of the population, including people of color, the working poor, and other groups with limited means for community participation. By 1987, the GLCAC

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had established itself as an organization capable of sponsoring such a complex endeavor, and the Northstar Project began in earnest. More than two hundred volunteers spent countless hours writing, revising, and assembling a questionnaire; in the fall of 1987, 8,500 surveys were distributed throughout the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area. Approximately 21 percent, or 1,864 respondents, answered the survey, and the GLCAC agreed to process the raw data.87 Published in 1988, Out and Counted: A Survey of the Twin Cities Lesbian and Gay Community analyzed for the first time the Twin Cities lesbian, gay, and bisexual communities on the basis of hard data. The survey revealed that respondents were concerned about legal issues and societal oppression more than they were concerned about personal issues, such as “finding a job where it is safe to be out,” coming out to loved ones, or supporting local community businesses.88 Assigning numbers 1 through 4, respondents ranked the passage of a statewide human rights bill, the passage of city and county human rights ordinances, the passage of antiviolence legislation, and the protection of lesbian and gay parents in custody and divorce settlements as the most pressing issues that they wanted to see resolved. The GLCAC responded to the Northstar survey by slowly transforming itself into an advocate of queer voices in largely political arenas. Almost immediately, it orchestrated a movement to obtain legal protection for sexual orientation and gender identity that led to the addition of nondiscrimination protection through the 1993 Minnesota Human Rights Amendment. That amendment to the law— especially the passage of transgender rights—launched the entire state of Minnesota into a new era of workplace and housing equality. By 2000, the GLCAC had undergone a massive renewal that culminated more than a decade of work since the late 1980s. Renaming itself after the GLCAC’s newsletter, OutFront Minnesota is focusing on queer legal and political issues. In many ways a lobbying organization for legal protection, OutFront focused on resolving legal problems for samesex partnerships, primarily through simultaneous endeavors to thwart same-sex marriage bans and, ultimately, to legalize same-sex marriage in Minnesota.

The Occupation of Main Street

ACT-UP Demonstrates in Mora (1989) One of the most publicized events in the local history of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP Minnesota) began with a theater performance. The Illu-

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sion Theater, a troupe from Minneapolis, traveled an hour and a half north of the Twin Cities to perform Amazing Grace: The Effect of HIV/AIDS at Mora High School. The Illusion actors unintentionally instigated a revolt among parents, school administrators, and a local pastor named David Squire, who gathered an angry crowd in the school’s auditorium on April 17, 1989, after two performances. Squire, pastor of the local Assemblies of God Church, said that “parts of the play seem to After the local production of Amazing Grace, a play about HIV/AIDS, Mora High School abruptly endorse homosexuality as an acceptended its sex education curricula in 1989. David able, alternate lifestyle,” adding, “We Squire, who created the controversy, was the subject of protest when dozens of Twin Cities activbelieve it is an aberrant lifestyle and a ists paraded around his church. The Mora School perversion of natural desires.” 89 Board quietly restored sex education weeks later Several weeks later, Squire and his “with little or no change.” followers organized the Concerned Parents for Abstinence (CPA) and attended a school-board meeting to learn “what their children are being taught in (AIDS and sex education) classes.” 90 The editor of the Kanabec County Times found the “frightening” meeting to be very hostile. “I interpreted it as badgering the school board,” he told the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “They kept asking the same questions over and over—‘What are you teaching our kids?’ ” 91 The school board, whether intimidated by the CPA or concerned about exacerbating a potential political disaster, suspended all sex and AIDS education classes until it could examine its curriculum by appointing a Health Advisory Task Force. That decision incensed lesbian and gay activists in the Twin Cities, who immediately began organizing a protest in the town of roughly three thousand people halfway between the Twin Cities and Duluth. On July 23, 1989, approximately two hundred protesters traveled by bus and car pool to the Assemblies of God church and demanded an apology from the defiant minister. Led by a motorcade of Dykes on Bikes, ACT-UP protesters chanted outside during the Sunday sermon. Squire’s many assertions—including that homosexuals “are unable to reproduce themselves and usually depend on recruitment to increase their numbers”—incensed Dallas Drake, a representative of the

Mora resident Dave Halvorson and other counterprotesters responded to the arrival of Twin Cities activists in 1989 by wearing gloves and a mask. Photograph copyright St. Paul Pioneer Press.

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protesters. “People like Squire think they can say all these things and no one will say anything back,” he said. “But we’re going to say things back. Our faces will be seen and our voices will be heard. They can’t bash and trash us with no backlash.” 92 Mora residents had mixed reactions to the demonstrators. Dave Halvorson, a local resident, donned a surgical mask and latex gloves as he told the St. Paul Pioneer Press “we have to protect ourselves from them.” Several more locals told the protesters to “go home.” 93 Others saw the protest as an exciting moment in a quiet town: they dragged lawn chairs near the church and watched events unfold from a distance. Ultimately, the furor surrounding Mora High School’s AIDS education policies subsided. “With little or no change,” the school board quietly restored its sex education curriculum on August 24, 1989.94

Against the Binary

The Bisexual Organizing Project (since 1991) Scott Bartell, an authority on the subject of Minnesota bisexual history, became active in the local community in 1975, when he created the first successful bisexual support group at Gay Community Services (GCS). GCS struggled with identity politics to such an extent that it took several years to add the word lesbian to its name.95 If lesbian took a struggle, then adding bisexual to the organization’s name was out of the question. “If you wanted to be in the community,” Bartell said of the era, “you had to not say very much about being bi. You had to say you were gay,” he told Anita Kozan and Marge Charmoli on the television show BiCities!. Times had changed by 1985, when one of Minnesota’s most notable bisexual activists, Gary Lingen, created the Bisexual Connection to overcome the obstacles that “out” bisexuals faced, especially from their critics. “Both the gay/lesbian community and the straight community see their communities as different worlds, completely different,” Lingen said in a 1989 interview with Equal Time, “and [they] see the bisexual as the dancer between the two. It’s easier to see things sometimes in black and white. A bisexual kind of blows that.” 96 By 1991, the Gay and Lesbian Community Action Council was taking an interest in the bi community, and it created a project “to more effectively service and support the bisexual community.” 97 The project sought to create a needs assessment of bisexual people in the Twin Cities, update its literature on homophobia to include bisexual issues, construct a list of resources available to bisexuals, create

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in-service training to educate its own staff about bi issues, and add books about bisexual topics to its library—at the time, one of the few resource centers of its kind available in Minnesota. The needs assessment provided a window into the complexity of living an openly bisexual life. “Respondents stated that they believed heterosexuals generally did not have the language or concepts to deal with sexual issues and most respondents did not expect them to understand all the intricacies of oppression that gays and lesbians would,” wrote Joe Duca, a staff intern who conducted the study. “They expected more acceptance from gays and lesbians than from heterosexuals, which made exclusion from gay and lesbian spaces much more painful.” 98 His report prompted an unprecedented wave of collaboration among open bisexuals that that led to the BECAUSE Conference a year later. After the Bisexual Organizing Project (BOP) gained nonprofit status in 1999, OutFront Minnesota (the new name of the GLCAC) began to plan a second bi needs assessment to be distributed in 2001. With help from the University of Minnesota, OutFront’s newest work also benefited from BOP guidance. For the first time, bisexuals were helping develop a study to assess the needs of other bisexuals in Minnesota. Representatives to the 2001 assessment revealed a growing self-awareness among respondents, who expressed the need for more opportunities to reduce isolation and stigma. The author, Dr. Taimur Rashid Malik, reported that “A need for coffee shop and hang out places for [the] bicommunity were [sic] thought to be required where the bicommunity can find people with whom they can identify. This was thought to be an essential step towards reducing social isolation.” 99 After obtaining 501(c)(3) status in 2003, the Bisexual Organizing Project attracted national attention when it participated in the 2011 Creating Change conference, an event organized by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. First held in Minneapolis in 1990, Creating Change returned to the City of Lakes with more than 2,500 attendees. Lauren Beach, a main organizer in BOP, joined other Minnesota natives Bill Burleson, Sidney Gardner, and Becky Saltzman, to facilitate the Bisexual/Pansexual/Fluid Organizing Institute, a positive space for discussion that culminated more than two decades of local bisexual activism.

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The Lonely Cabin

Paul Koering Votes against Gay Marriage, Greater Minnesota (2005) On April 7, 2005, a Republican state senator from Stillwater made a motion in the legislature to put a ban on same-sex marriage on the ballot. Michele Bachmann’s proposed legislation would have put the ban to voters and, if passed, would have stopped legislators and judges from ever repealing it. Eschewing approval by the usual committees, Bachmann’s audacious act—her third attempt at such a ban— helped catapult her to the ranks of the nation’s most outspoken conservatives. “It’s not a political issue; it’s a moral issue, it’s a cultural issue, and it’s also an issue of governance,” she told Minnesota Public Radio. “Essentially it comes down to this: Will the people of Minnesota be able to decide the rules that they live under? Or will activist courts now decide the rules that we live under?” 100 About a week earlier, another Republican legislator, Senator Paul Koering of Fort Ripley, received a phone call from a reporter in Washington, D.C. Koering had recently authored an antivoyeurism bill that increased fines for “voyeurs” who were convicted of videotaping other people without their consent. “When I saw that it was a person from Washington, I was very excited,” Koering remembered. “I immediately thought: national news on this bill.” 101 Instead of fielding questions about the details of his legislation, Koering began by discussing voyeurism generally, only to hear an unexpected question. “[The Washington reporter] proceeded to tell me, under your bill, if I said I had some pictures of you at Bang, a gay bar . . . would that be illegal?” Horrified, the senator excused a visitor in his office before coming back to his telephone, where he was asked a more specific question: “Are you gay?” A small-town farmer and local business owner, Koering considered his future before answering. “Mike, yeah, I’m gay,” he told Mike Rogers, manager of The Raw Story and a blogger known for outing conservative public figures, “ask me whatever you want to ask me. If that’s what you want to do, it’s fine with me.” 102 Rogers continued to chat with Koering, hung up, and discussed the story’s prospects with editors. He finally decided that Koering was “one of the many examples of a gay member of the GOP who should not be reported on,” and dropped the story without “outing” Koering. Still rattled by that experience, Koering sat in the grand hall of the Minnesota House of Representatives as Michele Bachmann proposed her constitutional ban. Along with thirty-four Democrats, he voted no, the only Republican to cross party

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lines. “I left the Capitol and I immediately started for home—it’s a two and half hour drive,” he said. “I literally cried all the way.” 103 The measure died, and the Republican came out to his constituents soon afterward. “I actually feel relieved that I voted the way I did,” he told Rogers in 2005. “I feel like I made the right vote, and I wouldn’t change it, and I feel like I did do the right thing. And if in doing the right thing I get unelected, I guess that’s fine with me; I can live with that.” 104 Four years and a successful reelection later, Koering again faced the issue of gay marriage, but this time it took a different form. In 2009, John Marty, state senator representing Roseville and Vadnais Heights, authored the Minnesota Marriage and Family Protection Act. The proposed legislation would have legalized samesex marriage and made it legally indistinguishable from heterosexual marriage. In a move that shocked community activists, Koering announced that he would vote with the rest of the Republican Party against the bill. His legislative assistant, Ken Swecker, answered the flood of angry e-mails sent to the senator by calling the legislation “a waste of time.” Clearly exasperated, Swecker wrote, “We are being bogged down with this completely pointless issue. There are people in Morrison and Crow Wing Counties, and across the State who are losing their jobs, their homes, their insurance, and were you to ask them if this is an issue that should take one second of precedent [sic] over these conditions they’re facing every day, do you believe, do you honestly believe that they would say to you, ‘Yes, please, waste the time of the State Legislature with a piece of legislation that will not help, but in fact, overshadow the current situation we’re living in? Please, waste their time with this piece of legislation while I tell my son and daughter that mom and dad aren’t hungry tonight?’ ” He concluded: “don’t waste your time [responding]. We’ll just put your e-mail where it belongs, in the trash.” 105

Renaissance Revival

The Two Spirit Press Room (since 2005) Of the many acquisitions in the University of Minnesota Library’s Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, possibly the collection’s finest is the Two Spirit Collection, a repository of publications, newspaper clippings, handwritten notes, and correspondence related to the formation and maintenance of two-spirit people and organizations. Donated by Anguksuar (Richard LaFortune) in 2006, the International Two Spirit Collection documents more than two decades’ worth of Native

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American organizing, and memorializes critical moments in recent two-spirit history. “Hundreds of tribes in this hemisphere, still speaking many hundreds of languages, have always acknowledged the contributions of GLBT people, long before the appearance of Europeans here in our ancient domains,” said Anguksuar at the time. “We are conserving our own history, and providing a legacy for the coming . . . generations.” 106 In a press release announcing the donation, the Two Spirit Press Room (2SPR), a national cultural organization that facilitates dialogue among indigenous and nonindigenous institutions and media, explained the purpose of the archival collection: “This is intended as a tool for Two-Spirit people, historians and media. . . . Materials document and portray Indigenous people, by-for-and-about themselves, and demonstrate three-dimensional cultures and cultural revitalization in action. It is the first archive collection of its kind, and it represents a decade-long process of preparation. It is a repository of knowledge that will be used in perpetuity for the enrichment of human knowledge, the strengthening of Native communities, and the reduction of homophobic violence and hate directed toward Native people, particularly young people.” 107 Anguksuar and Debra Williams founded the 2SPR in 2005 in response to a hostile attack on two-spirit people by conservative representatives of the federal government. In 2003, the National Institutes of Health issued one of four peerreviewed grants to fund a four-year mental health survey of two-spirit Native Americans in the United States. The proposal prompted an outcry from Republican politicians. “Instead of spending money on sickle-cell research,” said an announcer during a paid advertisement against U.S. Representative Brad Miller (D-NC), “Brad Miller voted to . . . study something called the Bisexual Transgendered and Two-Spirited Aleutian Eskimos, whoever they are.” 108 At the end of the commercial, the announcer concluded: “Brad Miller pays for sex, but not for body armor for our troops. If Miller had better priorities, you wouldn’t be having to hear this.” Anguksuar faulted national media outlets for facilitating ignorance. “CNN, MSNBC, and FOX networks were noted for their one-sided analysis on the NIH [National Institutes of Health] grants, and the lack of equal airtime presented to Native Community members. While the attempt to defund this meritorious Native project was defeated, and again in the following year, these events mobilized Twospirit communities into discussing systems change, media and public education.” 109 The Two Spirit Press Room improved the mainstream media’s cultural literacy by providing authentic Native American–created resources and reports to

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journalists. At the same time, it facilitated increased media literacy among Native peoples themselves, so that they could effectively use their voices and become leaders in their communities.110

“We Can Never Have Too Much Glitter” Twin Cities Trans March, Minneapolis (since 2007)

Countless queer histories trace the beginnings of contemporary LGBTQ life back to a moonlit night in the summer of 1969, when a botched police raid turned a decrepit New York gay bar into the symbol of a generation. Stonewall, as it is called, was the Carrying the tradition of Stonewall into the twenty-first century, the Twin Cities Trans March proverbial queer shot heard ’round organized to critique the corporate investment in the world, one that indirectly led to Twin Cities Pride and to show solidarity for the transgender community. Organizers remind festigreater acceptance and, as a result, val attendees that “Stonewall was a Fucking Riot.” toward assimilation into a heterosexual society. Ironically, more politically connected gay and lesbian peers sometimes lost sight of the riot’s real participants—people of color, the poor, and those who defied gender boundaries—as the spark that created a national movement. Some feel that Twin Cities Pride became an unwitting local symbol of the LGBTQ community’s transformation when it began to accept sponsorship from national corporations in the mid-1990s, a decision made to accommodate an exponential increase in attendance. Once a ragtag gaggle of radicals that paraded down major thoroughfares without a permit, Pride had become Minnesota’s largest free festival and one of the largest pride celebrations in the entire country. By 2005, the event had become a swarm of corn dog carts, rainbow balloons, and faux Target tattoos. To those still aware of Stonewall’s blurred legacy, the local Pride Committee’s

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reliance on entertainment and advertising had produced “watered-down, materialistic, corporate Pride festivities—which often reflect only the values and needs of a monotone white, gay/lesbian, upper-middle class movement for assimilation, settling for pseudo-inclusion instead of fighting for systemic change.” 111 In 2007, more than two hundred transgender and allied protesters gathered at Gold Medal Park, a recently completed green space in the Minneapolis Mill District.112 The first Twin Cities Trans March walked, biked, and drove down Washington Avenue to Hennepin Avenue and stopped in front of the Happy Hour/Gay 90’s and the Brass Rail Bar to protest both establishments’ strict restroom usage policies. A phalanx of squad cars was there to greet them, but no one was arrested. One organizer of the event, Hazel/Cedar Troost, commented, “The difference between our treatment by the police and that of the other marches during Pride weekend is a symptom of the selective advocacy of the corporate ‘GLBT’ movement, which excludes trans people, poor people, and people of color. . . . This march was created to draw attention to and protest that, and with the help of the cops, we certainly succeeded.” 113 In the spirit of Stonewall, the Trans March confronts seemingly insurmountable institutions of oppression at street level. But, and unlike their predecessors, twenty-first century activists are equipped with the essential weaponry of contemporary queer rioting. Armed with radical tactics, demands for nothing less than the downfall of capitalism, and the latest devices to access online social networks, participants in the Twin Cities Trans March stand at the forefront of community activism in Minnesota. “Our resistance to oppression under the present social structure is cause for celebration,” the collective posted on its MySpace page in the late 2000s. “We continue to struggle for collective liberation and imagine that another world is possible. We call on our allies to join this fight for the freedom to be ourselves. We create our own space—in the streets. Join us! Bring signs, banners, noise-makers, dance moves, and friends. We ask folks to refrain from wearing scented products and from smoking. Bring your most fabulous outfits and glitter. We can never have too much glitter!” 114

Erotic Cities

4

Erotic Cities Urban Sexuality Explored In the fall of 1988, members of the Minneapolis City Council held a press conference on Hennepin Avenue’s “Block E,” a downtown block also bordered by First Avenue North, Sixth Street, and Seventh Street. Lined with dirty low-rise buildings, the block had been an epicenter of sin in the shadows of new skyscrapers for more than a decade. Local legends frame it as one of Minneapolis’s rowdiest places, but Block E also functioned as an important link between a concentration of gay establishments at Fourth and Hennepin—anchored by the Gay 90’s complex— and another nexus at Ninth and Hennepin, home to the Saloon. Halfway between the two was the Adonis theater, one of Block E’s X–rated showplaces, which showed gay porn to audiences that often “shared their popcorn” or used the theater to cruise for sexual partners. Once a Minneapolis institution, Shinders occupied two corners of Block E that framed Hennepin Avenue; it was one of a handful of operations that carried popular “gay slicks”—such as Colt, First Hand, Honcho, Jock, and Inches—among a plethora of straight porn titles. Perhaps Block E’s most reputable establishment, a restaurant called Gary’s at Sixth Street and First Avenue, was one of Minnesota’s first gay-owned eateries.1 Block E was also home to flop hotels, an infamous bar named Moby Dick’s, and an avant-garde art gallery called Rifle Sport; the variety of the block’s tenants made it vibrant, dynamic, and wild. But in 1988 the block stood empty, and it awaited an unpleasant end. The council members, who were buoyant with their plans for urban redevelopment, arrived on the scene to celebrate Block E’s impending destruction. With fireworks and exploding balloons, they staged a mock demolition and symbolically smashed the windows of evicted X-rated businesses. As the day’s events reached their climax, council member Van White broke into song:

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Pack up all your crime and porn, Block or scorn, be reborn, bye-bye Block E! Moby Dick’s is beached at last, Problems vast, now are past, bye-bye Block E! No one here can stop and aggravate us, No more hard-luck stories will deflate us, Say good-bye to urban blight, Now we’ll light up the night, bye-bye Block E.2

In the 1980s, sexually explicit establishments became the targets of urban renewal for a number of reasons. Campaigns against pornography argued that the existence of porn shops Urban renewal targeted gay bars, bathhouses, and theaters promoted a culture of X-rated theaters, erotic bookstores, and cruising in public parks from the early 1960s to the sexual violence against women. During early 1990s. This 1983 comic from the GLC Voice the height of AIDS hysteria, public illustrates growing discontent among certain entrepreneurs, who felt the gay-bar business was officials believed that bathhouses and discriminated against by the city of Minneapolis. erotic theaters accommodated sexual promiscuity that facilitated the spread of the disease. Perhaps more than anything else, officials feared that the presence of erotic theaters would deter future investment in the downtown core. To the city council, Minneapolis’s erotic economy had spread to a point where bulldozers were needed to eradicate it, but how did it come to that? By the 1970s, queers and straights alike were experimenting with their sexual behaviors, relationships, and identities. The production and consumption of pornography had exploded after several landmark cases against censorship in the 1960s—including the local case of Directory Services, Incorporated (DSI)—and this led to a golden age of “porn chic” that gave films like Deep Throat and Debbie Does Dallas runs in mainstream theaters. The 1969 Stonewall Riots—a landmark protest in Manhattan that occurred after a foiled bar raid—were instrumental in pushing queer people and businesses “out of the closet.” At the same time, the development and approval of the contraceptive pill by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) helped initiate a dramatic social upheaval known as the “sexual revolution” because women had an unprecedented ability to have sex without risking pregnancy. Rapid changes in American sexual behavior occurred just as many cities in the Midwest and Northeast began to lose population. According to the U.S. Census,

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Minneapolis peaked above 520,000 residents in the 1950s, but had lost 150,000 residents by 1980. Less dramatically, St. Paul peaked near 320,000 residents in the 1960s and had lost 40,000 by 1980. After hemorrhaging these populations to the booming suburbs, the central cities were left with abandoned commercial corridors that once served middle-class neighborhoods. The downtowns had different losses as businesses began to follow the population past the city limits, and aging office blocks and shopping arcades were left empty. The decline of the uses, like a similar decline in the Gateway years before, invited businesses that were once socially and economically kept out. Thus, porn shops and erotic theaters opened in what had been grocery stores and lavish theaters; a new urban economy had replaced the old. While porn chic, Stonewall, the pill, and other facets of the sexual revolution prompted a national rethinking of human sexuality, a different set of developments initiated dramatic changes in the local queer world. In the early 1970s, local laws that prevented men from dancing together met an unpublicized end; this change forced the straight owners of gay bars to build dance floors (however small) or to reinvent themselves as discos. Key legal battles, such as Baker v. Nelson or the adoption of gay rights protections in the Twin Cities, established a sense of selfrespect that led many to come out and join the bar scene. In the late 1970s, John Moore and Andy Anderson purchased a gay disco at Ninth and Hennepin from the Pesis family and set a new standard for queer bars. Local gay and lesbian bars, though not the only sites of sexual activity, often functioned as the anchors of other spaces and activities that can be understood as “erotic,” or supportive of sexuality outside of the private home. Since the 1950s, the 19 Bar and the Gay 90’s complex—two poles of Minneapolis’s queer world—supported an explosive erotic economy that rippled along Hennepin from the 1960s to the late 1980s. Once the location of the city’s booming theater district, but always concealing Minnesota’s wilder side, Hennepin became synonymous with queer life. Warehouses, bathhouses, erotic theaters, gymnasiums, porn shops, parks, and other spaces became sites of sexual adventure that toed the line of acceptable sexual behavior. Even with tinted windows and nondescript entries, the presence of businesses on the avenue gave queer sexualities a physical realness that could not be ignored. But the existence and visibility of overt sexuality was not commonly accepted or appreciated among all community members. The city of Minneapolis, which was always uncomfortable with the existence of its red-light district, used the HIV/ AIDS crisis as an impetus to curtail, close, and evict businesses that sold explicit

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material or accommodated less-than-private sexual activity.Bathhouses were routinely raided and their patrons arrested by the city’s vice squad. Perhaps eager to obtain any form of political clout, many gay and lesbian leaders assisted the city in its efforts; the bathhouse culture met its untimely end when the Locker Room Baths closed, six months before Block E’s demolition, in 1988. The ramifications of the sexual economy’s demise cannot yet be fully understood; though certainly problematic, it was instrumental in building a sense of community and developing a queer consciousness—as reflected in the Block E artists who painted Joni Mitchell’s sage prophecy on the windows of Rifle Sport Gallery: “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” 3

Nineteen Lives and Counting

The 19 Bar, Minneapolis (since 1956) One of Minneapolis’s most notable architectural firms, Magney and Tusler, designed a modern laundry service in the shadow of the Donald and Buckingham Hotels. Erected in 1922, seven years before Magney and Tusler dazzled the city with their design for the Foshay Tower, Moy’s Laundry became a fixture in a prewar neighborhood of newlyweds, young professionals, and wealthy families. Queer populations began to replace the area’s first denizens as the latter moved to suburban communities during the postwar economic boom.4 In 1956, perhaps in response to the change in clientele, Harry S. Kirshbaum sold his 19 Bar, which occupied the old laundry space, to Evrett L. Stoltz  5—an unmarried resident of Park Terrace Apartments—a move that sent the 19 Bar down a bumpy path to becoming the oldest gay-owned bar in Minnesota. Dark days came to the “19” in 1961, when a pair of gunmen robbed it of two hundred dollars, after holding up a liquor store in Omaha, stealing a car in Iowa, and shooting several men in the process. The newspapers did not specify why the “Mad Dog Killers,” Charles Brown and Charles Kelley, selected one of Minneapolis’s few gay bars as their target; in fact, the duo was likely unaware of the bar’s patronage because the 19 did not advertise itself as a gay bar. “[The only motive] we can determine for any of them,” said Minneapolis Police Chief Earl Miller, “was an attempt to avoid being identified by their robbery victims.” 6 For whatever reason, the Mad Dog Killers continued their violent spree on Fifteenth Street by fatally shooting Howard Trowbridge, a fifty-two-year-old married traveling salesman, and wounding a thirty-year-old bartender named Joseph Koch. Upon being

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apprehended in Iowa, the killers were charged with several counts of murder and sentenced to be hanged. None of the nation’s newspapers reported that the killers’ last stop was a homosexual hangout—the bar successfully concealed the orientation of its clientele from both murderers and media. When it “went gay” after Stolz bought it in 1956, the 19 established itself as a new epicenter of a gay “ghetto” whose residents had migrated from the demolished Gateway District in search of community. Local historian and archivist Jean-Nickolaus Tretter recalled: “You always saw a lot In the late 1970s, the 19 Bar underwent an extenof married men who would come to sive renovation and adopted a tropical theme. the bar for . . . sex. And that was the The bar’s exterior, a mural of cavorting pink flamingos, was a neighborhood landmark. In the late only reason they’d come. They’d come 1980s, the bar began to refer to itself as “Minto the bar, they’d hook up with someneapolis’s oldest gay bar.” body, you know, have sex somewhere: in their cars, in [Loring] park, maybe they’d go back to the gay person’s apartment. That was something that was very, very common right up until the early 80s.” 7 The 19 Bar thus became an impromptu point of entry for public sex, and a plot to demolish it surfaced in 1980. The Loring Nicollet Community Council (LNCC) drafted plans that designated the 19 Bar’s site as suitable for a “Galleria” shopping center. Without investors, the LNCC scaled back its plans and drafted three new development proposals; each doomed the 19 to demolition as one step in an attempt to “redevelop Nicollet Avenue with commercial and residential buildings from . . . West 14th Street to Franklin Avenue.” Activist Robert Halfhill used the GLC Voice to warn readers about the threat: “Many Gay leaders think that the Minneapolis big business community, as part of their program to redevelop downtown and near downtown neighborhoods, have decided to clear ‘undesirables’ such as pimps, prostitutes, winos and, of course, Gays out of the area.” 8 Barbara Carlson, a Minneapolis alderman representing the Loring Park area, hotly denied Halfhill’s claims and informed him that no such demolition plans

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existed. She said that she had received complaints about the bar’s late hours of operation on Sunday. “This is the only time the 19 attracts much of a crowd,” the GLC Voice explained. “That is due to the fact that the gay bars which serve liquor must close at midnight on Sunday. This gives the 19 Bar a monopoly on 3.2 beer sales to the gay drinkers on Sunday night. There is speculation that loosing [sic] the Sunday night crowd would in fact close the 19 Bar.” 9 Indeed, the city council created the Loring Park Development District to combat undesirable populations. At the time the project began, one member of the city council described Loring Park’s renaissance as an absence of the unwanted: “There used to be muggings and gays, but now it’s a safe city park. Families are using it again.” 10 The city’s efforts to reduce the number of gay people in the area proved temporarily unsuccessful, largely thanks the urgings of Halfhill—he papered the neighborhood with flyers that publicized the “Threat to Close 19 Bar.” 11 The 19 Bar survived these trials and underwent its first major renovation in 1984. “The Nineteeen Bar has long been the community’s ‘sow’s ear’ as far as gay bars go,” Halfhill wrote. “The word ‘dive’ was almost a compliment for it.” 12 Arsonists and vandals nearly destroyed the building in 1986—inflicting more than ten thousand dollars in damage—but its patrons rushed in to help their beloved bar, and the bar was back in business within a week.13 After briefly adopting a tropical “Club 19” theme, which included an exterior hand-painted mural with cavorting pink flamingos, the bar returned to its successful business model as a neighborhood watering hole.

It Was a Going Place!

Honey Harold’s Many Ventures, Shoreview and St. Paul (ca. 1958–86) Caroline Gilbert first met Honey Harold after several years of teaching courses at the University of Minnesota. One night in the 1960s, she climbed the unmarked back stairs of a Twin Cities duplex with two gay friends and opened the door to a queer house party. While dancing with one of her male friends, she found herself face-to-face with Harold, who promptly directed her friend to dance with another man. “You are going to dance with him,” Honey said as she gently pushed the two men together, and I am going to dance with her.” Laughing, all those involved obeyed, and Gilbert began her several-year relationship with one of the Twin Cities’ most prominent lesbians.

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A gregarious woman, Harold came from a working-class background and worked at a St. Paul factory. She wore slacks instead of dresses, nursed a drink throughout the evening, and sprayed her soft brown hair with gray paint so that she looked older. Soon after meeting Gilbert, she invited her new lover to work for her first lesbian bar venture, a suburban roadhouse that sat miles beyond St. Paul’s northern city limits. Unlike other “women’s bars” in the 1960s—such as the Town House on University Avenue, the Dugout, or “D n O,” on Front Avenue (not to be confused with the Dugout in Minneapolis), and the Holland Bar (320 Cedar Avenue, 1956–65)14—Honey’s roadhouse did not operate in the middle of highly visible urban neighborhoods. In fact, the bar was difficult to find unless a patron searched hard, having heard about it by word of mouth. The bar was intended for lesbians, but it also attracted a small number of heterosexual working-class men who insisted on frequenting a tavern in their neighborhood. “They knew that the girls were all gay,” Gilbert noted in an interview, “they were probably alcoholics— they just needed a place to drink.” Indeed, a peaceful coexistence between lesbians and barflies offered Honey’s only limited protection. Gilbert recalled the night an off-duty police officer sat at a table with several of his friends and ignored her attempts to strike up a conversation as she served drinks. The officer, who could have shut the place down at any moment, even turned his chair away from her direction to avoid eye contact. On another occasion, Gilbert was tending bar while a man chatted with a woman who presented a male persona to strangers. Gilbert accidentally referred to the woman as “she” and, though the man seemed completely unfazed by the new pronoun, the woman later grabbed Gilbert’s shoulder and said, “Don’t ever do that again.” Multiple identities were common in local bars. “You didn’t know anyone’s real name,” Gilbert stressed, “[not their] first name and last name. This was the age of nicknames.” Making a grimace, she noted that one of the patrons was dubbed “Taco” because she was Mexican-American, while another adopted a man’s nickname, “Pete,” a practice that was relatively common. “That’s the way it was. You knew people’s nicknames. Therefore, you didn’t know much about them fully. And, as a gay person, you didn’t know; some of them were truck drivers, and some of them worked for the police, and some of them worked in factories, and some of them were students, and some were nurses.” Unlike many patrons, Gilbert used her first name. Honey, whose real name was Eleanor, had used her nickname for many years—it was not created for usage in the bar. “I think she had a real knack for running bars,” Gilbert said. “She was always

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planning parties, ’cause she knew that parties came in [to the bar]. She also knew that there were a lot of tough, kinds of bulldyke women that owned their own cues and would come for a pool tournament, so she’d have a pool tournament now and then. Or, she’d have a costume party or something like that.” The success of Honey’s roadhouse soon allowed her to relocate to a more urban location. In the late 1960s, she moved to a building near the three-way intersection of Dale, Front, and Como Avenues in hopes of attracting new customers to Honey’s Barn. A few years later, during renovation of the interior with a country motif, vandals used extra cedar shake shingles to set the entire building on fire. “When Honey’s burned down in 1969,” Anne Enke wrote in Finding the Movement, “rumors circulated that ‘upset neighbors’ had committed arson. Though unconfirmed, the rumors fueled women’s determination to regain a bar of their own, and they continued to coalesce until they did.” 15 More than any other event, the destruction of Honey’s Barn gave Harold the resolve to pursue the lesbian bar business against all odds. Within months, she opened a new disco called Foxy’s on West Seventh Street at the western edge of downtown St. Paul. When Foxy’s closed in the early 1970s, she comanaged the Townhouse for several years before opening the Castle Royale with Darlene “Murph” Murphy in 1984. Located in an old sandstone cave that was once used as a speakeasy, the Castle had serious liabilities. The space was a labyrinthine jumble of cold and dark rooms,16 and—as if space limitations were not enough—Harold was caught selling Coors beer during a boycott against the company for its antigay stance.17 The scandal spelled doom for the Castle in 1984, and Murphy moved on to begin “Ladies Night”—which opened in space that was formerly a strip club—in 1985.18 After the Castle closed, Harold opened her last Minnesotan venture, New Foxy’s, in St. Paul’s venerable Rossmor building. New Foxy’s quickly changed ownership and became Rumours in 1986—shortly thereafter, Harold moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where she continued to fight a long battle against cancer. Shortly before her death in 1994, her friends and old lovers, many of whom had started bars of their own, met at Rumours and raised funds to help defray her medical expenses.19 Honey Harold’s passing marked the end of an era; throughout her life as a businesswoman, she had dedicated every available resource to ensure that St. Paul maintained at least one women’s bar.

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“Now That’s What You Call a Stereotype” Sutton’s, Minneapolis (1966–77)

Sutton’s Bar, also known as Sutton Place or simply as Sutton’s, began as a quiet neighborhood bar in the Sumner–Glenwood area of North Minneapolis. Sutton’s first ownership change came about when Evelyn Sutton moved the establishment to the old warehouse district and promptly sold it to Gordon Locksley, “a bon vivant and art dealer” who kept the name and transformed the bar into “a place for his friends to party” in 1966.20 Locksley sold the establishment to Ernest “Ernie” Pesis, a former owner of the Gateway District’s State Bar, who oversaw the bar as it made substantial profits. Sutton’s eventually moved from Seventh Street and First Avenue North to a posh, three-story location near Fifth Street and Hennepin, but it suffered when Pesis began advertising to straight crowds. To complicate matters, Ernest’s son, Ronnie, opened the directly competing Sundown Saloon. Sutton’s eventually closed in 1977. José Barreiro, a reporter for the University of Minnesota’s student newspaper, the Minnesota Daily, described Sutton’s interior during its disco heyday. The young journalist played on popular stereotypes to entertain readers with his slumming adventure, which nonetheless broke new ground in local journalism. He began with an unflattering quotation from Tennessee Williams that proved to be an ominous opener: “The animal is the comforter and the betrayer for he has never seceded altogether from the kingdom of the dark, that perpetual opposite of the state you live in.” 21 In the story, Barreiro meets his gay friend “Sam” and follows him into Sutton’s, presumably for the first time. Noting the club’s three spacious rooms, he and Sam discuss sexuality before the evening rush arrives: The place was nearly empty still. “It’s really slow to start out,” Sam says. “Won’t really get going til 10 or 11. Then, it’ll really get packed.” “I wonder why that late?” Sam smiles. “Oh, you know, a lot of men have to put their wives and kids to bed first.”

Sam proceeds to brag about the advantage he has over a mutual straight friend, who expresses sexual frustration only to find that, for Sam, “all you gotta do is pop in somewhere for a drink and get laid.” Their conversation takes an abrupt turn. “. . . Seriously,” Barreiro replies. “It seems repetitive, without much depth.”

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Sam looks around. On the last stool of the small bar there’s an older man in a grey suit, nursing a drink. “Look at him,” Sam says. “Now that’s scary.” “He seems lonely.” “Yeah. He probably looks at this place and says, ‘Shit, if only I would have had this when I was young.’ ” Sam considers the barfly’s condition, and concludes, “in sex period . . . Man, as long as you can think, you can’t fuck freely.”

To the two young friends, the plentiful gay sex that Sam enjoyed was only possible by rejecting both the older generations and the repressive past that they supposedly represented. Barreiro depicts the man at the bar as lonely, sad, and outdated; meanwhile, Sam is presented as licentious, unthinking, and hollow—that is, modern and “free.” The student reporter’s attention shifted to stereotypes he saw in a younger crowd: A heavy black girl wearing gold arm bracelets comes in, accompanied by two skinny bouncy guys, one black, one white. The white guy is all over the place— stretching, throwing his wrists, sitting, waving hello to the bartender, and then the music comes on and he jumps up, dancing next to the table, down to the floor and up again like a marionette, flailing arms. “Now that’s what you call a stereotype,” Sam laughs. The marionette-like patron appears just as a crowd of “mellow pretty faces” enter the nighttime space, and the author witnesses yet another interesting scene. “Oh, oh,” Sam says, looking to the door. “Here she comes.” I turn just in time to see a big woman dressed in blue silk, extra long eyelashes and a yellow wig saunter in. She looks like Henry VIII; and walks like he must have—regally. “Am I seeing a transvestite?” I ask. Sam smiles. “With your own eyes.” “Too much.” “Now this is important,” Sam says, “because there are no common denominators. That woman, or man, as you wish, has as much in common with me as you have with a molester of little girls. I mean, I haven’t a real idea about what makes a person like that tick.” “That’s a good point. I wouldn’t call a child molester ‘straight,’ at least not in the sense that I am.” “Sure. You have to see this whole sexuality thing in relative terms. Labels like ‘straight’ and ‘gay’ just don’t hold up.”

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A reader of the Minnesota Daily named Donald S. Olson noticed the cliché parade and questioned the author’s intent in a letter to the editor: What particularly irks me is that this piece will be read by many people who have little or no contact with the gay population and blithely believe it is fundamentally different from a “non-gay” one. “Sam,” the mushmouth who spews all the right lingo currently chattered, but who obviously has little or no perception to back up his statements, says in one breath that “labels like ‘straight’ and ‘gay’ don’t hold up.” He’s right. But in the context of this article, the argument hardly sounds convincing . . . We’ve all heard now (Barreiro as well, I assume, since the article is so cliché-ridden) about the tragic lives we gays purportedly live, flitting from one bed to another, hating ourselves and our inability to settle down with one person. Mistaken conceptions will arise from this piece of poorly written sensationalism, since people often assume that all gays hide in lavatories and congregate in decadent bars, and, worse, that all gay people behave like the ones Barreiro unfortunately tried to describe during his night in Sutton’s.22

Olson suggests that, instead of sketching a portrait of a popular nightspot, the Daily journalist created an exhibitionist freak show. Instead of highlighting differences in a nonjudgmental, detached way, he suggests that the reporter delivered a “straight man routine” in a room full of “funny men.” The barfly, the marionette, and King Henry each received Barreiro’s attention only as variations of Tennessee Williams’s “animal”; presented as animals in their “natural” habitat, their depictions are possibly caricatures that continue to reside in the fictional “kingdom of the dark.”

Factory Women

Queer Warehouse Parties, Minneapolis (1960s) The Minneapolis Warehouse District took shape in the late nineteenth century when millers and manufacturers built their storage facilities near downtown railroads and waterfront mills.23 State-of-the-art facilities stored foodstuffs, farm implement machinery, and processed lumber before shipment. Architects incorporated lavish exterior ornament in their designs to assure the city’s millers and lumber barons that their products would be housed in the finest buildings. Competing warehouse owners announced the completion of their structures in

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local newspapers, and the success of these business ventures made many families wealthy. The local lumber industry bottomed out during the 1920s after depleting Minnesota’s northern woodlands, and the growth of transcontinental railroads eventually rendered water-based milling facilities irrelevant.24 New grain elevators sprouted along railroad lines in Minneapolis’s distant corners, and the Warehouse District became a home to smaller wholesalers and second-rate ventures. By the 1960s, even these uses had moved out to the suburbs, and the large, empty buildings fell into a state of disrepair. In Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism, Anne Enke notes that deserted warehouses often became unwitting hosts to an entertainment economy where women took an active role in “claiming the nighttime marketplace”: Because gay bars in Minneapolis maintained class- and gender-based exclusions, some white queer women created alternative, unlicensed venues that celebrated lesbian deviance from middle-class gender and sexual norms even while relying on sexual privilege. Foremost among these were warehouse parties drawing hundreds of gay, butch, femme, and passing women on occasional weekend evenings during the 1960s. Never quite public, warehouse parties were possible partly because they were kept secret from authorities and gay bashers: there was no licensing, in fact, “there really was nothing legal about it.” 25

With few interior walls and easy (if illegal) accessibility, derelict warehouses provided plenty of space for hundreds of women to drink, socialize, and dance together. Men dominated the gay bars in both cities, so warehouse parties became a primary venue for queer women after Honey Harold closed Honey’s and before she opened Foxy’s in 1968. Denied a permanent address with a liquor license to congregate, the women used word of mouth to advertise the events. “Someone would find a space, a warehouse we could get into, and then you would find out about it through the grapevine,” a participant told Enke, “and the women would haul coolers of beer, and you’d have music on a portable record player with speakers. Maybe it cost a few dollars or a dollar to get in.” 26 The low cost and illegality of the space allowed butch women and femmes alike to play with notions about gender. One of the partiers, Connie Harlan, recalled, “Everyone dressed in drag. We’d go to shops where you rented suits, tuxedos, fancy men’s clothes . . . We’d look forward to it for weeks. It was fun to dress up, and some people spent hundreds.” 27

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Preservation efforts in the last three decades of the twentieth century built a foundation for the gentrification boom of late 1990s and early 2000s.28 Most of the abandoned warehouses have been converted, and today many of the bare floors that once supported dancing feet have been refurbished and subdivided.

What’s behind the Black Door? Foxy’s, St. Paul (ca. 1968–84)

Marjean Hoeft first heard about Foxy’s in 1979 when she was a senior at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. After graduation, she and her girlfriend moved to the Twin Cities and drove through the patchwork street system of downtown St. Paul in search of the elusive establishment. “We had heard about it probably through softball friends,” she recalled, “and we had to have had an address. We drove around downtown St. Paul, which was confusing . . . so we’re driving up and down, and of course Foxy’s has no lights, no sign, no address, nothing. There was just nothing on it. Maybe there was a number on the door—there was something that made us stop, walk down the street, kind of look around—still, no sign of life whatsoever. We pull open the door, and all of a sudden! There was music, and smoke billowing out—‘Okay, I think this is it!’ we always found it after that, because it was kitty-corner from Pedro’s Luggage.” 29 Lisa Vecoli, a Carleton graduate who became part of Hoeft’s circle of “softball friends”—and later her partner of more than twenty-five years—remembered her first time at Foxy’s after the establishment moved out of the Rossmor Building and into a location on West Seventh Street near the confusing intersection of Eagle Street, Kellogg Boulevard, Main Street, Fourth Street, and Seventh Street known as “Seven Corners.” Her experience was almost identical: [I was] looking for this in vain, and passing it at least three or four times, and finally saying, “Well, there’s that [address] number, it’s smaller, and there’s that number, it’s larger so it has to be in the middle.” . . . It was a glass door that had been painted black. You could not see in; there were no windows. It was in the winter, and I remember very clearly. The woman I was with stayed in the car, and I walked over, tentatively took the handle, pulled it open a little bit, and stuck my head in, ha ha ha! Looking around, having no idea what in God’s name might be in there that was so scary that it had to be behind this anonymous door! . . . I wasn’t that terrified before we went, but once I was in front of this black door, then I was scared! I was scared!30

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Though tough-looking on the outside, Foxy’s was a playful addition to Minnesota’s entertainment scene. While working at the nearby Noble Roman, JeanNickolaus Tretter remembered Foxy’s as a mischievous competitor in the Twin Cities gay/lesbian bar league: “We finally got people to do some sports games, the very first sports games, which expanded into the softball leagues. We didn’t even have team names when we first started them out—I mean, that was just getting together, just finding enough people that would even go out and play . . . we’d play the other bars, and of course the one that we’d play . . . with the Noble Roman, our big opponent was Honey’s lesbian bar . . . and they were invariably playing tricks on us. One of the things they did is they’d take—and I think it was oranges—and painted them to look exactly like baseballs, and every once in a while [they] would pitch us an orange which would then splatter all over everything. People didn’t take it seriously. That came later.” 31 Hoeft, Vecoli, and the other “softball friends” developed their own team, the Fesbian Lemonists, and used Honey Harold’s establishment as a place to hang out and dance when they were not playing in the local public park league. After overcoming their initial fears, they became regulars at Foxy’s on Tuesday nights— Women’s Music Night. The DJ played everything from popular artists on the independent Olivia Records label to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” and obscure lesbian musicians with small distribution. “I think that it was less crowded on Tuesday nights,” Vecoli noted. “It wasn’t like a weekend bar pickup scene.” 32 Indeed, the women were primarily concerned with picking up one another within their social group. “There was one time I was sitting around our table [on Tuesday]—you know, there were probably a dozen women there—and I sort of looked around and thought My God, I’ve slept with every single woman here!” Hoeft remembered. “And I was like: Uh oh! Okay! Ha ha ha!” Vecoli added: “To say there was no picking up would not be inaccurate because, clearly . . . ha ha ha!” 33

St. Paul Is Burning

The Rossmor Building, St. Paul (since 1968) The Foot, Schulze and Company building, better known as the Rossmor, began its storied life when St. Paul was an industrial powerhouse of the Upper Midwest. With close proximity to the Capital City’s many railroads, local factories produced everything from structural steel, furniture, and pianos to cigars, carriages, and

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ladies’ hats.34 Foot, Schulze and Company was a heavyweight contender among Minnesota shoe factories, and in 1916 it built a state-of-the art industrial facility on Robert Street between Ninth and Tenth. The company claimed that its shoes were better because “they have wear-resisting, shape-holding qualities . . . intensified by better making due to better working conditions in our new sun-lighted factory.” 35 After several decades, Foot-Schulze closed that factory and concentrated its efforts at the company’s Red Wing branch—a move that ultimately led to the creation of the Red Wing Shoe Company.36 The massive concrete building in St. Paul was left behind and hosted innumerable businesses until 1977, when Chester Daxe opened the first of many queer bars on the first floor.37 The Grand Finale was an immensely popular gay disco that catered to men, and attracted well-known music artists to downtown St. Paul’s nightclubs, including Linda Clifford, Grace Jones, Vickie Sue Robinson, Karen Young, and the Village People. One of the Finale’s regulars, John Yoakam, remembered the Finale as a site of sexual nirvana with a simple witticism: “Donna Summer, discos, and poppers, oh honey!” 38 The Finale closed along with the Barefoot Boy Health Club in 1982,39 but the Rossmor continued to develop a reputation as the epicenter of St. Paul’s bohemian and queer subcultures. A series of bars occupied portions of the building’s storefront space throughout the 1980s and 1990s: Rumours (1986–2010) opened four years after the Finale closed and created an additional bar, Innuendo, in 1993. Honey Harold began a short-lived second incarnation of Foxy’s at the site, and the short-lived Rocky’s on Tenth (1991–93) burned in a fire for which the owners were later indicted. Don Boxmeyer, a reporter with the St. Paul Pioneer Press, noted that the old factory gave city dwellers a brush with “the ragged edge, where surely nothing good, healthful, wholesome or legal could be found among all the dangers lurking in a building full of tattoo artists, boxers, paint-can shakers, potters, photographers, printers, actors, neon-sign builders, cabinet makers and machinists.” 40 The old factory’s large windows and wide spaces promoted a variety of uses. Some even lived there illegally as squatters, though the landlord frowned on it. When Club Vogue, a nonalcoholic dance club for teenagers, opened for business on the street level in 1991, it upset the Rossmor’s tenuous balance between societal permission and prohibition. Following the pattern of similar establishments in other cities, the nightspot catered to the practitioners of “voguing,” a dance style popularized by poor young men—often people of color—who defied gender stereotypes by emulating the stylized poses of international fashion models. The trend

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reached national attention when Sire Records released Madonna’s song “Vogue” in 1990, and when Miramax Films released a surprise hit, Paris Is Burning, which documented the lives of voguers who lived and danced in New York City in the 1980s. The runaway success of the documentary led to a lawsuit in 1991 because, as one of the film’s subjects noted: “[the director] told us that when the film came out we would be all right. There would be more [money] coming . . . And that made me think I would have enough money for a car and a nice apartment and for my kids’ education . . . but then the film came out and—nothing. They all got rich, and we got nothing.” 41 Troubles beset Club Vogue after it closed for the night and its participants spilled out into the street. The nighttime regulars were too rowdy for other businesses in the Rossmor Building, and the police were called in to quell “some kidtype problems outside the club.” 42 Curiously, the loudest complaints came from Rumours, the Rossmor’s gay bar: that establishment’s adult patrons clashed with Club Vogue’s youth, who hung around outside after hours, not eager to return to reality. The St. Paul Police Department assured the community that it was working with the club’s owner to “get the teens away from the Vogue and on their way home quicker after it closes.” 43 That collaboration did little to appease the other tenants and, after little more than a year of operation, Club Vogue closed permanently in 1992.44 Within fifteen years, the Rossmor became a prime target for renovation during the national condominium craze that remade St. Paul’s Lowertown. Artists and other bohemians were evicted from their studios and living spaces in the building, replaced by luxury condominiums in 2005.45 Following this trend, the Rossmor’s ever-present queer bar morphed again into Camp Bar—opening in 2007, the sleek, five-thousand-square-foot facility offered such enticements as “hand-built” cocktails and an “upscale, yet casual” atmosphere.46 In a YouTube video posted on the bar’s Web site, owner Bill Collins zooms around the screen as he extols the virtues of his establishment. “Promise you’re gonna have a really good time,” he urges. “And don’t you really need a drink or something to eat anyway?” 47

The St. Paul Sit-In

The Town House, St. Paul (since 1969) When it was built in 1924, University Cleaners and Dryers was part of St. Paul’s most economically diverse corridor. University Avenue connected the University of

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Minnesota and the state capitol, serving as the only direct thoroughfare between the centers of Minneapolis and St. Paul. At its height during the Second World War, University Avenue hosted many automobile dealerships and the Prom Ballroom—a nine thousand-square-foot dance hall where Count Basie, Buddy Holly, and Lawrence Welk entertained thousands. In the wartime era, building materials were scarce and new construction was limited, so several businesses along University Avenue decided to “modernize” their existing structures to keep up with the times. Thus, in 1946, St. Paul’s oldest queer bar began as a desperate a noted local interior designer named effort to keep the Town House solvent in 1969. After the demise of other lesbian bars in the Werner Wittkamp transformed the 1970s, women claimed the establishment as “the old laundry service at 1415 Univerwomen’s bar,” and demanded their right to use it. This matchbook dated to the bar’s early years, sity into a jazzy bar, the Tip Top Tap when overt references to “gay” or “lesbian” were Tavern, with a swirling ceiling and late avoided. Art Deco furnishings. The Tip Top Tap didn’t last long (1941–48): it became the Town House in 1949. Ostensibly a “straight” bar since the late 1940s, the Town House went bankrupt within months of changing hands to owner Emmett Jewel. But the bar’s fortunes changed when Jewel turned 1415 University into one of St. Paul’s few gay establishments in 1969.48 The transformation went unpublicized, and many regulars of the Town House returned to their haunt only to find quite a surprise: “I remember when the Town House first opened,” Connie Harlan told historian Anne Enke. “Before it was a gay bar, a lot of ladies who had been shopping at Ward’s would come over—it was a nice little restaurant and they’d come over for lunch or in the late afternoon. Oh! And when it switched to a gay bar ha ha ha! Oh that was a riot! We’d watch them come in, watch them take it all in!” 49 Enke notes that the newly gay Town House initially catered to a male clientele, “but women showed up there in numbers unseen at any previous bar with the

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exception of Honey’s.” 50 Claiming the Town House as the women’s bar, women regulars so agitated certain gay men and the bar’s managers that the “women’s side” of the bar began to shrink mysteriously. The Town House’s managers slowly and methodically removed chairs and tables from the seating area. When women patrons found the shrunken area replaced with a cigarette machine, they instigated a women’s sit-in on the dance floor. The managers called in St. Paul police to forcibly remove them, an action that prompted picketing outside the bar for weeks. The women challenged the bar in court, citing St. Paul’s new human rights ordinance. And they won. “To draw such attention to a gay bar was unprecedented,” Enke observed. “Lesbian patrons and their male supporters had never demanded rights from a gay bar—and from the city—in so public a fashion.” 51 After women forced Emmett Jewel to rectify gender-based issues, the owner turned over management of the Town House to his daughter, Kelly Jewel, and hired Honey Harold as comanager. The Town House then became a successful watering hole for both men and women and, after a stint as a western bar in the 1990s, it comfortably settled into its hard-won status as “St. Paul’s oldest GLBT bar.” 52 Patrons and historians appreciate the Town House as a historic and economically viable cornerstone of the capital city, but the Town House’s history is not so evident to others. Hess, Roise and Company, historical consultants hired to help prepare Minneapolis and St. Paul for the Central Corridor light-rail line, cited 1415 University for its architectural heritage, if ultimately deeming the building ineligible for the National Register of Historic Places. According to their report, the structure “does not appear to be particularly significant” because “the altered interior does not contribute to the history of the building.” 53

The High Heel Riot

The Sandbox/Club Cabaret, Minneapolis (ca. 1972) The Sandbox opened in a small structure at the intersection of Fifth Street and Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis, one that became even smaller after losing its third floor in a 1954 fire.54 Across the street from the Hennepin Baths, and within walking distance of the Copper Squirrel, the Happy Hour, the Club, and the Locker Room Baths, the Sandbox helped establish Hennepin Avenue as a prominent location of queer entertainment. Specifically, the Sandbox was a meeting place for drag queens, effeminate men, and other gender nonconformists. At

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The Sandbox, a drag bar near the southeast corner of Fifth Street and Hennepin Avenue, was part of successive drag establishments that included the Club, the Roaring 20s, and the Club Cabaret. The ladies, such as the ones in this 1972 picture, performed a circuit of gay bars across the Twin Cities. Photograph by Sam Sampson.

the time, local female impersonators made very little money by performing along a small entertainment circuit made up of the Sandbox and other bars on Hennepin Avenue. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter identified the presence of the Sandbox’s entertainers as an early indication of transgender participation in local bars: “Transgender people were always in the bars. I think there was a transgender-gay bar called the Sandbox. I think that was operating in ’72 . . . transgender people were in gay bars all the time; it’s just that back then they were known as drag queens. Nobody would have recognized the word transgender back in those days.” After a moment’s reflection, he added: “Another thing that people don’t realize that another group of people you could always find in gay bars—there was a lot of prejudice against interracial couples and the only place that they could go that they really felt comfortable and

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safe was to go to gay bars. So there were a lot of mixed racial couples that came to gay bars in those days.” 55 Performers like Belle Starr entertained their audience with a blend of selfaggrandizing pomp, playfully biting critiques of their hapless patrons, and, of course, lip-synched imitations of the era’s popular songstresses.56 Drag was at once a campy celebration of life’s absurdities and a dangerous act of retaliation against deeply held convictions. Attacking the very foundation of human identity, drag queens mimicked the socially constructed roles that gender dictated, and the audience loved it. According to Tretter, only 10 percent of the performers were people of color, but an occasional stage appearance became the instant highlight of the evening.57 One of the more notable drag queens in Minnesota’s history, Cleo Laine (who borrowed the name from a popular jazz singer), began her legendary career at the Sandbox and in St. Paul’s Noble Roman. Born Michael E. Williams in 1955, “Madam Cleo” began performing while still a teenager in high school and quickly raised the bar for professional drag entertainment in the Twin Cities. “Cleo was a real pro,” remembered a friend. “Cleo could take anyone with two left feet and have patience enough to work with them to teach the dance steps to the many production numbers which [she] was known for choreographing.” 58 So profound was Michael Williams’s impact that, when he passed away from complications of AIDS in the spring of 1987, three hundred mourners packed in for a funeral service that had seats for only two hundred.59 Outsiders did not always appreciate the Sandbox. One night in the early 1970s, shortly before the bar closed, a group of drunken teenagers tossed a brick though the bar’s large plate-glass window as they drove past. Almost simultaneously, a brigade of queens in half-drag, their boyfriends, and other audience members charged out of the front door, saw the perpetrators driving away, and chased after them. Local lore presents alternate endings to the story; the perpetrators escape in the first version, but the drag queens return to their turf as victorious defenders anyway. In the second, the teens’ car stops at a nearby traffic light, and the drag queens jump on the vehicle, using their heels as clubs and causing serious damage before jumping off and allowing the perpetrators to escape.60 Each outcome points to the same result—unlike their patrons who obeyed gender norms, the drag queens publicly declared and defended their right to exist in Minneapolis.

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The Sweet Life of Saint Paul

The Noble Roman, St. Paul (1970–76) In 1970, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter was waiting tables at Embers, a twenty-four-hour family restaurant, when Mary Kester opened the Noble Roman in a former supper club on St. Paul’s Grand Avenue. After serving the owner and her staff on several occasions, Tretter’s polite, pleasant, and honest demeanor led Kester to invite him to come and work for her gay bar. He soon became a manager of the Roman and found that Kester’s relationship with her clientele was both accepting and exploitative. “She was only interested in the GLBT community and the Noble Roman to make money,” he remembered in an interview. “She also would also buy old houses on Summit Avenue and fix them up. She’d use gays from the Noble Roman as slave labor, you know, and we’d go in there and strip paint and do all that for . . . I don’t know, maybe a dollar a day or something like that. It was terrible . . . [she would use] poor men, drag queens, anybody who just needed money for whatever, she didn’t care. If you needed the money to go out and buy drugs, that was fine with her. She just wanted the cheap labor.” 61 Largely without Kester’s direct involvement, the Noble Roman became a community center for St. Paul that served as an open stage for local talent, a reporting center for the nascent gay/lesbian caucus (which later became the local Stonewall DFL), and a safe space for straight women who wanted to dance without aggressive male attention.62 The owner had no knowledge of how to run a bar and relinquished the day-to-day control of The Noble Roman operated for only a few years the establishment to Tretter, who orin the mid-1970s, but its influence affected a ganized the community activities. generation of gay and lesbian St. Paul residents. “We needed an event for the mid­ Unofficially operated by Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, the bar became a testing ground for community dle of winter, and I suggested that we events and political activities. The Roman also do a gay State Fair,” he remembered. cemented Grand Avenue as St. Paul’s queer main street. “Basically [it was] the same thing as a

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Pride Festival, it’s just that we’d be holding it indoors. Mary liked the idea . . . and we sent out letters to every gay group within the seven-state area, and fourteen or eighteen different groups decided to build little booths, including Man’s Country [a bathhouse] from Chicago, a couple of groups from Nebraska and Kansas, the Greater Sioux Empire from South Dakota, and a gay dude ranch [in North Dakota] brought gay jewelry down. . . . Those were still the days when pretty much anything you did was going to be the first time it had been done, ya know?” 63 Although it differed notably from its more established competition by hosting a wide variety of community events, the Noble Roman was still an establishment were many went to get drunk, “trick out,” or both. “The fountain was right as you came in the door,” Tretter recalled, “and . . . people would get really drunk and, when they were putting on their coats, would fall in the fountain, get soaking wet. Which was not a good thing when it was forty degrees below zero outside!” 64

Y’all Come Back Now

The Saloon, Minneapolis (since 1977) In 1971, a horrific night placed John Moore and Jim “Andy” Anderson together on a path to running one of the Twin Cities’ most recognizable sites of sexuality. The two friends overheard a man being murdered by thugs in Loring Park, watched as other friends ran from the scene in terror, and—after seeking the help of nearby police officers—observed the Minneapolis Police Department’s complete disregard for the welfare of gay citizens. Incensed, Moore and Anderson joined Fight Repression of Erotic Expression (FREE) while working as bartenders at Sutton’s, the Grand Finale, and the Sundown Saloon.65 Bartending in one’s hometown’s gay bar was unheard of during this era: most left to work in another city’s bars because, at the time, few people were willing to risk losing their family’s love and the respect of childhood friends.66 Opened by its straight owner, Ron Pesis, whose family had been involved in the bar business since the 1950s, the Saloon was a different gay bar because there was a sense of ownership among its staff. Moore and Anderson acknowledge that the Pesis family respected them and treated them as equals, but they also noted that “the philosophy of the owners was to control the bar business by making sure there was no competition, not by making their own business better . . . It was pretty sleazy.” 67 In an interview, Anderson added that “Ronnie took advantage of [Sutton’s

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One of Minnesota’s most influential queer bars began as part of the Pesis family empire, but changed to gay ownership after John Moore and Andy Anderson purchased the Y’all Come Back Saloon in 1977. This picture, taken on Halloween night in 1979, shows the success of gay-owned businesses. Photograph courtesy of John Moore and Andy Anderson.

demise] in 1977 and he had us there to placate the community.” Eventually, Anderson got so fed up with the physical and working conditions of the Saloon that he staged a “gay version of the Boston Tea Party” and smashed a bottle of peppermint Schnapps on the exposed brick walls of the dance area.68 Within minutes, he and Moore smashed the bar’s contents and walked out. Both were blacklisted by Pesis and they went to work at another gay bar, Zoogie’s, which quickly began to corner the Saloon’s market. When the Saloon’s business started to drop off, Ron Pesis approached Anderson to offer him his old bartending job, but the young man refused to be involved with the club unless he and John Moore could own it. In 1980, Ron Pesis went to federal prison after bribing a member of the city council, and Anderson and Moore paid

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him a visit with a sales agreement in hand.69 Not fully understanding what it was, Ronnie signed the document and only realized what he had done after his release. Incensed, the former owner brought two thugs into the Saloon and demanded to talk. Anderson convinced him to chat in a restaurant across the street, and candidly told his former friend, “Ronnie, your day is over.” 70 The Saloon underwent a long-overdue transformation in 1981 as Anderson and Moore began to invest a substantial portion of their profits back into their space. Referring to “Y’all Come Back Saloon,” a country ballad by the Oak Ridge Boys, the bar adopted a western theme. Its early success was a reflection of its staff’s effort and their involvement in such community activities as gay/lesbian community softball. The “Saloon Spirits, “along with their cheerleading squad, placed second in the 1979 Gay World Series during an era when softball became a prominent summertime activity that pitted gay and lesbian nightclubs and local organizations against one another in playful competition.71 The Saloon’s transition to gay ownership was fraught with peril. On New Year’s Eve 1981, Rick Hunter waited for his partner John Hanson to pick him up outside of the Saloon after closing time. Hunter observed two young men harassing passersby and, eventually, the two attacked him and his lover on Ninth Street. The police arrived on the scene—and when Hanson shouted in defiance at his attackers, the officers beat him senseless for speaking out of turn and charged Hanson and Hunter with disorderly conduct. Nurses at the local hospital took photographs of their bloody faces, which were published in the GLC Voice.72 The public saw the magnitude of police brutality, the Saloon hosted a fund-raiser for the Hanson/ Hunter defense, and the two men were acquitted of any wrongdoing.73 The Saloon’s gay ownership propelled the club to the forefront of Minnesota’s entertainment scene; it eventually dropped much of its western decor and became what many called it, simply “The Saloon.” By 1994, Andy and John boasted “the best light and sound system in the Twin Cities,” opened a thirty-room hotel called the Amsterdam in the building, and draped a two-story-high billboard of men embracing one another on the exterior facade, putting a public face to queer sexuality on Hennepin Avenue that could not be ignored. Online communication in the twenty-first century has changed the atmosphere considerably—some men who used the Saloon purely to find sexual partners have moved to the Web. Despite this new trend, the forty-year friends hope that their “baby” will live on as a permanent safe space for Minnesotans to dance, mingle, cruise, and have a great time.

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Bathhouse Boogie

The Locker Room, Minneapolis (1960s–80s) One of the largest and busiest bathhouses between Chicago and the West Coast began as a part of the Pesis empire, a group of gay establishments, including Sutton’s, that were owned by heterosexual businessmen.74 Ron Pesis began the Locker Room as a development within Sutton’s, and it proved so successful that the Pesises moved the bathhouse closer to the Gay 90’s complex, the Brass Rail, and two other gay bars near the intersection of Fourth Street and Hennepin Avenue. With a whirlpool, sauna, steam room, film screenings, lounge area, fifty-four sleeping rooms (“about 25 beds in larger rooms off through a labyrinth of corridors”), and a free venereal disease clinic, the bathhouse was a locus of male sexuality. Upon moving to a former warehouse at 315 First Avenue North, it became a constant war zone frequented by militant gay activists, Minneapolis officials, victimized customers, and the police. “The real drawing card is a clean, safe and private place in which to have a sexual encounter with another man,” the GLC Voice explained in 1980. “Many of the patrons live in situations where taking a partner home is not feasible. Many do not have cars and have difficulty traveling to scattered locations. Others live with their parents, in a college dormitory or with straights who would not be accepting of their gayness. Some are married and have a wife and kids at home. Others live out of town. All have to deal with the fear of being alone with a potential assailant if they go off anywhere in a car. On a good weekend, about 700 customers from all parts of the five state area [North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin] convene at the Locker Room.” 75 In the eyes of those in power, the Locker Room’s welcoming of male sexuality was an unacceptable combination of immorality, illegal behavior, and urban blight. In a legendary example of poor judgment, a police raid in the 1970s literally brought a giant phallus and scrotum made of leather into the public eye. Hung from the ceiling in the Locker Room’s lounge, the risqué decoration had to be hoisted down several flights of stairs by the officers, who then tried to force the object through their van’s back door several times—to the jeers of irritated patrons and passersby—and finally strapped it to the vehicle’s roof to drive it to a warehouse across town. Such harassment was so common that the Locker Room’s helpful staff printed escape pamphlets and dispersed them throughout the building for patrons’ use in the event of a police raid.

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The bathhouse also reflected the young gay community’s political weakness. During a publicized “Great Raid” of the establishment in 1979, police officers reportedly threatened men with statements such as “I’ll break your balls and cut your dick off if you don’t come out of there,” dragged them from their rooms, and beat them as they arrested 125 and took photographs of the Locker Room’s sexually explicit decorations. Tim Campbell reported “theories” that the raid was a political maneuver by then Mayor Albert Holfstede “as a parting shot at the DFL party for asking him to step The Locker Room Health Club hosted an afterdown in favor of Don Fraser [who hours disco, bathing facilities, and, of course, became mayor in January] and at plentiful encounters for the sexually adventurous. Police raided the establishment frequently, the gay community for raising Cain but it operated for more than fifteen years before about many of his administrative deciclosing in 1988. sions.” 76 Constantly raided throughout its existence, the Locker Room often found itself at the mercy of both politicians who sought to attract family-friendly business and activists who sought to distance themselves from explicit sexuality. The advent of the HIV/AIDS crisis created an increasingly inhospitable business climate for bathhouses. Despite the Locker Room’s efforts at condom distribution and safe-sex education, it closed in 1988.77 Although the Locker Room was perhaps the most notable and longest-lived Minnesota bathhouse, it was not the only one. Two other establishments, the Hennepin Baths and Big Daddy’s, had similar troubles with the law and closed around 1980. Chester Daxe opened a St. Paul counterpart, the Barefoot Boy, to complement his Grand Finale Disco in 1979 as “a private club for men” and “Minnesota’s only gay gym.” Daxe began the endeavor after residents of a rooming house repeatedly harassed his customers as they walked to and from the club. To solve the problem, the businessman purchased the building (located just behind the Rossmor Building, where the Grand Finale operated), evicted the problematic tenants, installed a whirlpool, and made other improvements. In hopes that Grand Finale patrons

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would “use the back door” to continue their nighttime revelry, Daxe maintained the venture for a few years before closing St. Paul’s only gay bathhouse in 1982.78

Psychos, Beaches, and Parties

Bare Ass Beach, Minneapolis (ca. 1970s–90s) In 1980, a crowd of five hundred people celebrated a pride picnic on an embankment of the Mississippi River below the Franklin Avenue Bridge. 79 Known as “Bare Ass Beach,” the isolated river flats had hosted Pride picnics for several years because it was a well-known cruising spot for men. The picnics ended abruptly in the early 1980s, and another popular cruising ground, Loring Park, became the chosen site of a Twin Cities Pride Festival. Like Loring Park and other outdoor sites of hidden sexual contact, the river flats posed the prospect of danger. In 1980, one victim of robbery barely escaped with his life only because another person was wandering near the crime scene. “John Seman” recalled that he did not have much to offer his attackers, so one turned to the other and said, “Oh, let’s kill him,” with “about as much feeling as a banker commenting on one of an endless myriad of business deals.” 80 “I had told myself so often that there is a great potential for violence in going to the riverbank area,” John wrote in the GLC Voice, “especially at night. But, repeatedly, my urgings toward sex and affection drowned out at the voice of reason . . . I didn’t and don’t know how to socialize. I didn’t have courage. I had allowed myself to be manipulated by society’s attitude. I had gone to the gay haunt by the riverbank.” 81 In 1981, Minneapolis dedicated $176,000 to the construction of an access road that led to the embankment, supposedly to extend garbage collection and emergency vehicle access to the park. Susan Bell, an engineer with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Department’s Planning and Engineering Office, noted that the beach was not accessible to families with small children, and that “nude swimmers had used the beach for at least 20 years.” 82 An “eyewitness attorney” noticed, however, that the new driveway to Bare Ass Beach facilitated a crackdown on sexual behavior. In August 1981—three months after construction of the access road—the attorney witnessed several police vehicles using the driveway to transport uniformed and plainclothes officers to the crowd of “bathers,” and arresting several men.83 Minneapolis Police Chief Anthony Bouza warned the beach’s bathers that the raid was only the beginning: “You guys are heading for a serious problem at that beach in 1982,” he told Tim Campbell, editor of the GLC Voice, “and you might as

“Bare Ass Beach,” referred to in this poster as “B.A.B.,” was a wide river flat that sat below the Franklin Avenue bridge in southeast Minneapolis. The site of innumerable police raids and the occasional murder, B.A.B. nonetheless served as one of Minneapolis’s most recognizable locations for queer men. The poster is an advertisement for Twin Cities Pride, which hosted large picnics on the beach during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

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well concentrate your attention on that problem. A word to the wise . . . we can’t let any section of city property be the domain of just one group. We are going to have to make it usable for all segments of the population.” 84 Bouza said that his vice squad, which was responsible for the arrests, enforced “the moral tone of the city.” Meanwhile, Campbell noted that then Mayor Don Fraser admitted that “he has ‘used the vice squad by direct and implicit order’ to further the plans of city development.” 85 Subsequent arrests throughout the 1980s did little to diminish sexual behavior at the beach, and even less to deter “gay bashers” who prowled Minneapolis during the first decade of the AIDS crisis. A high-profile spate of murders rocked the city in the summer of 1991, when a gunman killed twenty-one-year old Joel Larson in Loring Park on July 31. Police questioned whether the murder was hate related until a second murder took place on Bare Ass Beach ten days later. Former State Senator John Chenoweth, a married forty-year-old man, was shot in the back four times in the early morning—the bullets completely pierced his body and entered his companion, nineteen-year-old Cord Draszt.86 Chenoweth died at the scene, but Drazst notified the authorities. Police arrested Jay Thomas Johnson after he made threatening phone calls to the Gay and Lesbian Community Action Council.87 While searching his apartment, they discovered journal entries in which he revealed that he killed as a supposed act of retribution: “My dream of committing homicide on a large scale and entering the ranks of the nation’s most notorious serial killers, ambition which had grown as dormant as the AIDS virus now in my cells, were now reawakened.” 88 Johnson and his public defenders accepted a plea deal in October 1992, and he received two concurrent life sentences plus fifteen years, with eligibility for parole in 2022. After the murders, the Mississippi River flats faded from the public attention as a site of queer male sexuality. But, like other secluded parks in the Minneapolis and St. Paul park systems, they continue to be a place where men have sex with men while attracting the attention of law enforcement.

Share Your Popcorn

The Adonis Theater, Minneapolis (1975–87) When the Adonis and Flick theaters opened at 900–904 Hennepin Avenue in the fall of 1975, the X-rated theaters became an instant hit among queer men. “The Adonis, that was very popular,” Jean-Nickolaus Tretter remembered. “They did their best business on Sunday afternoons. Of course, if you were living with your

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Gay pornographic theaters polarized the gay and lesbian community throughout the 1980s. Lesbian and feminist activists argued that the films promoted a culture of violence against women, and many queer men openly dismissed their concerns. This cartoon from the GLC Voice imagines a possible conflict between a gay patron and a lesbian activist.

parents or something like that, [they would ask] ‘Where are you going on a Sunday afternoon?’ ‘I’m going to a movie.’ And then you just tell them it’s whatever popular movie is playing . . . but you’d go to the Adonis.” “The Adonis made a ton of money selling popcorn,” Tretter continued, “except nobody’d eat the popcorn, you’d get the popcorn box—and you’d always get unbuttered cause you didn’t want to have all that grease—and you’d dump the popcorn in the garbage, you’d tear the bottom out of the popcorn box, and then you could set the popcorn box in your lap, and then the person next to you could ‘share your popcorn.’ Which was, of course, not popcorn.” 89 The Adonis/Flick were local participants in a national trend. Although pornographic theaters showed homosexual films that drew larger audiences, heterosexual films also drew men who were interested in assisting other male viewers who masturbated in public.90 The Minneapolis Vice Squad raided the Adonis and Flick five times within eight months of operation, and their discoveries brought such titles such as “Hot Summer Night,” “Little Sister,” “Men in Leather,” and “Assault” into the public eye.91 The theaters relocated to one of Minneapolis’s most infamous blocks during one of the most sexually explicit eras in the city’s history. Bounded by Hennepin Avenue, First Avenue North, Sixth Street, and Seventh Street, downtown’s “Block E” was home to a ragtag collection of storefronts that anchored the city’s red-light district in the 1980s. Block E entered the X-rated industry when a second branch of Shinders—a book, magazine, and newspaper vendor with “gay slicks in the back right corner” 92—became one of a pair that book-ended Hennepin Avenue at the corners of Sixth and Seventh. The Adonis moved into a former grocery store at

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614–616 Hennepin—the very center of the block—making it one of three sexually explicit venues within feet of one another. To add to the city’s headaches, Block E had become responsible for 25 percent of all crime in downtown.93 Together with a slew of X-rated ventures on Lake Street in South Minneapolis, Hennepin Avenue’s porn shops became a hotbed of controversy in 1983 when the feminist writer Andrea Dworkin joined feminist legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon to draft an antipornography addition to the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances. The ordinance asserted that pornography violated women’s rights and that women had the right to sue the purveyors of pornography in civil court. The city council passed the proposal with several members absent and sent it to Mayor Donald Fraser during its last session in December 1983. Fraser “unflinchingly” vetoed the measure, noting that “the remedy sought through the ordinance is neither appropriate nor enforceable within our cherished and constitutionally protected right of free speech.” He added: “The definition of pornography in the ordinance is so broad and so vague as to make it impossible for a bookseller, movie theater operator, or museum director to adjust his or her conduct in order to keep from running afoul of its proscriptions.” 94 Although they were spared from civil lawsuits, sex shop owners experienced a police crackdown in November 1984. Tim Campbell, editor of the GLC Voice, reported that “from 1980 through fall of 1984, arrests seem to reflect a total lack of concern with the [Adonis] for sexually-explicit movies . . . In November of 1984, a sudden flurry of [police] visits to 616 and 614 Hennepin popped up like mushrooms after the rain.” He reported that ticket booth operators witnessed twenty daily visits from vice officers, and the arrest of a man for smoking a cigarette inside the theater.95 The surge in arrests corresponded with a “surprise move” by a city commission assigned to locate a new site for the Minneapolis Convention Center. The commission proposed an “L”-shaped megablock to host the new center, wedging Block E between the megablock and the recently completed City Center shopping complex across Hennepin Avenue. Naming Block E the “First Amendment Block,” Campbell cited the proposal as evidence of crooked political dealings: “It seems self-evident that the abuse of power of arrest to favor special interests in the commercial marketplace is graft. It looks like graft. It smells like graft. We believe it pays off like graft . . . It is one thing to try to ‘clean up crime on Hennepin Avenue’ so that it is safe but quite another to pretend like we are making an avenue safe by arresting the most harmless creatures there.” 96 The city eventually decided against the proposal and expanded the Convention

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Center’s existing site near Nicollet Avenue, but Block E was not spared from demolition. Despite early indications that it was improving—the formation of Rifle Sport Gallery in 1984, the proximity to the nightclub First Avenue during the heyday of the “Minneapolis Sound,” and the block’s attractiveness to punk rockers—Block E was finally cleared in 1988. The Block E site remained a surface-level parking lot for thirteen years until a large luxury hotel, a movie theater, and a shopping complex replaced it. Perhaps against the intentions of its proponents, one of the “new” Block E tenants was none other than Hooters, a restaurant chain that “enhances” its waitresses’ breasts (or “hooters”) with tight T-shirts to titillate its patrons. Within a decade, the chain and other stores, including Snyder’s Drugs, GameWorks, a Borders bookstore, and an Applebee’s restaurant, closed their doors one after another.

Well, We Get Carried Away Now and Then The Main Club, Duluth/Superior (since 1983)

The Catholic Church became an unwilling party to the founding of the Northland community when Robert “Bob” Jansen was a faculty member teaching in the theater department at St. Scholastica College in 1982. Jansen spent three years teaching theater in California and moved to St. Scholastica with the understanding that his earlier experience counted toward tenure. After teaching for three more years, he was denied tenure by a new president of the college and fired. Instead of going away quietly, Jansen surprised everyone and fought back, arguing that he was wrongfully terminated for being gay. He reached a settlement, equivalent to one year’s salary, which he used to begin the Main Club in 1983. With a down payment in hand, Jansen tried to find a bank that would lend him additional money for the new bar, only to be turned down again and again. Finally, he met a banker who asked, “Are you doing anything illegal?” He said no, and the banker replied, “Well, I think sex kinda makes money now and then, so we’ll try it.” 97 Jansen decided to locate the bar in Superior, Wisconsin—where liquor laws were more lenient, and therefore would be attractive to Minnesotans from across Superior Bay in Duluth. He contacted the police chief to introduce himself and establish a friendly connection. According to Jansen, the chief told him, “I believe in Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” and orchestrated a raid the night before Superior’s city council voted on the Main Club’s liquor license. Superior

Bob Jansen (pictured center in a cowboy hat) opened the Main Club in 1983. An epicenter of the DuluthSuperior queer community, the Main Club hosts Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and fund-raisers for the University of Minnesota–Duluth’s queer programming. Photograph courtesy of Bob Jansen.

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police attached the criminal complaints to the club’s application, resulting in the council’s denying the license. Jansen returned home from the meeting to find his windows shot out from BB gunfire.98 Undeterred, Jansen sought the help of high-profile friends and forwarded their letters of support to the mayor of Superior, with copies to the police. Four months passed, but the Main finally obtained its license. “I went from January to November without any income,” Jansen remembered in an interview, but a packed opening night suggested that his gamble was going to pay off. From the beginning, the Main Club has functioned more as a community center than as a traditional bar. “It’s a clearinghouse for information and a place to go to find out about AA and other support-group meetings,” wrote Equal Time for the club’s anniversary in 1986. “With a lack of mental health services for lesbians and gays in the Duluth-Superior area, the Main Club is a friendly place for persons suffering from crises. It’s a place where birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, and sobriety anniversaries are celebrated on a regular basis. It’s a place where parents and children of lesbians and gays [PFLAG] have been welcomed. There’s a well lighted area for newspaper reading. There are no mirrors behind the bar and bright beer signs are conspicuously absent. The atmosphere is less cruisey than in many gay bars.” 99 Although it is less repressive than myths depict, northern Minnesota has been a challenging place to lead a queer life. In 1986, for example, Craig Lamkie and Steve Podemski lost insurance coverage of their two-year-old Starlite Motel because antigay vandals attacked the property and caused significant damage.100 To make matters worse, queer leaders in greater Minnesota have experienced what they felt to be indifference from the communities centered in Minneapolis/ St. Paul. Even within the Northland community, a generational divide reflects the impact of gentrification and assimilation. “On a kickoff event for Twin Ports Pride, one of the activities was a Twister contest. So somebody asked some of the young kids if they wanted to be involved, and they went ‘Oh no, they have sex in that bar.’ Well, we get carried away now and then, [but] they don’t want to be identified with that as part of being gay,” Jansen noted in the interview. “’Cause they want to get married and have their white picket fence and their dog . . . and adopt a child, and assimilate into heterosexual culture.” Despite the obstacles, the Main Club continues to anchor the Twin Ports community in Duluth-Superior, a warm, intimate, and unique population that attracts visitors from the entire Upper Midwest.

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Forest Friends

The Minneapolis Eagle, Minneapolis (since 1998) Only four blocks from the site of the old Dugout Bar, and almost forty years since it closed, the Minneapolis Eagle opened its doors on Washington Avenue in 1998 to an eager crowd. “The Eagle” remodeled one of Washington’s last nineteenthcentury saloons and became the first queer bar to operate on the avenue since the Gateway Urban Renewal Project demolished the Dugout and a handful of other similar establishments in the early 1960s. A former saloon that likely ran a brothel upstairs,101 the structure was part of a larger Mill District with extensive rails yards that led to the Milwaukee Road Depot and the flour mills on the river, and it served a clientele of railroad men, millers, and itinerant farmhands. When it opened, the Eagle brought energy to a vacant no-man’s-land in downtown Minneapolis: its heyday long past, the Milwaukee Depot had lost its festive cupola and sat abandoned; its old railroad yards had been removed and replaced by surface-level parking lots; the area’s only new building was the hulking Gateway Ramp. Like many other neighborhoods with gay bars, the Mill District hosted queer uses because its condition had deteriorated so badly. No “respectable” person thought of visiting the area, unless a search for parking had become truly desperate. Although it was surrounded by an industrial wasteland, the Eagle was centrally located and its structure was affordable. As had been true of the Dugout, the Eagle’s clientele defied stereotypes. In many cases, they delighted in exaggerating machismo to imaginative extremes. Members of the leather community donned leather or militaristic garb, and tight/ ripped blue jeans. Members of the “bear community” celebrated bulk and body hair, and playfully used animal classifications like “bear,” “cub,” “wolf,” and “otter” to denote preferences and bestow communal identities.102 “For the gay male leather/biker community that evolved after World War II,” wrote Steve Lenius, Lavender Magazine’s leather-life columnist, “bars filled the same purposes [as safe spaces], and still fill them today. There are many leather bars across the United States and Canada and throughout Europe and Australia. Their names are often some variety of masculine homoerotic double-entendre (such as ‘The Barracks’ or ‘The Tool Box’), but probably the most ubiquitous name for a leather bar is ‘The (insert city here) Eagle.’ If you’re in a major city and want to find the place where leathermen, bears and other masculine gay men congregate, the local Eagle is a good place to start. The various Eagles are not members of a

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The Hanky Code—explained in this flyer, produced by the Gay 90’s complex in the early 1990s—was once a prevalent feature of bars that catered to the bear, Bondage/Dominance/Sadomasochism (BDSM), and leather communities. Its usage dwindled as taboos against these sexual subcultures lifted. The code still exists, however, and it is still in use.

chain; each is independently owned and run, and each has its own unique flavor.” 103 The Minneapolis Eagle evokes familiar industrial themes in a completely unfamiliar and hypersexualized atmosphere. Its atmosphere involves uninhibited displays of sex that would have surprised men of earlier eras. Its success lies in the dedication of the community it serves. As time passed, the Eagle opened the Bolt Video Bar in 2003 and the Bolt Underground in the building’s basement in 2004. The Eagle’s success presaged the renaissance of the Mill District. Outside the bar, parking lots that once fed trains into the Milwaukee Road Depot have became luxury condominiums and boutique hotels. The depot itself underwent a painstaking renovation and was reborn as a new hotel, and— to the great relief of historians and preservationists—the great mills of Minneapolis have become museums, loft condominiums, and expensive apartments. Washington Avenue’s largely rebuilt building stock awaits future development along the avenue’s few remaining parking lots; with time, the Eagle will have even more posh neighbors.

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La Vida en Rosa

Margarita Bella, Minneapolis (since 1998) Like many of Minnesota’s Latino residents, Mario Maldonado migrated to the state in search of a different life. An El Salvadoran, he recalls his life in Central America before moving to the United States in 1994. “It was good,” he said in an interview. “Not too bad. I come from a very open family; I always had support from my family.” At school, he took theater classes where he learned costume and makeup art and developed the skills he later employed as a successful drag performer. “I always tried to pick up the funny parts,” he said of his early work in female impersonation. Considering why he moved north, Maldonado mused, “I guess I always say I’ve been very lucky with my family—but not with the rest of the community, of course. You know? It’s like sometimes [there was] discrimination. Maybe I’ve been in that situation, discrimination, but that’s never affected my personal life. Because I’m always sure of who I am and I always [have] a very high self-esteem. So, I don’t have to deal with somebody else’s problems. I always deal first with my [own] problems. Be happy, and life is going to be easy.” 104 Maldonado’s alter ego, Lacoco Villeda, personifies Maldonado’s rosy outlook on life. Named in memory of a beloved cousin who called a young Mario “coco,” Lacoco got her start at Margarita Bella, a Latino bar that operated in northeast Minneapolis from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s. To attract more customers, the bar’s original owners hosted weekly gay nights headlining drag performers. They entertained their audience with bawdy jokes and lip-synched routines to popular songs in English and Spanish. A change to gay ownership in 2001 meant more gay nights and—for the first time—Lacoco and others received permission to set up a table with information about a growing health crisis in Minnesota’s Latino community. Once thought to be a disease that overwhelmingly affected white gay men, HIV/AIDS had become a complex health concern for the state’s newest immigrants. Condom distribution and safe-sex education were uncommon in the Latino community, so Lacoco took to the bars and did it herself. “Yeah, there are other places to get condoms,” she told Minnesota Public Radio after a performance in 2005, “but you have to remember that as Latinos, we’re embarrassed to go to a clinic. If we’re here at the bar and have the opportunity to go home with someone, and don’t want to pass by a gas station or pharmacy, or perhaps don’t have money to buy them (condoms), you can get them here. I think we’re directly meeting the public need.” 105

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Lacoco’s interview attracted attention from the Minnesota Health Department, and Mario landed his dream job as an outreach worker for La Clinica, a health clinic operated by St. Paul’s West Side Community Health Services. No Tengas Miedo (Don’t Be Afraid), Maldonado’s program, offers many HIV/AIDS services that range from HIV testing to mental health counseling and nutrition consultation.106 The variety of services provided by No Tengas Miedo reflects the multitude of barriers its clients face. “When you compare the Americans with the Spanish [language] community,” Mario noted, “it’s totally different because the Spanish community had a lot of stigmas: the stigma to be immigrant; the stigma to not have papers; the stigma to be gay; the stigma . . . to be a positive, and this, this, this . . . sometimes other communities, they are dealing with one, or two, or three, problems, while others are dealing with one.” 107 Mario and his alter ego Lacoco refuse to allow these stigmas to stain their self-regard: “I always have been happy with what I am doing. I always have been happy with my sexual orientation, and . . . I don’t have to be positive to help positive people and to help my GLBT community. That’s one thing that used to hurt me a lot, when friends would say, ‘You want to start a program? Oh my God, everyone’s going to say you are a positive!’ I say, ‘Who cares? If they say it? I’m still negative, but I don’t have to be positive to understand somebody’s needs.’ If you have the opportunity to help positive people, do it. You don’t have to be positive to understand.”

“Hey, Benny, I Think We Should Open a Queer Bar” Pi Bar, Minneapolis (2007–8)

Tara Yule vividly remembered coming to the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis, to an area known as Dyke Heights at the turn of the millennium. “In the 90s, I was in San Francisco and I was a part of this punk-rock chick, club chick, working-class movement—Tribe 8, spoken word, everything—it was very transgressive, it was very radical. I moved to Minnesota to buy a house. I was turning thirty, and I wanted to buy a house, and I had a partner, the whole thing. We were domesticating. Both of us gained a bunch of weight, and we hated the clothes we were wearing. I was sort of disgusted with myself, because I missed being a little more radical, and I missed music, and I missed fun, and I missed individual personal expression, and I missed art, and I missed radical people.” 108

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Yule’s dawning realization accompanied a national trend among radical queer people. Large segments of the population who identified themselves as transgender, bisexual, and queer argued that marriage equality—the crux of queer domesticity—reinforced heterosexist ideas about gender and sexuality. Many of the nation’s largest LGB organizations began to distance themselves from their fringe constituents in an attempt to secure the passage of pro-gay legislation. Transgender people were most frequently ignored. In 2007, the Human Rights Campaign lent support to a variation of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that did not include gender identity protection—literally removing the “T” from “GLBT.” Locally, the issue of transgender exclusion became especially prominent in Minnesota’s queer bars. Transgender men patronizing the Town House met resistance from the bar’s managers because they used the men’s restrooms. Biological men who identified as men objected to what they considered an intrusion, and the Town House’s bouncers began to stand by the restroom doors and force all bathroom users to present their state identification or driver’s license.109 Often betrayed by the biological sex listed on their identification, transgender people were humiliated and forced to use the other restroom. Observing this, Yule began to consider a means of changing the local bar scene. One spring day, she arrived at her job stocking shelves at the Linden Hills Coop and said to her friend, “Hey, Benny, I think we should open a queer bar. Let’s do it.” Although she had no experience in bar ownership—or the service industry in general—Yule felt that she was on “a mission—from God . . . I was called to open a queer bar.” Visiting the local library, the ambitious entrepreneur researched local liquor laws and submitted her own license application without legal help. “There’s no way I should have been able to open that bar. We started [in April], by August we had a building, and by February we were open.” 110 In little over a year of operation, Pi established itself as one of Minnesota’s most groundbreaking queer establishments. It offered both gender-neutral bathrooms and gendered bathrooms, and its weekend parties blended groups that were otherwise divided along boundaries of race and class. One of Pi’s most successful monthly events, Soul Friday, came at the request of people of color, who demanded an event that represented their socializing needs and music tastes. A locally renowned cook named Eva Robertson visited as a guest chef, and DJ Naughty Boyy mixed the music. Another notable event, Dildo Bingo, fell afoul of Minnesota gambling laws by failing to be registered with the Minnesota Gambling Control Board—possibly because the prize was a free dildo.

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Local liquor license regulations forced Pi to operate in a former VFW hall nestled among light industrial buildings, and this became a problem when the lease was up. Without enough money to buy the building, Yule tried to refinance a six-hundred-thousand-dollar loan just as the economic recession set in. Despite community efforts that raised a hundred thousand dollars, Pi closed in November 2008.111

Flying Low

The Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport (2007) The second openly gay member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Barney Frank, became the center of a media firestorm when the Washington Times published a story that revealed his former relationship with a male prostitute. Steven Gobie’s and Frank’s relationship ended shortly after Frank came out in 1987, but Gobie decided to go public in 1989 after watching The Mayflower Madam, a made-fortelevision movie about a high-profile prostitution scandal in New York. After failing to sell his story to the Washington Post, Gobie gave it to the Washington Times for free and then enjoyed fleeting fame as a guest on daytime talk shows.112 Frank became increasingly dismayed by Gobie’s public exaggerations and requested an investigation by the House Ethics Committee to clear his name. The Ethics Committee extensively studied a wide array of allegations, including charges that Frank ran a bordello from his Capitol Hill apartment and that he urged Gobie to ejaculate into then-Vice President George Bush’s locker at the state gymnasium. The committee found all but two allegations baseless; Frank was found guilty only of writing a misleading letter to Gobie’s parole officer and fixing some of his onetime friend’s thirty-three parking tickets.113 Larry Craig, a fellow U.S. Representative from Idaho’s first district, was one of twelve congressional panelists who considered an appropriate form of punishment for Frank in the fall of 1989. According to the Victoria Advocate, the Republican kept “holding firm” to his belief that Frank should be censured and stand before his colleagues in the House.114 Craig left Washington—reportedly to receive a visiting President Bush in Idaho—before the committee decided that Frank would receive a formal reprimand and nothing more.115 Public attention subsided, and Barney Frank’s career survived. A few years later, Craig launched a successful campaign for the U.S. Senate and became a leading conservative voice in the U.S. Congress.

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The public paths of the congressional leaders crossed again eighteen years later, when a Metropolitan Airports Commission police sergeant conducted a plainclothes investigation in a busy men’s restroom at the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport. Following reports that public sexual activity was taking place in the restroom, Sergeant David Karsnia entered an empty stall around noon and waited to be surreptitiously engaged by another man. According to a criminal complaint filed with the State of Minnesota: At approximately 12:13pm, Sergeant Karsnia observed an older white male, later identified as the above-named Defendant, standing outside of the stall occupied by Sergeant Karsnia. Sergeant Karsnia observed the Defendant look through the crack between the stall door and its frame into the stall that Sergeant Karsnia was occupying. Sergeant Karsnia observed the Defendant appear to look at his own fidgeting fingers and then return again to gazing into the stall of Sergeant Karsnia through the crack. Sergeant Karsnia observed the Defendant repeat this conduct in the same pattern for approximately two minutes. The Defendant peered long enough that Sergeant Karsnia was able to observe that the Defendant had blue eyes.116

The report noted that the defendant placed his rolling suitcase in front of the stall door, a move the Sergeant recognized as an attempt to conceal sexual activity. “Sergeant Karsnia observed the Defendant tap his right foot,” the report infamously stated, “which Sergeant Karsnia recognized as a signal often used by persons communicating a desire to engage in sexual conduct.” The tapping man pushed his foot toward the undercover man’s until they touched and, after sweeping his hands along the underside of the dividers and revealing his wedding ring, he watched as Karsnia presented his identification under the stall. The man shouted, “No!” Karsnia tried to coax him out of the restroom with promises that they could privately discuss the matter, but he finally had to inform the suspect that he was under arrest to get him to leave without incident. The two men walked to an interrogation room, where the sergeant asked for identification. The man produced a business card that identified him as Senator Larry Craig and, according to a memorandum included in an order signed by Judge Charles A. Porter Jr., he said, “What do you think about that?” Craig’s bathroom behavior ignited a firestorm of controversy that provided months of material for reporters, late-night comedians, and queer activists. The senator denied that he had solicited the sergeant; instead, he claimed that his

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general toilet posture involved a “wide stance,” and that he picked up an errant piece of toilet paper from the ground. He repeated this defense during a discussion with Matt Lauer on the Today Show after he had formally appealed his earlier “guilty” plea. He also asserted his heterosexuality. “I go to bathrooms to use bathrooms,” he said in the segment, as he sat next to his wife, Suzanne, in their fire-lit living room. Jon Stewart, a comedian and host of the Daily Show, ridiculed the interview—especially Craig’s toilet paper defense. “I saw a piece of toilet paper on the floor,” Craig said to Lauer, “and it happened to be under my heel, and ah, I don’t know if you’ve seen it before, but I’ve seen it—somebody walk out of a booth . . . with a piece of toilet paper [chuckles] stuck to their foot?” 117 Stewart reacted to footage of the interview with mock laughter: “Oh yes! That’s very funny! That . . . that would be embarrassing and you sure wouldn’t want to put your family through that indignity.” 118 At least one person found little humor in Craig’s alleged behavior. “This is the hypocrisy—it’s to deny legal equality to gay people, but then to engage in gay behavior,” Barney Frank said, noting Craig’s record of voting against gay rights legislation.119 Frank’s own experience as a sexualized topic of media conversation also led him to consider whether or not his former colleague abused the powers of his office. “What he did, it’s hypocritical, but it’s not an abuse of his office in the sense that he was taking money for corrupt votes.” Larry Craig completed his term in office and did not seek reelection. The restroom, located next to the Royal Zeno Shoe Shine, became an unlikely tourist attraction for curious travelers.

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Come Outside Queer People Out in the Open In the summer of 2002, one of Minnesota’s oldest gay organizations commemorated its thirtieth outdoor celebration with an extravagant parade down Hennepin Avenue. Thousands watched the Ashley Rukes GLBT Pride Parade, a moving testament to the state’s struggles and victories. Dykes on Bikes led the way, roller-skating drag queens followed, parents walked hand in hand with their children, and blaring marching bands rolled down Minnesota’s queer main street. Following a route that reflects a historical movement and development, the procession began at the center of the former Gateway District in downtown and ended at festival tents in Loring Park, where a hundred thousand gathered to celebrate pride. The dykes roared by, followed by glittering floats full of dancing go-go boys as a highlight of the parade approached. Sharon Sayles Belton, who had ended her second term as Minneapolis’s first female and African American mayor only six months earlier, sat atop a blue convertible and waved to the crowd as the grand marshal. She had supported the community since she served on the Minneapolis city council in the 1980s, and dressed as Glinda the Good Witch, a favorite character in the Judy Garland classic The Wizard of Oz, for her role as grand marshal. A married mother of three, her participation marked a turning point in the history of local queer social acceptance. Earlier mayors—Donald M. Fraser, Al Hofstede, Charles Stenvig—had difficult relationships with community members, and any direct participation in “gay pride” parades was unthinkable. But Sayles Belton was different; she had waved her wand over the annual crowds without fear of a political backlash. “She’s always been a good friend of the GLBT community and could have been elected Queen of the City [in 2002] by the parade goers,” noted one observer.1

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Sharon Sayles Belton, the first African American mayor of Minneapolis, dressed as Glinda the Good Witch for the Pride Parade in the early 2000s. A longtime supporter of the queer community, the former city council member helped to recast the city’s image. The local government changed from a presenter of obstacles to an unflagging ally. Photograph by John Yoakam.

To some, Minnesota’s queer community had become a sunlit menagerie—freed from an underworld of dive bars and public parks. But, in an age of dying social prohibitions and a Web-based “virtual equality,” the simple act of displaying samesex affection in public remains a charged public statement. Events like Twin Cities Pride are still required for public demonstrations of gender nonconformity and same-sex love. In time, however, the hosts will—and have already—become less necessary agents of introducing queer life to the great wide open. An important step in overcoming discrimination against queer people is the ability to express themselves in the presence of a potentially hostile public. This chapter explores more than a dozen manifestations of queer life that have taken place in the public sphere. A range of queer recreation, which has been present since the 1970s but has blossomed after a visible gay middle class emerged in the early 1990s, has expanded opportunities for socialization outside of the more established bar scene. Pride celebrations—including but not limited to Twin Cities Pride—also facilitated an era of openness and positive publicity. Perhaps most

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important, events like the gay booth at the Minnesota State Fair and organizations like the Queer Street Patrol have claimed the right to occupy spaces and ideas that were previously the preserve of the heterosexual majority.

“Some Queer Gets Beat Up Every Other Night Here” A Death in Loring Park, Minneapolis (1971)

Geographic centrality, darkness, and lush foliage have long contributed to Loring Park’s place as an epicenter of male sexual activity, but these factors also made the park dangerous for many men. Telling his Loring Park story to readers of Minnesota’s first gay periodical, Gay Vue, John Moore relived a harrowing scene late one summer night in 1971. The adrenaline rush caused by the evening’s events is evident in Moore’s writing. Misspellings, awkward language, and minor inconsistencies aside, his account paints a clear portrait of the dangers and intolerable police indifference that gay men had to live with at the time. The story begins with Moore talking to his friends while sitting in a car that overlooked the park: We sat in Joe’s car talking only briefly about people getting physically destroyed by other people in the park. Upon getting out, the conversation blossomed into lengthy dialogue about [other] people getting [attacked].

After discussing antigay violence for a while, the friends moved to the fender of the car and continued chatting until their conversation was interrupted by three approaching men: They asked for money, [we] gave them a quarter, told them it was all we had. They stood in positions surrounding us, after they got the dime they asked for, for several minutes. Deciding not if we had more money, but if we were the ones they were going to destroy. They then left and walked back into the park. A few minutes later a man walked into the park. They approached him in their surrounding manner, and held him emotionally and physically captive, they let him proceed deeper into the park. I lost sight or interest until I heard the screaming of “help—help—hel—he—l.” I saw this figure running towards us, as I heard these words. Then I again faintly . . . heard part of the word [as] he was on the ground and being kicked, along with whatever the others were doing to him. We jumped in Jim’s car to find a policeman. We found one at the stopsign by White Castle on Nicollet [Avenue] and literally begged him to intervene. We

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followed him back to the park. He observed all the traffic lights, and speed limits, while employing neither lights nor sirens in his trip to the scene . . . At the park the policeman slowed down and we pulled in front of him to tell him that the beating was down further, but when we pulled over we saw two of the three walking in front of the Park Towers, and one of them threw a switchblade into the entrance upon seeing the cop. We ran back to the squad car and told them that those two guys were [the murderers]. The cop wouldn’t look at them, nor would he stop them. We argued with him and finally went and picked up the switchblade they discarded. Upon seeing our evidence the policeman only asked for it instead of catching them. Jim said “No, [not] unless he got those guys first.” After several more minutes of our shouting at the policeman, he was going to arrest us. Finally he picked up the two and put them in the squad car.

What Moore recalled next suggests that the police were completely indifferent to the prevalence of gay bashing in Loring Park. “Some queer gets beat up every other night here,” the officer reportedly told Moore and his friends. “I could take you guys for a walk down there and within five minutes you’d be asked to have your cock sucked by some queer on a park bench . . . everybody is breaking some law or another that’s down here.” The officer’s derogatory use of the word queer and his unsubstantiated claim that the law was being broken perpetually give a sense of his attitude. “What probably happened here,” he said, “was that these guys were asked to have their cocks sucked, then they beat the queer up. It happens every night down here.” 2 In a 2010 interview with Gregory J. Scott, a writer with the Downtown Journal, Jim “Andy”Anderson—Moore’s business partner and another witness to the Loring Park murder—remembered: “When you see someone murdered in a park when you’re 19 or 20 years old, and you think this is your life, this is what you have to look forward to, you kind of set your jaw. And you realize you’re in for the fight of your life.” 3 Indeed, in 1971, the fight to occupy public space was only beginning.

A History through Pride Guides

Twin Cities Pride, Minneapolis (1972–77, since 1979), St. Paul (1978) When Steve Endean, Robert Halfhill, Michael McConnell, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, Carry Woodward, and a handful of other friends sat in secondhand furniture

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and on the floor of Gay House in early 1972, none could have foreseen that their meeting would result in one of Minnesota’s most influential queer organizations. A year earlier, Chicago’s nascent Pride organization had invited Jack Baker to serve as its parade’s grand marshal. Embarrassed that they could not honor him at home, Minnesota activists promptly organized the first Pride Committee. The first event was a small hushed gathering of some fifty radicals who picnicked in the northwestern quadrant of Loring Park. Half of them staged a protest on the Nicollet Mall later that day; One of Twin Cities Pride’s most memorable transthe rest remained in the park with gender leaders, Ashley Rukes, posed for the cover enough money to bail the others out of Twin Cities Gaze in 1993 to promote the year’s theme: “A Family of Pride.” Pulling participants in the event of a police crackdown. from across the Upper Midwest, Rukes organized But nothing happened and, according the largest Pride parade in the organization’s histo one of the original marchers, the tory. public “didn’t have the foggiest idea what we were talking about!” 4 The second picnic, in 1973, inaugurated what would become Twin Cities Pride’s longest-lasting annual feature. In an effort to attract more attention to the event, the Pride Committee distributed mimeographed flyers to popular gay and lesbian sites around town. This first “pride guide” featured intertwined Martian and Venusian symbols, announced the weekend’s activities—canoeing, a picnic, an open house at Gay House, and a dance—and issued the hesitant invitation: “non-gays encouraged to attend.” Like all pride guides to follow, the first document reflected the spirit of the times. According to Jacob Gentz, who wrote an extensive analysis of the organization’s history in 2009, seven distinct organizations, each of which called itself “The Pride Committee,” regularly changed the event to fit to their perception of what the community needed. Now assembled at the Tretter Collection, their pride guides reveal how Minnesota’s metropolitan queer community perceived itself across a span of

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four decades. The guides grew steadily to eventually become community yearbooks with more than a hundred pages of advertisements, articles, photographs, and maps. Pride guides slimmed down in the 2000s, a period of transformation. By 2007, the guide had devolved back to a single piece of foldable paper. The Internet had taken over the printed guide’s primary purpose.

Free Rides!

The State Fair, St. Paul (1970s) One of Minnesota’s oldest and most venerable institutions, the annual state fair, has two histories that have all but vanished. Local historian Jean-Nickolaus Tretter remembers that when he was working at the Noble Roman in the mid-1970s, the state fair was an excuse for gay men to meet the fair’s itinerant workers: “They had an excuse in the state fair to be in town. The bars weren’t crowded, but there were always new faces and new people in the bar during the ten days of the state fair.” 5 But the fair was not just an excuse for rural men to go to town, but also for urban men to meet rural men and wandering travelers. In an era before “big scary diseases,” the fair was the state’s largest gathering—thus, the largest venue for outdoor cruising. Carnival operators (“carnies”) traveled from city to city, and they were a favored choice for local men in search of sexual release. “If you wanted a quick trick,” Tretter remembered, “you could always go with a carnie. They were usually more than willing to take time off from their ride, or give you a free ride in exchange for sexual favors.” Carnies were already at the fringe of society, and they celebrated their differences in overt ways. Tretter noted that he once led tour groups of Twin Cities residents on “gay tours” through the fair’s midway. Walking among the hand-painted booths, Tretter, with a keen eye for covert coding, would point out homoerotic imagery that passed all but the most perceptive eyes. “One year, they did a house of horror, like they always do, and all the tombstones had the names of famous gay people: Gertrude Stein, and Oscar Wilde, everything like that.” 6 A queer presence at the fair was not just fun and games, however. For Tretter and another brave soul, Steve Endean, the “Great Minnesota Get-Together” was an unprecedented opportunity “to convince people that gay rights is okay, and gay people are regular, normal people.” “I was part of the Gay Rights Lobby,” Tretter remembered, “and I talked to Steve about [a gay services booth], and I said, ‘If we really want to attract people,

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and if we really want to sell this statewide, we need to have a booth at the state fair.’ And Steve said, ‘Well, but we’ll never get it. They’ll never let us have it.’ And I said, ‘They kind of have to.’ . . . And he said, ‘If you want to do it, go ahead and do it.’ And so I talked to [the fair’s organizers], and I think it cost us $125, which was a huge amount of money, but we got a booth in the Grand Stand, which was kind of where we wanted it as compared to the education building. We knew that we’d have more of a general crowd go through and could be more [visible] . . . the state fair people didn’t care.” 7 He laughed. “Now, our big problem, once we got the booth, . . . was having anyone within the gay community that had enough courage to person the booth. That meant that Steve and I were the ones that did it. I had to work, so I usually did the late-afternoon/evening [shifts], and Steve would do the morning and day [shifts] as much as we could, but there were a lot of times it just had to sit empty. Because we didn’t have anybody there. We were the ones that personed the booth, and of course the Minneapolis Star Tribune was just all over it. They loved the idea, and we had a big discussion about whether or not Steve and I, in giving our names, whether people would be able to track our address down. We did ask the Star Tribune not to do, you know, ‘Steve Endean at 495 Spruce Place.’ “We never really had any terrible problems. There were always people that would make wisecracks, ‘Faggots!’ and all that kind of stuff, a lot of times that was young teenage boys that were trying to show off as they walked by—mostly the city kids, the inner-city kids from St. Paul and Minneapolis, not the farm kids . . . I don’t want to say [the farm kids] were respectful; they were hiding themselves and rushing on by.” 8

On This Harvest Moon

Rising Moon and the Pioneer Farm, Greater Minnesota (since 1974) Nancy Sanders first heard about Rising Moon, a cooperative women’s farm in northern Minnesota, through a word-of-mouth network centered at the Lesbian Resource Center in South Minneapolis. “I heard there was this women’s land up by Aitkin, and I was like, really?” she remembered in an interview.9 Founded by Jane Stedman, a divorcee from Chicago who used her alimony to buy a 160-acre land parcel about fifty miles west of Duluth, the communal farm became a land trust exclusively for women’s use. According to scholar Lillian Faderman, other

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farms that were similar to Rising Moon typified a national separatist movement. “Many separatists established communal farms and became, as one of their 1970s journals called them, country women,” she wrote.10 “This was an important social movement at the time,” added feminist geographer Gill Valentine, “and led to the establishment of a whole circuit of communal farms or ‘lesbian lands’ in the USA.” 11 “Different women would come from California, Oregon,” Sanders noted, “stop in Minnesota, have somewhere to go on the way [east]. So there was one small barn, and two women eventually . . . transformed that into a home, a place to stay, but there was never running water, there was never electricity. When I went up there, it was really cold—it was the middle of Nancy Sanders (right) and two other women play in the snow at the De Lago house, ca. 1972. the winter—they were living on beans Located near Aitkin, Minnesota, Rising Moon and rice and miso. Nobody had money. and De Lago were part of a number of separatist I was so inspired, I went back the next women’s communal farms in the 1970s. Photograph courtesy of Nancy Sanders. summer, and three different women were living in teepees, and everybody had horses. I just don’t know that they lived in those teepees in the winter! Then, another place popped up [within] a mile, it was on a little lake, and that house’s name was ‘De Lago.’ Since that house . . . had running water and just an outhouse . . . [several] women lived there and a lot of them had animals: goats and horses and chickens . . . there was a lot of drugs, mostly homegrown pot.” Working several part-time jobs around the Aitkin area to get by, Sanders and other lesbian farmers landed employment with the town policeman’s wife, “a big, tall woman from the South,” who contracted paint jobs in the area. “I suspect she was sizing me up a little bit, and [she] said ‘I have some work,’ and pretty soon here

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comes Ruth . . . in a cutoff army-sleeve shirt, and then five little baby dykes following her behind into the [town] café! And all of the heads in the café would [turn]!” Five years later, Nancy had returned to Minneapolis, where she first met her future wife, Cal Sanders, at the Seward Café in 1979.The two women connected just as their lives were pulling them in opposite directions: Nancy was in the process of moving to Duluth, and Cal was employed as a teacher in Minneapolis. In 2001, the two women each had children from previous relationships, and their paths crossed once more. Their attraction had never faded, and after combining households and raising their four children, the women wedded on a boat cruise floating down the Mississippi River in 2008. Fulfilling a lifelong dream that began in Rising Moon, the Sanders purchased the Pioneer Farm near North Branch, Minnesota, and are in the process of establishing a community farmstead. “I just feel that in the present day I am actually quite pleased,” said Cal in an interview. 12 We had this event at the farm last weekend, and Nancy’s relatives—you know, some of them Christian Republicans—and my family [were there]. I feel that the level of understanding and acceptance is so far superior to what it had been years ago. I feel like it’s really paving a way for . . . people that are coming up. We still see the hate crimes, I mean we’ve got a long way to go, but I feel we’ve come a long way. I really do. And, we’ll be walking in our new little digs, and I’m going to hold [Nancy’s] hand, and if you don’t like it . . . well . . .” Laughter.

Out of the Park

Twin Cities Goodtime Softball League, Minneapolis (since 1979) On Sunday, May 6, 1979, Buzz Craft, Jeff Giles, William “Bill” Muldoon, and a small group of friends met at the Saloon and decided to go out and play softball in the warm weather. “We put our names and phone numbers on index cards,” wrote Ray Kush, another founding member, “and proceeded to go out and hit and throw some balls around a nearby field.” 13 The dozen or so regulars waited until Memorial Day to play their first opponents, a gay Milwaukee team, in a three-game series. The Minneapolitans won, and their trophy, “an old, scratched, white porcelain pot,” hung proudly from the Saloon’s ceiling.14 Coach Bill Muldoon explained why the Saloon’s foray into softball was an important and groundbreaking development in the community. “The team started out as a way to get away from the bar scene to have some fun,” he told Craig Ketchum

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with Positively Gay! “It just started as talk in the bar. We don’t belong to any city league.” 15 Before local lesbian and gay bars got involved, most softball leagues were organized by and for the lesbian community. The Avantis, Wilder Ones, Amazons, Fesbian Lemonists, and other teams made connections that helped contribute to the creation of a multifaceted lesbian community. In particular, historian Anne Enke notes that “The Wilder Ones used softball as an activity through which to become out feminist lesbians. Even when they modeled themselves on established, visible lesbian subcultures, occupying ball parks as ‘out lesbians’ gave new meanings to that civic space and generated a new politicized sex/gender community.” 16 The politicization of softball reached a new height in 1979 when the Saloon’s team found itself with few opponents. A team member named Bill Brewster organized a now-legendary game between the Saloon’s team and the Minneapolis Police Department, just as the latter was in the midst of orchestrating a series of aggressive raids on gay establishments along Hennepin Avenue. After experiencing some difficulty finding a charity that would accept the ticket sale revenue, the two teams faced off before significant media coverage. The Saloon won 12 to 7, and the Minneapolis Tribune featured a front-page article that announced the victory, while Positively Gay! proclaimed that the cops got “creamed.” 17 The Saloon’s victory represented more than just a well-played game. For the first time, the gay community was able to face their oppressors in a constructive physical contest that proved both straight and gay men were capable of strength, speed, and endurance. A similar, but more playful, contest occurred when the Saloon—which by then had achieved its status as the bar for men—played against Foxy’s, the women’s bar. The match symbolized a growing competition between queer men and women for political power, and it also reflected a long-standing sibling rivalry between Minneapolis and St. Paul.18 Positively Gay! did not note who won the game, perhaps because the victory was the simple fact that gay men and lesbians could openly play ball together and just have fun.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

The 1986 Winter Gay Games, St. Paul (1982–86) Conceived by Dr. Tom Waddell in 1980, the “Gay Olympics” capped a decade of lesbian and gay athleticism across the United States in the 1970s.19 The Olympic organizers chose San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium as the host venue and made a call

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for competitors across the nation. Waddell’s mission was “to dispel the prevailing attitudes in sport regarding ageism, sexism and racism,” and his hopes were realized.20 “The call to compete in the first gay olympics was answered by 1,300 athletes from 179 cities and twelve nations,” according to Out in All Directions: The Almanac of Gay and Lesbian America. “At the seminal event, called ‘Challenge ’82,’ competitors participated in fourteen different sports.” 21 Jean-Nickolaus Tretter traveled to California and joined Minnesota’s contingent, the third largest, in the 1982 games just as his private collection of queer artifacts began to take shape.22 Before he went west, the aspiring archivist had organized his national network of friends to connect two legs of the Gay Olympic Games’ “torch run.” Initially, the run ended in Chicago and restarted in Salt Lake City during its transcontinental run from New York to San Francisco.23 With extensive organizational experience from his volunteer experience in Minnesota’s Special Olympics, Tretter convinced the Gay Olympic organizers that Minnesota’s large community should not be ignored during the relay. Thus, the original Chicago terminus became another stop as the torch run continued along legs that Tretter organized: Chicago, Madison, Eau Claire, Minneapolis, Des Moines, Omaha, Lincoln, Grand Island, Julesberg, Fort Collins, Denver, Steamboat, and Vernal before picking up in Salt Lake. That experience convinced Tretter that Minnesota needed greater national visibility, and he began to ponder how the Twin Cities could host a Gay Games competition in 1986. Sporting events were an integral aspect of lesbian and gay life in the Twin Cities and the state’s well-organized sports community seemed ready for the endeavor. With Robin Karas, Tretter created an extensive proposal for “The International 1986 Lesbian/Gay Winter Olympic Games.” Karas and Tretter promoted Minnesota’s clean environment, plentiful entertainment options, and “the finest [sporting] facilities” as good reasons to hold the “Winter Gay Games” in Minneapolis/St. Paul.24 Amassing what may well be the longest acronym in local queer history, they created the Minnesota Lesbian/Gay Committee of the International Gay Olympic Association (MLGCIGOA) with offices located in the West Seventh Neighborhood Center, a former elementary school with several ball fields nearby. The center was conveniently situated near two ice-skating arenas and the Highland Park Golf Course. Planning began early: the committee initiated its first cochairs conference in late January 1984. Mayors Donald M. Fraser of Minneapolis and George Latimer of St. Paul, State Senator Allan Spear, State Representative Karen Clark, and other local politicians signed letters of support to Tom Waddell; each asked him to consider Minnesota

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Advertisement for “MN in the Snow,” an unsuccessful advertising campaign to bring the 1986 Lesbian/Gay Winter Olympics to Minnesota. Leaders from all levels of local government supported bringing the games to Minnesota, but internal conflicts in the International Gay Olympic Association led to the cancellation of the winter games.

for the Winter Games. Those letters were recorded in a sixty-one-page bid that detailed the event, complete with twenty-one sporting events ranging from traditional ice-skating to nontraditional “snow-object building” competitions. That document is housed today in the University of Minnesota’s Tretter Collection. Unfortunately, financial and volunteer resources were not plentiful. Although the Olympic committee awarded the Twin Cities rights to host the 1986 Winter Games, the lack of local support prevented the games from taking place, and Winter Games planning moved to Denver, where similar problems led to cancellation of the entire event.

Pride in the Northland

Twin Ports Pride, Duluth/Superior (since 1986)

“Gay and lesbian Pride doesn’t end in the Twin Cities,” wrote Equal Time in its 1986 pre-Twin Cities Pride issue. “A softball game is being planned for later this month. No date has been set.” The paper added that Duluth-Superior’s preeminent queer institution, the Main Club, invited its patrons to “pick the year you opened your closet. The main event of the year will be an All Gay Reunion. Each night will feature music and drink specials in honor of a particular decade to recognize when particular individuals ‘came out.’ The 30s special on July 7, for example, is gin. The 80s special is wine coolers.” 25 Perhaps inspired by the record-breaking success of the fifth annual St. Cloud Pride picnic—attended by more than fifty men and women at Warner Lake Park26—

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the lesbian and gay community in Duluth, Minnesota, and neighboring Superior, Wisconsin, created the region’s first Pride picnic in September 1986. “Lack of a strong community identity, created by social and geographic isolation, is a chief concern among gay men and lesbians in Northwestern Wisconsin,” wrote Equal Time shortly before the first pride celebration at the Main Club. The event, called “Happy Homo Sapien Days” to obscure any direct queer association, would not come outside for another year.27 Without the same resources as the more powerful urban community in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Duluth’s commemoration of the Stonewall Riots had to begin with word-of-mouth publicity and graduate to more sophisticated tactics as years passed. The organizing committee gave its first Pride award to Bob Jansen, owner of the Main Club, in 1988. Four years later, the committee added “Bisexual” to the event’s title, and the event added a popular “Fruit Float” boat cruise a year later. In 1995, organizers promenaded along the shore of Lake Superior in the first Twin Ports pride parade. Four years after that, Pride organizers held the first Pride art show. On the eve of the new millennium, Twin Ports Pride gave longtime community veterans the cheeky honor of a “dinosaur award”—an acknowledgment of lifetime achievement— and invited the honorees to march through downtown Duluth dressed as their favorite Mesozoic creature.28 “Thirteen years ago, only insiders had heard of gay pride in the Twin Ports,” wrote the Duluth News-Tribune as it announced an attendance of more than six hundred at the 1999 pride celebration. Kat Summerchild, a cochair of the celebration’s organizing committee, told the paper, “When we first The Main Club purchased a full-page advertisestarted, it was a word-of-mouth thing. ment in the 2006 Twin Ports pride guide that featured buttons from every celebration to date. We’d kind of sneak off and have these Once a prevalent form of communicating queer quiet little picnics at Jay Cooke Park or ideals, buttons adorned activists with logos and slogans throughout the year. Chester Bowl.” 29

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In 2005, attendance at Twin Ports Pride mirrored the exponential increase evident in celebrations across the nation, but the local event boasted a unique commendation that no other festival could claim. Out Magazine, the nation’s largest publication focusing on queer lifestyle, dubbed it the “Hottest Small Town Pride” in the United States: “This Labor Day try giving up the circuit in favor of a pride celebration spanning two states (Minnesota and Wisconsin). Events include a mayoral reception, a waterfront festival, and a Walk/Run/Roll (!).” 30 Bolstered by such national recognition, the northland’s largest pride celebration celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2011.

End Cycles

The AIDS Trek, Greater Minnesota (1986–2010) On January 1, 2011, Dirk Klick wrote a letter to Minnesota’s LGBTQ community that was posted on the Minnesota AIDS Trek’s Web site, ending more than two decades of volunteer effort: It is with great sadness that the MN AIDS Trek Board of Directors has made an extremely difficult decision. It has been decided that the MN AIDS Trek is no longer able to continue as an organization. The Trek has always been a 100% volunteer organization and our goal has been to provide the beneficiaries with all of the donations that have been raised by participants each year. Over the past couple of years, the Trek participant numbers have declined along with the amount of money that has been raised. This year, we did not have enough participants to be able to safely do a ride. It was disheartening to have to cancel a ride, but we needed to make sure we were not putting riders and crews at risk. We strongly feel that all of the Trek’s beneficiaries do wonderful things to support people living with HIV/AIDS. We are very sorry that we are no longer able to continue with the Trek. We are hoping the community will continue to support the organizations and the amazing work they do.31

A national first, the AIDS Trek began in 1986 with the simple desire to refocus the national response to HIV/AIDS away from a focus on politics, illness, and death. Instead, organizers sought to use a healthy, sports-based competition to raise money for patient care, treatment, and research.32 As they arranged a bicycle ride from Duluth to St. Paul, the organizers guaranteed that the experience was not one a participant would soon forget. “The unity that comes from riding your bicycle

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150 miles with a friendly group of people will not stop the spread or find a cure for AIDS,” their 1994 pamphlet stated. “It will provide dearly needed assistance for persons who already have the virus. Giving them hope to live their life with dignity and vigor.” 33 Bicycle marathons for HIV/AIDS issues spread across the nation and demonstrated solidarity along open roads, in rural towns, and through large cities—raising millions of pledge dollars for research and health services. For a time, Minnesota’s head start helped the AIDS Trek attract a high level of participation, even if its fund-raising goals paled in comparison to younger organizations in larger places. During the tenth annual ride in 1997, trekkers raised $30,400 in pledges for the AIDS Emergency Fund’s Every Penny Counts program—a nonprofit endeavor that directly donated ninety-six cents of every dollar received to low-income people living with AIDS. The same year, a three-year-old national group modeled after the AIDS Trek, the Tanqueray American AIDS Rides, raised approximately $25 million. A year before, 1,447 cyclists raised $5 million in the first Chicago-Twin Cities “Heartland AIDS Ride.” 34 In 2002, the Minneapolis Star Tribune investigated the decline of AIDS rides and examined the woes of several organizations across the country. Less than a decade after its successful launch, the Heartland Ride canceled its trek, as did rides in Texas and Washington, D.C.35 Possibly, the decline in participation mirrored a flat rate of new infections that settled in after the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and early 1990s.36 Despite the downturn, the local AIDS trek made it into the new century, only to finish its last ride just as infection rates spiked again in 2010.37

Great Northern Shindigs

The North Star Gay Rodeo, Greater Minnesota (since 1989) A cohort of gay leaders in rural Minnesota—Frank Bohlander, Jim Chalgren, Bob Jansen, Don Olsen, and John Ritter—met during the last two months of 1989 to organize the Upper Midwest’s first gay rodeo.38 Similar events had already been held farther west: Nevada (1975), Colorado (1982), Texas (1983), and California (1984), all organized under the auspices of the National Gay Rodeo Association (NGRA). Bolander and company’s “North Star Gay Rodeo,” which included Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas, became part of the NGRA during the national organization’s largest growth period—1990—when the association welcomed Idaho, Oregon, and Washington as the Northwest Gay Rodeo; Arkansas as the Diamond State Gay Rodeo; and the Tri-State Gay Rodeo, which included Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio.

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Initially, the five Minnesotans sought to spur interest in and develop a membership base, and, in its second year, more than one hundred joined the association.39 “By the 1990s, the momentum had proven itself to be more than a passing fancy, and corporate sponsors took notice,” wrote the Rodeo Association’s president, Bob Pimentel, in 1995. “Miller Brewing Company in 1991 became the first sponsor of all IGRA-sanctioned rodeos. In 1992, twelve gay rodeos were held in eleven states, drawing record crowds from Seattle, Washington to Bethesda, Maryland, with nearly 36,000 daytime spectators and more than double that number attending associated evening functions. The [Rodeo Association] truly became an international organization with the Northwest Gay Rodeo Association adding British Columbia as a member.” 40 That same year, Minneapolis/St. Paul welcomed seventy-five delegates from across the United States and Canada for the newly named International Gay Rodeo Association’s (IGRA) annual convention. The convention’s success led to the first “North Star Regional Rodeo” in 1993 with the support and cooperation of the Twin Cities Pride Committee. Kicking off one the most significant summers in the history of local pride, the rodeo demonstrated how once-separated subsets within the community—the old gay/lesbian, butch/femme, and rural/urban divides—could grow closer to one another and begin to form one “Family of Pride.” Cultural events like the rodeo allowed people from a variety of backgrounds to celebrate a uniquely American tradition—with a queer twist. At pains to explain the slang of the western pastime, the NGRA provided a glossary of terms that cheekily gave outsiders some insight into a cowboy’s life. A “pickup man,” the glossary cautioned, “is not the cute man standing next to you! The pickup man is a mounted arena official who assists bareback bronc riders in dismounting from their horses.” 41 Although they had been urged to “think Western, develop that drawl, work on that range tan, dust off that hat and begin walking like you wore those cowboy boots all day,” attendees were treated to contests that were familiar to rodeo contestants and fans anywhere: chute dogging, steer riding, and bull riding, as well as barrel racing, team calf roping, a “Wild Drag Race,” and goat dressing.42 At the beginning of more than a decade of successful annual events, the 1993 celebration invited a generation to be themselves, show off their unique talents, and inspire others to join the fun.

In 1993, the North Star Gay Rodeo Association (NSGRA) worked with Twin Cities Pride to help produce the “Family of Pride” celebration. The organization’s first rodeo attracted rural queer people and curious urbanites alike, and it led to several more successful events in the 1990s and 2000s.

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Get Out There

Outwoods, Twin Cities (since 1989) In June 1987, while he walked in New York City’s pride parade, Steve Birch made contact with the Sundance Outdoor Adventure Society, a recreation club whose representative in the parade was dressed as an evergreen tree. Accompanied by a cohort of canoeists, bicyclists, and other outdoors enthusiasts, the costumed Sundance representative encouraged Birch to form a similar group in Minnesota.43 Two years later, Birch wrote a letter to Equal Time announcing the formation of an outdoor recreation club: “The focus of the club will be on non-competitive outof-doors activities in a gay and lesbian-positive environment. We are thinking of activities such as cross-country and day cycling, camping, canoeing, hiking, kayaking, cross-country and downhill skiing, birdwatching, rock climbing, scuba diving, spelunking—and anything else others are interested in organizing . . . we think there are a lot of gay and lesbian outdoorspeople in the twin cities and we hope this to be a forum for bringing us together.” 44 Steve then proceeded to “[buy] an answering machine, record the sound of a loon—and [wait].” 45 The following month, dozens met at Bloomington’s Bush Lake, the site of a large nature reserve, to brainstorm about what a gay and lesbian outdoor recreation club could look like in Minnesota. Having decided on the name “Outwoods,” the organization held its first event, a fall nature hike, and began to develop an organizational structure. The mailing list reached 250 names in just eight months.46 By 1997, Outwoods had become a nexus of local queer recreation tied into the burgeoning world of queer sports. “Contrary to many popular opinions,” wrote James Wevley for the Twin Cities Pride Guide in 1997, “GLBT sports is not an oxymoron. In fact, the Twin Cities is home to a Outwoods found new publicity in the 1996 Twin wealth of recreational and athletic Cities Pride Guide. The organization was one of organizations for both the GLBT commany that shifted queer socialization away from munity and their allies. Though the bar-based venues and into the public sphere.

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size and seasons of these associations may vary widely, their common goal of establishing camaraderie, friendships, and a sense of community for GLBT athletes and recreational enthusiasts indisputably binds them together.” 47 “Each [group] is always open to any and all new members,” Wevley continued, “and . . . are not gender-specific. With each year, the total number of participants and associations rises exponentially, and as one interviewee declared, ‘within the next 10 years we will truly see this sphere’s popularity explode in all parts of the GLBT community.’ ”  48 The prescient words of Wevley’s unnamed source proved to be true as the queer community moved beyond a single focus on not-so-clandestine sexual recreation in the 1970s and 1980s and recast itself as a minority capable of organized, nonsexual physical activity.

“What’s a Bear Anyway?”

North Country Bears/Minnesota Bears, Twin Cities (since 1993) Visually: we’re the Furry or Bearded and often Husky guys in the crowd. We range in age from young Cubs to Gray ol’ Grizzly Bears. We’re comfortable with our own sense of masculinity that isn’t contrived. We don’t look and act like sissies ’cuz we aren’t. We don’t need to be fashionably attired, perennially youthful, trim, have a full head of hair, or be clean-shaven to appear “acceptable.” Sexually: We share sexual fetish as our common ground: that big or furry or whiskered types turn you on. The single reason to form this fraternity is to assemble the kind of guys that make your dick stiff and your asshole twitch just looking at ’em—period. Economically: The bear movement is blue-collar-based. We identify with working class men and so we’ll sponsor activities that working class men appreciate: We’ll go bowling, drink beer, go camping, play poker, etc. Pursuits of the wealthy and privileged classes won’t go on our event schedule. Socially: We’re the regular Joe’s who don’t give a shit about the images the gay community thinks we ought to be. We think you’ll find us to be a laid-back, warm and friendly bunch of guys. —Introduction written in the first issue of North County News, the newsletter of North Country Bears, ca. 199449

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Founded in 1993 by “an association of gay and bi men who like the look, feel, and company of bear guys from cubs to otters to great gray grizzlies,” North Country Bears explicitly queered a particular kind of male identity that has existed in Minnesota for decades—possibly since the era of wayward lumbermen in the late nineteenth century. Rough instead of coiffed, burly instead of slender, and in staunch opposition to popular gay stereotypes, such men project an unkempt masculinity that defines itself as the absence of effeminacy. Four “Minnesota Bears” enjoy one another’s company at a party in 1995. Influenced by a wide array The immediate success of North of cultural influences from Walt Whitman to Tom Country Bears is part of a larger of Finland, the bear community rejects the stigmas surrounding the stereotypically effeminate, international phenomenon; the bear fashion-conscious, and slender gay man. Photosubculture spans the globe and is presgraph by John Yoakam. ent in most major American cities. Recounting one of the group’s first events, Bears in the Woods I, Shawn Smith said, “It was quite the trek getting to the campsite from the entrance at the Crow Hassan Park Reserve [near Rogers, Minnesota]. Mud, ruts, and deep puddles served to make the goings difficult, but undaunted, the campers kept striving forward until the camp sites were sited [sic] at last. Tents were soon erected, and coolers brought out and a fire started.” 50 “Dinner soon followed and thanks to everyone, the menu was quite divers,”[sic] he added with a uniquely Minnesotan concept of culinary diversity, “ranging from steak and beans with corn on the cob, to shrimp and beef tenderloin kabobs served with a side of corn bread.” Setting a tradition that would continue for many years, the first night of the Bears in the Woods event was interrupted by a thunderstorm; undeterred from their revelry, several men disrobed and stood naked in the rain. Eventually, the event got a nickname, “Bare Bears in the Woods,” and became a choice opportunity for hirsute nature boys to show their stuff.51

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Take to the Streets

The Queer Street Patrol, Minneapolis (1994–2000) In the early 1990s, downtown Minneapolis was in a crisis. Developers had recently built the behemoth Mall of America just outside the city’s southern limits. Civic leaders feared that retailers would leave the central business district in droves. Hennepin Avenue, once a center of entertainment for the entire region, had devolved into a wasteland of abandoned theaters and empty parking lots. In a desperate move to attract new development, the city council had approved the clearance and urban renewal of Block E in 1988. What was left of Hennepin’s former liveliness was embodied by the patronage of the queer community. Men continued to socialize at Hennepin’s gay institutions as other groups left downtown altogether. However, even this long-standing patronage was in jeopardy. Without other reputable urban regulars maintaining a street presence, the community began to experience a rapid acceleration of antigay street crime. In 1994, the essayist and bisexual activist Elise Matthesen wrote a feature article about the Twin Cities’ newest organization for Twin Cities Gaze. The cover image for her article was of two men and two

A spate of antigay murders rocked the local queer community in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Influenced by similar efforts in Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, the Queer Street Patrol helped recast downtown Minneapolis as a safe place to spend a night on the town.

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women wearing an unusual uniform: leather jackets, reversed baseball caps, and stern expressions. Facing left, the originators of the Queer Street Patrol clasped one another’s shoulders in a militaristic fashion that evoked wartime propaganda; the accompanying headline was “Protecting Ourselves: The Queer Street Patrol.” The Queer Street Patrol emerged after an outbreak of antigay violence rocked the Twin Cites, revealing an unacceptable increase in public hostility toward queer people. “The violence is part of the backlash,” noted Rob Yeager, a founder of the patrol. “We’re making progress with our rights and our lives, and when you make progress there is a backlash; they try to push you back into the closet.” 52 “There was a period in my life where three people were killed close to me,” explained Gary Schiff, a member of the Minneapolis city council who helped organize the street patrol during his early years in community activism. “There was a transgender prostitute whose body was dumped two blocks from my house [in South Minneapolis], and then, within a couple of weeks, a University of Minnesota student was killed—I’d never met the student, but I was a student at the U at the time—and then Howard Lee Pauper was killed, and he was a friend of mine. He’d supported my activism; he was a business owner who had a printing company called Smart Set . . . Howard would just do free work all the time, printing off flyers for rallies, brochures for nonprofits, and I would just give the job to Howard, and he would get it done.” “I just felt I was inundated, and I felt really surrounded by violence against queer people.” 53 One of the first Minnesota organizations to publicly refer to itself as “queer” in name, the street patrol exemplified a national trend that saw street patrols—such as the Pink Angels in Chicago or the Pink Panthers in New York—reclaim public space while claiming queer, formerly an epithet, and using it as a symbol of pride and power. Appropriately enough, given the broad nature of queer, the local street patrol achieved a high level of gender diversity.54 By the end of the 1990s, urban development projects along Hennepin Avenue attracted other (mostly) law-abiding citizens, crime dropped, and the street patrol disbanded.

The Family Feud

Capital City Pride, St. Paul (1996–99) One of Minnesota’s largest and oldest queer organizations, Twin Cities Pride transformed a ragtag assembly of radical gay men and lesbians into a corporate-

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sponsored holiday attended by tens of thousands. Twin Cities Pride often changed according to the pressures of an exponential increase in attendance, but it nonetheless became a lightning rod of controversy and an easy target for frustrated community members. Of the innumerable problems that swirled around the organization—ranging from petty squabbles to allegations of financial misappropriation—one of the perennial issues concerned just where Pride should take place. This debate began in the 1970s, when the first Pride festivals convened in Loring Park because it was a popular cruising site for men. But in the late 1970s, St. Paul became one of several cities, including Seattle, Wichita, and Eugene, Oregon, that were targeted by Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign. The campaign instigated voter referendums against city council measures that had granted a handful of rights to gay men and lesbians. Bryant’s effort sparked gay and lesbian organizing across the country. Locally, Citizens Alert for Morality’s success underscored the fragility of St. Paul’s nascent gay and lesbian community—centered on Grand Avenue, the enclave dubbed itself “The Castro of the Upper Midwest,” and may have surpassed Minneapolis’s population in the mid-1970s. Internal conflict between gay men and lesbians in Minneapolis and their St. Paul counterparts contributed to the failure of the “Equal Rights Clause” in St. Paul by an almost 3-to-1 margin, in 1978. Following the repeal, the capital city began to lose community members to Minneapolis, where equal rights were safeguarded from voter referendums. To demonstrate solidarity, the Pride Committee held its celebration in Mears Park, but many Minneapolitans skipped the rainsoaked event and met informally in Loring Park. At a critical moment, when Pride’s residence in Loring Park was impermanent and subject to change, St. Paul’s voter referendum hardened its image as the conservative older twin to a liberal and younger Minneapolis. Twenty years later, the sibling rivalry between the two cities resurfaced when Loring Park was under renovation and unavailable to Pride celebrants.55 A possibility of relocating the celebration—the first such change in decades—motivated St. Paul residents to suggest their city as a good location for the event. Citing logistical problems in all available St. Paul parks, the Pride Committee listened to their suggestions but finally decided to relocate the festival to Nicollet Island and the Mississippi Riverfront. The times had changed in St. Paul. After an unsuccessful initiative to restore equal rights in 1988, the city council Human Services Committee voted to extend

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rights to gay and lesbian citizens in 1990.56 Yet another voter referendum in 1991 failed to rescind the clause and, with political victories in hand, St. Paulites organized their own pride celebration to celebrate St. Paul’s grow­ ing queer movement. “[The] ‘weaker twin’ perception is one of several issues that permeate the St. Paul GLBT community,” wrote Mark Schuller in the first Capital City pride guide. “Several community members cite a lack of coverage of St. Paul events in the gay press as well as a lack of political clout, Mayor Norm Coleman’s refusal to sign the Pride Proclamation Capital City Pride attempted to produce a distinct St. Paul pride event in the late 1990s. Orgalast year is a good example of this pernizers employed Minnesota’s best-known drag ceived lack of political power.” 57 performer, Miss Richfield 1981, to help attract In the two decades since Twin attendees to Mears Park in downtown St. Paul. Financial problems and low attendance ended the Cities Pride’s 1978 washout, Mears festivities after only two years. Park had undergone its own transformation. Built in 1973 as a terraced brick plaza reminiscent of Peavey Plaza in downtown Minneapolis, the unpopular “brickyard” was transformed in 1992 into a lush green space with 188 new trees, a bandstand, and a self-renewing artificial stream.58 Like the new St. Paul Pride, the new park intended to distinguish St. Paul from its better-known twin as an inviting, warm, and uniquely Minnesota space. The festival seemed ready for success, but a terrible storm drove away Pridegoers on both sides of the Mississippi River. To complicate matters, the Capital City Pride Committee accused members of the local press of downplaying its work. In Lavender Magazine, one of its sponsors, it rebuked suggestions that the organization was a front for securing more bar business for owners who were on the committee: “Contrary to numerous references in focusPOINT [a newspaper of the era] articles and commentaries, the St. Paul bars are not sitting ‘dead’ or ‘empty’ [the rest of the year]. One must wonder when the last time was that the writers were even in one of the nightclubs they feel qualified to judge . . . It appears that

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focusPOINT is bound and determined to be critical of Capital City Pride, regardless of the success of the event or the inaccuracies in its reporting. That’s OK. While the press can be powerful so, too, can people working together, gathering together and celebrating together. That’s what Capital City Pride is all about.” 59 Pursuing its mission “to serve, educate, motivate, and support the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community along with our heterosexual families and friends within St. Paul and its boundaries” proved to be harder than committee members had anticipated.60 After successfully negotiating disagreements with its Minneapolis counterparts, Capital City Pride and Twin Cities Pride joined forces in 1999, but Capital City’s financial problems persisted and led to its demise later that year.

We Get Respect by Respecting Ourselves The Two Spirit Gathering, Onamia (1997)

Two-spirit Native Americans from across the Western Hemisphere returned to Minnesota in 1997 to commemorate the tenth annual Two Spirit Gathering since the Basket and the Bow had met in Minneapolis in 1988. “The International Two Spirit Gathering has been a time for Native GLBT people to get together, to share information, relax, support each other, and share our cultural and spiritual traditions,” wrote the organizers in an advertisement for the landmark event. Excited to celebrate their tenth anniversary with dedicated participants and new attendees, they chose Onamia, a small town two hours north of the Twin Cities.” 61 The physical distance from the Twin Cities was a notable break from the 1988 gathering; according to Anguksuar (Richard LaFortune), the change to a rural site eliminated the distractions that Minnesota’s urban areas produced.62 Without the lure of gay bars and other entertainment options in the Cities, the chemical-free gathering gave attendees an opportunity to connect with one another exclusively. Beading sessions, talking circles, a “giveaway,” a powwow, a “No Talent Show,” and a sweat lodge all gave participants the opportunity to celebrate cultural and spiritual beliefs, socialize with other two-spirit people, and encounter other Native Two Spirits for the first time.63 The remote location provided physical separation from potential non-Native LGBT spectators. Motivated by an innocent interest in indigenous cultural practices—one that unknowingly reified “an impression that spiritual experience can be

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The 1997 Two Spirit Gathering commemorated Minnesota as an important watershed of Native American activism. This poster features a painting by George Littlechild and a caption that reads “This painting honours all 2 Spirited people—their male and female aspects. 2 Spirited people are known for their roles and positions as healers, artists, and storytellers (keepers of history).”

purchased”—outsiders waving sage bundles and donning dream-catcher earrings had occasionally invited themselves to gatherings, bringing with them a potential to cheapen and disrupt the events.64 The “co-opting” behavior of eager cultural tourists was a side effect of increased two-spirit prominence. Since 1988, the Two Spirit Gathering had become a nationally recognized event in the United States that exposed many straight Native Americans and non-Natives to the layered obstacles that two-spirit people face. “I was worried that if I came out I would have all of the rights of going to [Native American] ceremony taken away from me, and this was scary because my spirituality is very important to me,” Beverly Little

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Thunder told an audience in Philadelphia. “Our ceremonies help people to reclaim who they are. We’re not looking for respect from our tribal members anymore—we get respect by respecting ourselves.” 65 “Each year the group convenes in a different part of the country,” the Daily Philadelphian explained in the spring of 1997, “and ‘each city usually sees at least 80 new faces,’ [Little Thunder] said. This year the group will meet in Minnesota for the Tenth Annual International Two Spirit Gathering . . . Little Thunder noted that the Two-Spirit Gathering welcomes all Two Spirit, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered indigenous people, their partners and families to the event.” 66 The tenth annual gathering commemorated a decade of international work that aimed to dismantle the colonialist relationship between the United States and Native American people. The gathering also helped restore the multifaceted identities and cultural practices of two-spirit people and bolstered Minnesota’s position at the center of two-spirit activism in North America. “What I’m trying to do is find out what [the two-spirit role] means in terms of culture and as a people,” said longtime two-spirit activist Lee Staples. “There’s a purpose for why we’re born two-spirited and the Creator wants us to use that purpose for our people.” 67

Fierce Love Power

Twin Cities Black Pride, Minneapolis (since 1999) The concept of LGBTQ Black Pride has roots that stretch back to the Roaring Twenties, when legendary “rent parties” attracted intellectuals and radical performance artists in several major U.S. cities. Gladys Bentley, Jessie Fauset, Langston Hughes, Richard Bruce Nugent, and Gertrude “Ma” Rainey each took part in variations of the rent party that ranged from the sophisticated salons of Washington, D.C., to modest walkups in Harlem.68 Locally, such gatherings took shape as what were called “good-time parties” along Rondo Avenue, in Minneapolis’s SumnerGlenwood neighborhood, and in the Fourth Avenue district south of downtown Minneapolis. The success of the “ball scene” helped produce one of the first public demonstrations of black gay pride in 1991, when Washington, D.C., hosted its first event as a means of spreading information about HIV/AIDS.69 In 1999, representatives from seven cities—Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis/ St. Paul, New York, and Washington, D.C.—formed the International Federation of Black Prides (IFBP), an organization dedicated “to promote a multinational

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network of LGBT/SGL (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender/Same Gender Loving) Prides and community-based organizations.” 70 The IFBP’s establishment ushered in a rapid development of new pride celebrations across the nation, including the first Twin Cities Black GLBT Pride celebration in 1999.71 Begun as an extension of the Urban League’s HIV prevention programming, the event quickly became a gathering that commemorated the intellectual, artistic, and spiritual contributions of people of color in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest region. A second organization, Soul Twin Cities Black Pride organized in the 2000s Essence, organized after Twin Cities and became a principal community-building organization for queer people of color, their friends, Black GLBT Pride had hosted sevand their families. It sponsors events—such as the eral annual events. “As with several theater performance advertised in this flyer—and established networks with other organizations, other black prides across the nation,” such as the Aliveness Project, Twin Cities Pride, Twin Cities Black Pride explains, “the and the GLBTA Programs Office at the Universuccess of the black pride stimulated sity of Minnesota. other community organizers to start their own black pride activities. As in other cities, this split in organizing efforts in already marginalized and underfunded groups eventually caused the original pride to fold. In [2006] Twin Cities Black GLBT Pride and Soul Essence each held separate events. For the next few years thereafter, the Twin Cities black pride celebration went on, but never with quite the same impact or attendance of the original Twin Cities Black GLBT Pride.” 72 Color CoordiNATION, an umbrella organization created to foster growth in the Twin Cities queer communities of color, initiated a new conversation in 2008 that considered the past and possible future of black pride. The dialogue opened the door for past committee members and new volunteers to work together on setting up an event. The organizeers created a new organization called Twin Cities Black Pride, which used popular events from previous years as it searched for new avenues of constructive community development.

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This led to new events in 2009 that represented the diversity within Minnesota’s queer community. Black Pride hosted a popular “Literary Café,” in conjunction with Color CoordiNATION, where G. Winston James, Lisa C. Moore, and Alphonso Morgan carried on the rich tradition of queer African American literature. The Gay 90’s hosted a music competition at which nine contestants did their best to “Blow Up the Mic,” a popular Red Party at Patrick’s Cabaret provided HIV testing and awareness-raising, and the Parkway United Church of Christ held a spiritual service before the main event—a picnic on Boom Island.73

Out in the Country

Pine City Pride, Pine City (since 2005) Established in commemoration of the East Central Men’s Circle, a social organization of queer men in rural Minnesota celebrating its fifth anniversary, one of the world’s smallest organized pride celebrations convened at a riverside park in one of the state’s least-populated regions. Pine City, a town with some three thousand residents at the border of the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation, became the host of the region’s first pride festival in 2005. One of the organizers, Don Quaintance, noted: “It’s a chance for us to celebrate our uniqueness, as well as our unity with one another.” 74 “This event is one of only six gay pride events statewide,” noted the Askov American, the local county newspaper, in 2007, “with the Twin Cities, Duluth-Superior, Fargo-Moorhead, Mankato and Rochester being the others. The Men’s Circle, along with RAAN (Rural AIDS Action Network) sponsors the event. The Men’s Circle provides a way for people to meet, socialize, and feel accepted in a rural community; RAAN helps raise HIV/AIDS awareness and provides funds for people living with HIV/AIDS in the rural area.” 75 In 2007, Pine City became the unlikely small-town host of a larger conflict between LGBTQ activists and conservative citizens opposed to a “gay lifestyle” that was increasingly becoming a part of mainstream American life. The confrontation began when Pine City Pride placed an advertisement in the local paper that featured a hand-carved local landmark—“The Voyageur,” a monument to early explorers—donning a pink feather boa with the proclamation “It’s OK to be gay in Pine City.” 76 The conservative citizens staged a counterpicnic billed as “pro-family,” which seemed to suggest that it was not “OK to be gay” in their town. One upset

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resident, Patrice DeGray, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “they’ve become brazen and bold. They say in their ads that this is possibly the smallest [gay pride] picnic in the world. Well, is that what Pine City really wants to be known for?” 77 The dueling Prides continued to meet and attract attention from Minnesota news outlets. After attending both picnics and reading their respective social media sites, Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent quoted a declaration from the alternative picnic’s organizer, Abe Mach: “The GLBT picnic is being brought in by groups from around the state. If you go to their Facebook group, you can find people asking to be bused in from Minneapolis. These aren’t the values of our community, and we want to make that clear. We do not want to this to become the defining event of our city.” 78 John Marty, a state senator, spoke to Pine City’s Pride-goers and sent a message to Mach and his supporters in 2009. “We aren’t going to allow their hate to ruin our day,” he declared on an unusually cold June 5. “This is the pro-family picnic, not the one on the other side. I’m glad to stand with you on this bitterly cold June day. It’s a cold day, but there are a lot of warm hearts. Thank you for standing up for your community in Pine City.” 79

Baskets and Bows Revisited

Minnesota’s Fourth Two Spirit Gathering, Sandstone (2008) In 2008, The Two Spirit Press Room invited indigenous people from across the Americas to visit Minnesota for the state’s fourth Two Spirit Gathering. Eightyfive attendees traveled to the Audubon Center of the North Woods, a recreation area near the village of Sandstone, Minnesota, and commemorated the twentieth annual gathering since the Basket and the Bow was held in Minneapolis in 1988. More than any other place in the world, Minnesota had become associated with the two-spirit movement—an international endeavor to restore two-spirit culture to its place in Native American cultures. Since that first occasion, the gathering annually moved to sites across the United States and Canada. In 1989, the Minnesotans organized a gathering in Wisconsin, and in the 1990s, other two-spirit communities organized gatherings in their regions. Beausejour, Manitoba (1990); Eugene, Oregon (1991); British Columbia (1992); Tucson, Arizona (1993); Lawrence, Kansas (1994); Rexton, New Brunswick (1995); Olympia, Washington (1996); Camp Onamia, Minnesota

Begun in Minnesota in 1988, the Two Spirit Gathering returned in 2008 to celebrate its twentieth anniversary. Previous events limited attendance to Native American two-spirit people and their families, but organizers allowed select members of the press to attend and document the event.

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(1997); Beausejour, Manitoba (1998); and San Jose, California (1999) each helped the gathering maintain a lasting annual presence. In the year 2000, Minnesota took over a scheduled event in Nevada “due to . . . weather and health concerns.” In the 2000s, many of the gatherings took place in Canada: British Columbia (2001); Alberta (2002); Mnjikaning, Ontario (2003); Quebec (2006); and Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan (2007).80 Throughout the years, the gathering’s organizers closed the event to outsiders in order to prevent an influx of well-meaning, but clueless, cultural and spiritual tourists. In 2008, for the first time in many years, a handful of non-Native media representatives were allowed to witness the event. With guidance from the Two Spirit Press Room, a writer and photographer from the Utne Reader were invited with others so that they could tell their stories to a broader audience.81 The admission of outside media permitted the world to observe and understand two-spirit life from a respectful distance. “We didn’t have a lot of places to meet and socialize except with the mainstream LGBT community, which was in bars, and those aren’t a good place for us,” Richard LaFortune told the Utne Reader’s John Rosengren about the first gathering in 1988. Rosengren added, “Since then, some 3,200 people have attended the alcohol- and drug-free gathering in locales [across North America].” As attendance numbers increased, more Native Americans came out, embraced two-spirit identities, and departed on a difficult and rewarding lifelong journey. Facing the possible risk of losing loved ones, two-spirit people were prone to abuse, chemical dependency, and suicide at higher rates than many other demographic groups. A two-spirit gathering was an essential event that provided a safe space for uninhibited celebration. “We want people who face difficulties in their day-to-day lives to be able to stop and breathe,” LaFortune said.82 The weekend-long program of sacred ceremonies, discussions, and presentations commenced with an Ojibwe water ceremony. To position attendees in historic tradition and contemporary relevance, the August event included both traditional rituals and drag shows featuring popular songs. It even attracted the attention of major political figures. While Barack Obama was running for the presidency, he sent a letter to the gathering with a promise. “The Two Spirit community has persevered in the face of numerous challenges and hardships over the past two decades,” the future president wrote in 2008, “and through this you have worked to bring about a more tolerant America, and I will be an ally in that effort. Great progress has been made, but considerable work remains to be done.” 83

The Lavender Tower

6

The Lavender Tower Institutions of Art and Education Queer academic investigation and queer cultural production have dominated the headlines and airwaves for decades. In 1967, a groundbreaking study at the University of Minnesota represented one of the country’s first steps in the field of sex-reassignment surgery. Led by Dr. Donald Hastings, the University’s Transsexual Research Project made the state attractive to transsexuals and other gender nonconformists. News of the study spread across the country and, without much knowledge of transgender phenomena, media outlets gave patients an opportunity to explain their lives on their own terms. The story of Lauraine and Lenette Lee, of “brothers become sisters” fame, spread like wildfire. Only two years later, after demonstrating its comparative institutional tolerance, the University of Minnesota gave a safe space to Fight Repression of Erotic Expression (FREE)—one of the earliest gay student organizations in the United States. FREE provided yet another opportunity for constructive publicity in November 1969 when NBC-TV aired coverage of “the first gay dance on a university campus” to living rooms across the country. Exposure to different kinds of queerness was essential in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. FREE was unique in this respect because it connected gay identities with activism, education, and artistic expression, thus making gay associations acceptable and accessible to many of the college-aged baby boomers in the Twin Cities. The student group supported the Club, an after-hours youth center on Hennepin Avenue that catered to “drag queens and their boyfriends.” When “Skogie,” the young lead singer of a Minneapolis rock band, briefly discussed his

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performance at the Club with the Insider, a Midwest music magazine, he positioned the space as comparable to the Coffeehouse Extempore and other fringe venues. FREE supplied fliers for Skogie’s performance, and invited prospective attendees to “expose yourself to this!” Of course, initial exposure was also often met with media ignorance, so it had a mixed effect. In an interview, longtime Twin Cities columnist Julie Dafydd, who was a participant of the Transsexual Research Project, recalled: “It’s kind of funny: There’s a part of me, [laughs] that misses that whole . . . closeted thing. There’s kind of a . . . exclusivity, yeah. I remember being really pissed off, I’m still kind of pissed off . . . I remember when [The Rocky Horror Picture Show] first came out. I was livid. Livid about it. ’Cause I was like, ‘Oh, great. Just what I need. A musical that makes fun of trans [people]. Just what I need.’ You know, it’s not bad enough that there’s an episode on WKRP in Cincinnati where they’re making fun of Lonnie Anderson because there’s a rumor that she used to be a man, and everyone’s going ‘ooh-ooh’ and making a big fuss about it. And I was just like ‘Just shut up about it. Make it go away. The more the public doesn’t know about [transgender people] the safer I’m gonna be.’ ” Later in the interview, she added: “Ignorance makes you invisible and [I] was like ‘That’s okay with me!” 1 Visibility, it seems, was not everything it was purported to be. This chapter is called “The Lavender Tower” because it focuses on the Tretter Collection, the Transsexual Research Project, FREE, the Club, and other examples of queer participation in Minnesota’s academic, cultural, and youth-based institutions. The ivory tower is a well-known euphemism for institutions that wall themselves off from everyday life, but the lavender tower is a tinted variation of that bleached concept. For forty years, intelligent and artistic queerness has attracted substantial media attention; the lavender tower suggests a visibility and an engagement with the outside world, instead of suggesting its namesake’s enclosed detachment. I selected sites that highlight the diverse history of Minnesota’s institutions: college offices, university programs, high school groups, operating rooms, libraries, theaters, concert halls, youth centers, and other societal forums are part of this designation. If the Transsexual Research Project acts as a foundation to the “lavender tower,” then I chose to end this chapter with the Transgender Commission because it is a crowning achievement. The commission represents an immense institutional change. Once, transgender individuals were patients whose fates rested in the hands of health authorities; now, the “patients” have come to arbitrate their

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own affairs, and they represent the cutting edge of queer institutional change. This change is the result of decades of difficult work that challenges the gendered foundation of human thought and expression.

End of the Masquerade

The Transsexual Research Project, Minneapolis (1966–76) In December 1966, doctors at the University of Minnesota announced plans to study twenty men who were scheduled for sex-reassignment surgery. The story attracted national attention, but most newspapers and magazines handled the subject with vague unease. One magazine, Jet, got right to the point in its January 1967 issue: “The amputation of the genitals, the construction of a vagina, and a life-long intake of estrogen, a female sex hormone to enlarge the breasts and widen the hips will turn the trans-sexuals into women for all purposes but child bearing, according to Dr. Donald W. Hastings, chief of psychiatry and neurology at the university medical school. The trans-sexual is not a homosexual but a woman in man’s body, said Dr. Hastings.” 2 Framed as a public-interest piece, the Jet story introduced its many African American readers to the concept of transsexual surgery, perhaps for the first time. After the publicity, hundreds of people from across the United States—as well as from Europe, South America, and Asia—asked to participate in the program. Their ages ranged from twelve years to seventy.3 Hastings led the University of Minnesota to become one of the nation’s first medical centers—after Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore—to dedicate substantial resources to sex reassignment. In early 1967, Hastings and his colleague Dr. John A. Blum outlined a research project that defined the transsexual “syndrome” and identified two forms of treatment. The first, an option to “change the mind to fit the body,” used noninvasive courses of treatment that attempted to reverse the patient’s gender mismatch by using psychoanalysis, drugs, or electric shock therapy. Hastings and Blum noted that “none [of the aforementioned treatments] has shown any benefit and all are regarded as worthless by physicians acquainted with the condition.” 4 The study only identified the mind–body option to cite its significant problems; it was not included in the research project. The second option, to “change the body to fit the mind,” was the treatment the doctors wished to try, observe, and analyze. Hastings and Blum proposed to follow

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the participants, each over age twenty and free of psychosis or other mental-health problems, who would undergo surgery and years of estrogen therapy. The doctors planned to study the participants for ten years to monitor their happiness with the surgical results, and to decide whether the treatment option was worthy of recommending to other transsexual patients. Two of the project’s participants, a pair of sisters who had once been brothers, were interviewed by the St. Paul Sunday Pioneer Press in 1970 and announced their satisfaction with their procedures. Both confided that they had spent their youths on the verge of suicide. “ ‘We had played a masquerade for so many years,’ said Lauraine [one of the sisters], ‘that the pressure of trying to act as men when we felt as women began to cause all types of frustrations. I knew that unless I could change my sex I might well commit suicide.’ ” 5 The sisters’ front-page story spread to newspapers across the country. Within days, “Brothers Become Sisters” appeared in papers from the Modesto Bee to the St. Petersburg Times. National media had reported earlier surgical operations—notably, that of Christine Jorgensen, the “blonde beauty” of Denmark—but the story of Lenette and Lauraine gave transgender people societal “permission” to speak about their identities and surgical experiences for the first time. Don Spavin addressed the sisters as such—their preferred description—and finished his groundbreaking story by quoting Lauraine’s hope for the future: “ ‘We are not seeking publicity to exhibit ourselves as some sort of freaks . . . We’re telling our story in the hope that it will bring an understanding of the reason and eventually a better acceptance by an uninformed public.’ ” 6 Another participant in the program, Donna “Big Mama” Ewin, told her story to Gay Vue. “When she first heard about the transsexual operations at the University of Minnesota Hospitals,” the author explained, “she approached her parents about it. Her father thought she was completely crazy, and threatened to have her committed, but that didn’t work because the doctors refused to accept her: there was nothing they could do for her. So she finally called Dr. Hastings . . . who told her that she needed a psychiatrist’s recommendation in order to be considered.” After a “crash diet” to lose some of her 320 pounds, Big Mama had her first operation; “[it] was beautiful.” Complications arose and, after eight more surgeries, she was satisfied with her reassignment. After discussing her healthy sex life and dispelling misconceptions—including rumors that silicone breast implants exploded on airplanes—Big Mama left Gay Vue readers with a prediction: “I feel if more lectures were given on heterosexuals and sex changes, people wouldn’t be so

The Lee sisters pose for the St. Paul Pioneer Press in the summer of 1970. The world’s first transgender siblings stood in front of a theater that was playing The Christine Jorgensen Story, an exploitative biopic of a transsexual pioneer. Photograph copyright St. Paul Pioneer Press.

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stupid and would understand. Because really, I think someday, maybe I’ll be too old to appreciate it, but I feel that sex changes will be very common . . . and accepted. Let’s face it, there’s got to be a few of us that’s got to fight for our beliefs.” 7 The experiences of a third participant, local columnist Julie Dafydd, suggest that the program had its share of faults. Dafydd had traveled to New York for her operation because it was less expensive, but she experienced horrific complications from the surgery and entered into the program as an emergency case. In an interview, she called her surgeon (who was not Dr. Hastings) “a monster,” and added, “He had no respect. None. No respect . . . He would make fun of you, in front of you.” 8 After becoming seriously ill from an infection, Dafydd recalled being bedridden when “[the surgeon] traipsed in with a bunch of medical students [and said], ‘Here is an example of a surgery gone horribly wrong.’ And I’m laying there and I’m like ‘This is . . . this is me’ . . . and he goes, ‘Well, don’t go jumping off any bridges or anything, but you’re going to have to do this entire procedure again. This will teach you for not having come to me in the first place.” 9 Instead, Dafydd threw the surgeon’s instruments at him and refused to continue in the program after recovering from her infection. She suggested that the surgeon’s behavior ultimately led the University of Minnesota to suspend its program. “The University of Minnesota ended up being kind of a pariah to the TS [transsexual] community ’cause they were assholes,” she said. The ten-year study known as the Transsexual Research Project ended in 1976. Dr. Hastings passed away unexpectedly a year later; in his obituary, the New York Times reported that nine of the participants had married and all were relatively pleased with their sex reassignment. In just three years, doctors at the University Hospitals performed twenty-nine male to female surgeries.10

“Hi There!”

Fight Repression of Erotic Expression, Minneapolis (1969–72) The Minnesota Daily informed University of Minnesota students about “The Homosexual Revolution” just weeks before the Stonewall Riots in New York, with a declaration that “pink power has come to Minneapolis.” “Gay Power,” it stated, “as it is properly termed, is a homosexual movement that seeks to change the laws, attitudes and prejudices of uptight, upright heterosexual America.” 11 Taught by two University of Minnesota graduate students, Koreen Phelps and Steven Ihrig,

One of Minnesota’s seminal gay organizations, Fight Repression of Erotic Expression (FREE), began in 1969. The first FREE course convened several weeks before the Stonewall Riots, and is celebrated by local pride organizations as a unique Minnesota event. This 1972 pamphlet, shown front and back, explains the history and purpose of the group. Image courtesy of Sam Sampson, a FREE attendee.

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“The Homosexual Revolution” was a free course that convened at the Coffee House Extempore on May 18, 1969, as part of the Free University in Minneapolis. The cofounders noted that the significant attendance for the class suggested a basis for gay student activism, so they organized a new student group to extend the reach of Gay Power during the fall semester. Perhaps inspired by the title of the Free University, Fight Repression of Erotic Expression began as Minnesota’s first gay student group, as well as the Twin Cities’ first gay outreach program. FREE sponsored public speaking engagements that were both educational and implicitly confrontational. Speakers addressed topics on human sexuality in venues that were previously inexperienced with open discussions of same-sex desire and gender nonconformity. Reaching beyond the university, speakers addressed church audiences—at times to “quiet, questions [and] doubts”—and also led informative training sessions with the Minneapolis Police Department.12 At the time, churches and the police represented two bastions of homophobia. The former often used biblical literalism to attack the legitimacy and morality of homosexuality, and the latter actively repressed displays of gender and sexual nonconformity in public settings. Training sessions with officers sensitized the police to queer mistreatment, while giving the officers an opportunity warn students about illegal conduct that guaranteed arrest. Interestingly, FREE’s involvement in the training sessions came at the request of the Minneapolis Police Department; the police contacted the students and sought their advice as the local gay community’s first representatives.13 Jack Baker, one of Minnesota’s most recognizable gay spokesmen, joined FREE shortly after the coffeehouse classes. Student activism proved to be Baker’s first step toward a future of groundbreaking work. He soon became FREE’s president, produced its newsletter with an introductory “Hi There!” and summarized the week’s events of protests, newly established contacts, and committee business.14 Baker’s involvement ultimately led him into university politics; he became the first openly gay president of the Minnesota Student Association (MSA) in 1971 and won reelection in 1972. Members did not dedicate all of FREE’s efforts to serious matters, however. The organization hosted the university’s first on-campus social gatherings that catered to gay students and offered “free coffee and lots of dancing.” 15 FREE dances attracted an average of a hundred people in the basement of Coffman Memorial Union.16 The organization also drafted a constitution that set a standard for future organizations, including Gay House; in fact, it turned out to be the first in a long line of queer student organizations on campus. FREE folded in 1972—possibly

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when it lost Baker to the Minnesota Student Association—and a new group named Minnesota Gay Activists took over responsibility of queer advocacy at the university.17 As of 2011, the Queer Student Cultural Center (QSCC)—a combination of groups at the university—carried on the tradition. It began as the Association of Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual Student Organizations and Their Friends in 1991. Groups throughout Minnesota regard FREE as a seminal organization that ushered in local community activism. The Twin Cities Pride Committee, while commemorating the Stonewall Riots and participating in nationwide celebrations, annually celebrates FREE’s founding as a uniquely Minnesota event.18 Likewise, the Queer Student Cultural Center recognizes its predecessor as the original voice of the University of Minnesota’s active and diverse queer student population. Until recently, many local historians aligned FREE with gay and lesbian histories. While the organization certainly included young men and women who identified with those traditions, it is important to note that FREE’s first members initially sought to remove all forms of erotic repression—including those that produced the very distinctions that eventually became codified sexual identities. Thus, FREE is truly Minnesota’s first “queer” organization, one that became a foundation for contemporary bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender (and other) identities and organizations.

Madwimmin and Amazons

The Amazon Feminist Bookstore, Minneapolis (1970–2012) In the fall of 1970, a collection of books in cardboard boxes sat on the porch of the Brown House, a commune near 26th Avenue South and 24th Street East in the Seward neighborhood of South Minneapolis. During a time of national radicalism, residents Julie Morse and Rosina Richter began the Amazon Feminist Bookstore with an assortment of volumes on feminism and women’s liberation. Their feminist activism complemented the efforts of their housemates, Vietnam War protesters and draft resisters who operated the Brown House as an epicenter of Minnesota war resistance. To some, the Brown House was “the headquarters of everything,” 19 but it had become too small by 1972, so Morse and Richter moved their books to the basement of the Lesbian Resource Center at 710 West 22nd Street in South Minneapolis. A site of planning, community building, and dialogue among women, Amazon was a center of information dissemination long before the advent of online social

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Drawn by Alison Bechdel to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Amazon Feminist Bookstore, this poster depicts a busy scene full of women. Amazon served as a model for Bechdel’s popular comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For; the characters met and worked in “Madwimmin Books,” a feminist bookstore set in a neighborhood of an unnamed Midwestern city.

networking and Web-based communication. Amazon was the first independent feminist bookstore in the nation, but it was not a unique institution for long. Feminist bookstores quickly became a common fixture in many American cities and doubled as cultural centers with book discussion groups, support groups, drum circles, and other community-based activities. By 1973, the bookstore required its own commercial space, and it briefly moved to a “shady” section of West Lake Street before relocating to a safer space at 25th Street and Hennepin Avenue.20 For a time, the Hennepin address proudly displayed the bookstore’s hand-painted logo—a large double-headed axe, popular among the era’s lesbian-feminist organizations. The sign was Amazon’s first public declaration of its existence, one that came to fearlessly symbolize women’s space in Minneapolis for more than two decades. But the building deteriorated over time,

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and when the roofs leaks became serious, Amazon moved to a spacious building on Yale Place facing Loring Park, where it remained until 1996.21 The store’s significance extended beyond its physical space to become a landmark in the imaginary world of popular cartoonist Alison Bechdel. A caricature of the bookstore was a prominent setting in Dykes to Watch Out For, a weekly cartoon and graphic novel series that followed the lives of women who lived in a midsize American city in the Midwest. In the series, characters from a variety of backgrounds discussed their relationships, politics, and queer feminist culture as they shopped or worked at “Madwimmin Books.” The fictional setting reflected the establishment’s real growing pains as it transformed from a collectively run community center to a privately owned business operating in a competitive marketplace. In Dykes to Watch Out For, the store closes in the midst of growing competition from an online retailing giant named Medusa Books and a national bookstore chain named Bounders Books and Muzak. After a brief stint at the Chrysalis Women’s Center, the enterprise moved on to 4755 Chicago Avenue South, a mile south of an area once known as “Dyke Heights.” True to its name, the store fearlessly sued the gargantuan online book vendor Amazon.com for improperly using the “Amazon” name. Settling out of court, the Amazon Feminist Bookstore changed its name to True Colors Bookstore in 2008, nearly forty years after its humble beginnings in Seward; True Colors closed in 2012.

Expose Yourself to This!

The Club, Minneapolis (ca. 1969–72) A pioneering center for young people followed by Club Vogue and, years later, by District 202, the Club occupies a central place in the history of Minnesota’s queer youth. The “theater lounge” was a nonalcoholic social venue for gender-nonconforming teenagers and young adults that occupied the second floor of a small twostory building next to the Orpheum Theater on Hennepin Avenue. Gino Crando, a bartender “with a heart of gold” at the St. Paul gay bar Town House ,22 opened an after-hours coffeehouse for gay people.23 Strangely, the building was the former headquarters of local circus managers and carnival hosts; founded in 1957, the Midwest Showman’s Association continues to give indoor/outdoor performers an opportunity to socialize in their off-seasons.24

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The public world outside of established and protected gay spaces could be dangerous at the time. Writing anonymously to Gay Vue (Minnesota’s first gay periodical) in 1971, a young gay man complained that even the city’s most supposedly accepting area, the West Bank, near the University of Minnesota, was unwelcoming to same-sex couples: “Walking on the ‘liberated West Bank’ with your lover and you’re having a good talk and you reach out for his hand without thinking. Without hesitation, from across the street comes the familiar refrain, ‘look at the faggots!’ Do you bullshit Located in a small second-story space that overradicals over there know that the looked Hennepin Avenue, the Club offered the only late-night safe space for queer youth in the Nicollet Mall is for sure less represlate 1960s and early 1970s. Catering to “drag sive to gay people than your fucked up queens and their boyfriends,” the dance floor white liberal college playground?” 25 also served as a venue for the local music scene. This poster for Skogie and the Flaming Pachucos Drag queens and their boyfriends, suggests a high level of rowdiness. who had few options for public dating, frequented the Club for cheap food, dancing, and movie nights (including the drag-fabulous “Some Like It Hot”), but only with the promise of exclusivity.26 After graduating high school, Julie Dafydd became a regular in 1970; she recalled that it was “definitely a firetrap. I mean, nobody really cared, but it was just this narrow little stairwell going up . . . and [there was] like a little window/booth where you paid your money, and [where they would] see if you were gay enough [laughs] . . . they didn’t want interlopers who would accidentally step in.” 27 During the same interview, another club regular, Sam Sampson, observed: “As I recall, you kind of had to be with somebody who had been accepted there. You didn’t just wander in and say ‘Hi, I’m new in town.’ ” Dafydd added: “They had windows, but they were painted black.” In 1972 a local performer named Rick Moore—alias “Skogie,” leader of Skogie and the Flaming Pachucos—remembered his performances at the Club when few

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other venues would book his act. He told Insider: The Midwest Music Magazine: “One of the more memorable [gigs] was on Hennepin Avenue. We had this manager for about two months named Jim Tiseth, and the only gigs he could get us were at this gay club at 916 Hennepin, and it was called The Club. So we played there for all these drag queens and stuff. It’s behind this black door that says 916, and it doesn’t say anything else on it.” 28 Like FREE, Gay House, the Lesbian Resource Center, and other pioneer centers of the era, the Club was a safe house that was well acquainted with controversy. Women who actively participated in the venue complained that they were discriminated against.29 Unlike the other centers, the Club’s nonconformity and nonpolitical purpose led to difficulties when it sought outside funding. Although it was a pioneer in every respect, the Club was short-lived; it closed in 1972. Its regulars may have moved to the Sandbox before patronizing the long-lived epicenter of Minneapolis’s drag queendom—the Gay 90’s complex.

“These Kids Are from Carleton”

The Northfield Gay Liberation Front, Northfield (1971–74) To the Noon News Bulletin: Important to my sanity and future. Did you ever have something to say, and if you didn’t say it you would burst wide open? I feel that way right now. But I can’t say it to anyone face to face. I am a homosexual and if you knew how difficult it was to be a fag, or queer, or gay, or whatever you want to call it, and have everyone in the world know, you could understand my frustration . . . I can’t even call a gathering of queers together here, although I’d like to because I’m afraid, feel intimidated, very insecure. Couple this with the feeling of loneliness that all you straight people feel, then if you can, if you can, try to understand the more intense loneliness that a homosexual feels here. Alone, frustrated, and quiet. Caged in and the key thrown away. I wish there were even a way to tell another homosexual who might be reading this how we might communicate but I can’t because then I would be revealing myself and I cannot do that, not right now. Maybe, though, there is a stronger person out there who can do something about this. I hope. I really hope. I even hope you will print this and realize I cannot sign my name. —Anonymous letter to the Carleton College Noon News Bulletin, January 29, 1971

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In the small town of Northfield, Minnesota, a desperate and anonymous letter to the Noon News Bulletin prompted students from Carleton College and the nearby Lutheran college of St. Olaf to create one of the nation’s first student-led lesbian and gay organizations. In 1971, the Northfield Gay Liberation Front (NGLF) began irregular meetings in the lounge of the Carleton-owned Parish House, a mansion that faced Northfield’s Central Park.30 The students hosted discussions about “political issues of the day” that also served as a social gathering where gay and lesbian students could begin to come to terms with their identities and make new friends.31 Not affiliated with and quite different from New York City’s larger and more radical Gay Liberation Front, the NGLF contended with the realities of openly gay life in a small college town. Mark Lofstrom remembers attending meetings behind closed doors as a college freshman in 1972 when “most people who attended the meetings would sit on the floor in case someone walked in. That was a kind of phobia or fear, shall we say? So they couldn’t be seen, so they could be anonymous . . . there was this underground feeling to it [laughs]!” 32 Twenty or thirty students attended each meeting, with “a little less than half ” coming from St. Olaf. Unlike FREE at the University of Minnesota, the NGLF was not an official student organization or directly affiliated with Carleton College administration. Carleton had recently created a stir by threatening to expel two male students after they were caught having sex, and organizers of NGLF feared a similarly negative reaction from the administration. “I don’t think there was a really high trust level with the administration—how they would handle these issues,” Lofstrom noted. Organizers were also nervous about publicly declaring participants to be members of a gay or lesbian group. NGLF also took occasional “field trips” to gay bars or to meetings of gay groups in the Twin Cities. “I know we went to the Saloon, and we went to the Gay 90’s,” Lofstrom recalled, “those are two places that stand out. There was another meeting that a friend from this group, or from college, and I went to with a couple of other people . . . in the Twin Cities. And I remember when we came to the meeting, I was pretty comfortable with it, but one of my friends was sort of like . . . ‘These people are gay.’ ” He laughed. “I think there was a person in drag, and a transsexual . . . I remember we were introduced with a Carleton connection: ‘These kids are from Carleton.’ ” 33 The NGLF “fizzled out” after the freshmen who met in the group’s first year graduated in 1974. Queer organizations continued at the school, however, and Carleton graduates formed an LGBT alumni association, Out After Carleton, in 1992.

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Prophets at the Foot of the Mountain

At the Foot of the Mountain Theater, Twin Cities (1974–91) In 1974, three male and three female performers started the experimental theater At the Foot of the Mountain (ATFM) in Atlanta “to find out not only what it would mean to use our bodies and our voices but what it would mean to bring our emotions fully to the role. We didn’t want to leave our feelings at the door as we had been trained to do, but to bring [them] to our performance.” 34 After consulting the I Ching, “a favorite of countercultural English readers of all varieties,” 35 the founders found a hexagram within the ancient Chinese text that described “the springs at the foot of the mountain” and adopted the name.36 The men dropped out shortly thereafter, and the company moved to Minneapolis, where the women were left to develop their own creative talents during a period of transformation and exclusivity, one that demanded women’s space outside of hegemonic patriarchy.37 At the Foot became a women-only volunteer venture that employed women in all aspects of every production—writing, acting, set design, and crew work—and welcomed lesbian and bisexual themes as an integral part of women’s experiences. In a poster for “Raped: A Woman’s Look at Bertolt Brecht’s The Exception and the Rule,” the company defined its mission as an exploratory endeavor: At the Foot of the Mountain is a women’s theatre—emergent, struggling, angry, joyous. Through our own consciousness raising, workshops in vocal and body awareness, varied improvisational and Gestalt disciplines and performances, we are in the process of developing a company voice, a company style. We are asking: How does a woman’s theatre differ from the theatre of the patriarchy? What is a woman’s space? What is a woman’s ritual? We struggle to relinquish traditions such as linear plays, proscenium theatre, non-participatory ritual, and seek to reveal theatre that is circular, intuitive, personal, involving. As witnesses to the destructiveness of a society which is alienated from itself, we are a theatre of protest. We are also a theatre of celebration, participants in the prophecy of a new world which is emerging through the rebirth of women’s consciousness.38

Even in ATFM’s early months, lesbian and bisexual issues were part of a spectrum of subjects that included “battered women, women and work, nurses, women in religion, adolescent girls, pornography, [and] the decision whether or not to have children.” 39 ATFM’s feminist slant was a “naturally queer-inclusive” 40

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venue for lesbian theater. The mixture worked because two of the group’s founders, Martha Boesing and Phyllis Jane Wagner, became partners in 1975—their relationship ensured that queer subjects were an accepted and celebrated part of the company’s repertoire.41 Like other theater groups in Minneapolis/St. Paul, At the Foot of the Mountain did not call a particular theater space home. Instead, the group performed in small independent theaters—including the West Bank Firehouse, the Southern Theater, and At the Foot of the Mountain was one of the other venues on the city’s “liberated” nation’s longest-running feminist theater troupes. From 1974 until its end in 1991, it challenged West Bank. By the 1970s, Minnesota patriarchal norms and artfully expressed women’s already boasted an impressive theater experiences to audiences across the country. heritage, but the troupe’s actresses were well trained and met the audience’s high expectations. Identified as a national first, At the Foot of the Mountain explored and helped develop the concept of a feminist theater for the rest of the country.42

He Believed in Yesterday

Jim Chalgren LGBT Center (since 1974) Minnesota State University-Mankato boasts one of the oldest sites of “out” gay student activity in the country. After it became Mankato State College in 1957, the school’s enrollment ballooned and attracted students from small towns and rural areas in southern and western Minnesota. One of them, Jim Chalgren (1951– 2000), paved the way for the city of approximately thirty-two thousand to develop “a national reputation as one that welcomes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students to its campus.” 43 MSU-Mankato’s status as a small-town Mecca developed by overcoming hard-

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ship and as a result of Chalgren’s determination. The school sponsored some programming and a “gay desk” as early as 1974. In that year, the school’s first gay newsletter, Tomorrow, introduced itself with a proclamation of hopes for the future: Tomorrow—looking forward to a day not far away, a day of people loving people. The purpose of the Gay Consciousness Group is to bring people together socially and politically to deal with gay issues, and to serve as a resource for individuals needing personal assistance, as well as promoting gay awareness on the campus and in the community. Our primary responsibility is to serve the gay community and that is what we hope to achieve through our meetings and other activities. Obviously there is great need for public education to clear up misconceptions and to help to alleviate the general fear of homosexuality.44

Tomorrow followed in the small footsteps of earlier attempts to integrate gay issues in academic programs, and precipitated later efforts to “queer” the human relations of Mankato State College in 1975.45 These early movements culminated in 1977, when Chalgren—then a graduate student working in the Counseling and Student Personnel Program—founded the Alternative Lifestyles Office to “serve as a base of activities and collect educational resources.” 46 When proposing the office, he noted that “Gay people have special needs and concerns which most cannot afford to share with the straight community. For the most part, straight community service agencies have no background, knowledge, or skills with gay issues. Gay people have reported negative treatment at straight agencies. Gay people within the agencies themselves must remain hidden to retain their jobs.” An unknown editor, perhaps Chalgren’s Jim Chalgren began a career developing rural college adviser, marked the proposal queer communities in Minnesota at Mankato State University in the 1970s. “There are people with parenthetical advice: “try to stay who meet at our dances who will avoid each other away from blaming the ‘straight’ comif they cross paths in a hardware store,” he said of small-town life in 1979. munity, they will cop an attitude just

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like in class—it’s too threatening to many to hear something like this. [C]hange parentheses to [note the] difficulties gays experience rather than blaming!” Wisely choosing his own path, the young gay activist began organizing dances, hosting conferences, engaging with other students, and offering help to students who struggled with their sexual identities. The path was difficult for him; in 1976, for example, Chalgren and five male friends danced together at the Trader and Trapper Discotheque and were expelled from the establishment. In 1979, he pointedly stated: “there are people who meet at our dances who will avoid each other if they cross paths in a hardware store. It can still be a disaster to be identified as gay in Mankato.” 47 Subsequent name changes and mission redirections did little to alter Chalgren’s vision for the basic purpose of MSU-Mankato’s queer student center. He went on to become a safe-sex educator, an advocate for LGBT legal rights, and, in 1987, he unsuccessfully attempted to convince the city of Mankato to adopt an equal rights ordinance following the murder of two gay men.48 These struggles and a long battle with AIDS wore away at his health, and he died in 2000 at forty-eight. Named in his honor in 2008, the Jim Chalgren LGBT Center came to serve five thousand students annually and led MSU-Mankato to be considered one of the nation’s top destinations for students seeking a queer-friendly learning experience.49

Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?

A Brother’s Touch Bookstore, Minneapolis (1983–2003) Harvey Hertz, a New York native, began an uphill battle that lasted for two decades when he opened A Brother’s Touch bookstore at the southern edge of downtown Minneapolis in 1983. After securing the first space for his store at 1931 Nicollet Avenue, Hertz threatened a lawsuit against his landlord for discrimination. The building was located at the intersection of Nicollet and Franklin Avenues—a prime corner for vandalism—and its owner feared that it would be firebombed if he permitted a gay bookstore as a tenant.50 At a time when other queer people generally shied away from public lawsuits, Hertz’s fearless act of defiance was successful. The landlord changed his mind, and A Brother’s Touch opened in the space to general acclaim. “Get over to A Brother’s Touch as soon as you can,” Tim Campbell wrote in the GLC Voice on opening day. “Something tells me the current stock will be gone in a week. Something else tells me A Brother’s Touch is here to stay.” 51

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The local queer press was not the only media to visit A Brother’s Touch in its early years; television news stations broadcast stories about the store—especially when Hertz sued the city of Minneapolis over its pornography ordinance and lost in 1985.52 Despite the defeat, Hertz’s case was an early example of queer legal challenges to the city, which showed that lesbian and gay businesses were legitimate and capable of protecting their A Brother’s Touch opened at the corner of Nicolinterests. Unfortunately, however, the let Avenue and Franklin in 1983. Although the Amazon Feminist Bookstore had attracted lesbian store’s legal challenges did not reflect patronage since 1970, A Brother’s Touch became widespread confidence within the the first explicitly gay and lesbian bookstore in community; whenever the cameras Minnesota. Vandals repeatedly attacked both the original store and its later location on Hennepin came in to cover a story, patrons fled Avenue in the 1990s. the store so they would not be captured on film in a gay bookstore.53 A Brother’s Touch opened and operated during the AIDS crisis, when government indifference, vandalism, and antigay attacks resulted in a unification of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender voices. The unified “community”—and a resistance to it—produced a dynamic renaissance of queer art. The LGBTQ book market blossomed, and Hertz was responsible for attracting national writers— including Quentin Crisp, “the naked civil servant”—to the Twin Cities for book discussions and signings. After moving to a “sunny” space on Hennepin Avenue in the early 1990s, A Brother’s Touch encountered a challenge that could not be resolved in court: national chain booksellers began to move into the Twin Cities.54 These stores drew patrons away from local bookstores like A Brother’s Touch and the Amazon Feminist Bookstore by offering a sizable selection of queer titles at lower prices. Another competitor, Rainbow Road, opened in Loring Park in 1995—though the new venture was local and did not have much in the way of literature, it did offer a wide selection of greeting cards, gay pornography, and gifts. After slowly losing its edge in these sideline products, which made up a substantial portion of Hertz’s sales, A Brother’s Touch closed in 2003.

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Jim Connelly, the owner of Rainbow Road, delivered a eulogy of sorts for Hertz’s bookstore in an interview with City Pages: “the concept of the consumer changes, [and] I change along with it. You have to evolve, you can’t just wait for somebody to come in and buy a product from you because you’re reaching out to the gay community . . . I mean, straight people don’t go to straight businesses because they’re straight; they go there because there’s a product there that they want to buy.” 55

Come, Hear the Music Play Patrick’s Cabaret (since 1986)

A force to be reckoned with in the Twin Cities’ prolific theater community since the 1970s, Patrick Scully began Patrick’s Cabaret in the spring of 1986, when he hosted his first cabaret as a night of dancing, storytelling, and film in the “comfortable, low-tech, and informal” auditorium of St. Stephen’s Catholic School at the southern edge of downtown Minneapolis. The genial host invited participants to perform anything, without auditions, and the audience was essentially composed of the performers’ friends.56 Without any initial funding or complicated production equipment, Scully relied on social networks—predominantly queer ones—for patronage. Word got out, but even City Pages suggested that “to find out the cabaret dates, the potential concertgoer has to either hear about them through the grapevine or appear on Scully’s mailing list.” 57 Patrick’s Cabaret attracted seventy-two attendees a month later and, after a year of developing underground, the cabaret issued its first press release and announced that “35 artists have performed for hundreds of people in a series of monthly shows. The Cabaret has featured film, song, prose, dance, video, music, magic, poetry, comedy, theater, story telling and performance art. Each evening is an eclectic mix.” 58 In 1988, Patrick’s Cabaret started receiving outside support, beginning with a three-thousand-dollar grant from a state-funded philanthropic organization called the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.59 The public money allowed Scully several luxuries: artists began to receive small compensation for their work, the cabaret schedule became fixed to a bimonthly format that participants could easily remember, regular publicity to local newspapers became feasible, and the venue moved into a permanent—if small—space on the edge of highway 35W in the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis.

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Five years later, public funding became the center of a controversy over a Patrick’s Cabaret hosted by Ron Athey, an openly gay extreme performance artist. The performance was cosponsored by the Walker Art Center, whose contribution of $150 made Athey an indirect recipient of funds from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).60 In the New York Times description of the performance, Athey “pierced his scalp with acupuncture needles, causing it to bleed, and pierced his arm with hypodermic needles [with the help of three assistants]. With a scalpel, Mr. Athey also inscribed ritual patterns in the back of Darryl Carlton, an artist, who does not Pictured here in 1981, Patrick Scully became a tireless performer in Minnesota’s theater comhave H.I.V. With sheets of paper towel, munity. He started hosting cabarets in 1986, and a Mr. Athey blotted the bloody patterns, generous donation of a firehouse in 1999 allowed then attached them to a clothesline Patrick’s Cabaret to settle into a permanent home in the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis. and suspended them over the heads of the audience.” 61 An audience member complained to the Minnesota Department of Health about potential exposure to HIV, and the complaint led to a front-page article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune by its art critic, Mary Abbe. Abbe, who had not attended the performance, wrote a review that focused on Athey’s HIV-positive status without noting, as the Times had, that Carlton was HIV-negative.62 The Associated Press picked up Abbe’s story and sent it to media outlets across the country. This led to another controversy for the NEA, which had been scrutinized in 1990 for rejecting the proposals of four artists subsequently called “The NEA Four”—Karen Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes, and Tim Miller. The Patrick’s Cabaret controversy made its way to the floor of the U.S. Congress, where the performance was misrepresented by foes of the NEA. According to the Chicago Tribune, Representative Robert Dornan (Republican of California) accused the NEA chairman of supporting “the slopping around of AIDS-infected blood.” In an

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interview with the Tribune, Athey said, “I’m just being used in other people’s battles . . . What troubles me is that I’m being presented as having received NEA funds when I haven’t yet paid my June rent in LA.” 63 In Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and AIDS, David Román writes: “Athey, of course, is not culpable for the AIDS hysteria generated by the press and the subsequent cuts to the NEA. In fact, like other artists who have been dragged into the cultural wars, he has little to gain from this exposure. Like the NEA Four, his work is now forever linked with scandal and, more to the point, the expectation of scandal.” 64 Because it was the Walker Art Center’s contribution that tied Athey’s performance to the NEA, Patrick’s Cabaret survived the ordeal and continued to host performances until 1996, when Minneapolis fire marshals cited code compliance issues and closed its south-central Minneapolis location.65 In 1998, an anonymous “faerie godmother” donated a former firehouse valued at $250,000 near the intersection of Minnehaha Avenue and Lake Street in Minneapolis, ending more than two years of nomadic performances.66 Throughout the 2000s, Scully and others involved with the venue renovated the converted firehouse by adding a dance floor, setting up movable risers, and providing new seating. The improved digs did not change the theater’s supportive and welcoming atmosphere, however. After Patrick’s Cabaret replaced its prominent rainbow flag in preparation for the institution’s twentieth anniversary, its directors announced: “There is a new rainbow flag proudly flying from the top of our building saying that we embrace the concept of diversity as a standard for art and for life. There will continue to be a constant stream of performers that testifies to the depth and breadth of the Twin Cities area community at large.” 67

The Collection That Could

The Quatrefoil Library, Minneapolis (1986–87) and St. Paul (since 1987) Quatrefoil Library became the United States’ second publicly circulating LGBTQ library on February 4, 1986, when Dick Hewetson and David Irwin opened their collection of books, periodicals, and multimedia to the public after years of private accumulation. The two had met in 1975, and lived in St. Paul together until their relationship ended in 1984. David’s book collection started during that time (Dick was not the collector), and what began as the by-product of voracious reading grew

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Pictured left to right: Dick Hewetson, Harvey Hertz, Quentin Crisp, and David Irwin. Hewetson and Irwin founded Quatrefoil Library in 1986, and invited the author of The Naked Civil Servant to Minneapolis for a book signing. Hertz owned A Brother’s Touch and also hosted a signing during Crisp’s visit.

into a vast repository of queer literature.68 Although they went their separate ways, the two remained friends and endeavored to transform the private collection into a lending library. Named after one of the first books to represent same-sex love positively—Quatrefoil, a 1950 novel by James Barr—the library became a long-overdue nexus of local queer culture.69 Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, future founder of the Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies at the University of Minnesota, volunteered at the library in the 1980s, and George Holdgrafer, future founder of Lavender Magazine, dedicated time and energy as well. Midwestern queer communities were early leaders in the development of public educational outreach. The first institution of its kind, Chicago’s Gerber/Hart Library, began five years before Quatrefoil to honor Henry Gerber, who organized the first homosexual organization in the United States in the Windy City in 1924. Called the Society for Human Rights, Gerber’s short-lived organization followed in

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the footsteps of Magnus Hirschfeld’s Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which supervised the first scientific study of homosexuals, bisexuals, and gender nonconformists, and launched one of the first contemporary organizations to advocate for changes in social, political, and intellectual attitudes toward same-sex love and gender nonconformity. Hirschfeld’s influence on Gerber led the latter to publish the first American gay periodical, Friendship and Freedom, which printed two issues before the police arrested Gerber and his associates in 1925.70 Like Chicago, the Twin Cities had been a longtime home to large academic institutions. In keeping with Minnesota’s culture of higher education, Quatrefoil started as a collaborative effort of individuals who believed that public access to information would help shape Minneapolis into a center of gay and lesbian scholarship. Dick Hewetson’s early participation in Gay House may have helped inspire the creation of the library; that drop-in center housed the first publicly accessible (but noncirculating) gay collection in the Upper Midwest.71 The fledgling Quatrefoil Library first opened for business within the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union (MCLU) Foundation’s office building at 1021 West Broadway Avenue in North Minneapolis. Karen Clark, a representative of south-central Minneapolis and one of the nation’s first openly lesbian state legislators, was the first to donate money to the library during an extensive media campaign in local media.72 Board members and volunteers began regularly publishing the library’s newsletter—The Gay Bookworm, later Quatrefolio—and in a matter of months the expanding Quatrefoil threatened to consume more space than the MCLU had available. Hewetson and Irwin used their own funds to pay the rent, but the library’s rapid expansion ultimately prompted the library to move to a larger space at a former elementary school in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood in June 1987.73 The library offers CDs, cassette tapes, DVDs, magazines, newsletters, newspapers, videos, and, of course, thousands of books with titles in fiction and nonfiction from local, national, and international authors. Many books are rare titles that cannot be found in most public lending libraries but, unlike the Tretter Collection and other repositories of rare queer material, many are available for loan. Thus, community members, high school students, historians, and voracious readers are all able to use the collection and discover new information about the queer community. “Everyone has their favorite library anecdote,” volunteer Kathy Robbins told Lavender Magazine in 2001. “One of mine is when a young male college student came in to do research on the assassination of Harvey Milk . . . [The student] was able to get a complete feel for what the gay community was feeling and thinking at

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the time.” 74 Aside from patronage, Quatrefoil also offers volunteer opportunities and a sense of community to queer retirees, librarians, and bookworms. On February 4, 2011, Quatrefoil celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary, commemorating a legacy that is both profound and understated. The library functioned as the state’s only distinctly queer academic resource for more than two decades. Until the Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies began at the University of Minnesota in 1999, the community had been responsible for the production and preservation of its own information and history.

Under the Umbrella

Philanthrofund, Minneapolis (since 1987) In the mid-1980s, David Berchenbriter, Jim Quinn, Gregory White, and Bill Zwart searched for a foundation that supported lesbian and gay scholarship and service while planning the future of their estates. Hoping to donate a portion of their wealth to a lesbian and gay philanthropic organization after their passing, the four friends could not find a suitable organization in Minnesota—despite the state’s prevalent culture of philanthropy—so they decided to begin one of the nation’s first queer granting organizations. Eight community members formed a board of directors, and Philanthrofund was organized in 1988.75 “PFund” initially offered modest grants and scholarships; Gregory White noted that he and his colleagues considered fifty dollars “a major grant” in 1988.76 The foundation’s annual endowment began with $1,500, and organizers believed that PFund’s success would prove that “we’re strong enough to take care of our own.” 77 Like other organizations of its kind, Philanthrofund amassed a small fortune by investing donated funds and returning the profits into the grants and scholarships pool. Unlike many foundations, it largely relied on small and medium-sized donations rather than major one-time bequests and large gifts from corporate sponsors. It became a community-supported organization that supported the community’s endeavors and, as a result of this sponsorship, the community supported Philanthrofund. Its early success is remarkable if one considers that HIV/AIDS-related issues represented new financial and emotional burdens in the 1980s and 1990s; the AIDS pandemic added new challenges to a population that was already economically disadvantaged and hampered by expensive legal obstacles. In the words of Gregory White: “Many corporate foundations and community foundations feel

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they’ve done their duty when they give to AIDS organizations . . . But AIDS organizations are public health organizations—not gay and lesbian organizations.” 78 In just two years following its inception, PFund’s endowment increased to eight thousand dollars and it joined the Minnesota Council of Foundations—an important step for Minnesota’s queer community. Grants carved out of this modest endowment went to the Calliope Women’s Chorus, the Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP), and programs at the University of Minnesota. Publicity surrounding these first grants helped kindle donor interest; the positive effects of PFund’s activities began to take shape as organizations spent their grants and donations increased. In 1996, when the endowment reached two hundred thousand dollars, the group received twelve thousand dollars from the National Lesbian and Gay Funding Partnership (NLGFP)—the largest of twenty grants that the NLGFP distributed in the state.79 Philanthrofund’s growth ultimately led it to separate its giving into scholarships and grants for organizations. In 2002, twenty students received scholarships from the $50,000 scholarship fund, and Minnesota Men of Color was among many organizations to receive a $2,000 grant that year.80 In 2009, the fund awarded more than $140,000 to recipients in the Upper Midwest. PFund presently oversees more than a million dollars in financial investments and other assets, making it one of the largest queer foundations in the United States.

“OK. Sounds Hip.”

District 202, Minneapolis (1992–2009) Although it was not the first group of its kind in Minnesota, District 202 has the distinction of being the state’s longest-running center for queer youth. Before it even had a name, the organization’s board members began assembling funds in 1991 and realized their plans with private donations, financial assistance from local churches, and a twenty-thousand-dollar grant from the Minneapolis Foundation. Even before it opened its doors in late 1992, District 202 had Minnesotans curious about its name. According to a nineteen-year-old board member, the name did not have any significance: “There’s no reason for the name. [Someone suggested District 202] and we said ‘OK. Sounds hip. It’ll take on a meaning of its own.’ ” 81 District 202’s founders intended to disseminate information regarding HIV/ AIDS and safe sex to a youth population that has been susceptible to high rates

Community leaders had proposed a new center for youth since the closure of Gay House in 1979. In 1995, District 202 opened on Nicollet Avenue and initiated a new era of youth development work. The center functioned as a kind of watershed for queer students from across race and class lines. Suburban students drove their cars into the city to dance with teenagers who lived in homeless shelters. A leadership change led to the closure of the center in 2009.

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of homelessness, drug abuse, HIV/AIDS infection, and suicide.82 The center later organized gay proms that served as a counterpoint to the heterosexism of traditional proms. “Gay and lesbian youth who may not have had any sexual relations in the past needed to go to a bookstore or bar to meet people,” one youth organizer noted. “Now they have a place where they can get to know someone their own age. It’s not a situation where you have adults taking advantage of teens.’’ 83 Often shortened to simply “202,” the center opened in a storefront at 2524 Nicollet Avenue with a library and a meeting space in 1993. Jamie Nabozny, one of the few young people present at the opening ceremony, exemplified the need for an organization like 202. He had recently run away from his parents’ home in Ashland, Wisconsin, for the second time after suffering harassment from other students. Although he had repeatedly notified teachers and administrators about the intimidation and violence he experienced in Wisconsin, they did nothing to stop it, and his peers became increasingly violent. Nabozny’s last beating put him in the hospital. “I knew that they would kill me eventually,” he said in an interview. “The moment I got [to Minneapolis], I got in touch with what was the Gay and Lesbian Community Action Council [GLCAC], which is now OutFront, and the woman who did my intake was phenomenal—she put me in touch with the local gay church, the Metropolitan Community Church, where . . . I ended up also finding help through different organizations here in town that eventually helped me find my first apartment after living with [church parishioners] for a while.” 84 With the GLCAC’s help, Nabozny brought a lawsuit against his school district as he simultaneously began to form community connections. He became the first youth employee of District 202 after visiting regularly, and he essentially ran the center for thirty-two hours a week in evening shifts. The young teenager operated 202’s coffee bar and made sure youths followed the rules: no drugs, no fights, and no sex in the bathrooms. He answered the telephone, delivered on-the-fly counseling to callers, and even provided shelter to a handful of the 150 youths who would show up on weekends with no place to go. Eventually, a series of brawls and police interventions prompted the decision to have adult organizers present at all times. Nabozny continued to work at District 202 while his case progressed in the court system, until a federal appellate court finally recognized that his former school was responsible for the violence he had suffered. The court ruled in favor of Nabozny, set a precedent for antigay violence in American schools, and sent the case back to trial in the lower courts. Ashland jurors then ruled in favor of Nabozny, and the school offered him close to a million dollars to settle the matter. He accepted, and pursued a career in education consulting.

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In 1997, District 202 moved to the second floor of a former Chevrolet dealership.85 The space served the organization for more than ten years, complete with a nonalcoholic bar and trans-friendly restrooms. The times had changed by 2009; gay–straight alliances blossomed in local high schools, the Internet broke down the walls of communication that once isolated queer youth, and general societal acceptance reduced the need for a separate safe space in Minneapolis. District 202 closed its center after seventeen years of operation, donated its effects to the JeanNickolaus Tretter Collection—including a skateboard signed by Leslie Feinberg, author of Stone Butch Blues—and redirected its efforts to online networking and community-wide advocacy.

Three Times Denied

Angels in America at the World Theater, St. Paul (1994) Downtown St. Paul’s oldest surviving theater is best known as the broadcast headquarters of Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, but it is also an important site in the queer history of the Grand Old City—even if the event did not end up happening. In 1993, St. Paul voters elected mayoral candidate Norm Coleman, then a Democrat, to be mayor. Within months of his election, Coleman created a significant rift with the queer constituency, which lasted for Coleman’s entire political career. At the time, downtown St. Paul was in the midst of a quiet crisis. The capital was burdened with high office vacancy rates, in debt from previous (failed) urban renewal projects, and largely devoid of entertainment-based attractions. Its core was losing retail stores, residents, and tax money at an alarming rate. Keillor’s World Theater was a bright spot on the city’s largely vacant streetscape, but the venue depended heavily on city money to operate; in the event of a production’s low attendance, St. Paul’s government would insure the World against losses and “sponsor” a show with financial assistance, if needed. The city thus had financial authority to approve and reject prospective plays, because the theater could not host a production without the insurance. In 1994, management at the World Theater requested financial assistance for Angels in America and banked on city approval because they expected the play to be successful. Tony Kushner’s “two-play epic that uses AIDS as a metaphor for a national spiritual decline in the 1980s” had won four Tony awards one year earlier and sold out theaters after an extended run in 1992.86 The unlikely prospect of low

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attendance required $250,000 in city-funded insurance, as did other productions at the time.87 Coleman’s administration surprised queer people and civic boosters alike when, citing a lack of funds, the mayor’s office withheld financial support for the production. The State Theater in Minneapolis asserted its support, and the landmark work relocated across the river, where it sold out the following summer. The same year, Coleman threw more fuel onto the fire when he refused to sign a joint proclamation with Minneapolis declaring June 25, 1994, Gay Pride Day. He rationalized his decision with claims that a signed proclamation represented government support for what he called the “choices” of bisexuality and transgenderism. He said that he felt individuals had the right “to do what they want in the privacy of their home . . . but I don’t have to have a celebration for them. Maybe I’m missing it, but this is not an attack on anyone.” 88 Curiously, Coleman’s former neighbor was Susan Kimberly, a transgender woman who transitioned after serving as a male on the St. Paul city council. To Kimberly, “My personal reaction was that I’d lost a friend . . . I’d either lost a friend or I never had one. Norm and I were neighbors for three years. Over that time, we had a lot of conversations over the back fence. I liked the guy personally very much.” 89 Kimberly’s wounds healed after four years, and she became Coleman’s deputy mayor, as well as one of the first transgender public officials in world history.

Ms. Williams’s Opus

The Anoka–Hennepin School District, northern Minneapolis suburbs (since 1999) Minnesota’s largest school district began as a collection of twenty-six independent rural schools north of Minneapolis. Each was only equipped to handle a small student population—some were only one-room schoolhouses—until they combined in 1952 at the behest of voters in Hennepin and Anoka counties. At the time, the counties were experiencing rapid transformation. Rural family farms, located a few miles north of Minneapolis for generations, were giving way to suburban residential development. As the suburban population exploded, the public began to expect services that mirrored (or surpassed) those available in Minneapolis/ St. Paul. Anoka–Hennepin’s student body increased tenfold—from four thousand students in 1952 to more than forty thousand in the early twenty-first century—and the district became a contender for highest student enrollment in the state (long held by Minneapolis and St. Paul).

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The Anoka–Hennepin school district became a lightning rod of controversy in 1998 when a coalition of thirty ministers objected to the appointment of a transgender educator named Alyssa Williams in Blaine, Minnesota. Although her gender transition did not come up in her interview for a position as music teacher—and despite a transgender-inclusive provision in Minnesota’s antidiscrimination law— she agreed to a temporary paid leave until the school board devised a plan that would introduce her to students.90 After administrators at Roosevelt Middle School implemented the plan and introduced her, Williams began teaching music to some four hundred students.91 Incensed by the school’s compliance with state law, the parents of twenty-five students pulled their children from class in protest, an organization called Parents in Touch called for Williams’s immediate resignation, and a “nationally prominent” legal team funded by evangelist Pat Robertson threatened to sue the Anoka–Hennepin school district for hiring “a man pretending to be a woman.” 92 In just over a year, Williams quit without publicizing her reasons, though one parent noted that “She was driven out and was never given a chance to be a teacher. This is a shame. She was never judged according to her ability.” 93 Troubles in Anoka–Hennepin resurfaced again in the late 2000s. The district came under fire in 2009 for permitting two teachers, each accused of harassing a student in the 2007–8 school year, to continue teaching after allegations of student harassment surfaced. According to a story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Diane Cleveland and Walter Filson repeatedly teased a male student, suggesting— in class—that the student had a penchant for donning women’s clothing and had “a thing for older men.” 94 The school board revised a 1995 policy on sexual orientation, which stated that “homosexuality not be taught/addressed as a normal, valid lifestyle and that district staff and their resources not advocate the homosexual lifestyle.” 95 In its place, the district adopted a policy of neutrality in 2009 that sought to “remain neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation including but not limited to student led discussions.” 96 Mired in an ongoing scandal at the time of this writing, Anoka–Hennepin and its “neutrality policy” continue to anger queer activists. A spate of teenage suicides—resulting from a student culture of intimidation, ridicule, and belittlement that is generally termed “bullying”—claimed the lives of several gay students in 2010. Reaction to the suicides represented the boiling point of an issue that has been heating up for years, one that leaves the loved ones of suicide victims with a terrible loss. “I’m not asking you to accept this as a lifestyle for you,” said Tammy Aaberg in an address to the school district after the death of her son, Justin. “I’m only asking that you please make the school safe for GLBT students still alive and in

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this district today: they are people just like us and deserve to be treated like the rest of us. Suicide should not feel like the only way to take away the pain and shame.” 97

“I Knew That the Closet Was Not a Place for Me” UMD GLBT Services, Duluth (since 2000)

The path that led Angela “Angie” Nichols to the University of Minnesota–Duluth’s GLBT Services office began when she was enrolled in an education course at Winona State University in 1993. Preparing for an exam, Nichols studied a section in her textbook that laid out behaviors, personal admissions, and student conduct that spelled trouble for a teacher in the field. “On the list of things a teacher could be suspended for was smoking dope,” she wrote in the university’s Q-Report in 2003. “But yet, I could be fired for ‘homosexuality.’ There it was, in black and white, in my college textbook! . . . I realized teaching German at the secondary education level as planned was a bad idea. I also knew that the ‘closet’ was not a place for me.” 98 Nichols “took nothing and created near perfection” when she moved to Duluth to direct GLBT Services, an office at the University of Minnesota–Duluth (UMD). The program and its close relative, the Queer and Allied Student Center, attract young people from cities and towns across the region and place them in a city that offers several social options, such as the Main Club, the Duluth Family Sauna, the Aurora Northland Lesbian Center, the Northland Gay Men’s Center, and DuluthSuperior Pride. University of Minnesota–Duluth’s support of queer students extends to financial aid. In 2007, an LGBTQ studies endowment at UMD named the Cruden–Riggs Scholarship Fund surpassed twenty-five thousand dollars after Nichols dedicated several months—even her own birthday party—to fund-raising.99 The university’s GLBTA-friendly student housing also offers students “an easy way to pair up and find GLBTA roommates.” 100 In an interview with Lavender Magazine, Nichols explained the importance of UMD’s housing policy: “Students can indicate [their preferences] anywhere on the housing application, and one person from resident life and I pair up students who ask for this type of housing. Students were informally asked what they thought of a floor, and they didn’t want that. They didn’t want to be all strung together.” 101 Nichols and the GLBT Services office led the university to become one of the nation’s most inviting institutions. In 2008, UMD received a rating of 4.5 out of 5

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on the GLBT Friendly Campus Climate Index, an annual scorecard managed by the national student support organization Campus Pride. “It is no wonder that UMD is now ranked among the top GLBT friendly colleges and universities in the Midwest for its city size, enrollment, degrees offered and other similar characteristics,” wrote Nichols in Gaywatch, the office’s newsletter. “We are proud to be here at UMD with allies galore who support and participate in the many activities offered throughout the year. Each year we build new partnerships, and we honor those as we would a friendship.” 102

Left at the Altar

People Representing the Sexual Minority, Collegeville (since 2004) In the fall of 2005, Santa Clara University hosted Out There: The First National Conference of Scholars and Student Affairs Personnel Involved in LGBTQ Issues on Catholic Campuses. The California school attracted educators and administrators from across the country to address issues that they and their students faced. They had to come to terms with an “ethical dilemma” that resulted from Roman Catholic doctrine. Often silenced within the “institutional closet,” presenters and attendees candidly discussed how their campuses could improve queer life. Sheila Nelson, an associate professor of sociology at the College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University (CSB/SJU), partnered Catholic liberal arts colleges in Collegeville, Minnesota, invited participants to consider the proposition that “when it comes to homosexuality, the Catholic Church is a closeted institution. While acknowledging the reality of homosexuality and preaching respect for individuals, the Church encourages gay and lesbian Catholics to stay in the closet, especially if they have chosen to enter into committed relationships. We who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered often feel trapped between a supportive, encouraging pastoral Catholic Church and a hierarchical, judgmental, legalistic institutional Church.” 103 Begun by nuns and monks from the Order of St. Benedict, “the greatest educational, civilizing and Christianizing force in the Catholic Church,” 104 CSB/SJU became a focus of national media attention in 2010 when Archbishop John C. Nienstedt denied communion to approximately twenty-five students wearing rainbow buttons and sashes. The students’ colorful adornments were understood by all to be a protest against the church’s stance on homosexuality. With that in mind, the archbishop only blessed them with a raised hand. Organized by People Representing the Sexual Minority (PRiSM), the protest demonstrated a need for communi-

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cation between the church and its young parishioners; one PriSM protester noted that “we have no other way of dialoguing with our church, no other way of telling [the archbishop] how we feel, how else to do it than in liturgy?” 105 PRiSM began in 2004 “as a progressive social and political organization . . . to set a standard showing others that all parts of one’s true self, sexual orientation included, should be welcomed and accepted by society.” 106 The gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and (heterosexual) ally student organization soon politicized the two schools. Even before officially beginning, PRiSM began to receive negative e-mails from outraged peers. One objector wrote “that this is celebrated, and that PRiSM even exists, with school funding no less, at a so called [sic] Catholic institution is appalling and a direct slap in the face to the reasoned teachings of the Catholic Church, centuries of tradition, and the Truth of Sacred Scripture.” 107 A PRiSM member replied with a correction: “St. Ben’s isn’t even run by the monastery anymore . . . We haven’t had a monastic president in years . . . The money PRiSM is allocated comes from the student activity fee not the monasteries.” 108 Not all of the feedback has been negative.

Leave Those Kids Alone

Straights and Gays for Equality, Maple Grove (since 2005) In the fall of 2005, Maple Grove Senior High School became a site of struggle when a band of students attempted to advertise Straights and Gays for Equality (SAGE), a gay–straight alliance that sought to improve conditions for the school’s queer students. Built by Osseo School District 279 in 1996, at the very northwest corner of the Twin Cities metropolitan area, the high school had given other student groups permission to publicize extracurricular events with posters, leaflets, televised announcements on the school’s network, and addresses on the school’s public announcement system. SAGE members had asked for the same privileges, and administrators had routinely denied their requests.109 Two seniors at the school, their parents, and SAGE hired attorney Tom Kaser to represent them as they sued Osseo Senior High for violation of the federal Equal Access Act (EAA). Passed by Congress during the Reagan administration in 1984, the EAA required federally funded schools to provide equal facility access to organizations that were not reflected in the curriculum. Elizabeth T. Lugg explained the law’s roots: “Up to that point, the courts were split on the topic of whether student

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Bible study and prayer groups have a constitutional right to access educational facilities. The Equal Access Act was an attempt by Congress to clarify those First Amendment rights.” 110 Perhaps to the consternation of the EAA’s authors, the act came to be commonly invoked by gay–straight alliances across the country that faced prejudice.111 Issuing a permanent injunction several months after ruling in the students’ favor—and after the school’s administrators made an unsuccessful appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals—U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen ordered the school district to give SAGE equal access to public facilities. The lawsuit had an unintended consequence: “The students noted that the group had grown from just two or three at a meeting to as many as thirty-eight last time, many of whom are straight,” reported Maria Elena Baca in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “And they’ve noticed that both students and teachers have been likelier to call others to task for homophobic comments. One student . . . said just the act of putting the words ‘gay’ and ‘GLBT’ on the school walls and sidewalks creates a culture where gay students can feel normal. Another . . . noted that ‘lots of the GLBT students he knows have been rejected by their parents. Now they have friends to back them up, to say we’re here for you, even if your parents aren’t,’ he said.” 112 Donna Speake, a counselor who helped SAGE when it began in 1997 and who suffered threats and retributions alongside its members for more than a decade, received a high honor from her colleagues in the teaching profession in March 2010. Once pressured by an administrator to divulge the names of students who were part of the group, Speake tirelessly defended the rights of queer students and their heterosexual allies and risked her livelihood as a result. She received a humanitarian award from Education Minnesota, the state’s teachers’ union, for helping to ensure that all the high school’s students enjoyed equal rights.113

What Steps Might You Take to Help Hir?

The Transgender Commission, Minneapolis (since 2006) Lucy, a female student at your college who identifies as genderqueer and often dresses in a traditionally masculine manner, is assaulted but not seriously injured by three unidentified men in an anti-transgender hate crime the previous evening. The attack occurs on campus and the perpetrators are thought to be other students. Seeing that you have a “Safe Space” placard on your office door, ze (Lucy’s

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preferred pronoun to “she”) comes to you first for support. What steps might you take to help hir (Lucy’s preferred pronoun to “her”)? How might Lucy’s needs be different from a non-transgender student who has been assaulted? A female staff member in Student Affairs is upset that a transsexual woman who also works in the department is using the women’s restrooms in their building. She complains to you about being made uncomfortable by “that man in the bathroom.” How do you respond to her and address this conflict?114

These hypothetical situations, posed by the “Transgender Resource Guide” to help college administrators contemplate transgender student and staff issues, mirror real scenarios for transgender or “trans” collegiate life. For most of the country, knowledge about transgender issues does not go far beyond an ability to tell the difference between a “transsexual,” a “transvestite,” and someone who identifies as transgender.115 Few resources explain the phenomenon of gender nonconformity to the broader public, and few popular cultural representations of transgender life exist. Ignorance dictates primal responses to unfamiliar people, and many transgender individuals fall victim to isolation, fear, violence, even death. The Transgender Commission of the University of Minnesota began forty years after the 1966 Transsexual Research Project as the collaborative effort of transgender student activists and their allies, school administrators, and the university’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Ally (GLBTA) Programs Office. Founded “to create equity, access, and an inclusive environment for people of all genders through education, advocacy, and institutional change,” the organization organized social gatherings and developed an institutional framework for transgender support with the assistance of national leaders.116 In 2007, following more than a year’s work, the commission published its first Report and Recommendations for Institutional Change and helped found Lavender House, an on-campus housing option for University of Minnesota GLBTA undergraduate students who wished to live with one another. Max Gries, a founding cochair of the commission, wrote that the “formation of the Transgender Commission was a critical step for the University in order to build community among transgender people and allies, raise awareness, and address inequities such as lack of adequate health care and gender neutral restrooms for transgender and gender non-conforming students, staff, faculty and visitors.” To Gries, the commission is “very different from most ‘commissions.’ This is an open, active group: anyone is welcome, there is rotating leadership and each meeting features a ‘gender dialogue’ where we discuss gender freedom and justice. As a

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founding co-chair, this group and these people have had a wonderful and transformational impact on my life.” 117 Using the Internet as a primary resource, the Transgender Commission produced a Web site that serves as a resource for department chairs, a terminological guide for unfamiliar students, and a message board for the university’s transgender community. The site also includes a map of gender-neutral bathrooms at the university. “It is important to note that when you are making a process or facility more transgender friendly you are often helping other populations you serve such as persons with disabilities, parents, non-traditional students, and many more,” the commission states on its Web site. “Consider yourself a person that doesn’t fit into this system, with restrooms with male/female signs, or the fact that your office may not allow you to wear clothing comfortably for you to express who you are. How can you be part of the change?” 118

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Building Community Life beyond the Gay Ghetto In 1986, a neighborhood organization in the southwest corner of downtown Minneapolis published a small collection of historical essays to celebrate Loring Park’s centennial. Citizens for a Loring Park Community turned to Robert Halfhill, a community historian and gay activist, to explain why gay men and lesbians had settled near the park earlier in the twentieth century. Halfhill surmised that homosexual behavior had taken place in the park since the 1940s and noted that “the tearing down of the Gateway Area during one of the city’s first urban renewal projects [accelerated] the movement of Gays and Lesbians to Loring Park.” 1 In the early 1960s, a queer exodus from Minneapolis’s dying riverfront occurred just as dramatic social changes—the establishment and spread of “homosexual” identities and “homophile” ideals—began to recast same-sex activity as evidence of a sexual identity. Men who had sex with men, women who had sex with women, and gender nonconformists became “gays,” “lesbians,” and “transvestites”; these identities eclipsed earlier terms with derogatory roots. Meanwhile, the demise of Minnesota’s vice districts bolstered queer domestic stability, if only because the Gateway’s destruction left few alternatives available for queer socialization. Gay bars shifted to edges of the demolished downtown areas and, beginning in the 1960s, young queer Minnesotans settled in the remnants of old apartment districts. Sizable enclaves of lesbian women developed along St. Paul’s West Seventh Street, on Minneapolis’s Lyndale Avenue South near Franklin Avenue, and near Powderhorn Park south of Lake Street (Dyke Heights).2 Gay men settled in dilapidated mansions, faded apartment hotels, and other structures with campy aesthetics near Loring Park and along St. Paul’s Grand Avenue. Gender nonconformists, many of whom were poor, lived in the oldest sections of the new “gay ghettos,”

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especially close to the concentration of apartment buildings around Stevens Square Park. In creating visible urban communities, queer Minnesota baby boomers achieved what previous generations could not do. They built distinct neighborhoods that queerly mirrored the function of established heterosexual areas. Fledgling gay/lesbian areas generated new demands for community centers, churches, restaurants, cooperatives, coffeehouses, and political collectives. “Homo Heights”—a district centered on Ridgewood Avenue, “Dyke Heights” near Minneapolis’s Powderhorn Park, and other “ghettos” became safe spaces where countless people “came out of the closet,” embraced gay and lesbian identities, and created domestic arrangements with their partners. The ghetto’s potential for progress seemed limitless. But failed political initiatives and antigay violence underscored the disappointments and dangers of visible communities at the end of the 1970s. The ghettos’ relatively small social networks bred emotional strain and infighting. Besieged community members buckled under overwhelming pressure. Finally, the dysfunction of early organizations inhibited professional development, accelerated burnout, and produced high volunteer turnover rates. By 1978, when Anita Bryant used her influence to help defeat St. Paul’s fledgling human rights ordinance, a range of issues had weakened organizations such as Gay House, Christopher Street, the Lesbian Resource Center, St. Paul Citizens for Human Rights, and the Target City Coalition, leading to their eventual collapse. By 1982, few of the pioneering community organizations remained. This development occurred at one of the worst possible times. HIV/AIDS, which initially seemed to be a coastal outbreak, claimed its first Minnesota victim in October 1982.3 With few community organizations left to handle such urgent needs, previously separatist gay and lesbian leaders joined forces to form new groups that began to build a new queer order. The Minnesota AIDS Project, the Rural AIDS Action Network, the Aliveness Project, and other social-service organizations largely rebuilt basic community infrastructures and nurtured a new generation of activists. Unlike other cities that maintained iconic “gayborhoods” with roots in earlier “gay ghettos,” intense residential concentration in the Twin Cities lasted for only a brief time. When St. Paul voters repealed the city’s nascent human rights ordinance at that same time, many queer residents left the city in protest. Meanwhile, large sections of the Loring Park neighborhood were demolished in preparation for the campus of the Minneapolis Community and Technical College, the Loring Green-

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After serving in Vietnam, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter came out of the closet and enrolled at the University of Minnesota. He drew this map of the Minneapolis “gay ghetto” in 1976. The map identified more than thirty gay and lesbian organizations and places, and identified the intersection of 18th Street and Nicollet Avenue as the epicenter of the district.

way, and the I-94 “bottleneck” from 1977 to 1980, and many structures that once supported queer households fell with them. In 1982, remarking on the demise of the Loring Park ghetto, the GLC Voice noted that “pimps, prostitutes, winos, and queers spring up on urban deadwood like mushrooms in the forest. They don’t cause the problem . . . they are the most marketable commodity in that environment.” 4

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The GLC Voice’s prediction of queer marketability came true by the 1990s, which signaled a new era for Minnesota. A newly established “GLBT community”—especially its white, middle-class constituents—became a part of the American mainstream. The Twin Cities’ first-ring suburban communities became choice addresses for the queer middle and upper classes, and Lavender Magazine began to give Minnesota’s consumer marketplace access to the community—for a price. At the beginning of this mainstreaming process, people of color, bisexuals, the elderly, rural residents, and transgender people (none of these identities being mutually exclusive) developed their own community organizations to better meet needs that the mainstream ignored. Discussing the issues that she and Bill Burleson faced in a 2002 interview on BiCities!, Anita Kozan pointed to the language that many use to discuss sexuality: “You’re either straight, or you’re gay if you’re a man, or lesbian if you’re a woman . . . those other words, that ‘queer’ stuff, that ‘transgender’ stuff, that ‘bisexual stuff,’ all that stuff, nobody knows where—or some people—don’t know where it falls.” 5 Particularly in the 2000s, Gay and Lesbian Elders Active in Minnesota, BiCities!, the BECAUSE Conference, Minnesota Men of Color, the Two Spirit Press Room, Shades of Yellow, the Iron Range GLBTA, and other organizations built additions to the community’s cultural form. Never finished, the built “community” continues to transform as new cultures and identities demolish what is outdated, create new additions, and introduce new spaces to the overarching structure.

Early Salvation Army Counterculture Queens Gay House, Minneapolis (1971–79)

In the early 1970s, the American Psychological Association (APA) defined homosexuality as a character disorder in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Although attitudes among psychologists varied, the APA’s official stance actually made professional mental health care an obstacle to young people struggling with their sexual orientation. Unlike their heterosexual counterparts, young homosexuals and bisexuals frequently had to begin their sexual and romantic lives without the guidance of older mentors or professional therapists. Few positive representations of queer people existed, and even those were not reinforced by mental health-care institutions. With a two-thousand-dollar grant from four Protestant churches, members of Fight Repression of Erotic Expression (FREE) took over 216 Ridgewood Avenue

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in the spring of 1971 to create a first in the state.6 Gay House was literally a house of, by, and for gay people; selected for its close proximity to the former nucleus of Minneapolis’s “gay ghetto” at 18th Street and Nicollet Avenue,7 the structure served as an office building, meeting space, and crash pad for young people in need of help as they struggled to come to terms with their identity. Led by Jim A meeting at Gay House on June 6, 1971. Frost and John Preston, volunteers Located in a former single-family home on Ridgewood Avenue in Minneapolis, Gay House set up a telephone hotline to counsel was an important incubator for future organitroubled youth in the Twin Cities. zations. In true 1960s fashion, attendees often The Gay House hotline and its sat on the floor. volunteers were successful by any measure: the center had received fifty thousand phone calls and provided counseling services to well over five thousand people by 1975.8 Thematic similarities in the callers’ problems surfaced; clients frequently desired basic information about sexuality, and they sought perspectives from others who shared their pain. With the help of Michael McConnell, a librarian fired by the University of Minnesota for gay activism, Gay House offered the first community-run queer library in the Upper Midwest. Organizers reached out to new gay and lesbian publications in larger cities, including the Advocate in Los Angeles, and contacted librarians for bibliographies. Barbara Gittings, founder of the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis and editor of its magazine, The Ladder, sent Gay House a bibliography and a message to “keep on gay-ning.” 9 To Steve Endean, the future founder of the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C., Gay House was a brave first step toward self-acceptance: I was straightlaced and was somewhat taken aback by the “early Salvation Army” look of the drop-in center. Inside, I met several outrageous counterculture queens who seemed to personify every stereotype I’d heard about. But since it was basically clear that my sexuality wasn’t just a phase but a reality, I was incredibly anxious to meet people that might assist in helping me develop a positive self-image as a gay man.10

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The differing personalities of “counterculture queens,” straight-laced activists, and troubled youth often produced conflict. Gay House’s “rap sessions” inspired everything from genuine synergy to angry dissension. Meetings occasionally devolved into a series of “loud, angry, and seemingly pointed requests . . . for participation in some activities.” 11 One anonymous participant complained that “the house was basically run by kids above 18 for kids below 18.” 12 Another dissatisfied individual, who identified as a transvestite, noted that “from my experience, Gay House is presently a fucked-up white, liberal college playground. Queens, racial minorities, street people, and older gays can expect to be turned off. Any young white males can expect a 50/50 chance of being raped upon entering the front door, depending on how good looking you are and/or how horny the staff is.” 13 Four years and a move to South Minneapolis later, these and other interpersonal problems forced the center to close in 1979.

Once It’s Mine, Honey, It’s Women’s Clothes The Lesbian Resource Center (1972–80)

In 1973, the Lesbian Resource Center (LRC) announced its mission in The New Woman’s Survival Catalog: “Gay Woman in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area have opened a Lesbian Resource Center in Minneapolis to better serve the needs of lesbians. We have found that other organizations are either too male or straightoriented, leaving us with a sense of invisibility. We are now coming out completely, affirming we are here.” 14 Karen Browne opened the Resource Center as a supportive space for women, as a counterpart to Gay House, the “other organization” nearby, and as an incubator for other lesbian organizations in Minneapolis’s “Wedge” neighborhood at 710 W. 22nd Street.15 Its building, a commercial structure that included storefronts off busy Lyndale Avenue, successfully hid the LRC between Hum’s liquor, a beauty shop, and a subdivided single-family home. Historian Anne Enke noted that “the hand-painted Lesbian Resource Center sign—by all accounts ‘beautiful’—hung on an inside wall to reduce intrusion by a potentially hostile public.” 16 Toni McNaron recalled in an interview that the center’s privacy was not enough to ease her fear of entering a lesbian-only space: “I knew about it, and I knew what it was . . . and I used to drive by very slowly in my car, and try to see if I could see people sitting—there were old couches in the window . . . but I was never bold enough

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to park the car and go in.” 17 Perhaps as a result of its physical introversion, some found the community center “a very depressing place, couches with springs coming out, it just had a terrible feeling.” 18 Despite its physical liabilities, the LRC became a catalyst of pioneering organizations in Minneapolis: a small collection of books (moved from the Brown House commune) sat in the center’s basement before a storefront opened as the Amazon Feminist Bookstore; the Lavender Cellar Theater, a lesbian theater group, first performed at 710 W. 22nd St. in 1973; and a successful, nonalcoholic evening of performances and dancing developed into A Woman’s Coffeehouse.19 The LRC’s semiprivate assertion of lesbian identity prompted the growing desire for more private physical space. By 1975, the center relocated to the Chrysalis Women’s Center—at So’s Your Old Lady, an influential lesbian literary the time housed in a stately red brick journal, emerged from the Lesbian Resource Center in the mid-1970s. Toni McNaron recalled home on the edge of Minneapolis’s her reluctance to enter the center at its 22nd former mansion district—within eyeStreet location in Minneapolis; she participated in the LRC only after it moved to become a part shot of the Minneapolis Institute of of the Chrysalis Women’s Center. Arts and Fair Oaks Park. The LRC shared its new home with the Lesbian Feminist Organizing Committee and, under what McNaron viewed as the auspices of “proper women,” its new home eased her fears and led her to become involved. With other volunteers, she helped produce a newsletter that became the Twin Cities’ earliest regional lesbian periodical, Les’binformed, and also produced a landmark literary quarterly, So’s Your Old Lady. The latter became a welcome platform for lesbian-feminist expression.

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Besides poems, artwork, and reviews, So’s Your Old Lady featured articles with topics ranging from bisexual anguish—“Up Shit Creek”—to fashion. “I never wear men’s clothing,” wrote one author. “I’m a woman and once it’s mine, honey, it’s women’s clothes.” 20 The journal’s critical reception praised its writers’ “self-assured and gritty” writing style. Using her “sensitive blue pencil” in 1975, critic Pam Cruikshank noted that “since the development of gay consciousness and the articulation of gay pride are very recent, one might expect to find in a lesbian journal a certain defensiveness. There is none in So’s Your Old Lady. A more positive sign of self-affirmation is that most women sign their full names to their writings and drawings.” 21 The LRC’s success in incubating other organizations led to its eventual demise. The Amazon Bookstore, A Woman’s Coffeehouse, and the advent of other social venues for lesbian and bisexual women led the Lesbian Resource Center to cease operation in 1980.

We Chose Minnesota

Christopher Street, Minneapolis (1972–80) Named for the address of the Stonewall Riots, Christopher Street became one of the nation’s first lesbian and gay addiction treatment centers at a pivotal time in the development of Minnesota’s queer community. By 1972, great upheavals in sexual consciousness had affected many individuals who lived two lives—the first a life of marriage and children, and the other a life of surreptitious affairs, hidden relationships, or casual same-sex activity. Alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs facilitated the transition, while many who resisted their sexual urges in the face of developing gay and lesbian identities fell victim to substance abuse. In most of the Midwest, an alcohol-centric social atmosphere was the only option for queer friendship and love in the early 1970s. At the time, Minnesota’s lesbian and gay organizations had just begun to build networks that ultimately created alternatives for social interaction. Christopher Street offered counseling services for drug and alcohol addiction at a time when few gay Alcoholics Anonymous groups existed.22 Indeed, existing “straight” services actively discouraged gay and lesbian recovery, believing it was impossible. In an interview with the GLC Voice in 1981, “Jim C.” recalled his traumatic experience with the director of an alcoholic outpatient program, who assured him, “I’ve been working in this business a long time, and the only gay I’ve ever seen get any sobriety is the Dairy Queen [restaurant]. I don’t believe you’ll recover.” 23

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Maverick, a gay and lesbian group directly affiliated with AA, and begun at Gay House in 1971, was a national first, but the community needed professional leadership in both men’s and women’s treatment centers.24 Divided into gendered programs, Christopher Street offered some of the Twin Cities’ first alcohol-free social events, including dances, performances, and special events. By its own account, the organization hosted the first screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in the Twin Cities.25 To Toni McNaron, now professor emerita of English at the University of Minnesota and a longtime Twin Cities Christopher Street became one of the nation’s resident, Christopher Street was a first gay and lesbian treatment centers when it commencement point for many lesopened in 1972. This poster doubles as the center’s first newsletter and invited community membian feminists and a locus of sobriety bers to consider sober living. that attracted gay men and lesbians from across the country: “We didn’t have any Internet and all of this mess that we’ve got now, with tweets and twits and whatever, we didn’t have any of that. But somehow, people knew that this place existed here. It was one of the only ones, certainly anywhere between New York and San Francisco. It was the only thing there was. So people came here from all over the country to go through Christopher Street. It was a real pull for recovery.” 26 McNaron’s involvement began when the codirector of the agency’s women’s programs, Patricia Nevins (together with Barbara Meyers), invited her to address a group of upcoming graduates who faced an intimidating quantity of free time that they had formerly dedicated to drinking. Already an experienced feminist organizer in the Twin Cities, the professor invited graduates to an after-care program that introduced them to the world of feminist organizing and sober socializing. With McNaron’s help, Christopher Street’s graduates contributed to the strength of A Woman’s Coffeehouse, the Lesbian Resource Center, the Chrysalis Women’s Center, and a variety of endeavors that those centers supported.27

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Important as the pioneer organization was, Christopher Street was not immune to frictions that pervaded early community organizations. Internal conflict between the men’s and women’s counseling directors surfaced, the men’s program ended in 1978, and the women’s programs stopped in 1980.28 The overarching social structure of the era continued to produce family rejection, denial, and sexual repression, all of which required professional treatment. Those social problems continued to express themselves in chemical dependency that in turn was a serious threat to the community’s health. Minnesota’s tradition of groundbreaking work in chemical dependency treatment continued in 1986. Elaine Noble, the nation’s first openly lesbian public official as a representative in the Massachusetts House, chose the state as the headquarters of the Pride Institute, America’s first queer in-patient treatment center. “We chose Minnesota because of the high level of sophistication and understanding about the treatment process,” she said as president of the institute. “Treatment is taken seriously here.” 29

From the Collective Cup

A Woman’s Coffeehouse, Minneapolis (1975–89) In 1975, a group of lesbians organized an alcohol-free night of performances and dancing at the Lesbian Resource Center in South Minneapolis.30 The evening was a surprising success, and its organizers formed a collective to continue offering a “sober space, women’s space, celebration space, forum space, caring space, and sharing space” to the lesbian and bisexual community.31 After a few more meetings at the Resource Center, the collective relocated to the basement of the Plymouth Congregational Church on the southern edge of downtown Minneapolis with the help of Elaine Marsh, one of the church’s pastors. The collective’s debut marked a point of departure in the social scene of Minnesota’s lesbian and bisexual women. Before the coffeehouse began, women met through quiet social networks and house parties, by participating in activist organizations, or by interacting in the lesbian-designated bars that operated at the time. A Woman’s Coffeehouse was one of the first community-run social spaces that attempted to blend sober sociability with the safety of house parties and the visibility of lesbian bars. At the time of the coffeehouse’s founding, many women feared participating

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in political movements or entering known lesbian spaces. The FBI kept tabs on several gay and lesbian activist organizations during the Nixon administration (1969–74); in some cases, agents infiltrated radical groups with instructions to spread discord, take names, and orchestrate raids.32 Fear among lesbians was rife, and it conflated fear of arrest, fear of being “outed,” and fear of losing one’s job. Toni McNaron and Karen Clark both participated in the coffeehouse during the mid-1970s and considered their attendance a risk to their livelihoods.33 This proved not to be the case; McNaron became a respected University of Minnesota professor and Clark became one of the first openly lesbian politicians in the country. The coffeehouse’s purpose was twofold. It served as an empowering social space as it simultaneously served as a venue for lively (sometimes heated) discussions about problems that participants faced. As its name implied, the collective’s meetings were run by members and developed substantial input for every decision made. Although meetings were largely constructive, they occasionally dissolved into infighting and controversy. In the early 1980s, collective members wrestled with regulations that banned young boys from entering the space and curtailed places where smoking

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A membership card for A Woman’s Coffeehouse. Begun in 1975 at the Lesbian Resource Center, A Woman’s Coffeehouse quickly situated itself as an important nonalcoholic social venue. The coffeehouse soon moved to the basement of the Plymouth Congregational Church, where volunteers kept it running until 1989.

This notice, written by the Coffeehouse Collective, is emblematic of transphobia—prejudice against transgender people—that was present in the gay and lesbian community. In the case of the coffeehouse, women who once identified as men found themselves barred from attending events because some attendees viewed them as “false women.”

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was allowed. Some women of color felt unwelcome, and these sentiments prompted the collective members to reconsider the extent of their outreach to communities of color. In a 1985 flyer, the collective announced that “some of our main goals are to bridge the cultural gaps between white women and women of color and break down the walls of alienation that have been built up over the years.” 34 The spirit of inclusion went only so far, however. In 1984, the collective narrowly passed a ban on transgender people that enabled—but did not expect or require—members to ask transgender people to leave immediately. Several lesbian bars and alternative social organizations (such as Out to Brunch) arose in the mid-1980s and actively competed for the coffeehouse’s clientele. The coffeehouse’s competitors offered an easygoing alternative to the occasionally tense collective meetings. Most women who just wanted a place to dance went elsewhere. Membership dwindled, and the organization ceased operation in September 1989.35 A decade later, many of the coffeehouse’s pioneering members held a reunion in the basement of Plymouth Congregational Church, where women had established lifelong friendships and relationships for more than fifteen years.

The Ladies of the Lake

Dyke Heights, Minneapolis (ca. 1975–?) In 1839, army surveyors tramped through a lakeside marsh two and a half miles west of the Mississippi River. The men had difficulty establishing where the lake ended and soft ground began, but they tried to draw a rough sketch of the water’s edge. Observing this map, officials at Fort Snelling saw a shape and named the lake “Powderhorn,” after an animal tusk that held gunpowder.36 The distant town of Minneapolis boomed and expansion reached the marsh in the early twentieth century. Medium-density residential construction began in earnest around Powderhorn Park after an extensive dredging project. Just blocks from the popular Lake Street and Chicago Avenue trolley lines, Minneapolis’s new district attracted young professionals, including hundreds who worked and shopped at the recently completed Sears Roebuck distribution center (now the Midtown Exchange) nearby. The Chicago Avenue trolley line ran two blocks west of Powderhorn and carried its “suburban” commuters to downtown workplaces. Along the way, the Chicago Line passed within walking distance of several hospitals, schools, downtown offices, and Minneapolis’s “Print District,” where newspapers and legal reports

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were printed close to the courthouse.37 These urban institutions provided the bulk of the limited career opportunities open to women in midcentury. Women who desired independent lives outside of marriage, including women who desired relationships with each other, usually supported themselves in “women’s fields” simply because they were the only available options.38 Queer women may have concentrated near Powderhorn Park during Minneapolis’s “streetcar era” simply because it was affordable and close to a transit corridor that offered jobs to women. By the 1970s, a particularly dense Gail Lewellan shows off her softball finery on a concentration of lesbians lived on porch in the “Dyke Heights” area, ca. 1980. The Oak­ land Avenue, directly south of heart of Dyke Heights, a residential concentraLake Street. The nickname “Dyke tion of lesbian and bisexual women, was located south of Minneapolis’s Lake Street along Oakland Heights” was given to the area by some Avenue. Its formation in the 1970s cemented the of its clever residents, who included Powderhorn Park neighborhood as an important center in the queer geography of Minnesota. Janet Dahlem, organizer of the Lesbian Feminist Organizing Committee, and state representative Karen Clark. Dahlem recalled that Dyke Heights began while she lived in a cooperative household on Oakland Avenue. Karen Clark lived a few doors away from Dahlem, and the future state legislator told her good friend that another home two doors down had recently been put up for sale. By repeating this word-of-mouth process several times with other friends, Clark built a domestic community of lesbians. They were among some of Minneapolis’s most recognizable lesbian figures, and their living on Oakland Avenue anchored a settlement of several households that concentrated largely “by default, because of economics; it was just more affordable.” 39 At times, the queer concentrations in the Loring Park and Powderhorn Park vicinity were at odds with one another, mirroring problems between gay and lesbian activists. The tension spiked in 1982 when Gay/Lesbian Pride Committee members (who were all men) removed the word lesbian from the summer event’s

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title.40 Angry lesbian activists held the Twin Cities’ first (and last) Lesbian Pride in Powderhorn Park that year. The “great split” saw lower attendance at both celebrations, so the Pride Committee added the word lesbian back into its title. Content with this, Powderhorn women returned their focus to the annual May Day Celebration, which has served as an outlet of lesbian pride since its inception in 1975.

A Metropolitan Community Church on the Move

All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church (since 1974) Begun in 1968 with a congregation of twelve in the Reverend Troy Perry’s living room in Huntington Park, California, the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) blossomed in a community that still desired spiritual guidance despite centuries of religious oppression. Other denominations rejected homosexuality and framed its cultural emergence as evidence of moral erosion, but the MCC viewed alternative sexualities as its base. The blossoming church stretched across the country and reached the Twin Cities in the mid-1970s. Although it was not the first gay-inclusive Minnesota church—the overly pious “Church of Symmetrical Pointlessness” began and ended in 1971, and the orgiastic “Church of the Chosen People” lasted for a few years in the 1970s41—the MCC’s traditional Christian structure made it the first successful “gay church” in the state. Minnesota’s MCC congregation began in 1974, when some St. Cloud State University students met with others at a religious meeting in Gay House. After a few months, the gatherings relocated to a duplex south of Lake Street—it was the first of many moves for the future congregation.42 The initial group of twenty became a recognized MCC “study group,” and in 1975 they moved to a space owned by the Minneapolis Friends Meeting (Quakers) in the Linden Hills neighborhood of southwest Minneapolis.43 The Quakers proved to be good friends and supported the young MCC—even when antigay vandals sprayed threatening slurs on the Meeting House walls in 1977.44 By 1978, the church’s size and the spread of its congregation led to the creation of a St. Paul “mission.” The St. Paul church first operated in the basement of Foxy’s Bar in 1978 and later moved to the Friends Meeting House in St. Paul on Cathedral Hill. The two congregations merged in 1982 under the church’s present name—All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church (AGCMCC). The name came at the suggestion of Gail Van Buren, who volunteered at the Minneapolis church, after she received a letter addressed to “All God’s Chil-

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Fred Phelps, a vitriolic pastor known for the slogan “God Hates Fags,” visited the All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church in 1998. A cohort of politicians, parishioners, and community members stood on the church steps to show solidarity in an “Antihate Rally.” This photograph, courtesy of All God’s Children, shows Dykes on Bikes roaring by the church to drown out Phelps’s group, which is not pictured.

dren.” 45 The combined congregation moved to the South Minneapolis intersection of Park Avenue and Lake Street in 1983 and remained there until moving to its current location in August 1986. The congregation marked its 1986 move with a two-block procession down Park Avenue to the new building, a fine example of Second Renaissance Revival church architecture (built as the Fourth Church of Christ Scientist in 1929) that commands the intersection of 32nd Street and Park Avenue.46 The spacious building gave the church a sense of permanence that helped build a large congregation; within months of the relocation, it had ballooned from 150 to more than four hundred.47 A 1998 visit from the Reverend Fred Phelps—an independent Baptist minister from Kansas known for his “God Hates Fags” campaign—prompted a “Minnesota says NO to Hate” counterrally that was attended by a thousand people on the church steps.48 Visiting his northern flock a year later, in 1999, the Reverend

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Troy Perry remarked that the size and diversity of the Twin Cities LGBT community was astounding; “this is truly a rainbow,” he said as he watched the Pride parade. By that time, Perry’s church had more than three hundred congregations, making it the largest queer organization in the world. Locally, All God’s Children boasted a congregation of more than three hundred parishioners. It is the largest and oldest extant Metropolitan Community Church in the Upper Midwest.

“The Lesbian Christian Democrat” Equal Time, Minnesota (1982–94)

Businessman Clark Bufkin founded one of the Twin Cities’ most influential queer publications after a controversial fight with the GLC Voice over “outing” members of his Northland Business Association. Equal Time for Gay Men and Lesbians (usually referred to as Equal Time) began printing in April 1982 and marked the first of many seismic transitions in the history of Minnesota’s local queer press. The GLC Voice focused on activist radicalism through the fearless guerrilla journalism of its editor, Tim Campbell, which reflected the community’s spirit in the 1970s. However, the early 1980s witnessed a demographic shift that produced the GLC Voice’s first serious competition. Equal Time attempted to rectify a perceived disparity in coverage of community groups—the gay middle class and radical lesbian activists became strange bedfellows in their call for a paper that called attention to issues that they found relevant.49 Naysayers sarcastically referred to the paper as the “Lesbian Christian Democrat,” pointedly referring to what critics felt was the publication’s target audience.50 Other newspaper publishers suspected Equal Time’s involvement in political games. Twin Cities Gaze stated in 1992 that “The ‘Equal’ in Equal Time was supposed to have referred to decent coverage of community groups . . . but the original male editor was deposed, and in an instant the ‘equal’ became to mean having a woman editor of the newspaper and giving more equal coverage of women’s issues.” 51 These arguments are partially supported by common themes in Equal Time’s articles; often, columnists focused on the goings-on of local women’s organizations, community organizations, and political issues related to HIV/AIDS. That is not to suggest that the paper consciously ignored other stories, but it treated particularly contentious issues (especially Minneapolis’s crackdown on pornography and gay bathhouses) with distance, and these subjects became the focus of other media outlets. Radical sexuality, such as any semi-explicit imagery and near nudity, was

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relegated to advertisement space at the back of Equal Time. For several years in the 1980s, Equal Time employed Alison Bech­ del, creator of Dykes to Watch Out For (1983–2008), a beloved queer comic strip. Bechdel’s work and life in Minnesota’s queer community inspired the series, which frequently reflected people and places in the Twin Cities. For example, the strip’s many story lines often converged at “Madwimmin Books,” a feminist bookstore that mirAfter a dispute with the GLC Voice, Clark Bufkin began Equal Time, a newspaper that served the rored the Amazon Feminist Bookstore Upper Midwest region from 1982 to 1994. True in Minneapolis. In some respects, the to its name, it gave equal attention to the state’s many queer communities. For many years, the “dykes” and their friends represented nonprofit paper featured Dykes to Watch Out Equal Time’s regular readership— For, a syndicated strip by Alison Bechdel. active, socially conscious, sexually active, quirky people with ties to Minnesota’s lesbian community. The strip’s success eventually permitted Bechdel to leave the paper and pursue her work full-time. Equal Time’s troubles began after the paper changed its logo and front-page layout in June 1993.52 Hoping to reestablish itself in a changing consumptionbased queer market, Equal Time switched from a biweekly paper to a weekly. The paper hoped to offer more advertising space but actually increased its operating costs. This and other financial decisions proved to be fatal mistakes that ended the paper’s eleven-year run. Management and staff successfully kept the crumbling financial problem under wraps until the paper simply stopped printing. Community members were shocked to learn of Equal Time’s demise in the Star Tribune.53

The Adventures of Captain Condom The Minnesota AIDS Project (since 1983)

On April 7, 1982, the first cover of Equal Time introduced readers to a strange phenomenon that had appeared in Los Angeles ten months earlier. Dr. John Whyte warned readers that a “mysterious gay cancer” was spreading at an alarming rate

“Captain Condom,” a cartoon character created for the Minnesota AIDS Project, advocated extreme forms of safe sex during the AIDS crisis in the mid-1980s. This poster reveals the anxiety and lack of information about the disease; among the list of “possibly safe” forms of sexual contact is French kissing.

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in major cities on both coasts. Whyte reported that the “potentially lethal medical condition” killed one of every three victims in “less than two years” and, he predicted, “sensationalism and fear are to be expected as long as we have no idea of the cause or how the condition can be prevented.” 54 First identified by the mainstream media as GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency), the Centers for Disease Control defined the “new” disease as Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). This new name did little to sway the public majority away from initially held beliefs: many continued to view AIDS as a gay-related disease. Minnesota’s queer communities nervously eyed the initial spread of AIDS from afar, as outbreaks seemed to be largely contained on the two coasts. But it was largely ignored in 1982. Few believed that they were at risk, and a select few even considered AIDS an exciting development: those who believed in a (capital G/L) Gay and Lesbian biological essence considered AIDS evidence that supported a theoretical “gay gene.” Like other ethnic groups, which had genetic predispositions to particular ailments, gay men appeared to be naturally susceptible to a particular condition.55 This brief honeymoon soon became a nightmare as AIDS cases multiplied throughout the country. Just as Whyte predicted, American media outlets sparked public hysteria. This fear inspired little public action initially—many health-care providers and government agencies remained slow to respond throughout the 1980s. However, a handful of the world’s medical centers studied the disease before two scientists separately isolated the virus that causes AIDS, and, in 1985, the American Food and Drug Administration licensed the first commercial blood test. Scientists determined that AIDS is result of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV, named in 1986), a pathogen that is transmitted via sexual contact and direct blood exchanges with those already infected. The Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP) formed after the Centers for Disease Control confirmed two AIDS-related deaths in the Twin Cities.56 Ford Campbell and a handful of gay men met to strategize at the (now closed) Mount Sinai Hospital in Minneapolis and developed a plan for a service organization dedicated to improving the lives of people with AIDS (PWAs).57 At the urging of future city councilman Brian Coyle, the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul organized a coalition of community members, government officials, and community representatives in July 1983.58 With a budget of three thousand dollars and forty volunteers serving twelve PWAs, the new AIDS Project “almost wore them out by helping them so much.” 59 Discoveries regarding disease contraction eventually led to campaigns to

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educate the public on same-sex practices, but these revelations did little to slow misinformation about AIDS—it remained a “gay plague” for many years. To some extent, the roots of the stigma rested in a simple fact: AIDS disproportionately affected men who had sex with men. Thus, and without the direct support of the government, gay and lesbian organizers scrambled to respond to urgent needs and an incensed antigay backlash. The Minnesota AIDS Project introduced safe-sex education campaigns within a year of its founding; initially, it unsuccessfully advocated alternative forms of intimate activity (including massages, cuddling, and kissing) instead of penetrative sex. Condom advocacy eclipsed this approach. In 1989, for example, the organization spent fifteen thousand dollars delivering more than a hundred thousand condoms in “prick packs” to sexual sites across the Twin Cities, including Bare Ass Beach and other cruising sites.60 Although MAP was often at the epicenter of community controversy—in the late 1980s, it created a firestorm when it focused attention on HIV prevention (as opposed to focusing entirely on AIDS care)—the organization solidified its standing in the heart of the Twin Cities social-service community. A number of successful initiatives—among them the AIDS Walk, a needle exchange, prevention education, and PrideAlive—have kept the organization relevant despite years of declining HIV/AIDS contraction rates in the late 1990s and early 2000s. A recent uptick meant transmissions rose back to 1990 levels, but Minnesota is fortunate to have MAP as one of several seasoned community services ready to help.

Bringing the Women Together

Out to Brunch, Twin Cities (since 1985) A group of lesbian and bisexual women got to talking about the Twin Cities social scene at a Take Back the Night meeting in August 1985. Dissatisfied with the barcentered culture of Minnesota at the time—and perhaps uninterested in the heated politics of such spaces as A Woman’s Coffeehouse—they yearned for a friendly and casual social space. Eight women initially gathered to consider the possibilities for a new social venue and, in true Minnesotan fashion, they agreed on a monthly potluck.61 The women invited their friends, and Out to Brunch grew in size after several successful potlucks. The brunches were not held at a fixed location; instead, orga-

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nizers chose different meeting sites throughout the Twin Cities. Out to Brunch thus adds an interesting twist to the concept of a “queer place” in Minnesota’s history. To women brunchers, any community center, hotel conference room, or apartment building “party room” could be temporarily “queered” for the purpose of just having a good time. This impermanence keeps with earlier themes in the history of certain Minnesota spaces; like Rondo Avenue’s Prohibition-era Good Time Parties and Minneapolis’s secret warehouse parties in the 1970s, Out to Brunch’s monthly gettogethers were largely influenced by availability, cost, and convenience. Unlike gay and bisexual men, who had developed allegiances to certain semipermanent establishments since the Second World War, queer women mingled as they migrated across the metro area. Of course, like their male counterparts, they maintained certain neighborhood loyalties, but the concept of a permanent queer women’s space developed more recently. Many women—especially those of an older generation—expected transience, impromptu fun, and worth-of-mouth advertising. In part, Out to Brunch’s success relied on structured interaction—to reduce awkwardness, organizers created a “ ‘get acquainted’ type of atmosphere” with name tags, introductions, and announcements of community happenings.62 Whereas similar organizations, such as WomensWorks, catered to professional lesbians—one bruncher referred to them as “lipstick silk shirts”—the simple structure of monthly brunch appealed to women from a variety of backgrounds.63 The need for word-of-mouth publicity changed by the mid-1980s. Community newspapers and the publications of local organizations gave Out to Brunch an outlet that earlier gatherings lacked—the ability to get the word out. By making these announcements, the organizers gave “closeted” women the opportunity to meet others. Likewise, women who were separated along race and class lines reached beyond their social circles and established contact with others who also identified as lesbian or bisexual. Over time, Out to Brunch gathered a diverse following and smaller groups formed within it that catered to women of color, mothers, different age groups, and women who had recently joined.64 The community of lesbian and bisexual women in Minneapolis and St. Paul responded with extraordinary enthusiasm, suggesting additional after-brunch activities that included “hiking, video parties, dancing, cards, horseback riding, picnics, sports, talent shows, weekend camping trips, books groups—everything from a motorcycle group to a sewing circle!” according to one participant.65 By 1989, just two years after officially organizing, five hundred women were part of Out to Brunch.

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Perhaps thanks to its simple structure, the organization remains an important local institution. Many women suffered (and continue to suffer) in isolated environments—produced by the “closet,” an abusive relationship, or a queer social scene that lacks spaces for women. In this respect, and given its success, Out to Brunch remains one of a kind.

Northern Lights

The Aurora Lesbian Center and the Northland Gay Men’s Center, Duluth (since 1988) A group of Duluth-area women formed the Task Force for the Lesbian Community Center of Northern Minnesota in the spring of 1988 to open a center that would serve women from northern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin. John Ritter reported in Equal Time that queer Duluth women already participated in the Northcountry Woman’s Coffeehouse (1971–2008), perhaps the nation’s longestlived women’s monthly nonalcoholic social venue, but that it was a lone option that only met in the summer months. A ten-thousand-dollar grant from the Minnesota Women’s Fund, part of the Minneapolis Foundation, allowed task force members to search in earnest for an appropriate site for what became the Aurora Northland Lesbian Center.66 In 1994, Aurora joined the Program to Aid Victims of Sexual Assault, the Women’s Health Center, and the League of Women Voters as a tenant in the Building for Women, a $1.5 million structure in downtown Duluth.67 The year 1992 proved memorable for the Aurora center. Together with the Bright Futures Network, the Duluth Community Health Center, the Main Club, and the University of Minnesota–Duluth, Aurora sponsored “Surviving and Thriving in the Northland: Building Community for Northland Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Individuals.” 68 The conference’s sixty-five attendees brought a variety of experiences that reflected the lifestyles and backgrounds present in Minnesota’s fourth-largest city. To a great extent, this convergence of once-disconnected individuals and groups helped lessen the divisions between different segments of the community. Aurora’s director at the time, Betty Hupperich, remarked that “the most positive thing” to result from the conference was the unification of gay men and lesbian women in working together. The conference helped initiate an effort to bring about a men’s center later that year. The Northland Gay Men’s Center (NGMC) began as a chemical-free space

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for gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning men that offered discussions and social events.69 The mere existence of a gay men’s center in Duluth inspired acts of hatred and intimidation. In 1996, for example, anonymous homophobes placed stickers calling for “death penalty for homosexuals” on the center doors, and an unknown caller left “an explicit threat” on the center’s answering machine. These two episodes in a series of hate crimes that rocked Duluth’s minority populations inspired the Duluth News-Tribune to publish a front-page story that used community voices to promote forgiveness and stress how deeply the displays of hatred hurt the community as a whole. “My mom always said to turn the other cheek. Fighting is the last thing that you do,” one unnamed resident said. “You try to go by ‘Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me,’ but it doesn’t always work that way.” 70 Although northern Minnesota remains a challenging place for queer acceptance, the Northland Gay Men’s Center has provided a supportive center of queer life with the help of other community centers. In August 2008, Aurora’s board members held a visioning meeting to assess how Duluth’s queer community had changed over the course of the center’s twenty-year history. Considering input from the community, Aurora restructured to focus on “three key areas: community; networking; [and] outreach.” The board promised “to improve communication with the public and Aurora members . . . to increase communication [including] internet-based email groups to supplement the monthly newsletter,” and “to research, set-up, and promote [a] new web-based group.” 71 A year earlier, the Northland Gay Men’s Center celebrated its fifteenth anniversary as a pivotal space for men from the North Shore of Lake Superior and visitors from around the world.

“It’s All about Love. Tell Everybody.”

The NAMES Project Memorial Quilt, Minneapolis (July 16–17, 1988) For many Americans, the AIDS epidemic has become the tragedy of our generation, profoundly affecting every aspect of our lives. As a nation, we have struggled not only against a disease, but also against the equally destructive enemies of ignorance, hysteria and bigotry. And at times it seemed that we lacked the national will to conquer AIDS, and many of us despaired. This quilt is a gift from the hands and hearts of thousands of Americans who have not despaired. It stands as a statement of hope and remembrance, a symbol of national unity and a promise of love.

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In 1988, the NAMES Quilt was displayed at the Metrodome as part of a national tour. The quilt included 3,488 panels that represented an equal number of AIDS-related deaths. Photograph copyright 2011 Star Tribune/Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Each of us at the Project has been deeply honored by the trust and touched by the love of the panel-makers. They and their loved ones—those who have fallen and those who remain—have become a part of our lives. We will never forget them. —Cleve Jones, Director’s Message, The Names Project National Tour 1988 directory

On the early mornings of July 16 and 17, 1988, more than a thousand volunteers descended on the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis and became a part of queer history. Donning a rainbow of commemorative bandannas (color-coded according to the tasks at hand) and dressed completely in white, the volunteers unfolded twelve by twelve-foot “blocks” that contained eight handcrafted panels, each the approximate size of a human body and bearing the name of a person who had died of AIDS.72 As they arranged the blocks into larger twenty-four by twentyfour-foot squares (each with thirty-two names), they created paths for the public’s closer examination, and eventually laid down 109 larger squares representing

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3,488 people. Weighing eleven thousand pounds, the 1988 NAMES Quilt memorialized the 36,864 people who had died from AIDS since the disease’s outbreak six years earlier.73 The quilt’s unveiling at the Metrodome remains one of the largest displays of public art in Minnesota history. For the first time, Minnesotans confronted the sheer vastness of the AIDS devastation: “They witnessed the tragedy up close. They cried,” wrote Julio Ojeda, a Pioneer Press reporter who covered the event.74 According to a packet distributed at the event, eighty-one “local [Minnesotan] panels” brought the pandemic Jim Chalgren of St. Paul mourns the loss of his home, as local papers printed images companion, Emilian Reznicek. The NAMES of mourners crying before the memoProject Memorial Quilt moved many readers of local newspapers and increased the visibility of rial of a loved one.75 the HIV/AIDS pandemic without using confronThe event was not marked by tational tactics. Photograph copyright St. Paul Pioneer Press. sadness alone; visitors witnessed the colorful vibrancy of panels that mirrored the lives of those who had died. Perhaps expecting a funereal atmosphere throughout the day, Minnesota’s host committee assured visitors that “the event is a solemn one, but not without smiles, laughter, and conversation.” 76 Community leaders and public officials took turns reading each name represented by a quilt panel: Tim Campbell, Councilmember Barbara Carlson, Jim Chalgren, Councilmember Brian Coyle, Ann DeGroot, Harvey Hertz, Bob Jensen, Metropolitan Council President James Scheibel, and State Senator Allan Spear were among those honored with the task of reading the names. Among the thousands of panels, one person’s particularly reflected the spirit of the quilt. Jeff Buzzetti of Minneapolis will be forever remembered for the letters on his quilt panel, which spelled out his dying words: “It’s All about Love. Tell Everybody.” 77

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A Native American Movement Begins

The Basket and the Bow, Minneapolis (June 18–19, 1988) Founded in 1987, American Indian Gays and Lesbians (AIGL) initially met in the homes of Native American community leaders who sought “to provide accurate information to ourselves and others; to break down isolation on the reservations and urban areas; to support and promote a healthy lifestyle, high self-esteem and positive values.” 78 Minnesota’s first organization for gay and lesbian Native Americans networked with other Native American groups across the United States and Canada, with local governments and social-service organizations, and with national queer groups that needed representation from people outside of the European American majority—all in its first year. In 1988, AIGL organized the first gathering of queer Native Americans in the United States: “The Basket and the Bow.” An expression of culture, as opposed to an expression of gender or sexual identity,79 the event referred to a custom of the Tohono O’odham and other Native cultures that allowed their children to choose their gender in a coming-of-age ritual. The Tohono O’odham placed their children in a small hut with a weaver’s basket and a hunter’s bow. Having set the hut on fire, the adults waited to see which object the child carried as he or she escaped; if a boy held a basket, or if a girl held a bow, the child became a respected community member who functioned in the chosen gender role—regardless of biological traits. Denounced by Christian churches since the time of European colonization, and later forbidden by the U.S. government until passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978, rituals like the basket and the bow fell out of practice and were forgotten by many Native American populations. Organizers and community members came together at the American Indian Center (and later in the evening, at the Casablanca Room within the Gay 90’s complex) to remember and celebrate these rituals and to restore their place within Native American and queer communities. Beverly Little Thunder, a member of the North Dakota Lakota Sioux, told friends, “I’ve never seen a whole roomful of gay and lesbian natives before. It’s wonderful.” 80 Lee Staples, who organized the event with other AIGL members, wrote a summary of the first conference: “It is one thing to provide useful information about Gay and Lesbian American Indian people in each of the two [Gay and Lesbian, American Indian] communities; but quite another to express the richness, vitality, intellect and energy demonstrated through a collective, grassroots gathering.” 81 The Minneapolis celebration was so successful that, by 1990, AIGL sought to

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restrict the event to Native people and their families “so we don’t become a chic tourist event for others.” 82 This move proved important in preserving the event’s intended purpose during an era of commodified Native American spirituality in the larger culture. By 1997, organizers were receiving calls from curious non-Natives and were thus prompted to explain that “[it] really is a gathering for Native people. It’s really not a forum for non-Native people to learn about Native people.” 83 Elise Matthesen, a self-admitted “Anglo observer,” suggested that her non-Native readers “looking for a spiritual one-night adventure to write up in their journal may want to cross the Two Spirit Gathering off their lists.” 84 Over the next twenty years, organizers held the annual event in various cities across North America, including returns to Minneapolis in 1998 in commemoration of the Two Spirit Gathering’s tenth anniversary and in 2008 for the twentieth anniversary.

Put GLEAM in Your Life

Gay and Lesbian Elders Active in Minnesota, Minneapolis (since 1989) In the past, many have critiqued the queer community’s tendency to misrepresent seniors and ignore their needs. Prevalent cultural stereotypes supported demeaning images of “the menopausal queen,” the desperate patron of a gay bar’s “wrinkle room,” and the notion of a lonely old lesbian.85 Too often, the queer community has been presented as a young person’s world, an attitude that perpetuates stigmas and accentuates generational divides. This process has a long history, starting during the era of the pre-Stonewall generation quietly building gay and lesbian identities in the face of legalized and social bias. They subsequently resisted the work of younger activists who reshaped the struggle into a form of sexual and political liberation. With notable exceptions, older gay men and lesbians feared an impending backlash against the flagrantly “out” community of the 1970s. Young activists frequently interpreted this hesitance as staunch resistance and imagined the older people as outmoded examples of conformity. Perhaps influenced by this tension, seniors organized political and social organizations of their own, beginning with Seniors Active in a Gay Environment (SAGE) in 1978. Gay and Lesbian Elders Active in Minnesota (often referred to as G.L.E.A.M.) formed in February 1989 to serve a community dealing with identity politics, marriage rights, isolation, nursing-home care, and legal obstructions to wills and testaments, among other issues. Organizers initially held meetings in Quatrefoil Library

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before relocating to the Park Avenue Senior Center, where the group developed a mission statement in 1991.86 Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, “Gleamers” held potlucks, holiday parties, and movie nights. They also organized speaking engagements, including lectures from lawyers who instructed attendees on how to prepare wills and make other end-of-life arrangements so that their legacies would be preserved according to their wishes.87 G.L.E.A.M. takes care to provide a friendly social space every month on a Sunday afternoon. The organization’s simple aim, “to promote a friendly and safe environment in which older Gays and Lesbians, together, could meet and socialize,” attracts seniors from across the Twin Cities metropolitan area. “Being an older Gay or Lesbian in ’90s America means something different for each of us,” an early pamphlet noted. “At G.L.E.A.M., we want it to mean being active in a friendly, open social environment. A place where the promise of new friendships can bloom and old acquaintances can be renewed. A place of dignity where the warmth of our community comes to spend a Sunday afternoon.” 88 Socializing may seem an uninspiring goal to those unfamiliar with queer aging problems, but the significance of informal gatherings cannot be overstated for elderly people with limited mobility, age-related impairments, or who simply seek the company of others who share their identities and memories. Social gatherings permit an exchanging of information among a population that may be neither accustomed to nor interested in the Internet. Social events continued at the Park Avenue Senior Center for sixteen years before moving to the Bethany Lutheran Church on Franklin Avenue in 2006.89 That change is one of the few in the organization’s history. At the time of this writing, G.L.E.A.M. continues to serve the social needs of older lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

“Let’s Just Get Together and Have a Potluck, Ya Know?” The Bisexual Connection, Twin Cities (1989?–96?)

Appearing as a guest on a 2003 episode of BiCities! with her partner Martin Quam, Lou Hoffman told cohosts Anita Kozan and Marge Charmoli that she first thought she found a bisexual community in Minneapolis shortly after moving there in 1980. Seeing an ad for a “Women Loving Women Support Group,” Hoffman “thought that sounded vague enough that I could go to it.” She introduced herself as bisexual at the meeting, and the moderator asked her to leave at the next break, explaining that she didn’t feel Hoffman would fit in.90

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Neither Hoffman nor Quam knew that the other was bisexual when they met in 1982. They came out to each other after living together for about a year, sought to find others like themselves, and answered a more promising ad for the Bisexual Connection. At the time, the Bisexual Connection was Minnesota’s only bisexual group, although Elise Matthesen had led a brief Bi Women’s Action Group under the auspices of Take Back the Night. The Bisexual Connection began as “mostly a discussion group,” Quam remembered. “I think some of the social activities came in later. People thought, ‘Ya know, this is kinda heavy, ya know? Let’s just get together and have a potluck, ya know?’ ” But then, as Marge Charmoli noted, “something happened.” 91 Hoffman recalled that an influx of new people gave the organization an activist bent that challenged gay and lesbian leaders in the larger queer community. They were met with hostility from many gay and lesbian leaders; responding to this, the group began to explore solutions to the problem of biphobia. Notably, Hoffman worked with the Twin Cities Pride Committee. She remembered: From 1990 to 1991, we started discussing adding the “B” and “T” to the “G” and “L” of the “Pride.” It was sometimes an acrimonious discussion, but on the whole we had sensible and thoughtful people that were working with us, and in the end, in 1992, they changed the name of the festival to reflect it. It was the “Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Pride Festival . . . and Parade.” “Maybe we were just too naive,” she continued. “I’ve heard in other places where [bisexual and transgender groups] have worked with smaller groups first, and worked up to organizations like the Pride Committee, but I think it actually worked in our favor that we took on one of the major organizations of the Twin Cities first, because once they did it . . . another organization that changed quite early was Lavender [Magazine, when it] added “bisexual” and “transgender” to their masthead . . . when the large organizations changed, then the small organizations reconsidered their position.92

Live with Questions—Don’t Die with Stale Certainties

The BECAUSE Conference, Minneapolis (1992–2004, since 2008) In 1987, more than a hundred bisexuals organized a contingent in the Second March on Washington—a landmark organizing effort that brought almost half a million queer people to the nation’s capital—after two Boston women distributed a

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flyer that asked, “Are We ready for a National Bisexual Network Yet?” 93 The group’s success answered the question affirmatively, and an organization later known as BiNet USA hosted its first meeting in San Francisco in 1990. Met with homophobia from heterosexual people, and with biphobia from gay- and lesbian-identified people, the national bisexual community used the forum to address their problems, in their own words, for the first time. Gary Lingen, founder of the Bisexual Organizing Project (BOP), told Twin Cities Gaze that the national conference “was a dream come true.” 94 In 1992, around a dozen people, including members of the Bisexual Connection, brought the dream to Minnesota in the form of the Bisexual Empowerment Conference, A Uniting Supportive Experience. Known simply as the BECAUSE Conference, the first and second annual forums demonstrated that attendance was bound to annually increase as word got out about their success. The acronym BECAUSE responded to a common question: why not choose straight or gay? “Because,” said one of the founders, “we would rather live with our questions than die with our stale certainties.” 95 “For too long,” wrote another pair of bisexual activists, “we’ve let others define who we are, and their mistaken definitions are all too often unknowing—or malicious. We are beginning to find each other, to tell our stories, and present our truths. There is strength in connecting, in building community.” 96 These connections produced freedoms of expression not seen since Fight Repression of Erotic Expression; in 1994, for example, panelists and discussion groups addressed everything from “Alternatives to Monogamy” to “Sex Party Etiquette.” 97 To some, the success and longevity of the BECAUSE Conference—compared to other local bisexual organizations—suggests that the bisexual community is a “conference culture” 98 whose participants celebrate their bisexuality in the context of intelligent discussion, lectures, and official presentations. Bill Burleson explained that many local bisexuals happened to participate in regional sciencefiction fan conferences and used their experiences in conference organizing to build a bisexual community. After two successful conferences, organizers of BECAUSE relayed criticisms of their work to readers in a bimonthly newsletter: “[A] discussion on Bi Women of Color in the community . . . focused on the needs of women of color within the queer community and the lack of real, psychic and political space for bisexuality within queer communities of color.” The report continued with an authorial admission: “it hurt like hell to hear the bi women of color in the discussion say that they saw little interest in the upcoming events of the BECAUSE ’94

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conference. I mean, after all, hadn’t we done a good job at trying to be representative, providing access, including everyone? The criticism still stood and I found myself still reeling when I arrived [at BECAUSE ’94] for the keynote address.” 99 As a leader in the national bisexual movement, Minnesota provided a discussion forum for the intersections of sexuality, race, class, and gender. BECAUSE continued annually until 2004, took a three-year break, and returned at the end of the 2000s ready to continue its mission—to ask questions and live without “stale certainties.”

True Colors

Minnesota Men of Color, Minneapolis (1997–2009) In 1997, Nicholas Metcalf founded Minnesota Men of Color (MMC) while finishing graduate school and raising a child. Metcalf and cofounder Eddy Lee—a gay Korean and employee of the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans—discussed the need for more social opportunities for men of color like themselves.100 Begun with grants from Philanthrofund and the Minnesota Department of Health, MMC served the “Arab/Middle Eastern, Asian Pacific Islander, Chicano/Latino and Native American Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) population in the state of Minnesota.” 101 Metcalf, a Lakota, discussed his experiences with racial bias in a 2002 interview with Gay Parent Magazine: “Racism is very much alive and well in the queer community by lacking inclusion of people of color. HRC (Human Rights Campaign) and NGLTF (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) are not on my reservation. PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) isn’t there either. Institutions that are sort of pro-white LGBT people are good, but they don’t look or behave anything like my world. They’re part of my world in regards to being gay, they are great institutions in that sense. But they only accept part of me, not all of me.” 102 Metcalf, Lee, and other community members faced an intimidating reality when they began their work. Beyond HIV/AIDS studies and the North Star Project, a groundbreaking needs assessment survey conducted by the Gay and Lesbian Community Action Council in 1990, the twenty-five-year history of Minnesota’s queer nonprofits produced a disproportionately small fraction of research and community development focused on people of color. Without an infrastructure in place or a body of work to consult, the founders developed Minnesota’s first demo-

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graphic analysis of queer people— to ascertain whom they served—in 1998. The study identified more than 160,000 gay/lesbian people living in Hennepin and Ramsey counties— divided equally along gender lines— of whom approximately 33,000 were people of color. Within the 33,000, approximately 14,000 (42 percent) identified as African American, 1,500 (5 percent) as Native American, nearly 10,000 (30 percent) as Asian/Pacific Islander, 7,200 (22 percent) as Latino, and less than 1 percent as Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander.103 Accounting for approximately one-fifth of the region’s total gay/lesbian population in 1998, the racial groups identified represented a growing minority within the Established in 1997, Minnesota Men of Color Twin Cities queer community. worked against racism, studied queer people of After five years of groundbreaking color in the Twin Cities, and developed HIV/AIDS awareness programs. This poster, one of many, work, MMC identified several issues embraces eroticism to convey the importance of within Minnesota’s queer populations safe sex in more than one language. of color and conveyed them in “talking points” to other organizations. Answering the question “What does MMC do?” the organization gave the following response: “MMC provides HIV [and other sexually transmitted disease] prevention information, health information for people living with HIV, and community building activities which include co-sponsoring events, [and] providing technical assistance to indigenous community leaders to increase the visibility of people of color.” 104 Because of the group’s name, members also prepared responses to those who asked, “Are there womyn involved?” (Womyn is an alternate spelling of women used to distinguish the noun from patriarchal etymology.) “Womyn have been involved since the second year of MMC,” the group responded. “Womyn continue to be the strength in which MMC operates day to

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day. In the past womyn involved have taken a supportive role but [they] are now becoming more actively involved in developing programming and initiatives for Lesbian and Bi Womyn of Color.” 105 Despite the energy that women brought, the tangible effects of Minnesota Men of Color’s positive work could not save it from financial difficulties, and it disbanded in 2009.

“Bitchy Bi Divas”

BiCities!, Twin Cities (since 2002) For most of an October day in 2002, Dr. Margaret “Marge” Charmoli, a psychologist, rehearsed a single sentence to a household audience of mirrors, appliances, and pets. She then took an evening drive to the Minneapolis Telecommunications Network in northeast Minneapolis and greeted her friend and future cohost, Dr. Anita Kozan, William “Bill” Burleson—who created and initially produced her new show—and a crew of dedicated volunteers. After some strategizing, Kozan and Charmoli sat down together in a sound studio with eclectic furnishings. The studio’s bright lights came on, they both sat upright, the camera started rolling, Marge smiled, and she delivered the line she had repeated all day long: “Hi, I’m Marge Charmoli, and I’m from St. Paul.” Her cohost, a speech and language pathologist, delivered her line (perhaps without as much practice): “And I’m Anita Kozan. I’m from Minneapolis.” “Welcome to BiCities!,” Marge continued, “a show by and for the bisexual community and our allies.” She turned to her friend and smiled: “Well, Anita, It’s our first show.” “I am so excited about it, to be here doing this with you, Marge.” Her friend’s smile was characteristically radiant. “Me, too. You know, for a long time I’ve had this fantasy about being a bisexual Barbara Wawa.106 And who better to do it with than an esteemed speech and language pathologist?” 107 Anita laughed. “You would probably need not only a speech pathologist, but a psychologist as well, so you can—we’ll take care of each other, if you want to do Barbara Wawa.” “That’s good, that’s good. ‘By and for each other,’ I like that.” Thus began BiCities!, the longest-running television program dedicated to

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Sitting left to right, Dr. Anita Kozan and Dr. Marge Charmoli discuss transgender activism in 2009 with Lane McKiernan on the set of BiCities!, the world’s only show dedicated to the discussion of bisexual issues. As of 2011, Charmoli and Kozan and their dedicated crew had produced more than two hundred episodes.

bisexuality in the country. The first show set the standard for the rest of the decade; Charmoli and Kozan discussed the “BECAUSE Conference” with their first guest, bisexual organizer Kathy Shane, and began to develop a reputation as respectful hosts who handled sensitive subjects with grace and good humor. A series of technical difficulties prompted the three women to restart their first taping several times—“by the end we were melting under those lights,” Charmoli recalled in an interview—yet these issues were simply the result of navigating unfamiliar equipment for the first time.108 Crew members developed considerable expertise and worked with the show for several years; as of 2010, they had produced more than 180 episodes.

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The legacy of BiCities! has been profound. The nation’s only bisexual community television program repudiates deeply rooted misconceptions about bisexuality. Perhaps because of the oppositional development of heterosexuality and homosexuality in the United States, hostility to bisexuality exists not just outside the queer community, but inside as well. Dr. Charmoli recalled that her life as a bisexual activist during the 1970s was particularly challenging: I was the only one in St. Paul that I knew. And especially during all the . . . political efforts to get a human rights ordinance passed in St. Paul [in 1974], you know, I was the only one who would show up and claim a bisexual identity. And I was really severely harassed by both the gay and lesbian communities for adopting it. [They would say,] “You’re really a lesbian and you just don’t see it yet.” . . . I think a lot of people back then were forced one way or the other.109

Dr. Kozan notes that BiCities! has greatly expanded with the assistance of digital technology and now boasts an international audience; in some instances, “BiCities! has saved lives,” particularly the lives of bisexuals who contended with isolation, depression, and suicidal thoughts in an angry world of black-and-white distinctions. Scheduled to celebrate their tenth anniversary in 2012, both women look forward to continuing the program for years to come.

Queer People Take to the Suburbs

Lavender Hills and the Swish Alps, Golden Valley (since ca. 1990) One of Minneapolis’s earliest “first ring” suburbs began in the 1910s when railroads reached the nineteenth-century village of Golden Valley. The community boomed and, following World War II, it became a perfect example of postwar suburbia with its curving streets, attached garages, and lawn sprinklers. An interesting development occurred during the Korean War, when wealthy Americans were the only group that could afford new home construction during a shortage of building materials. As a result, doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, and other professionals built some of the city’s largest architect-designed homes in the new Tyrol Hills subdivision, dubbed “Pill Hill” by envious earlier residents. As the “Pill Hill” set grew older, they began to sell their homes in the 1970s. These houses attracted a previously improbable subset of the suburban class—gay male couples, many of whom had been living in narrow properties along the Minnehaha Parkway belt of south Minneapolis, before moving to the area to live their

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dream of “bigger houses so we could have bigger parties, and more privacy, and more space.” 110 “John Andersen,” a gay realtor who specializes in the Tyrol neighborhood and wishes to be referred to with that pseudonym (to protect the identities of other residents), is responsible for ushering “a lot” of gay couples to the neighborhood and maintaining the concentration. “Usually, if someone gay was selling, somebody gay bought,” he recalled in an interview. The prevalence and permanence of gay households led to Tyrol Hills’ campy nicknames: “Lavender Hills” and “The Swish Alps.” Andersen himself purchased one of the largest houses in the neighborhood, an elevated home that featured a large pool, in 1980. “The neighbors were welleducated, liberal, accepting people, so I mean we mixed with the neighbors really well, and if you were improving your house and keeping up your yard, they didn’t care.” Indeed, Andersen and his partner became hosts to legendary parties that mixed the gay male community with heterosexual suburban families throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Frequently hosting parties with more than a hundred guests, the couple entertained the neighborhood with elaborate themed gatherings, including a “hat party” where guests were encouraged to don gender-mixed headgear. Andersen remembered inviting a friend to bartend and asking him to dress in a hatted costume; the bartender showed up bare-chested in sadomasochist “leatherman” gear—complete with leather pants, a leashed collar, and a military cap—and delighted the neighborhood to such an extent that his hat traveled on several heads throughout the evening and guests played with his leash. Andersen’s partner arranged family-friendly events for the neighborhood children, such as a “kid’s day” on Tuesday afternoons at their pool. “The neighborhood kids would all show up, sometimes their mothers or sometimes their . . . uncles or whoever, aunts would show up,” the realtor recalled. “One day I came home and there was this kid who was about fifteen, and I’m thinking, ‘You know, he’s kind of too old [laughs] to be at the kid’s pool day!’ So I said, ‘Wow, you’re kind of old to be at the kid’s pool party,’ and he said, ‘Oh, I’m taking care of Josh.’ He was a little neighbor kid, about six, and his mom was going to be late for work so she sent his babysitter along.” Although they were well accepted by their neighbors, the gay residents of Tyron Hills were still expected to conform to the requirements of suburban good taste. Asked if there were many rainbow flags in the area, Andersen said, “No. I think people would’ve thought it was tacky . . . I mean everybody knew anyway, so you really didn’t need to advertise it.” Aversion to tackiness was symptomatic of greater

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House parties at Lavender Hills, a neighborhood in suburban Golden Valley, blurred the traditional boundary between heterosexual domestic life and the queer party scene. Increasingly, queer households are moving out of historic urban centers and into suburbia. In this picture, taken during a “hat party” in the neighborhood, a resident wearing a vintage veil tugs at the leash of a male partier wearing a leather cap. Photograph by “John Anderson,” a pseudonym.

fears that the “wrong sort” would drive down surrounding properties values. In 1989, Hennepin County (home to Golden Valley) offered financial assistance to the city for construction of the first county-subsidized housing for people with AIDS (PWAs) outside of the central city. In the plan, the county and a private developer would have purchased and reconstructed 620 Utah Avenue South—near the Golden Valley Golf and Country Club—to house six individuals with AIDS who required moderate medical assistance. Golden Valley’s city council unanimously rejected a necessary zoning change and forced the project elsewhere; a Hennepin County official suggested that the rejection rested on resistance by local property owners. Residents voiced their fears of permitting drug users—a group disproportionately affected by AIDS because of intravenous needle use—into their communities.111 Named for an El Salvadoran archbishop who was assassinated for supporting human rights, the Oscar Romero Residence project folded in short order.

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The success of Lavender Hills reflects broader themes in the acceptance of queer households. Suburban residents accept their gay neighbors as the hosts of lavish parties, renovators of the housing stock, and active community members— not because they accept the explicit aspects of queer male sexuality or the political issues that same-sex activity has historically supported. Instead, Tyrol Hills and the city of Golden Valley participated in the nonsexual politics of private domestic life—namely, same-sex marriage. In 2010, the city became Minnesota’s seventh municipality to approve a domestic partnership registry. To Paula Pentel, a member of the city council, the registry validated the presence of her gay constituents. “I am so pleased that members of our community brought this to our attention,” she told the Star Tribune. “They told me Edina [another suburb] was doing it and said we should do it, too. It means a lot to families, and it provides a bit of recognition that can help people in many ways.” 112

Loring Park as a Fictional “Gay Ghetto” Homo Heights, Minneapolis (1997)

In 1997, a quirky independent movie written and directed by Sara Moore and produced by Kate Lehmann imagined a world where heterosexuals simply did not exist. Using local talent, local locations, and a meager budget, the film played heavily on popular queer stereotypes and depicted a joyful and cartoonish reflection of the queer community in Minneapolis. A rebellious butch lesbian drives her taxi through the streets and meets the late Quentin Crisp, who plays Malcolm, the aging patriarch of Homo Heights. Longing for a life outside the gay ghetto’s walls, Malcolm collects bizarre artifacts of campy actresses (such as Vivian Leigh’s pillbox and Gloria Swanson’s dentures) as he plots his escape from a tyrannical drag queen, Maria Callous, who is holding him hostage. Played by Stephen Sorrentino, Callous runs the Gay Mafia and calls the heads of the queer “families” (each representing a queer stereotype) to find the ultimate camp actress for Malcolm’s appeasement: Carol Channing, who makes a brief cameo appearance. Personalities include a trio of drag queens dressed as Jacqueline Kennedy (locals would recognize the cast of Hot Dish!). Notable scenes include a mafia hit where drag queens watch in horror as their expensive shoes are tied to a cinder block and thrown in the Mississippi River. Memorable quotes include the line “So that’s what happened to my feathers; I thought it was the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover.”

Homo Heights (1997), a film by Sara Moore and Kate Lehmann, imagined a world without straight people. Starring Quentin Crisp, Lea DeLaria, Stephen Sorrentino, and Carol Channing in a brief cameo, the film played heavily on queer stereotypes. The name refers to a real “homo heights,” which was part of the Loring Park “gay ghetto” in the twentieth century. This prop from the film, a fictitious newspaper that announces the rise of Maria Callous, is one of many now housed at the Tretter Collection.

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According to Colin Covert, a film critic with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Homo Heights “fizzled on the launch pad in 1997.” He added: “In this ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ atmosphere, ‘Homo Heights’ might have seemed a tad risque for multiplex audiences, perhaps too lighthearted and tame to suit gay activists, and too balanced in its presentation of lesbian and gay characters to appeal powerfully to either crowd.” 113 In an interview with Phillip Ward, Sara Moore noted that the film mostly played at gay and lesbian film festivals around the world.114 Covert watched the movie in 2001, during its “second chance,” when it played a limited run at the Oak Street Cinema near the University of Minnesota. The name Homo Heights is rooted in an actual moniker that dates to the 1960s. Before large demolition projects isolated Loring Park and transformed it into an upscale address, it was the epicenter of Minneapolis’s gay residential community. With aging apartment buildings, cruising areas in the park, and close proximity to the city’s gay bars, Loring became the quintessential Minneapolis “gayborhood” and a physical microcosm of rifts and alliances within the larger queer community. According to Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, Loring Park’s surroundings were divided into three major sections.115 To the west, atop Kenwood Hill, sat the “Homolayas,” where wealthy rich men lived in old mansions. To the north and east, stretching to Stevens Square and the current site of the Minneapolis Convention Center, sat “Gay Hill,” where poor gay men, drag queens, and other gender nonconformists lived. And to the south, stretching from 15th Street to Franklin Avenue, was “Homo Heights,” where middle-class gays lived with students and activists. Like lesbians who dubbed Powderhorn Park “Dyke Heights,” gay men created the three sections in a playful attempt to establish an exclusively queer enclave that existed outside of heterosexual influence. By renaming the areas, they imagined a world that Moore and Lehmann would realize with campy abandon more than twenty years later. Of course, the designation had roots in real geographic concentration. In 1974, while attending the University of Minnesota, Tretter wrote a short undergraduate paper titled “The Existence of a Gay Ghetto in Minneapolis.” His study included a map of every known gay or lesbian service organization in the city and correlated the data to determine that the intersection of 18th Street and Nicollet Avenue, near Loring Park, was the epicenter of the short-lived district.

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Hlub Txhua

Shades of Yellow, St. Paul (since 2003) More than a thousand years ago, a number of culturally related agrarian peoples lived near the Yellow River in the southern half of present-day China. This group, which the northern Chinese frequently identified as “Miao,” fled the region as their northern neighbors encroached.116 They eventually settled in the mountainous regions of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and other nations in Southeast Asia. One of these groups, the Hmong, struggled against French colonizers from 1918 to 1920 and, later, fought a U.S.-supported “secret war” against the communist Pathet Lao in the early days of the Vietnam War. The latter conflict proved disastrous, and thousands of Hmong refugees fled Vietnam for the comparative safety of Thailand. After losing the war, the United States initially granted a mere 3,466 people asylum from communist Vietnam. In 1976, this number jumped to eleven thousand.117 By the 1990s, the American government recognized its responsibility for the displaced and eventually permitted hundreds of thousands to permanently resettle in the United States. With an estimated sixty to seventy thousand Hmong residents, Minnesota has become home to the second-largest Hmong population in the United States. St. Paul became home to one of the country’s largest urban Hmong populations between 1990 and 2000. During this time, the U.S. Census recorded a 150 percent jump—from seventeen thousand to more than forty-two thousand—in Hmong St. Paulites reporting their residence to the government.118 This population shift combined with other immigration gains and accounted for the capital city’s first sizable population growth since 1950 (more than two thousand). Another (perhaps unforeseen) result of this explosive growth was the rapid development of queer community within the Twin Cities Hmong population. In 2003, a social worker named Phia Xiong and a community member named Xeng Lor established Shades of Yellow (SOY)—the first social organization for queer Hmong people in recorded history. The two began SOY with intermittent coffee hours, potlucks, and a New Year’s celebration; these gatherings centered on discussions (formal and casual) about “issues [queer Hmong people] face at home, school, work, and/or in the community.” 119 For decades, young queer Hmong Americans faced obstacles and difficulties that many middle-aged queer Caucasian Americans had experienced as children and young adults, before gay liberation took root in the 1970s. Chong Moua, who

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began volunteering with Shades of Yellow in late 2008, remembered the isolation of her childhood in the 1990s: “Growing up, I seriously thought I was the only one. I was the only one in the whole world, [and] no one else could be like me.” Moua’s experience changed when she met a queer friend who worked with SOY. After the friend invited her to speak at SOY’s annual dinner, Moua drove to her home in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and promptly came out to her family as a bisexual woman. Shortly thereafter, she moved to St. Paul to be closer to her newfound community.120 Moua’s story is similar to others active in SOY; the organization attracted queer Hmong people to Minneapolis/St. Paul from the entire Upper Midwest region. To some, the group became a source of love and support after the devastation of biological family abandonment. As the Advocate noted in a short 2006 piece on Shades of Yellow, the Hmong community is conservative and “slow to assimilate into contemporary culture.” 121 Thus, Hmong people who “come out” are often admonished, misunderstood, and even disowned by their biological families. In the event of this abandonment, SOY members gave help and support to ostracized friends. Many participants considered themselves members of their biological family, representatives of their clan (identifiable by surname), and part of a growing “SOY family.” In 2009, the organization’s popular New Year pageant (which takes place in November) drew more than four hundred people, including many biological families with children. SOY’s growth and success are tempered by general indifference within the larger Hmong community. Without many positive depictions of queer Hmong people, the Hmong community sees same-sex desire and gender nonconformity as an Americanizing adaptation or a form of whiteness. These behaviors, some believe, were not present in the homeland and surfaced only after emigration. In part, the absence of Hmong terminology for same-sex or gender-nonconforming behaviors, desires, and love is responsible for claims about the “whiteness” of being queer. People who differ from tradition are thus forced to use Western terms that may not adequately describe their identities—to date, no word in Hmong equates to the overarching concepts of “gay,” “LGBTQ,” or “queer.” In 2010, when asked what words she would use to describe queerness in the Hmong language, Chong Moua suggested “Hlub Txhua” (hlüb’tso:), meaning “pan love” or “love everybody.”

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A Light in the Dark

The Iron Range GLBTA, Hibbing and Virginia (since 2009) Armed with “the very basics; two pens and two notebooks,” Ashley Kay Rantala poured her ideas, hopes, goals, and dreams into plans for an organizational first in Minnesota’s Iron Range.122 At age twenty-one, Rantala founded the first queer social organization in northern Minnesota outside of Duluth. The Iron Range Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transgenders, and their Allies (GLBTA) began with visions of “making positive change on the Range” and initiated biweekly meetings in the alternate locations of Hibbing, the birthplace of folk legend Bob Dylan, and Virginia, Minnesota, a town of approximately 9,100. Within months, the organization became a lifeline for queer people who live beyond the reach of the state’s urbanized communities in Duluth, Minneapolis, and St. Paul. “I was surprised to learn how many other GLBT live around me!” confided one bisexual participant. “The Iron Range GLBTA has helped me through my own ordeals and has empowered me to help others through theirs. It’s a place of understanding that I was surprised yet grateful to find.” 123 Rantala developed a lesbian identity “in an atmosphere that unfortunately was not the most accepting or ‘out.’ ” After obtaining a degree from the Mesabi Range Community College, she “had no time to lose” and left her job as a grocery store cashier to realize her dreams, but the path was lonely. “It’s weird standing . . . alone in my community, where I live,” she told Chris Mason during a roadside interview with Driving Equality, a 2009 documentary of queer life in the continental United States. “Just the fact that we even have to talk about being equal . . . shows how unfair it is, because if we were equal we wouldn’t have to talk about it. We wouldn’t have to travel across the country showing differences . . . to even show that we’re not equal. Because it’s not even a question. It’s the truth. And I don’t know how people can stand right next to this group and not see it.” 124 Iron Range GLBTA represents a nascent form of queer equality that early community organizers could not realize in the early 1970s. Organizations in rural Minnesota mirror the early endeavors of their urban forbears, but the contemporary groups realize their goals in challenging settings that, because they are small and remote, have not benefited from education covering queer problems. “I really want to work on . . . getting GLBT support to an area that’s completely left in the dark,” Rantala confided. “Bigger cities in Minnesota have GLBT events and activities and they have a community, and they have resources. But the Iron Range specifically

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is very dark. We don’t have those, and they’re far away for us to find. Closest one would be a couple of hours away, and it sucks to drive two hours away to find a friend that you can relate to. I mean, you should be able to call one and have them be over in fifteen minutes for a cup of coffee.”

Epilogue

Epilogue Dust on the Weathervane Working with people who donated material to the University of Minnesota’s Tretter Collection taught me lessons in patience and diplomacy. But one donor was different. Out of the blue, I received a polite e-mail from a woman named Toni McNaron, who had already donated many of her professional papers to the collection. She wrote that she was ready to part with a last installment of the papers if the archive was ready to receive them. As a matter of course, I familiarized myself with the McNaron papers we already held and made it my business to find out just who she was. A professor emerita of the University of Minnesota’s English department, McNaron had earned degrees at the University of Alabama, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Wisconsin before she began teaching at Minnesota in 1964. She had many published articles and books, among the latter Poisoned Ivy: Lesbian and Gay Academics Confronting Homophobia (1996), New Lesbian Studies: Into the 21st Century (1996), and her memoirs, I Dwell in Possibility (1992). I also learned that she had been a key figure in the Minnesota lesbian community: a force at both A Woman’s Coffeehouse and the Lesbian Resource Center, she was a witness to more than four decades of queer life in Minnesota. Once I was able to place Toni McNaron in queer history, I replied to her e-mail and worked with her to transfer the donation. She was refreshingly polite and helpful; the University of Minnesota Libraries’ shipping department picked up the documents at her home. As a result, I did not have a chance to meet her in person, but I did write her once more. She donated a nearly complete set of Sinister Wisdom, a lesbian literary and art journal that began in 1976 and continues to publish today. I had been completely unaware that such a long-lived repository of lesbian thought and art had existed right under my nose, and I thanked her for giving me an opportunity to read into it.

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My employment with the collection ran its course, but I came across McNaron’s name once again. While I rummaged through the archives in preparation for this book, I discovered a brittle piece of folded paper buried underneath a pile of boxes. When spread out, the document featured an odd drawing of gay men and lesbians with the caption “Come Out to Our Agency: Open House at Christopher Street.” I had never heard of the agency, so I began to consult other sources. I typed “Christopher Street gay lesbian Minneapolis” into Google, and the Web site produced an article by McNaron in The Encyclopedia of Lesbian Histories and Cultures that was listed as “Alcoholism and Substance Abuse.” Writing about the national development of gay and lesbian substance treatment, McNaron briefly mentioned Christopher Street as “a pioneering center for the recovery movement” that opened in 1972 and continues to operate as the Pride Institute—a national leader in queer addiction treatment. Armed with the address on the crumbling poster, I consulted the Minneapolis City Directory from 1972 and found two male names listed as “counselors” at the address. With high hopes of success, I used an online telephone directory and began calling every name that matched the directory listing. After hearing “I have no idea what you’re talking about” several times, I finally reached one of the listed men. After I described my research, the man replied, “Yes, I was a counselor at the address, but it wasn’t called ‘Christopher Street’—it was an addiction counseling center, and I did have gay clients, but we didn’t provide counseling to gays elusively . . . I didn’t even know that there was a gay counseling agency here [in Minneapolis] at the time.” Disheartened, I thanked him and hung up. Then I sent an e-mail to Toni McNaron, hoping that she would be able to tell me more about the elusive organization. Describing my book project, I referred to my difficulty in finding information about Christopher Street. “Was it a ghost?” I asked in desperation. She replied: Christopher Street was anything but a ghost. It existed for years on the corner of Nicollet Ave. and 24th Street. It served both gay men and lesbian women recovering from alcoholism and drug abuse. It was an excellent program with solid successes. My participation, lasting several years, was to talk to groups of lesbians nearing graduation from treatment into aftercare. I talked about how feminism might well be a replacement activity for them, since once we are sober, there is a lot of open time to fill somehow so we don’t slide back into addictive behaviors. I can’t remember the name of the man who ran the gay program, but Patricia Nevins ran the lesbian program . . . If I can be of further assistance, let me know.

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Soon after that brief correspondence, I went to interview McNaron about Christopher Street and other lesbian-feminist places. As with many interviews, I prepared by listening to music relevant to the time period that I would be discussing. I consulted the catalog of Olivia Records, a central studio in the development of “Women’s music” during the 1970s, and I downloaded several discographies to accompany me on the walk. I approached the front door, knocked, and came faceto-face with an older woman with short gray hair and kind, narrow eyes. Instructed to take off my boots, I walked into McNaron’s living room and sat down. While fiddling with my recording equipment, I chatted about the book project and its intended audience, and told her that I was born and raised in Starkville, Mississippi—not that far from her childhood home near Birmingham, Alabama. She sat on a powder blue sofa, and an old cat hopped up on her lap, purring loudly. I started asking questions about her experiences in Minneapolis, and her responses became the basis for several entries in Land of 10,000 Loves. But her most profound statement was one that could not be placed into any single entry. We had just discussed the end of A Woman’s Coffeehouse in 1989, which McNaron noted was the beginning of a new era in lesbian socialization. The coffeehouse once represented a nonalcoholic refuge in a bar-based lesbian social scene, but it had been eclipsed by a host of new social venues. Considering this, she began to discuss her concerns for the future. “How I see the current state of both feminism and certainly lesbian life—I don’t know about gay life—is that there’s no locus, there’s no coherence,” she said. “Now, younger people assure me that I should not worry about there not being a locus, because it means that we are everywhere and doing everything. And I try to listen to that. But I also feel that, since the world still has virulently homophobic people, it would be helpful if there were some . . . weathervanes that you could point to, in time of bad wind. If anything really hard began to happen—other than the legislature not wanting to have gay marriage and all of the other things they already can do—but if something really bad happened, we would lose time in trying to organize, because we wouldn’t have those immediate things that you already knew were there, either physically or psychologically.” “So, there was an activist infrastructure in place . . . ,” I began. “Exactly,” she agreed. “And that’s not there now. It may not be gone, but it is certainly very diffuse. I mean, yes there’s District 202, which I guess helps some young people . . .” “Well, the center closed,” I noted. “It still kind of exists, but the actual space is shut down. They’re an Internet-based group now.”

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“Well, there you are,” she said. “Again, people tell me not to worry about that. But I don’t do Twitter and tweet and all that stuff. And so I wouldn’t know which place to go to protest. But people tell me that tens of thousands of people could be gotten out on the street in fifteen minutes through all of these social . . . things. I hope they’re right. I hope we don’t need them.” She continued: It seems to me that homophobia will go away the slowest, as opposed to, say, racism or anti-Semitism or certain other things. If I am white, and you are not white, one thing that I don’t have to think is . . . “I could be not white.” Every human being has to deal with the fact that they could be gay or lesbian, so our physical existence is a constant threat to somebody, because it demonstrates what’s still possible. In a sense, all they have left to do now . . . is marriage. For a long time, it was children. When I was coming up, it was very clear that you either were a lesbian or a gay man, or you could have a family. You didn’t do both. I can remember the first time I heard here about some lesbian couple doing something and having a baby. I thought, “What, what is that? You can’t do both of those things!” Because that is what we had all been taught. So, the terrified heterosexist world lost on that one . . . within a few months, they will have lost [Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell]. But what they’ve got left is marriage. And I think with any dying gasp situation, they’re going to hang on to it for dear life. It’s the last piece of difference.

McNaron is not alone in her concerns. In the past decade, social networks like Facebook and Twitter have supplanted more traditional outlets of communication. Only two decades ago, Minnesota was home to three queer newspapers—Equal Time, the GLC Voice, and Twin Cities Gaze—but the region is now served by only one publication: Lavender, a lifestyle magazine with minimal news content. Local bars are still important places of socialization, but their numbers have dwindled since they peaked in the early 1980s. Almost all forms of documented queer communication have moved online. This change is positive in many respects. The community has visibly expanded, and its members have equal access to information that was once controlled and edited by a select few. An alcohol-centric social scene, which presented many problems, has shrunk because there are now queer communities that fit almost any interest. The very concept of queerness has expanded to include behaviors, identities, and loves that were once misunderstood and disparaged. Most important of all, the community left its physical and ideological place in the backrooms of dilapidated bars and walked into the open air.

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But the dissipation of physical and tangible queer space is indeed alarming because serious risks accompany our eager forays into a virtual world. What happens after same-sex couples win the right to marry, provided that the trend toward that victory continues? Will we lose our interest in political struggle? Will homophobia still remain—hidden and powerless, but still festering in the back of people’s minds? Will the Internet placate and entertain us to the extent that we will forget how to mobilize, how to interact with one another, even how to express ourselves? What if homophobia returns to threaten us once again and we are unable to stop it in time? Thankfully, at least one answer can be found—as is often the case—where it all began. In the introduction, I noted that the Tretter Collection preserves documents from the early stirrings of contemporary queer life, including Magnus Hirschfeld’s burned books, the flyer from the Stonewall Riots, and innumerable newspapers, flyers, buttons, books, and photographs that tell the story of local struggles against heterosexist power. As a matter of course, the Tretter Collection also preserves evidence of homophobia, including medical texts that define homosexuality as an illness, publications from antigay churches, and threatening letters sent to local queer organizations. As long as that archive exists, we will always have a community memory to guide us if times change for the worse. The collection’s holdings present a clear, if incomplete, picture of the queer world we are leaving behind. Even if we don’t point to them often anymore, our weathervanes are stored safely against some future time when the wind turns bad.

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Note on Sources

Note on Sources Unfortunately, direct source material about many queer experiences before the 1950s was difficult to find. Few living participants and eyewitnesses to queer life then are still alive. The loss of these memories poses a challenge in documenting this hidden history; old newspaper accounts and the recollections of Gateway bar owners give a partial picture about queer experiences in Minneapolis that is valuable yet incomplete. Many memories from that time are lost because they were never recorded. Ricardo J. Brown’s memoir, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s, is the rare source of essential recollections that serves as a base for many entries about St. Paul. Scholarship about other cities in the United States, such as George Chauncey’s Gay New York or Nan Boyd’s history of San Francisco, Wide Open Town, can also be of assistance. Both works are helpful in comparing the Twin Cities to the broader development of queer urban networks. Closer to home, Anne Enke’s Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism, a book about lesbian feminism in the Midwest that discusses spatial trends in the Gateway and other Twin Cities neighborhoods, and Queer Twin Cities provide useful context. These and other works serve as queer historical guides, but local regional history books such as Lost Twin Cities, Down and Out: The Life and Death of Minneapolis’s Skid Row, and The Other Minneapolis offer the most pertinent information. Minneapolis and St. Paul newspapers are also cited, but it is important to note that these sources are problematic accounts of queer life because they were written for an audience that was overwhelmingly uninterested in nuanced discussions of queer identities. Few queer voices are evident in the papers before the 1970s. Many passages are built on the memories of people I interviewed as part of a complementary oral history project from the spring of 2009 to the summer of 2011.

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I conducted approximately thirty-five interviews with LGBTQ people, using an informal and conversational approach. I interviewed Jim “Andy” Anderson, Anguksuar (Richard LaFortune), Bill Burleson, Dr. Marge Charmoli, “Nan” Cournoyer, Julie Dafydd, Janet Dahlem, the Rev. Paul Ecknes-Tucker, Jesse Field, Caroline Gilbert, Max Gries, Robert Halfhill, David Wayne Hill, Marjean Hoeft, George Holdgrafer, Dr. Anita Kozan, Gail Lewellan, Mark Lofstrom, Mario Maldonado, Toni McNaron, “Little John” Moore, Chong Moua, Jamie Nabozny, William “Bill” Nienaber, Ashley Kay Rantala, Steven Rocheford, Sam Sampson, Cal Sanders, Nancy Sanders, Gary Schiff, Earnest Simpkins, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, and Lisa Vecoli for their insights, stories, assistance, and memories. Their stories add a remarkable depth to this book that no archival artifact, however interesting, could replace. It is important to emphasize that both memories and newspaper articles often contain inaccuracies and biases. Men generally had more resources and greater social permission to become “sexually liberated” from the 1960s on, and queer men were no exception. Gay—and, to a lesser extent, bisexual—men used this power to frame same-sex eroticism largely in their own terms. Because of their dominance, men produced most of the tangible historical evidence—the flyers, ashtrays, matchbooks, advertisements, and publications that now constitute most of the publicly available artifacts of queer life in Minnesota history. I have been determined to include as many women’s experiences as possible in this book, but the sad fact is that the great bulk of publicly available information pertains to the experiences of men. Some may find that the information presented in Land of 10,000 Loves does not agree with their personal memories of a person, place, or event that they experienced firsthand. Their memories—contradictory to this work or not—have the potential to become important to future local queer historians, provided that they are recorded and sent to the Tretter archive.

Notes 1. What Is Queer Here?

1. This was evident in antiprostitution work during the Progressive Era: Faith Jaycox, The Progressive Era (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2005), 322–24. 2. David Halperin, “Homosexuality,” in Gay Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2000), 450–55. 3. For a more complete list of idiosyncratic queer identifiers, see Barry Emanuel Zeve, The Queen’s English: Metaphors in Gay Speech (San Francisco: San Francisco State University Press, 1992). 4. Laura L. Mielke, Moving Encounters: Sympathy and the Indian Question in Antebellum Literature (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008), 117. 5. Walter L. Williams, The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), 108. 6. George Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the Native American Indians, vol. 2 (London: Tosswill and Myers, 1841), 215. 7. Alexander Henry and David Thompson, New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest, Volume 1: The Red River of the North (New York: Francis P. Harper, 1897), 53. 8. Ibid., 53–54n57. 9. Gary David Comstock, Unrepentant, Self-Affirming, Practicing: Lesbian/Bisexual/Gay People within Organized Religion (New York: Continuum Publishing Company, 1996), 2. 10. Jason Cromwell, “Traditions of Gender Diversity and Sexualities: A Female-to-Male Transgendered Perspective,” in Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality, ed. Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 126. 11. Ibid. 12. Kylan Mattias de Vries, “Berdache (Two-Spirit”), in Encyclopedia of Gender and Society, vol. 1, ed. Jodi O’Brien (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2007), 62–65. 13. Will Roscoe, Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 109. See his footnotes, 263–64. 14. “A Mountain Romance: Strange Life of Unhappy Women,” New York Times, April 8, 1877. 15. According to the library at SUNY College at Oneonta: http://www.oneonta.edu/library/ dailylife/family/lucy.html.

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16. Lucy Ann Lobdell, “Narrative of Lucy Ann Lobdell, the Female Hunter of Delaware and Sullivan Counties, NY” (New York: Published for the author, 1855), 27. 17. Abner Comstock Smith, A Random Historical Sketch of Meeker County, Minnesota: From Its First Settlement to July 4th, 1876 (Litchfield, Minn.: Belfoy & Joubert, 1877). 18. Bambi L. Lobdell, A Strange Sort of Being: The Transgender Life of Lucy Ann/Joseph Israel Lobdell, 1829–1912 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Co., 2012), 134–50. 19. Smith, A Random Historical Sketch of Meeker County, Minnesota, 105. 20. Martin Ridge, Ignatius Donnelly: The Portrait of a Politician (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 28–30. 21. Ibid., 113. 22. Hy Berman, telephone interview with the author, December 2, 2010. 23. Ibid. 24. “New Days for Gayness: A Chronology of Gay Progress,” The People United. The People Strong: gaypride77 (Minneapolis: Twin Cities Pride Committee, 1977), 7. 25. Larry Millett, “Gov. Ramsey’s ‘Outing’ Part of Gay Festival,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 28, 1992, 1A. 26. Ibid. 27. Nick Coleman, “Ramsey No Hero for Pride ‘Outing,’ ” St. Paul Pioneer Press, June 30, 1992, 1B. 28. Ibid. 29. Theodore L. Nydahl, ed., “The Diaries of Ignatius Donnelly: 1885,” thesis, University of Minnesota, 1941, 31. See also Minnesota Historical Society, Microfilm Collection, M138, roll 146 (end of volume 49). 30. “Oscar Wilde in Minneapolis,” Minneapolis Journal, May 3, 1936; from the Minneapolis Collection at Hennepin County Central Library. See also Emilie Ast, “Oscar Wilde Shared the Stage with Bishop Ireland,” Catholic Spirit, June 22, 2000, 48A. 31. For more on the Nicollet, see Larry Millett, Lost Twin Cities (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1992), 75. 32. “Oscar Wilde in Minneapolis.” See also John T. Flanagan, “Oscar Wilde’s Twin City Appearances,” Minnesota History Magazine, vol. 17, no. 1 (1936), 38–48. 33. The first electric streetcar was the Fourth Avenue line, implemented as an experiment in 1889 (Isaac Atwater, History of the City of Minneapolis, vol. 1 [Minneapolis: Munsell and Company, 1893], 339). Loring Park, then known as Central Park, was only realized after what is now the park board was organized by an act of the legislature in 1883 (Horace B. Hudson, ed., A Half-Century of Minneapolis [Minneapolis: Hudson Publishing Co., 1908], 485). 34. “An ‘Ass-Thete,” Minneapolis Tribune, March 16, 1882. 35. For more information on Ireland’s impact on the Irish-American experience, see Marvin Richard O’Connell, John Ireland and the American Catholic Church (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1988). 36. Ast, “Oscar Wilde Shared the Stage with Bishop Ireland,” 48a. 37. Ibid. 38. Michael S. Foldy, The Trials of Oscar Wilde: Deviance, Morality, and Late-Victorian Society (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 122. 39. Ibid., 204. 40. Walter N. Trenerry, Murder in Minnesota: A Collection of True Cases (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1962), 157.

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41. Ibid., 159. 42. Ibid. 43. “State v. Williams,” Northwestern Reporter, vol. 105: January–March 27, 1906 (St. Paul: West Publishing, 1906), 271. 44. Ibid. 45. D. J. Tice, Minnesota’s Twentieth Century: Stories of Extraordinary People (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 14. 46. See Janell L. Caroll, Sexuality Now: Embracing Diversity (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth/ Thompson Learning, 2010), 37. 47. John D. Bessler, Legacy of Violence: Lynch Mobs and Executions in Minnesota (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 149. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid., 161. 50. Larry Millett, AIA Guide to Downtown St. Paul (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2010), 53. 51. See Andrea Weiss and Greta Schiller, Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community (Tallahassee, Fla.: Naiad Press, 1988). 52. Ricardo J. Brown, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s: A Gay Life in the 1940s (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 8. 53. Ibid., 48–49. 54. Ibid., 49. 55. June D. Holmquist, They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the State’s Ethnic Groups (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2004 reprint), 81. See also Iric Nathanson, Minneapolis in the Twentieth Century: The Growth of an American City (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2010), 104. 56. Holmquist, They Chose Minnesota, 76. 57. “Healthy Changes in Store for Rondo Avenue Festival,” Insight News, July 2, 2010. 58. Paul Maccabee, John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crooks’ Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul, 1920–1936 (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1995), 10–12. 59. Evelyn Fairbanks, The Days of Rondo: A Warm Reminiscence of St. Paul’s Thriving Black Community in the 1930s and 1940s (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1990), 92–93. 60. Ibid. 61. John Gill, Queer Noises: Male and Female Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Music (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), 40. 62. Anne Enke, Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007), 277. 63. Ibid. 64. See Alfterdteen Harrison, Black Exodus: The Great Migration from the American South (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991). 65. Nathan Irvin Huggins, ed., Voices from the Harlem Renaissance (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). 66. Holmquist, They Chose Minnesota, 81. 67. Julia Robinson-Harmon, “Minneapolis-St. Paul,” in The Encyclopedia of the Great Black Migration, vol. 2 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006), 557–59. 68. Thomond R. O’Brian, “Alice M. O’Brian and the Women’s City Club of St. Paul,” Minnesota History Magazine (summer 1994): 68.

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69. “Sissle and Blake Reopen Metropolitan with ‘The Chocolate Dandies.’ ” Minneapolis Journal, February 22, 1925, “Amusements” section, 2. 70. Lester Q. Strong, “Josephine Baker (1906–1975),” www.glbtq.com/arts/baker_josephine .html (last modified on October 29, 2006). 71. Carleton Miles, “Sissle and Blake at Metropolitan,” Minneapolis Journal, February 23, 1925, 5. 72. Nadine George-Graves, “The Chocolate Dandies,” in The Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, vol. 1, ed. Cary D. Wintz and Paul Finkelman (New York: Routledge, 2004), 223–24. 73. Lance Loud, “Mommie Gayest,” Advocate, issue 651, March 22, 1994, 69. 74. Ibid. 75. Jean-Claude Baker and Chris Chase, Josephine: the Hungry Heart (New York: Random House, 1993). 76. Lester Strong, “Josephine Baker’s Hungry Heart,” Gay and Lesbian Review (September– October 2006): 34. 77. Books that discuss queer usage of hotels include John Howard, Men like That: A Southern Queer History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940 (New York: Basic Books, 1994); Nan Alamilla Boyd, Wide Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 78. Brown, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s, 8. 79. “Cary Grant in His Room at the Nicollet Hotel, Minneapolis; He Was a Member of the Hollywood Victory Caravan,” photo by the Minneapolis Star Journal, May 8, 1942; located at the Minnesota Historical Society, location no. Collection I.204.34. 80. Rebecca Arnold, Fashion, Desire, and Anxiety: Image and Morality in the 20th Century (London: I. B. Tauris, 2001), 122. 81. Edward M. Burns and Ulla E. Dydo with William Rice, Mirrors of Friendship: The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 8. 82. Ibid. 83. “Who’s Fannie? Local Girl? Gertrude Asks, as Shot in Famous Hurst-Stein Battle,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, December 9, 1934, 1. 84. Ibid. 85. Frances Boardman, “Few Lucidities Found Hiding in Stein Lecture,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, December 9, 1934, 1A. 86. Ibid. 87. Cheryl Norenberg Thies, “Biographical Sketches,” 1–4; Clement Bernard Haupers and Clara Gardner Mairs Papers, Microfilm Edition, Minnesota Historical Society. 88. Ibid. 89. Ibid. 90. Clement Haupers, undated interview with Dr. Peter Lewson; Clement Bernard Haupers and Clara Gardner Mairs Papers, Microfilm Edition, Minnesota Historical Society. 91. Brown, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s, 68–69. 92. Amy M. Tyson, “Men with Their Muskets and Me in My Bare Feet: Performing History and Policing Gender at Historic Fort Snelling Living History Museum,” in Enacting History, ed. Scott Magelssen and Rhona Justice-Malloy (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2011), 63.

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93. See Corinne L. Monjeau-Marz, The Dakota Indian Internment at Fort Snelling (St. Paul: Prairie Smoke Press, 2005). 94. Marcus Lee Hansen, Old Fort Snelling, 1819–1858 (Iowa City: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1917), 63. 95. Kenneth Carley and Richard Moe, Minnesota in the Civil War: An Illustrated History (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2006), 4–7. 96. Dave Kenney, Minnesota Goes to War: The Home Front during World War II (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2005), 27. 97. Greta Rensenbrink, “United States,” Reader’s Guide to Lesbian and Gay Studies, ed. Timothy F. Murphy (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2000), 609. 98. Neil Miller, Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present (New York: Alyson Books, 2006), 210. 99. Allan Bérubé, Coming Out under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two (New York: Free Press, 1990), 23. 100. Chuck Rowland, interview with Allan Bérubé, GLBT Historical Society, San Francisco, March 19, 1984; excerpted from a transcript written by David Hughes (2009) and edited for clarity by the author. 101. Bérubé, Coming Out under Fire, 64.

2. How We Kept Warm

1. This is a reference to Larry Millett, Lost Twin Cities (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1992). 2. “Gateway Glory Fades to Dust,” Minneapolis Star, October 23, 1953, local news section, front page. 3. See Joseph Hart and Edwin C. Hirschoff, Down and Out: The Life and Death of Minneapolis’s Skid Row (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002). 4. Karen Mason, Carol Lacey, and Deborah Carlson, Women’s History Tour of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis: Nodin Press, 1982), 50. As noted by Larry Millett, one of the old brothels survives as apartments (AIA Guide to Downtown Minneapolis [St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2010], 78). 5. “By the early 1900s, banks and merchants were leaving the [Bridge Square] district, to be replaced by saloons, cheap lodgings, and pawnshops” (Shannon M. Pennefeather, Mill City: A Visual History of the Minneapolis Mill District [St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2003], 60). 6. John S. Adams and Barbara J. VanDrasek, Minneapolis-St. Paul: People, Places, and Public Life (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 20. 7. Ibid. 8. The development of vice is clearly explained by Calvin F. Schmid, Social Saga of the Two Cities: An Ecological and Statistical Study of Social Trends in Minneapolis and St. Paul (Minneapolis: Minneapolis Council of Social Agencies, 1937), especially chart 195. 9. John Lightfoot, Down on Skid Row, directed by John Lightfoot; Minneapolis: Site-Specific Documentary, 1998. 10. David L. Rosheim, The Other Minneapolis: The Rise and Fall of the Gateway, the Old Minneapolis Skid Row (Maquoketa, Iowa: Andromeda Press, 1978), 165.

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11. Ibid. 12. Millett, Lost Twin Cities, 267. 13. Millett, AIA Guide to Downtown Minneapolis, 68. 14. Dave Kenney, Twin Cities Album: A Visual History (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2005), 214. 15. Kenneth L. Kusmer, Down and Out, On the Road: The Homeless in American History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 236. 16. Millett, Lost Twin Cities, 225. 17. For an extensive investigation into the demise of St. Paul’s many architectural landmarks, see ibid., 101–64. 18. Robert Halfhill, “Loring’s Gay and Lesbian Communities,” in Reflections in Loring Pond: A Neighborhood Examines Its First Century (Minneapolis: Citizens for a Loring Park Community, 1986), 164–65. 19. Max Winkel, “Rice Park—How It Changed!” Ramsey County History, vol. 8, no. 1 (spring 1971): 21. 20. Ibid. 21. Erik Hare, “Madam to the Saintly City,” St. Paul Real Estate Blog, posted June 10, 2007; retrieved January 21, 2011; http://www.stpaulrealestateblog.com/2007/06/madam_to_a_ sain.html. 22. The foundation of Clifford’s brothel was discovered during the construction of the Minnesota Science Museum: Ann Baker, “Science Museum Construction Schedule Uncertain after Discovery,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, March 22, 1997, 9A. 23. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, quoted by Joe Pastoor, “Cruise Control,” Secrets of the City, posted July 12, 2010; retrieved January 21, 2011; http://archives.secretsofthecity.com/magazine/ reporting/features/cruise-control. 24. Pastoor, “Cruise Control.” 25. Ricardo J. Brown, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s: A Gay Life in the 1940s (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 104. 26. Ibid., 133. 27. Winkel, “Rice Park—How It Changed!” 21. 28. A more recent account suggests that cruising migrated to sites along the Mississippi River that are now public parks: Paul Gustafson, “Indecent Conduct Conviction Overturned,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, January 24, 2001, 3B. 29. Minneapolis Police Department, “Bertillon Ledger: 1917,” Record No. 382. 30. Kären M. Hess and Christine Hess Orthmann, Criminal Investigation, 9th ed. (Clifton Park, N.Y.: Delmar, 2010), 53. 31. “Existed as a Boy but Slew as a Girl: Woman Personality Drove Youth to Kill A. P. Camden in Minneapolis,” Chicago Tribune, June 5, 1908, 4. 32. “Camden Had Premonition,” Chicago Tribune, June 4, 1908. See newspaper clipping in “Bertillon Ledger,” 1917, Record No. 382; the clipping lists the Tribune and date as the source with a handwritten note, but this could not be independently verified. 33. Ibid. 34. Louis Freeland Post, Alice Thatcher Post, Chicago Public, bound edition, vol. 4, March 29, 1902, 304. 35. Minneapolis Police Department, “Bertillon Ledger,” Record No. 382.

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36. “With a few exceptions,” writes Larry Millett, “the new buildings that rose from the ruins were mediocre at best and appallingly bad at worst” (AIA Guide to Downtown St. Paul [St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2010], 3). 37. Brown, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s, 8. 38. Ibid., 103. 39. The Minneapolis Courthouse has retained the city’s workhouse logs dating back to the 1920s: although their crimes are not detailed, many men were arrested for generic “disorderly conduct” or “lewd conduct.” 40. Brown, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s, 104. 41. Pastoor, “Cruise Control.” 42. See Paul Baker, Polari—The Lost Language of Gay Men (London and New York: Routledge, 2002). 43. Jacoby, “Lumber Exchange, Hennepin and Fifth, Minneapolis,” ca. 1886. Photograph located at the Minnesota Historical Society, location no. MH5.9 MP3.1L r18. 44. Larry Millett, AIA Guide to the Twin Cities: The Essential Source on the Architecture of Minneapolis and St. Paul (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2007), 46. 45. The date, like many others, is based on a review of Minneapolis city directories. 46. See Marilyn T. Williams, Washing the Great Unwashed: Public Baths in Urban America (1840–1920) (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1991). 47. David Glassberg, “The Design of Reform: The Public Bath Movement in America,” in Sickness and Health in America: Readings in the History of Medicine and Public Health, ed. Judith W. Leavitt and Ronald L. Numbers (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), 492. 48. The Lake Calhoun Baths were a notable example, and resembled a fair pavilion. See the Minnesota Historical Society’s Postcard Collection, location no. MH5.9 MP4.8C r21. 49. According to city directories, the baths on Hennepin Boulevard, 2410 and 2526, used sulfur and eucalyptus vapors; the Calhoun Baths (demolished) were once wedged between Calhoun and West Lake Street (across from the Calhoun Beach Club), and St. Paul’s Wilder Baths were located at 319 Eagle Street. 50. Minneapolis City Directory (St. Paul: R. L. Polk and Co., 1960), 603. 51. Elizabeth Shove, Comfort, Cleanliness, and Convenience: The Social Organization of Normality (New York: Berg, 2003), 93. 52. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author and Jacob Gentz, January 16, 2009. 53. Excerpt from the online recollections of “John K,” aka “Johnny Zero,” a seventy-year-old journal writer who posted “Further Adventures in the Golden Age of Gaydom” on the online adult journal, www.my-journal.com, on February 3, 2006. As of retrieval, on January 24, 2011, his post was still available at http://www.my-journal.com/jrn/md__1/jrn__9029/ dt__1138953600. 54. Karla Jay and Allen Young, The Gay Report: Lesbians and Gay Men Speak Out about Sexual Experiences and Lifestyles (New York: Summit Books, 1979), 119. 55. Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons, Gay L. A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 80; John Howard, Men like That: A Southern Queer History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 80. 56. Faderman and Timmons, Gay L. A.; Howard, Men like That. 57. Angela Weir and Elizabeth Wilson, “The Greyhound Bus Station in the Evolution of Lesbian Popular Culture,” in New Lesbian Criticism: Literary and Cultural Readings, ed. Sally Munt (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 99.

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58. “Great Northern Likely to Enter Bus Business,” Wall Street Journal, March 17, 1926, 7. 59. Ibid. 60. Interestingly, the service was limited to the state: “The GN’s Management frankly took little interest in the bus business beyond Minnesota” (Ralph Willard Hidy, Muriel E. Hidy, and Roy V. Scott, The Great Northern Railway: A History [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004], 178). 61. Brown, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s, 7. 62. Millett, AIA Guide to the Twin Cities, 338. 63. Bryan Krefft, “The Garrick Theatre,” http://cinematreasures.org/theater/4051/; retrieved January 30, 2011. 64. “St. Paul Opera House Burned,” Baltimore Sun, January 22, 1889, 6. 65. Dave Kenney, Twin Cities Picture Show: A Century of Moviegoing (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2007), 7; quoted in Tom Webb, “And Then There Was the Garrick: There Is So Much to Say about St. Paul’s Vanished Movie Theaters, We Couldn’t Fit It All into One Story,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, November 15, 2009, D8. 66. Webb, “And Then There Was the Garrick,” D8. 67. Brown, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s, 8. 68. Ibid., 4. 69. Ibid., 130. 70. “40th Annual Drag Ball?” GLC Voice, vol. 1, no. 8, December 1979, 6. 71. Ibid. 72. Ibid. 73. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author, October 25, 2009. 74. Brown, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s, 7–8. 75. Anne Enke, Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007), 40. 76. Based on a comparison of photographs: Undated photograph of the Dugout, photographer unknown, located at the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries; “Harmonia Hall, Second Avenue South and Third Street, Minneapolis,” 1890, location no. MH5.9 MP3.1H p19, negative no. 225, Minnesota Historical Society Photograph Collection. 77. J. Fletcher Williams and Rev. Edward D. Nell, History of Hennepin County and the City of Minneapolis, Including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota (Minneapolis: North Star Publishing Company, 1881), 459. 78. John K. Sherman, Music and Maestros: The Story of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1952), 22. 79. Timothy Trent Blade, “Sodom on the Mississippi,” Hennepin History (spring 1993). 80. The Pharmaceutical Era, vol. 38 (November 7, 1907): 436. 81. Chuck Rowland, interview with Allan Bérubé, GLBT Historical Society, San Francisco, March 19, 1984; excerpted from a transcript written by David Hughes (2009) and edited for clarity by the author. 82. Dell Upton, Architecture in the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 195. 83. John W. Diers and Aaron Isaacs, Twin Cities by Trolley: The Streetcar Era in Minneapolis and St. Paul (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007), 208. 84. Brown, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s, 8. 85. Don Boxmeyer, “Tenant Says Farewell to Fabled Building: Old Bremer Arcade to Fall, but Electrologist Still Has 48 Years of Memories,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, October 2, 1997, 1C.

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86. James Lileks, “Murder at the Casablanca Lounge,” http://www.lileks.com/mpls/casablanca; retrieved January 25, 2011. 87. Ibid. 88. Cohen and Gold’s partnership was secretive and, according to at least one newspaper, possibly illegal: Jim McAvoy, “Police Investigate Owners of Gay Nineties, Moby Dick’s,” Minnesota Daily, January 25, 1978. The 1957 date is based on a tile “cornerstone” that sits next to the entrance. 89. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author, February 23, 2010. 90. Ibid. 91. “Gay 90’s Sells for $1,000,000,” GLC Voice, vol. 1, no. 7, November 1979, 4. 92. Ibid. 93. See the Twin Cities Pride Guide Collection, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 94. Tom Moran, “New Ownership Means Changes for the Gay 90’s Nightclub,” Minnesota Daily, March 10, 2008, 1A, 5A. 95. For a deeper analysis of Comstock and his impact, see Nicola Kay Beisel, Imperiled Innocents: Anthony Comstock and Family Reproduction in Victorian America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997). 96. As noted by Kent Greenawalt, Fighting Words: Individuals, Communities, and Liberties of Speech (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 100. 97. Michael Edward Melody and Linda Mary Peterson, Teaching America about Sex: Marriage Guides and Sex Manuals from the Late Victorians to Dr. Ruth (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 49. 98. Thomas Waugh, Hard to Imagine: Gay Male Eroticism in Photography and Film from Their Beginnings to Stonewall (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 281–82. 99. Ibid., 281: “The Minnesotans played the constitutional issues to the hilt, collaborating on the defense with the Mattachine Society.” 100. Galerie 3 (1967), cited in Waugh, Hard to Imagine, 435. Waugh notes that the publishers “provided a full account of their experiences including the official judgment in the subsequent issues of all their magazines.” 101. Kurt Chandler, “Demolition May Increase Homeless,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 1, 1986, 1B. 102. “Priest’s Hustler Found Guilty,” Integrity, vol. 3, no. 5 (March 1977). See www.integrityusa .org/voice/1977/March1977.htm. 103. Ibid. 104. “Youth, 17, Pleads Guilty to Killing Episcopal Priest,” Minneapolis Star, January 12, 1977, 15A. 105. James Lileks, “Hotels: The Sheridan,” http://www.lileks.com/mpls/hotels/sher/index.html. 106. Peg Meier, “Where Is the Grand Hotel in Minneapolis?” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 10, 1990, 1E. 107. Sharon Schmickle, “New Radisson May Face a Test of Timing,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 2, 1987, 8M. 108. Chandler, “Demolition May Increase Homeless,”1B. 109. Millett, Lost Twin Cities, 90–91. 110. S. C. Worthen, “Levi M. Stewart: Late Minneapolis Millionaire Not an Eccentric Recluse, as Reported,” New York Times, May 4, 1910, 12. 111. According to Minneapolis city directories between 1920 and 1940.

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112. Sam Sampson, interview with the author, July 18, 2011. 113. An advertisement in Together: A Journal of News and Opinion by the Minnesota Committee for Gay and Lesbian Rights, vol. 1, no. 3 (October 1973): 14, suggests that the bar “went gay” in 1993. The queer Cheers comment was written by Elise Matthesen, “Bright Lights, Bar Nights,” Gaze Magazine, issue 217 (May 27, 1994): 35. 114. “Brass Rail Reopens: Goodbye Grungy Bathrooms, Hello Luxury,” thecolu.mn, October 4, 2009, http://thecolu.mn/643/brass-rail-reopens-goodbye-grungy-bathrooms-hello-luxury. 115. Ibid. Comment by “regular,” posted October 5, 2009. 116. Ibid. Comment by “International Velvet,” posted October 5, 2009.

3. Act Up Here

1. George Beran, “City Council OKs Gay Rights Bill,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, July 17, 1974, 15. 2. Ibid. 3. One member was absent from the actual vote but announced support for the ordinance. 4. John Tanasychuk, “How Anita Bryant Fought—and Helped—Gay Rights Exhibit Marks 30th Anniversary of S. Florida Showdown,” Sun-Sentinal, June 4, 2007, 1. 5. Interview with Anita Bryant, recorded by WCCO-TV, January 23, 1977. 6. Tom Davies, “750 Protest at Anita Bryant Performance,” Minneapolis Tribune, May 22, 1977, 1A. 7. Ibid. 8. Untitled flyer, National Fruit Day Collection, part of the Anita Bryant Collection within the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 9. Davies, “750 Protest at Anita Bryant Performance,” 11A. 10. David Von Drehle, “Same-Sex Unions Move Center Stage; After a Decade on Fringe, Gay Marriage Enters American Consciousness,” Washington Post, November 23, 2003, A1, A21. 11. “Court Clerk in Minnesota Blocks Marriage of Males,” Lewiston Morning Tribune, May 24, 1970, A1, A21. 12. Ibid. 13. Associated Press, “2 Homosexuals Lose Plea to Get Married,” Milwaukee Journal, November 16, 1970, 4. 14. For more information, see Ken Bronson, “A Quest for Full Equality,” Chicago: unpublished manuscript, 2004. The manuscript is available through the Internet Archive: http://web .archive.org/web/20060510174021/www.may-18-1970.org/Quest.pdf. 15. McConnell v. Anderson, 451 F.2d 193 (8th Cir. 1971), No. 20583. 16. Ibid. 17. Associated Press, “U.S. Court Rejects Homosexuals’ Plea,” Calgary Herald, October 11, 1972, 48. 18. Allan H. Spear, Crossing the Barriers: The Autobiography of Allan H. Spear (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 260. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid., 261. 21. Howard Erickson, “Inspired by Elaine Noble, Legislator Comes Out,” Advocate, issue 154, January 1, 1975, 1.

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22. Carl Griffin Jr., “Allan Spear: One Year Out and Going Strong,” Advocate, issue 179, December 17, 1975, 14. 23. Bertha Harris, Lover (New York: New York University Press, 1976), lxi. 24. “Peters, Joan K. (1945–),” in Feminists Who Changed America, ed. Barbara J. Love (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 359. 25. Janet Dahlem, interview with the author, February 13, 2011. 26. Tim Campbell, “Who Is Karen Clark?” GLC Voice, vol. 2, no. 1, November 1980, 1. 27. Erica T., “MCAA Update,” LFOC Newsletter, December 1978, 5. 28. The O.S.L.U. Connection, issue 1, not dated (ca. 1978); see LFOC Collection, box 2, folder 8, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 29. “What Can We Do about Anita Bryant and Florian Chmielewski?” (Minneapolis: Minnesota Committee for Gay Rights, ca. 1978), part of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. “MCGR’s 1978 Election Guide” (Minneapolis: Minnesota Committee for Gay and Lesbian Rights, 1978), 2. 33. Ibid. 34. “Gay Lutherans Fighting Bias,” Minneapolis Star, June 27, 1974; see newspaper clipping in the Lutherans Concerned Collection, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 35. Ibid. 36. Mike Tighe, “Homosexuals Seek Acceptance from Churches,” Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, March 10, 1975, 1. 37. Ira Rifkin, “Lutheran Gays Hold Assembly,” Daily News of Los Angeles, June 19, 1986; see Lutherans Concerned Collection (newspaper clippings), Jean-Nickoalus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 38. Clark Morphew, “Lutherans Find New Voice to Talk about Sexual Issues,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, October 30, 1993, 9D. 39. “Lutherans Approve Gay Ministers,” www.upi.com, August 21, 2009; http://www.upi .com/Top_News/2009/08/21/Lutherans-approve-gay-ministers/UPI-57371250871240; retrieved March 26, 2010. 40. Associated Press, “Lutheran Split over Gays Shakes Up Social Service Network,” 365gay.com, July 21, 2011: http://www.365gay.com/news/lutheran-split-over-gays-shakes-up-socialservice-network. 41. Pat McArron, “Highlights of DignityUSA’s History: 1969,” in Pat Roche, DignityUSA at 25: A Chronology, 1969–1994 (Washington, D.C.: Dignity, 1995); see http://www.dignityusa.org/ history/1969. 42. Steve Endean and Vicki Lynn Eaklor, Bringing Lesbian and Gay Rights into the Mainstream: Twenty Years of Progress (Binghamton, N.Y.: Harrington Park Press, 2006), 263. 43. “The Pieing of the Archbishop,” Metropolis, May 24, 1977, 4, 7–8; see St. Paul Citizens for Human Rights (SPCHR) Collection, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 44. Associated Press, “Archbishop Clobbered: Priest Admits to Part in Pie Tossing,” Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1977, A2; Associated Press, “Cleric Gets It in the Face,” Sarasota HeraldTribune, May 14, 1977, 13-A.

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45. Endean and Eaklor, Bringing Lesbian and Gay Rights into the Mainstream, 262–63. 46. “ ‘After Pieing, Things Got Better Here,’ Priest Says,” GLC Voice, vol. 1, no. 8, December 1979, 5. 47. Dennis E. Dietrich, “A Home for Dignity,” November 20, 1977, part of the Dignity Collection within the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GBLT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 48. Lori Sturdevant, “Catholic Church in City Shuts Out Gays,” Minneapolis Tribune, December 5, 1977, 1B. 49. “Pastoral Care Begins,” Equal Time, issue 117, October 1, 1986, 8. 50. Peg Meier, “Gay Catholics in Exile,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, November 7, 1992, 1E. 51. Brian McNeil, “Dignity Responds,” Equal Time, issue 228, January 4–18, 1991, 5. 52. Ibid. 53. Associated Press, “2 Camps Seek Support for Gay Rights Stands,” Rock Hill Herald, April 7, 1978, 13. 54. Tim Campbell, “Who Is Karen Clark?” GLC Voice, vol. 3, no. 15, November 1980, 3. 55. Jim Marko, “Rights Measure Repealed in St. Paul.” Gay Community News, vol. 5, no. 42, 1978, 1. 56. Craig Andersen, St. Paul Citizens for Human Rights Press statement, April 25, 1978; part of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 57. Associated Press, “St. Paul Repeals Gay Rights; Homosexuals Begged to Stay,” Miami News, April 26, 1978, 58. 58. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author, February 18, 2010. 59. Tim Campbell, “Bruce Brockway, Pianist, Sire of Gay Press in MN, Police Reporter, Friend of Refugees Died of AIDS,” GLC Voice, 100th issue, September 4, 1984, 1. 60. Ibid. 61. Tim Campbell, “Vice Raiding ‘Bookstore’ Cubicles,” GLC Voice, vol. 1, no. 16 (Special Anniversary Issue), 1980, 1, 7. 62. A. E. Joly, “Hetero Bias More Logical,” letter to the GLC Voice, vol. 3, no. 15, June 21, 1982, 4. 63. See Campbell, “Bruce Brockway, Pianist.” 64. Tim Campbell, “Thousands Commemorate AIDS Casualties in U.S.A.,” GLC Voice, issue 166, June 1, 1987, 1. 65. Tim Campbell, “Health Department Proposal Treats AIDS Positives Worse Than Lepers,” GLC Voice, issue 163, April 20, 1987, 1, 3. 66. “This Is Our Last Issue!” GLC Voice, issue 281, March 16–April 5, 1992, 1. 67. Casey Charles, The Sharon Kowalski Case: Lesbian and Gay Rights on Trial (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003), 16. 68. Ibid., 17. 69. Ibid., 19. 70. Ibid., 66. 71. Dennis J. McGrath, “Consortium Buys Cedar Square West from City,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 30, 1988, 1B. 72, Brian Coyle Collection, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 73. Mark Kasel, “Brian Coyle Dies,” Equal Time, issue 245, August 30–September 13, 1991, 1–2.

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74. Ryan Patrick Murphy and Alex T. Urquhart, “Sexuality in the Headlines,” in Twin Cities GLBT Oral History Project, Queer Twin Cities (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 84. 75. Cynthia Scott, “Brian Gets Bronzed,” Q Monthly, November 1996, 1; see Brian Coyle Collection, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 76. “Berean League: Its People, Its Purpose,” Equal Time, issue 77, March 20, 1985, 1. 77. J. C. Ritter, “Religious Group to Launch New Attack on Gays,” Equal Time, issue 77, March 20, 1985, 1. 78. Robert Magnuson, “ ‘Is Gay Right?’ A Biblical View of the Morality of Homosexuality,” unpublished manuscript (1985) located in the Berean Leagues Collection, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries, 73. 79. Ibid., 74. 80. Ibid., 77. 81. Maja Beckstrom, “Pro-Family Force? By Adding to Its Message and Beefing Up Its Media Exposure, the Budding Minnesota Family Council Aims for More Impact in State Politics,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, February 8, 1997, 1D. 82. John R. Yoakam, Journal (September 1973–February 1974), part of the John R. Yoakam Collection, part of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 83. “Gay Community Services Names Executive Director,” GLC Voice, vol. 1, no. 18, September 21, 1981, 1. 84. According to information compiled for the Yoakam Papers finding aid, written by the author in 2010. 85. “Council Seeks Applicants,” Equal Time, issue 110, June 25, 1986, 7. 86. The Northstar Project, Out and Counted: A Survey of the Twin Cities’ Gay and Lesbian Community (Minneapolis: Gay and Lesbian Community Action Council, 1988), 3. 87. Ibid., 4-6. 88. Ibid., 35. 89. Julio Ojeda, “Mora Pastor Is Center of Sex Education Debate,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, July 21, 1989, 1A. 90. Ibid. 91. Ibid. 92. Julio Ojeda, “Gay March in Mora: Homosexual Protestors Rally for Apology, AIDS Education,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, July 24, 1989, 1A. 93. Ibid. 94. Larry Oakes, “Few Object to Mora Reviving Classes,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 26, 1989, 1B. 95. Gary Lingen, interview with Marge Charmoli and Anita Kozan, BiCities! episode 24, September 2, 2003. 96. Gary Lingen, quoted in Cynthia Scott, “Interview with the Founder of Bisexual Connection,” Equal Time, issue 196, October 11, 1989, 10. 97. Joe Duca, “Needs Assessment of the Bisexual Community in the Twin Cities” (Minneapolis: Gay and Lesbian Community Action Council, 1991), 2. 98. Ibid., 8. 99. Dr. Taimur Rashid Malik, “Bisexual Social and Community Needs Assessment” (Minneapolis: OutFront Minnesota, University of Minnesota, and the Bisexual Organizing Project, 2001), 10.

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100. Michael Khoo, “Gay Marriage Ban Stirs Emotions Inside, Outside Capitol,” Minnesota Public Radio, April 7, 2005. 101. John Byrne, “How a Republican State Legislator Decided to Come Out,” The RAW Story, April 14, 2005. See http://rawstory.com/exclusives/byrne/backstory%C2%AD_paul_koer ing_comes_out_414.htm. 102. Ibid. 103. Ibid. 104. Ibid. 105. Andy Birkey, “Gay Republican Responds to Criticism: Same-Sex Marriage Is a ‘Pointless Issue,’ ” Minnesota Independent, February 19, 2009. 106. Two Spirit Press Room, “Native GLBT International Archive Launched in Minnesota: Conserving Indigenous Intellectual Property & Building Cultural Literacy,” press release, February 14, 2006; http://home.earthlink.net/~lafor002/id9.html. 107. Ibid. 108. Brooks Jackson and Emi Kolawole, “ ‘XXX’ Marks the Spot Where Campaign Ads Head South,” http://www.factcheck.org/article442.html, posted September 16, 2007; retrieved May 17, 2011. 109. Two Spirit Press Room, Two Spirit Native Media and Community Briefing (Minneapolis: Two Spirit Press Room, 2005), i. 110. http://home.earthlink.net/~lafor002/index.html; retrieved May 17, 2011. 111. Twin Cities Trans March Collective, “Twin Cities Trans March’s Interests: General,” posted on myspace.com: http://www.myspace.com/tctransmarch; posted ca. 2008, retrieved May 17, 2011. 112. Hazel/Cedar Troost, “1st Ever Twin Cities Trans March a Success Marred by Transphobia,” http://takesupspace.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/trans-march-article/. Thanks to “TCTM Collective Member,” who corrected this information on an earlier, Web-based version of this project. 113. Ibid. 114. Twin Cities Trans March Collective, “Twin Cities Trans March’s Interests,” posted on myspace .com/tctransmarch.

4. Erotic Cities

1. Gary’s advertised in local queer newspapers while in operation, and Jean-Nickolaus Tretter identified it as a specifically gay restaurant in an interview. 2. Dennis J. McGrath, “Block E ‘Demolition’ Signals High Hopes,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, October 18, 1988, 1A. The song was sung to the tune “Bye, Bye, Blackbird.” 3. Anthony Thompson, Rifle Sport, Block E, Gone, photograph taken in October 1988. See http://www.flickr.com/photos/thompsonphotography1/4478142235/in/photostream. 4. Larry Millett, Twin Cities Then and Now (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1996), 64–65. 5. According to a review of Minneapolis city directories, 1950–60, located in the stacks of Hennepin County Central Library.

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6. United Press International, “Pair Admits Slaying 2 Men, Wounding 3 in Crime Spree,” St. Joseph Gazette, February 14, 1961, 1. 7. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author and Jacob Gentz, January 18, 2009. The interview was part of an oral history project funded with a grant from the University of Minnesota’s Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP). 8. Robert Halfhill, “19 Bar Threatened by Development,” GLC Voice, vol. 2, no. 3, “August 1980,” 6. 9. Tim Campbell, “Halfhill Piece Infuriates Alderman Carlson,” GLC Voice, vol. 3, no. 19, August 2, 1981, 6. In an interview with the author and Jacob Gentz in 2009, Halfhill acknowledged that his activist endeavors made him unpopular with many; Carlson reportedly referred to him as “that son of a bitch” when she discovered the flyer. 10. Steve Trimble, In the Shadow of the City: A History of the Loring Park Neighborhood (Minneapolis: Minneapolis Community College Foundation, 1989), 99. 11. “Threat to Close 19 Bar,” published by Robert Halfhill for State Senate: ca. 1980. Courtesy of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 12. Robert Halfhill, “19 Bar Renovation Nears Completion,” GLC Voice, issue 94, June 4, 1984, 8. 13. “Burglary and Arson at 19 Bar,” GLC Voice, issue 146, August 4, 1986, 2. 14. Timothy Trent Blade, “Sodom on the Mississippi,” Hennepin History (spring 1993), 31. 15. Anne Enke, Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007), 44. 16. Lisa Vecoli and Marjean Hoeft, interview with the author, April 8, 2011. 17. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author, March 24, 2010. 18. Gretchen Douma, “New Bars Expand St. Paul Nightlife,” Equal Time, issue 90, September 18, 1985, 5. 19. “Transitions: Eleanor ‘Honey’ Herold,” Twin Cities Gaze, issue 211, March 4, 1994, 54. 20. Chester Daxe, e-mail to the author, March 25, 2010. 21. José Barreiro, “Sketches: Sutton’s,” Minnesota Daily, June 29, 1973, 21. 22. Donald S. Olson, “Gay Reaction,” Minnesota Daily, July 6, 1973, 6. 23. Larry Millett, AIA Guide to the Twin Cities (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2007), 46. 24. Agnes Mathilda Larson and Bradley J. Gills, The White Pine Industry in Minnesota: A History (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007); Sukkoo Kim and Robert A. Margo, “Historical Perspectives on U.S. Economic Geography”; see http://www.econ.brown.edu/ faculty/henderson/kim-margo.pdf. 25. Enke, Finding the Movement, 42. 26. Ibid., 43. 27. Ibid. 28. Millett, AIA Guide to the Twin Cities. 29. Marjean Hoeft and Lisa Vecoli, interview with the author, April 8, 2011. 30. Ibid. 31. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author, March 24, 2010. 32. Marjean Hoeft and Lisa Vecoli, interview with the author, April 8, 2011. 33. Ibid.

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34. The Paper Calmenson Steel Company at 975 East Seventh Street (ca. 1925), the Butwinick Brothers Furniture Company at 224–240 East Seventh Street (ca. 1949), the Raudenbush Piano Factory at 2196 University Avenue (ca. 1924), the Kuhles and Stock Cigar Company at 353–355 Jackson Street (ca. 1900), the J. L. Spencer and Co. Carriage and Sleigh Factory in South St. Paul (ca. 1895), and the Robinson, Strauss and Co. Wholesale Millinery facing Smith (Mears) Park (ca. 1915) are among the many industries documented in the Minnesota Historical Society’s photo and art database: http://collections.mnhs.org/visualresources/. 35. “Real Economy” advertisement, Spokesman-Review, September 13, 1917, 10. 36. “Ask the Historian,” Ramsey County Historical Society: http://www.rchs.com/Ask%20 The%20Historian/ask_the_historianarchive.htm; retrieved February 20, 2011. 37. Announcement of the Grand Finale opening, “The People United, the People Strong,” Twin Cities Pride Committee, 1977, back cover. 38. John R. Yoakam Collection, part of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 39. Chester Daxe, correspondence with the author, March 21, 2010. 40. Don Boxmeyer, “Urban Village: In The Middle of Downtown Stands the Funky Old Rossmor Building, Home to a Community of Artists Living Life on the Ragged Edge,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, May 18, 1991, 1B. 41. Jesse Green, “Paris Has Burned,” New York Times, April 18, 1993, 1. 42. St. Paul police Lt. Ron Ryan, quoted in Boxmeyer, “Urban Village.” 43. Ibid. 44. David Southgate, “New Bars Open in St. Paul,” Equal Time, issue 262, April 24–May 8, 1992, 1. 45. Matt Peiken, “The End of an Era: The Figurative and (Unofficially) Literal Home to Artists for Decades, St. Paul’s Rossmor Building Changes Hands Today to Become Loft-Style Living Space,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, June 30, 2003, A1. 46. Tom Horgen, “Take Back the Nightlife: The GLBT Bar Scene Is Experiencing a Renaissance—Just in Time for Pride,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, special “PRIDE 2007” issue, June 21, 2007, 20; http://www.camp-bar.net/. 47. http://www.camp-bar.net/about; retrieved May 1, 2010. 48. Enke, Finding the Movement, 45–48. In all likelihood, a queer person or group visited the Town House at least once in the preceding two decades. 49. Ibid. Harlan recalls that the establishment was known as the White House Restaurant before 1969, but city directories affirm that the name never applied to 1415 University Avenue. 50. Ibid. 51. Ibid. 52. “Bar Hopping,” Twin Cities Gaze, issue 171, August 21, 1992, 14. 53. Hess, Roise and Company, “Supplemental Historic Property Investigations and Evaluations for the CCLRT Project: Midway East”; see http://www.metrocouncil.org/transportation/ ccorridos/SDEIS/ReportsMidwayEast.pdf,105–6. 54. Minneapolis Star Journal Tribune, “Fire at Foreman Clark and Company,” photograph negative no. 55008, located at the Minnesota Historical Society. 55. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author, February 22, 2010. 56. Walter Roepke, “Belle Starr Bows Out,” GLC Voice, vol. 2, no. 9, May 4, 1981, 1. 57. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author and Jacob Gentz, March 31, 2011.

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58. Brad Theissen with Steve Walden, “Friends and Relatives Say ‘Farewell’ to Madame Cleo; Her Life as a Performer Reflects a Part of the History of the Community,” Twin Cities Gaze, issue 32, April 9, 1987, 13. 59. Ibid. 60. The differing accounts of the high-heel riot all come from Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, who lives his well-deserved status as Minnesota’s resident sage by weaving his memories, historic fact, and creative embellishments into parables. 61. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author and Jacob Gentz, March 31, 2011. 62. Ibid.; and Enke, Finding the Movement, 281–82. 63. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author and Jacob Gentz, March 31, 2011. 64. Ibid. 65. J. C. Ritter, “Saloon’s Roots Dated to 1972 Murder in Loring Park,” Equal Time, issue 104, April 2, 1986, 8. 66. James “Andy” Anderson and John Moore, interview with the author, April 7, 2011. 67. Ritter, “Saloon’s Roots Dated to 1972 Murder in Loring Park.” 68. James “Andy” Anderson and John Moore, interview with the author, April 7, 2011. 69. Gregory J. Scott, “Grandfathers of Pride,” Downtown Journal, June 21, 2010; see http:// www.downtownjournal.com/index/.php?&story=15493&page=65&category=0. See also Erin Carlyle and Jessica Lussenhop, “Queer in the Twin Cities: Eight Important LGBT Leaders,” City Pages, June 15, 2011; see http://www.citypages.com/2011-6-15/news/queer/in/the/ twin/cities/. 70. James “Andy” Anderson and John Moore, interview with the author, April 7, 2011. 71. Jerry Koenig, “The Saloon v. Foxy’s,” GLC Voice, vol. 1, no. 3, April 1980, 2. 72. Tim Campbell, “Saloon Bouncers Charge Police with Brutality after ‘Gay Bashing,’ ” GLC Voice, vol. 3, no. 5, May 4, 1982, 1. 73. Tim Campbell, “Jury Acquits Hunter and Hanson of All Wrongdoing,” GLC Voice, vol. 3, no. 15, June 7, 1982, 1. 74. Tim Campbell, “New Bathhouse Stirs Friction,” GLC Voice, vol. 1, no. 9, “January 1980,” 1. 75. Ibid. 76. Tim Campbell, “Great Raid Backfires,” GLC Voice, vol. 1, no. 9, “January 1980,” 4. 77. John Ritter, “315 Health Club Closes prior to Ordinance,” Equal Time, issue 157, April 13, 1988, 1, 13. 78. See advertisement for the “Barefoot Boy Rooming House,” GLC Voice, vol. 1, no. 13, “April 1980,” 6. 79. “Eyewitness Attorney,” “Raid at Franklin Ave. Beach,” GLC Voice, vol. 2, no. 15, August 19, 1981, 1. 80. John Seman (pseudonym), “Terror at the River Flats,” GLC Voice, vol. 2, no. 2, July 7, 1980, 3. 81. Ibid. 82. Tim Campbell, “Minneapolis Spends $176,000 to Trash Bareass Beach,” GLC Voice, vol. 2, no. 9, May 4, 1981, 3. 83. “Eyewitness Attorney,” “Raid at Franklin Ave. Beach,” 1. 84. Tim Campbell, “Bouza Warns of Hard Times Ahead for Gays,” GLC Voice, vol. 2, no. 8, September 21, 1981, 1. 85. Ibid.

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86. Tim Campbell, “Hate Shootings? Two Men Wounded, Two Killed, No Arrests,” GLC Voice, issue 267, August 19, 1991, 1. 87. Brian Bonner, “Johnson Pleads Guilty to Killing Chenowith: He Also Admits Killing Joel Larson,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, October 1, 1992, 2B. 88. Ibid. 89. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author and Jacob Gentz, March 31, 2011. 90. This has been especially well documented in old Times Square. See Samuel L. Delaney, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (New York: New York University Press, 1999). 91. Robert Sullwold, “Police Close Adonis, Flick Again, Take Films, Lenses,” Minneapolis Tribune, June 8, 1976, 2B. 92. Shinders advertisement, GLC Voice, issue 129, November 18, 1985, 8. 93. Associated Press, “Last Remnant of Crime-Ridden Block to Go: Moby Dick’s Bar Became a Whale of a Problem for Minneapolis,” Bangor Daily News, October 3, 1988, 27. 94. Tim Campbell, “Fraser Vetoes Bill,” GLC Voice, issue 86, January 23, 1984, 1. 95. Tim Campbell, “Appearance of Graft Taints Operations,” GLC Voice, issue 107, December 17, 1984, 1. 96. Ibid. 97. Bob Jansen, interview with the author, April 9, 2011. 98. “I was not hiding,” Jansen noted, so the attack on his home has a variety of possible culprits. Asked whom he suspected, he replied, “I have no idea. I find it ironic that it happened at the same time the police [raided the Main] . . . today, who knows?” (ibid.). 99. “Main Club Has Become Mainstay in Superior,” Equal Time, issue 92, February 5, 1986, 7. 100. “Two Twin Ports Businesses Close,” Equal Time, issue 92, February 5, 1986, 7. 101. Based on an extensive survey of Bertillon ledgers kept by the Minneapolis Police Department in the early twentieth century. 102. “Bear” is a general term that suggests the presence of facial and/or body hair, a stocky build, and—in many cases—an unassuming, “masculine” demeanor. “Cub” describes a younger bear who has yet to understand the fullness of bear culture. “Wolf ” is a man who has an athletic build and body hair, while an “otter” is a smaller version of a bear. Other woodland creatures are used to describe other subsets in the bear community, some referring to racial characteristics. 103. Steve Lenius, “An Evening at the Minneapolis Eagle,” Lavender Magazine, issue 216, September 5–18, 2003, 58. 104. Mario Maldonado, interview with the author, May 12, 2011. 105. Bianca Vazquez Toness, “Latino HIV AIDS Education Takes to the Streets,” Minnesota Public Radio, May 9, 2005. 106. Jeremy Olson, “Hispanics and HIV: One Man’s Crusade,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, April 15, 2009, A1. 107. Mario Maldonado, interview with the author, May 12, 2011. 108. Tara Yule, interview with the author, April 4, 2011. 109. Ibid. 110. Ibid. 111. Sheila Regan, “Patrons Raise $100,000 in Attempt to Save Debt-Ridden Pi Bar, Slated to Close This Week,” Twin Cities Daily Planet, November 9, 2008; http://www.tcdailyplanet .net/article/2008/11/09/pi-bar.html.

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112. Stuart E. Weisberg, Barney Frank: The Story of America’s Only Left-Handed, Gay, Jewish Congressman (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2009), 354–98. 113. Ibid. 114. Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “Battle over Barney Frank: Ugly Fight Looms,” Victoria Advocate, October 17, 1989, 4A. 115. Associated Press, “Frank Reprimand in the Works,” Pittsburgh Press, July 18, 1990, A6. 116. State of Minnesota v. Larry Edwin Craig, Criminal Complaint, file no. 027-2500, August 28, 2007. 117. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, episode 1992, originally aired October 17, 2007. 118. Ibid. 119. David Espo, “Colleagues Urge Craig to Resign: Idaho Senator Steadily Losing GOP Support,” Boston Globe, August 30, 2007; see http://articles.boston.com/2007/aug/30.

5. Come Outside

1. Heather Kidd, “Minneapolis,” Lesbian Gay Bisexual Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Newsletter, August 2000, 4. 2. John Moore, “A Recollection of Death—or a Feeling of—Anyway It Happened,” Gay Vue, issue 1, August 7, 1971, 115–17. 3. Gregory S. Scott, “Grandfathers at Pride,” Downtown Journal, June 21, 2010; see http:// www.downtownjournal.com/index/.php?&story=15493&page=65&category=0. 4. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author and Jacob Gentz, January 18, 2009. 5. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author, April 5, 2011. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Nancy Sanders, interview with the author and Cal Sanders, April 15, 2011. 10. Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in TwentiethCentury America (New York: Penguin, 1991); quoted by Gill Valentine, “Making Space: Lesbian Separatist Communities in the United States,” in Contested Countryside Cultures: Otherness, Marginalization, and Rurality, ed. Paul J. Cloke and Jo Little (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 107. 11. Ibid. 12. Cal Sanders, interview with the author and Nancy Sanders, April 15, 2011. 13. “Softball League History,” written according to notes from a speech delivered by Ray Kush to the League’s 1980 awards banquet, GLC Voice, vol. 2, “solo” no. 1, “November 1980,” 7. 14. Ibid. 15. Draig Ketchum, “Gay Softball,” Positively Gay!, vol. 1, no. 1, “July 1979,” 18. 16. Anne Enke, Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007), 149. 17. Positively Gay!, vol. 1, no. 8, “September 1979,” 1. 18. Positively Gay!, vol. 1, no. 3, “August 1979.” See photo essay by Jerry Koering. 19. After a lawsuit in 1982, the Gay Olympics had to change its name to “the Gay Games.”

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20. According to the Federation of Gay Games’ “history” section, http://www.gaygames.com/ index.php?id=28, posted ca. 2002; retrieved April 18, 2011. 21. Linda Stamps, “Jockstraps and Sports Bras,” in Out in All Directions: The Almanac of Gay and Lesbian America, ed. Lynn Witt, Sherry Thomas, and Eric Marcus (New York: Warner Books, 1995), 540. 22. “Spear and Clark Pass on Olympic Torch,” GLC Voice, vol. 2, no. 17, July 19, 1982, 1. 23. Shamey Cramer, correspondence with the author, April 18, 2011. 24. Letter sent to Dr. Tom Waddell from Mayors Donald M. Fraser and George Latimer, January 12, 1983; from “The International 1986 Gay/Lesbian Winter Olympic Games” by JeanNickolaus Tretter and Robin Karas. Courtesy of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 25. “Neighbors: Pride Events in Other Cities,” Equal Time, issue 110, June 25, 1986, 8. 26. “Neighbors: St. Cloud Picnic Attracts Record Crowd,” Equal Time, issue 111, July 9, 1986, 8. 27. “A Brief History of Duluth-Superior Pride,” Duluth Superior Pride: 2005 Information Guide (Duluth: Duluth-Superior GLBTQAI+ Pride Committee, 2005), 4. 28. Kate Engstrom, “Duluth-Superior Shows Pride over Labor Day,” FocusPoint, vol. 7, no. 12, September 1–7, 1999, 9. 29. Josh L. Dickey, “Gay Pride Gains Ground in Twin Ports: As Many as 6000 Expected to Gather This Weekend,” Duluth News-Tribune, September 3, 1999, 1. 30. Matthew Bren, Jeffrey Epstein, Bonnie Friedman, Gil Hernandez, Daniel Lee, Brendan Damon, Eddie Shapiro, Bruce Schenitz, and Gregory Wein, “The Hot List,” Out Magazine, June 2005, 155. 31. Dirk Klick, letter to supporters of the Minnesota AIDS Trek, January 1, 2011, http://www .mnaidstrek.org/; retrieved April 18, 2011. 32. UCLA AIDS Institute, “Partnerships: Minnesota AIDS Trek,” http://www.uclaaidsinstitute .org/partnerships/minnesota_at.php, posted ca. 2006; retrieved April 19, 2011. 33. Committee for Unity, Hope, Survival, “AIDS Trek 8: A Fund-Raising 150-Mile Bicycle Trek for the Benefit of Persons Living with HIV/AIDS,” 1994; part of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 34. Rhoda Fukushima, “Bicyclists Are on a Roll with Second AIDS Fundraiser: Cold Weather, Controversy Don’t Hamper Ride’s Start,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, April 8, 1997, 1B. 35. Robert Franklin, “AIDS Ride Losing Speed: With Several Events across the Nation Canceled and Others in Doubt, Charities Are Shifting Gears,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 5, 2002, 1B. 36. United States Centers for Disease Control, “HIV Incidence and Prevalence, US, 1977–2006,” http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/us.htm; retrieved April 19, 2011. 37. Josephine Marcotty, “HIV Rate Up Sharply in Minnesota,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 26, 2010, 1A. 38. North Star Gay Rodeo Association, “Our History,” http://www.nsgra.org/; retrieved April 12, 2011. 39. Twin Cities Pride Committee, A Family of Pride 1993 (Minneapolis: Pride Celebration 1993, 1993), 107. 40. Bob Pimentel, “The History of Gay Rodeo,” in Out in All Directions: The Almanac of Gay and Lesbian America, ed. Lynn Witt, Sherry Thomas, and Eric Marcus (New York: Warner Books, 1995), 546–47. 41. Twin Cities Pride Committee, A Family of Pride 1993, 103.

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42. Ibid., 100. 43. “About Us: The History of Outwoods,” http://www.outwoods.org/index.php?option=com_ content&view=category&id=30&Itemid=30, posted September 2004, retrieved April 19, 2011. 44. Steve Burch, “Out in the Wilderness,” Equal Time, issue 193, August 30, 1989, 4. 45. “About Us.” 46. Ibid. 47. James Wevley, “The Wide World of GLBT Sports,” Bridging Generations of Pride: Celebrating 25 Years of Pride (Minneapolis: Twin Cities Pride Committee, 1997), 80. 48. Ibid. 49. “N. Country Bears,” file in the John R. Yoakam papers, part of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries, ca. 1994. 50. Daniel Brinkman, ed., Shawn Smith, and David Hansen, North Country News: A Monthly Newsletter for and about the North County Bears, issue 1, 1993; part of the John Yoakam Collection, University of Minnesota Libraries. 51. Ibid. 52. Elise Matthesen, “Protecting Ourselves: The Queer Street Patrol,” Twin Cities Gaze, issue 211, March 4, 1994, 32. 53. Gary Schiff, interview with the author, May 5, 2011. 54. Ibid. 55. “GLBT Pride /TC Collection,” 1997; Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 56. Mark Schuller, “St. Paul: A History of Pride,” Miss Richfield’s Guide to Capital City Pride! (Minneapolis: Lavender Magazine, 1998), 10. 57. Ibid. 58. Ann Baker, “Dedication of Mears Park Follows Rebuilding Project,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, July 22, 1992, 1CW. 59. Capital City Pride Committee, “Capital City Pride Rejoinder,” letter to the editor, Lavender Magazine, vol. 4, issue 82, July 17, 1998, 4–5. 60. Capital City Pride Guide (Minneapolis: Lavender, Inc., 1998), 2. 61. Megan L. MacDonald, “Two-Spirits Organizing,” in Queer Twin Cities (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 156–57. 62. Anguksuar (Richard LaFortune), telephone conversation with the author, March 2011. 63. MacDonald, “Two-Spirits Organizing,” 157. 64. Ibid., 157–59. 65. Lindsay Faber, “Native American Talks on Sexuality and Ethnicity,” Daily Philadelphian, March 20, 1997; see http://thedp.com/index.php/article/1997/03/native_american_talks_ on_sexuality_and_ethnicity. 66. Ibid. 67. Lee Staples, quoted in Mark Kasel, “American Indian Gays and Lesbians Open New Office with New Future,” Twin Cities Gaze, no. 133, January 1998; cited by MacDonald, “TwoSpirits Organizing,” 162–63. 68. Marcy Jane Knopf, “Harlem Renaissance,” in Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, ed. Bonnie Zimmerman (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000), 356–57. 69. Patrice Gaines-Carter, “Festival Will Celebrate the Pride of Being Black and Gay,” Washington Post, May 24, 1991, C1, C6.

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70. According to the organization’s Web site: http://www.ifbprides.org/ifbp_about_history.php; retrieved May 12, 2011. 71. Earnest Simpkins, interview with the author, March 29, 2010. 72. “History,” http://tcblackpride.org/History.asp; retrieved May 12, 2011. 73. James Sanna, “Get Ready, Get Set: It’s Black Pride!” thecolu.mn, September 11, 2009; see http://thecolu.mn/340/get_ready_get_set_its_black_pride. 74. East Central Men’s Circle, “Annual ‘Pride in the Park’ to be Held June 3 in Pine City,” Askov American, May 31, 2007, 3. 75. Ibid. 76. Mark Brunswick, “Hot Button Issues with Potato Salad: A Gay Pride Picnic in Pine City, Minn., Sunday Inspired a Pro-Family Group to Hold Its Own Event Nearby. The Only Trouble? The Weather,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 4, 2007, 1B. 77. Ibid. 78. Andy Birkey, “Pine City Pride Endures despite Rival ‘Family Values’ Event,” Minnesota Independent, June 8, 2009; see http://thecolu.mn/33/pine_city_pride_endures_despite_rival_ family_values_event. 79. Ibid. 80. NativeOut.com, “Gathering History,” http://nativeout.com/itsg/gath-history; posted 2009; retrieved May 22, 2011. 81. John Rosengren, “Sacred Rights of the International Two Spirit Gathering: Gay and Transgender Native Americans Find Acceptance in Tradition,” Utne Reader, January 11, 2009; see http://www.utne.com/mind-body/Sacred-Rights-of-the-International-Two-Spirit-Gather ing-LGBT-Native-American-Indian-Community.uspx. 82. Ibid. 83. Two Spirit Collection, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries.

6. The Lavender Tower 1. Julie Dafydd and Sam Sampson, interview with the author, July 18, 2011. 2. “Minn. U. Hospitals to Change Men to Women,” Jet, January 5, 1967, 48. 3. Dr. Donald W. Hastings and Dr. John A. Blum, “A Transsexual Research Project at the University of Minnesota Medical School,” Journal-Lancet, July 1967, 263. 4. Ibid. 5. Don Spavin, “Brothers Become Sisters: Operation Ends ‘Years of Torment,’ ” St. Paul Sunday Pioneer Press, June 26, 1970, 1. 6. Ibid., 5. 7. “ ‘She Did the Talking’: An Interview with a Transsexual,” Gay Vue, issue 8, December 11, 1971, 16. 8. Julie Dafydd and Sam Sampson, interview with the author, July 18, 2011. 9. Ibid. 10. “Dr. D. W. Hastings, Organized Program for Changes of Sex,” New York Times, September 7, 1977, D25. 11. George Holdgrafer, “Free before Stonewall: Twin Cities Gay Organization Launched Six Weeks Prior to Pivotal New York Event,” Lavender Magazine, issue 366, June 4, 2009.

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12. Queer Student Cultural Center (QSCC) Collection, box 1, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 13. Love and Let Love. FREE: Gay Liberation in Minnesota (Minneapolis: Fight Repression of Erotic Expression, ca. 1971). 14. QSCC Collection. 15. Jack Baker, FREE News, December 18, 1969–January 9, 1970, 1. 16. Jack Baker, FREE News, November 24, 1969, 1. 17. Ken Bronson, “A Quest for Full Equality,” Chicago, unpublished manuscript, 2004, 38. The manuscript is available through the Internet Archive: http://web.archive.org/ web/20060510174021/www.may-18-1970.org/Quest.pdf. 18. Jacob Gentz, “Remembering Stonewall and Pride in the Twin Cities,” Minneapolis, unpublished manuscript, 2009, 12. 19. Cheri Register, quoted by Anne Enke, Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007), 66. 20. Ibid., 69. 21. Amazon Feminist Bookstore corporate records, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 22. Julie Dafydd and Sam Sampson, interview with the author, July 18, 2011. 23. See Gay Vue, issue 1, October 7, 1971, 5. I cannot discern why the coffeehouse is described in quotation marks as “new” because it was, by all accounts, “new” in the sense that it was the first of its kind. 24. “Midwest Club Takes Over New Quarters,” Billboard, carnivals section, March 16, 1957, 63. 25. Untitled statement, author unknown, Gay Vue, issue 3, August 21, 1971, 14. 26. “Bar Beat,” Gay Vue, issue 4, September 4, 1971, 13. 27. Julie Dafydd and Sam Sampson, interview with the author, July 18, 2011. 28. Tom Murtha, “Skogie and the Flaming Pachuchos,” Insider: The Midwest Music Magazine, May 1972, 13. 29. Larry E. Johnson, letter to the “Gay Community,” Gay Vue, issue 7, November 4, 1971. 30. Mark Lofstrom, e-mail to the author, March 1, 2011. 31. Mark Lofstrom, interview with the author, March 18, 2011. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Douglas J. Keating, “A Women’s Troupe Tells Nuclear Tale,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 15, 1983. 35. Jesse Field, correspondence with the author, February 28, 2011. 36. Linda Walsh Jenkins, “At the Foot of the Mountain,” in Women in American Theatre, ed. Helen Krich Chinoy and Linda Walsh Jenkins (New York: Theater Communications Group, 2006), 290. 37. Sandra M. Bemis, “The Difficulties Facing Feminist Theater: The Survival at the Foot of the Mountain,” 1987; see http://www2.edutech.nodak.edu/ndsta/bemis.htm. 38. At the Foot of the Mountain Theater Company, “Raped” poster, located in the subject files of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 39. Nancy Hedin and Michele St. Martin, “A Stage of Their Own,” Minnesota Women’s Press, August 15, 2007. 40. John Townsend, “Twin Cities Theater for the Discerning Queer,” Lavender Magazine, issue 329, January 4, 2008, 68.

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41. James Martin Harding and Cindy Rosenthal, eds., Restaging the Sixties: Radical Theaters and Their Legacies (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 126. 42. Jenkins, “At the Foot of the Mountain,” 290. 43. Mankato Free Press editorial board, “Our View—University’s LGBT Center Led the Way,” Mankato Free Press, October 16, 2006; see http://mankatofreepress.com/editorials/ x519258895/Our-View-University-s-LGBT-center-led-the-way. 44. Tomorrow, issue 1, 1974; see Jim Chalgren Collection, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 45. “Class Notes: Jim Presented to MSU Class,” no date (ca. 1980). Part of the Jim Chalgren Collection, filed under “Alternative Lifestyles,” box 8 in the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 46. Jim Chalgren, “Preliminary Proposal: Develop and Provide Gay Community Services,” no date. 47. “Sexes: How Gay Is Gay?” Time, April 23, 1979. 48. Jim Chalgren Collection, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 49. “James Chalgren Bio,” http://www.mnsu.edu/lgbtc/imhalgren.html. 50. Harvey Hertz, conversation with the author, January 12, 2011. 51. Tim Campbell, “Minnesota’s First Gay Bookstore Opens April 4 at Franklin-Nicollet: It Took ‘A Brother’s Touch,’ ” GLC Voice, vol. 4, no. 10, April 4, 1983, 1. 52. Dylan Hicks, “Brother from Another Planet: Gay Bookstore A Brother’s Touch Thrived When Queer Culture Existed behind Closed Doors. What It Couldn’t Survive Was Life in the Mainstream,” City Pages, June 18, 2003. 53. Harvey Hertz, conversation with the author, January 12, 2011. 54. Mary Ann Grossmann, “The Battle of the Books,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, June 14, 1992, 1D. 55. Hicks, “Brother from Another Planet.” 56. Patrick Scully, press release, ca. 1987; see Patrick Scully Collection, box 15, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 57. Joan Timmis, “Gym by Day, Art by Night,” City Pages, October 1, 1986; clippig in Patrick Scully Collection, box 15. 58. Ibid. 59. Patrick Scully, “Good News!” August 14, 1988; Patrick Scully Collection, box 15. 60. David Román, Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and AIDS (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1998), 149. 61. William Grimes, “For Endowment, One Performer Means Trouble,” New York Times, July 7, 1994. 62. Mary Abbe, “Bloody Performance Draws Criticism: Walker Member Complains to Public Health Officials,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 24, 1994. 63. Charles Storch, “NEA Opponents Have Found a New Target in Ron Athey,” Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1994. 64. Román, Acts of Intervention, 149. 65. “In Exile, Patrick’s Cabaret Grows,” Focus Point, issue 128, November 6–12, 1996, 1. 66. Rachael Gold, “Anonymous Donor Gives Patrick’s Cabaret a Permanent Home,” Focus Point, issue 233, November 25–December 1, 1998, 1, 14. 67. Patrick Scully and April Sellers, a letter to “Dear Friends,” 2005; Patrick Scully Collection, box 15.

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68. Adam G. Keim, History of the Quatrefoil Library (Minneapolis: Friends of the Bill of Rights Foundation, 2008), 5. 69. J. C. Ritter, “Overdue Library to Open,” Equal Time, issue 98, January 8, 1986, 1. 70. Vicki Lynn Eaklor, Queer America: A GLBT History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2008), 55. 71. Keim, History of the Quatrefoil Library, 1. 72. Ibid., 14. 73. Ibid., 18–19. 74. Michael Dahl, “Love and Sex among the Stacks: Quatrefoil Library Enriches GLBT Community for 15 Years,” Lavender Magazine, vol. 7, issue 164, September 7–20, 2001, 26. 75. Jane Lansing, “The Philanthrofund Forms,” Equal Time, issue 169, September 28, 1988, 11. 76. Ibid. 77. Ibid. 78. Rosalind Bentley, “Fund-Raising Initiative Targets Gay, Lesbian Communities,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 11, 1996, 2B. 79. “Philanthrofund Foundation Announces over $8,000 in Grants to Organizations,” Twin Cities Gaze, issue 125, November 1, 1990, 2. 80. Joel Hoekstra, “Philanthrofund Names Grant Recipients,” City Pages, January 1, 1998; see http://citypages.com/1998-01-01/feature/philanthrofund-names-grant-recipients/. 81. David Southgate, “Youth Center to Open Dec. 1,” Equal Time, issue 275, October 23–November 6, 1992, 1. 82. Robert E. Owens, Queer Kids: The Challenges and Promise for Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth (Binghamton, N.Y.: Haworth Press, 1998), 110–22. 83. Michele Cook, “Youth Center Open for Twin Cities’ Gay, Lesbian Teens,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, January 5, 1993, 1B. 84. Jamie Nabozny, interview with the author, March 5, 2011. 85. Rosalind Bentley, “Gay Youth Center Gets New Space for Old Goals,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 24, 1997, 1B. 86. Glen Collins, “ ‘Spider Woman’ and ‘Angels’ Win Top Honors in Tony Awards,” New York Times, June 7, 1993, E2; Nancy Melich, “ ‘Angels in America’ Playwright Tony Kushner’s Epic Look at the American Spirit,” Salt Lake Tribune, December 13, 1992, E1. 87. Jane M. Blanchard, “Minneapolis Will Be City of ‘Angels’: St. Paul Theater Loses Bid for Controversial Play,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, May 3, 1994, 1A. 88. Doug Grow, “Coleman Wages Odd War of Prejudice against Pride,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 6, 1994, 3B. 89. Ibid. 90. Associated Press, “Transgender Teacher Begins Classes Soon,” Southeast Missourian, November 8, 1998, 8B. 91. Rosalind Bentley and Paul Levy, “Transgendered Blaine Teacher Quits; Reason Not Disclosed,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, February 25, 1999, 1B. 92. Ibid.; “Group Threatens Suit to Oust Minnesota Trans-Teacher,” press release, In-Your-Face News, January 16, 1999; see http://ifge.org/news/1999/jan/nws99jan28.htm. 93. Bentley and Levy, “Transgendered Blaine Teacher Quits.” 94. Emily Johns, “Why Didn’t Harassing Anoka-Hennepin Teachers Get Fired?” Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 18, 2009, 1A.

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95. James Sanna, “Mother: Anoka-Hennepin School Policy Contributed to Gay Son’s Suicide,” thecolu.mn, posted August 27, 2010, http://thecolu.mn/4484/mother-anoka-hennepinschool-policy-contributed-to-gay-sons-suicide. 96. Ibid. 97. Ibid. 98. Angela C. Nichols, “Gay for Pay: How I Got This Way!” Q-Report, vol. 1, issue 2 (spring 2003); see University of Minnesota–Duluth GLBT Services Collection, box 5, folder 2, JeanNickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 99. “Cruden-Riggs GLBT Scholarship Fund Grows beyond $25,000!” Gaywatch! A Newsletter of the UMD Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Services Office, vol. 1, no. 3, “2007–8”; see University of Minnesota–Duluth Collection, box 2, folder 5, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 100. “UMD Housing Policy Supports GLBTA Students,” Gaywatch! A Newsletter of the UMD Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Services Office, vol. 1, no. 3, “2007–8”; see University of Minnesota–Duluth Collection, box 2, folder 5, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 101. Russel Remmick, “Eight Years in the Making: Angie Nichols on UMD’s Quest for GLBT Equality,” Lavender Magazine, issue 340, June 5, 2008, 202. 102. Angela C. Nichols, “Gay by the Bay,” Gaywatch! A Newsletter of the UMD Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Services Office, vol. 1, no. 4, “2008–9”; see University of Minnesota–Duluth Collection, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, box 2, folder 5, University of Minnesota Libraries. 103. Sheila Nelson, “Lost in the Institutional Closet: Institutional Legitimacy and the Heterosexual Assumption on Catholic College Campuses,” abstract, presented at the Out There Conference, October 28–29, 2005. 104. Henry Coyle, Our Church, Her Children and Institutions, vol. 2 (Boston: Angel Guardian Press, 1908), 189. 105. Paul Walsh, “Gay Activists Denied Communion,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, October 6, 2010, 5B. 106. Quoted from the PRiSM Web site by Christopher J. Perisho, “The Unquestioning Embrace of Homosexuality at CSB/SJU,” e-mail sent to school administrators and media, October 6, 2005. 107. Ibid. 108. Jody Roger, “RE: Reply to The Unquestioning Embrace of Homosexuality at CSB/SJU,” e-mail, October 9, 2005. 109. Patrick Condon, “Gay-Straight Group Members Sue District,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, September 14, 2005, B5. 110. Elizabeth T. Lugg, “Access to Programs and Facilities,” in The Encyclopedia of Education Law, ed. Charles J. Russo (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2008), 18–19. 111. Stuart Biegel, The Right to Be Out: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in America’s Public Schools (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 29–30. 112. Maria Elena Baca, “Ruling Has School District, Gay Equality Group at Odds,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 20, 2008, 1B. 113. Education Minnesota news release, “Maple Grove Counselor Wins Education Minnesota Human Rights Award,” March 20, 2010; http://www.educationminnesota.org/en/news/ newsroom/newsreleases/2010/032010-hraward.aspx.

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311

114. Brett Genny Beemyn, Owen Marciano, and Jessica Pettitt, “Transgender Resource Guide: Supporting Transgender Students: What Student Affairs Professionals Need to Know” (ACPA, 2006), 4; see Max Gries Collection, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, box 1, University of Minnesota Libraries. 115. A transsexual is a person born with certain gendered characteristics who wishes to change them or has done so, while transvestite is an antiquated term that describes an individual who wears clothing that is ascribed to a gender that is not perceptibly his or hers. Transgender, an umbrella term, applies to transsexuals, transvestites, and others who defy the traditional concepts of male and female. 116. The Transgender Commission, University of Minnesota Transgender Commission: Celebrating Gender Diversity and Working to Create Equity and Access for People of All Genders to the University of Minnesota, pamphlet (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2007); part of the Max Gries Collection, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 117. Max Gries, e-mail correspondence with the author, March 16, 2010. 118. http://glbta.umn.edu/trans/trans.html, retrieved March 7, 2011.

7. Building Community

1. Robert Halfhill, “Loring’s Gay and Lesbian Communities,” in Reflections in Loring Pond: A Neighborhood Examines Its First Century (Minneapolis: Citizens for a Loring Park Community, 1986), 164–65. 2. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, “The Existence of a Gay Ghetto in Minneapolis” (St. Paul: unpublished paper, 1974). 3. The GLC Voice reported that the individual died in St. Paul Ramsey Hospital after coming to Minnesota to receive medical care: Debra Strege, “1,112 Dying with AIDS, Press Coverage Remains Sparse,” GLC Voice, vol. 4, no. 9, March 21, 1983, 1. 4. Tim Campbell, “Halfhill Pulls Off Informal ‘Call-in’ Related to 19 Bar and Development,” GLC Voice, vol. 3, no. 21, September 20, 1982, 1. 5. Anita Kozan, interview with Bill Burleson, BiCities! episode 4, November 2, 2002. 6. Love and Let Love. Free: Gay Liberation of Minnesota (Minneapolis: Fight Repression of Erotic Expression, ca. 1971), the Sam Sampson Collection, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 7. Tretter, “The Existence of a Gay Ghetto in Minneapolis”; see the map appendix. 8. “Gay House Starts Fifth Year of Service,” Gay House Newsletter, July 14, 1975; see OutFront Minnesota Collection, box 1, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 9. Barbara Gittings letter, OutFront Minnesota Collection, box 1, Jean-Nicolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 10. Steve Endean and Vicki Lynn Eaklor, Bringing Lesbian and Gay Rights Into the Mainstream: Twenty Years of Progress (Binghamton, N.Y.: Harrington Park Press, 2006), 11. 11. Ibid. 12. “Open House-Meeting at Gayhouse,” Hundred Flowers, October 1, 1971, 11. 13. Dyna Slater, letter to “Gay Sisters and Brothers,” Gay Vue, issue 5, October 2, 1971.

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14. Kirsten Grimstad and Susan Rennie, eds., The New Woman’s Survival Catalog (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1973), 208. 15. Maxine Wolfe, “Community Centers,” in Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, ed. Bonnie Zimmerman (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000), 193. 16. Anne Enke, Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007), 68. 17. Toni McNaron, interview with the author, February 4, 2011. 18. Enke, Finding the Movement, 226. 19. Ibid., 68, 222; Helen Krich Chinoy, Women in American Theatre (New York: Theater Communications Group, 2006), 288. 20. Pam Cruikshank, “The Sensitive Blue Pencil: One Woman’s Approach to Feminist Criticism,” Margins, no. 23, August 1975, 37. 21. Ibid., 36–37. 22. Toni A. H. McNaron, “Alcohol and Substance Abuse,” in Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, ed. Zimmerman, 22–23. 23. “Sobriety Center Opened at 2854 Columbus,” GLC Voice, vol. 2, no. 13, July 1, 1981, 1. 24. “AA’s Hold Roundup,” GLC Voice, vol. 1, no. 8, “December 1979,” 12. The paper noted that a San Francisco organization claimed to have begun in 1969, but it was reputedly nonexistent when a resident of the city attempted to find AA in 1971. 25. “Was Frankenstein Gay?” advertisement, Twin Cities Pride Guide, 1977. 26. Toni McNaron, interview with the author, February 4, 2011. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid.; “AA’s Hold Roundup.” 29. Susan Denelsbeck, “Pride Institute Opens,” Equal Time, issue 102, March 5, 1986, 9. 30. Enke, Finding the Movement, 224. 31. From a speech by an unidentified woman, recorded at a Woman’s Coffeehouse Collective meeting on February 9, 1985; A Woman’s Coffeehouse Collection, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 32. Brian Glick, War at Home: Covert Action against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do about It (Cambridge: South End Press, 1989), 27. 33. Enke, Finding the Movement, 225. 34. Shelley Anderson, “Coffeehouse Makes Changes,” Equal Time, issue 96, December 18, 1985, 9. 35. Peg Dryer and Trina Porte, “The Coffeehouse: A Final Accounting,” Equal Time, issue 217, August 3–17, 1990, 4. 36. John Akre, “Building a Park Out of a Swamp,” in Powderhorn Park: Nature, People, and Community (Minneapolis: The Horn newspaper, Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association, and the Powderhorn Park Activities Council, 1990), 14. 37. John W. Diers and Aaron Isaacs, Twin Cities by Trolley: The Streetcar Era in Minneapolis and St. Paul (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007). The trolley passed the City Hospital, Swedish Hospital, Abbott Hospital, North Central University, and the Franklin School. The “Print District” refers to the production of newspapers; the Star Tribune’s headquarters is the district’s sole surviving building. 38. D. Merilee Clunis, Karen I. Fredriksen-Goldsen, Pat A. Freeman, and Nancy Nystrom, Lives of Lesbian Elders: Looking Back, Looking Forward (Binghamton, N.Y.: Haworth Press, 2005), 81–97. It is interesting that computing was once “women’s work” as well (Tom

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313

Misa and Roger Arvid Nelsen, “Computers Once Were Women—What Happened?” lecture delivered at Elmer L. Andersen Library with support from the Charles Babbage Institute of Technology, March 2008). 39. Janet Dahlem, interview with the author, February 18, 2011. 40. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, “Twin Cities Pride Timeline,” unpublished document, ca. 2005. 41. “Church of Symmetrical Pointlessness Papers,” Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection; JeanNickolaus Tretter, interview with the author, February 18, 2010. 42. “Blessed and Blessing Others: An Invitation from All God’s Children, a Metropolitan Community Church” (Minneapolis: All God’s Children, 2007), 2. 43. Ken Keate, “About: Our History,” http://www.agcmcc.org/about_history.htm, retrieved January 16, 2011. 44. Elise Matthesen, “The Bond of Love: All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church,” Twin Cities Gaze, issue 222, October 5, 1994, 32. 45. Keate, “About: Our History.” 46. Jim Shroeder, “MCC’s Congregation Expands, New Church Purchased,” Equal Time, issue 114, August 20, 1986, 1. 47. The Reverend Paul A. Ecknes-Tucker, interview with the author, January 27, 2011. 48. “Blessed and Blessing Others,” 4. 49. Lawrence Knopp, “Social Theory, Social Movements, and Public Policy: Recent Accomplishments of the Gay and Lesbian Movements in Minneapolis, Minnesota,” in Homosexuality and Government, Politics, and Prisons, ed. Wayne R. Dynes and Stephen Donaldson, Studies in Homosexuality, vol. 10 (New York: Taylor and Francis, 1992), 255. 50. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author, March 11, 2010. 51. Brad Theissen, “Clark Bufkin Buys Twin Cities GAZE Newspaper,” Twin Cities Gaze, issue 167, June 25, 1992, cover. 52. Robyn Dochterman, “Behind the Headlines: Why Equal Time Suspended Publication,” Equal Time, special issue, June 15, 1994, cover page. 53. Associated Press, “Gay Newspaper Equal Time Forced to Close,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 26, 1994, 7B. 54. John Whyte, “New Lethal Cancer Linked to Gay Community,” Equal Time, issue 1, April 7, 1982, 11. 55. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, interview with the author and Jacob Gentz, December 8, 2009. The interview was part of an oral history project funded by the University of Minnesota’s Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Grant (UROP). 56. Eric Stultz, “Mayors: Task Force Organized,” Equal Time, issue 33, July 13, 1983, 1. 57. Jon Ritter, “Campbell Recalls Early Days of MAP,” Equal Time, issue 74/75, December 14, 1988, front page. 58. Stultz, “Mayors,” 1. 59. Ford Campbell, quoted by Ritter, “Campbell Recalls Early Days of MAP,” front page. 60. John Ritter, “MAP Safe Sex Packets Hit Streets,” Equal Time, issue 130, August 30, 1988, 7. 61. Debbie Miller, “Out to Brunch,” in Stonewall 20: A Generation of Pride (Minneapolis: Twin Cities Pride Committee, 1989), 47. 62. Ibid. 63. Nancy “Nan” Curnoyer, interview with the author and Jacob Gentz, December 8, 2009. 64. The Women of Color group separated from Out to Brunch and became WOC-Stir Fry in October 1989, feeling that the Out to Brunch board responded negatively to their participation (WOC letter to the editor, Equal Time, October 11, 1989, 5).

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65. Miller, “Out to Brunch,” 47. 66. John Ritter, “Lesbian Projects Receive Grants,” Equal Time, issue 166, August 7, 1988, front page. 67. Associated Press, “Religious Leaders, Tenants Dedicate Building for Women: Agencies Housed in It Serve Women in the Duluth Area,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, October 12, 1994, 6D; http://www.thebuildingforwomen.org/home.html, produced by Brainstorm Consulting, 2004; retrieved March 7, 2011. 68. Cynthia Scott, “Building Community in the Northland: 65 Gather for Duluth Conference,” Equal Time, issue 264, May 22–June 5, 1992, 8. 69. Questioning refers to an individual who is contemplating whether or not they have a queer identity. 70. Michele LaBounty, “Different in Duluth as Hate Crimes Increase, the Northland Seeks Ways to Foster Tolerance of Differences in Race and Sexual Orientation,” Duluth News-Tribune, August 11, 1996, 1. 71. Aurora Northland Lesbian Center, untitled document, board meeting dated August 2008. See Angela Nichols, UMD–GLBT Services Collection, unprocessed manuscript collection, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 72. “Volunteer Handbook: NAMES Project Tour ’88” (Minneapolis: NAMES Project Tour ’88 Minnesota Host Committee, 1988), 4. 73. Insert, “The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt: Minnesota Tour ’88,” in The Names Project: National Tour 1988 (San Francisco: The NAMES Project, 1988), cover page; JeanNickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 74. Julio Ojeda, “AIDS Quilt Evokes Powerful Reaction,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, July 17, 1988, 1B. 75. Insert, 5. 76. “Volunteer Handbook,” 8. 77. Julio Ojeda, “An Arrayed Quilt Bears Epitaphs of AIDS Victims,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, July 10, 1988, 1B. 78. American Indian Gays and Lesbians, pamphlet (Minneapolis: AIGL, 1989); Two-Spirit Records: AIG & L Records, “Meeting Notes and Announcements,” Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. Gift of Anguksuar (Richard LaFortune). 79. So noted by Richard LaFortune, in Mark Kazel, “Sacred Land, Sacred People: Tenth International Two Spirit Gathering,” Lavender Magazine, issue 58, August 15, 1997, 12. 80. Beverly Little Thunder, quoted by Cynthia Scott, “Historic Conference for American Indians Held Locally,” Equal Time, issue 163, July 6, 1988, 8. 81. Lee Staples, stock letter, July 11, 1989; Two-Spirit Records: AIG & L Records, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 82. Two-Spirit Records: AIG & L Records (box 8 of 14), “Correspondence AIGL/Richard LaFortune,” Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. Gift of Anguksuar (Richard LaFortune). 83. Sharon Day, quoted in Elise Matthesen, “ ‘Indian in a Past Life,’ or Spiritual Tourist?” Lavender Magazine, issue 58, August 15, 1997, 13. 84. Matthesen, “ ‘Indian in a Past Life,’ ” 14. 85. For more information on LGBTQ stereotypes and aging, see the personal papers of gerontologist and social worker John R. Yoakam, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries.

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315

86. G.L.E. A.M. newsletter, July 1990, newsletters collection, Quatrefoil Library; G.L.E.A.M. Task Force meeting minutes, January 22, 1991, newsletters collection, Quatrefoil Library. 87. “Ann Vitala to Speak,” G.L.E. A.M. newsletter, June 1994, newsletters collection, Quatrefoil Library. 88. Gay and Lesbian Elders Active in Minnesota: G.L.E. A.M, pamphlet located in the John R. Yoakam papers, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 89. G.L.E. A.M. newsletter, November–December 2006, newsletters collection, Quatrefoil Library. 90. Lou Hoffman and Martin Quam, interview with Dr. Margaret Charmoli and Dr. Anita Kozan, BiCities! episode 19, first aired June 10, 2003. 91. Ibid. 92. Ibid. 93. Robin Ochs and Liz Highleyman, “Bisexual Movement,” in Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, ed. Zimmerman, 112–14. 94. Gary Lingen, quoted by Bev Anderson, “Pioneering National Bisexual Conference Draws 400+,” Twin Cities Gaze, July 20–August 3, 1990, 2. 95. Elise Matthesen, “Because We’re Bi, That’s Why!” Twin Cities Gaze, issue 213, April 1, 1994, 35. 96. Elise Krueger and Victor Raymond, “Daring to Use the ‘B-Word’ during Pride,” Equal Time, issue 214, June 22–July 6, 1990, 5. 97. Matthesen, “Because We’re Bi,” 37. 98. Bill Burleson, interview with the author, January 15, 2011. 99. Linae Enockson, “Reflecting on BECAUSE ’94 (a Long Overdue Review),” Bi the Way, September/October 1994. 100. Q Monthly Staff, “Out with Clout: Eddy Lee,” Q Monthly, June 1, 1998. 101. Angeline Acain, “Yellow Hawk and the Child of His Heart: An Interview with Nicholas Metcalf,” Gay Parent Magazine, vol. 5, no. 25, “November–December 2002,” 6. 102. Ibid. 103. Minnesota Men of Color, “Who We Serve,” located in the Minnesota Men of Color Collection, part of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. The study does not specify where the source data came from, nor does it explain why “Bisexual/Transgender” is not a part of the study. Presumably, if the study included the BT population, the numbers would be much higher. 104. Minnesota Men of Color, “Talking Points,” located in the Minnesota Men of Color Collection, part of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries. 105. Ibid. 106. Wawa refers to Gilda Radner’s impression of the journalist Barbara Walters on Saturday Night Live. Radner exaggerated Walters’s difficulty pronouncing “r.” 107. BiCities! episode 1, October 2002. 108. Dr. Margaret Charmoli and Dr. Anita Kozan, interview with the author, December 16, 2010. 109. Ibid. 110. According to realtor “John Andersen,” interview with the author, March 13, 2011. 111. “Golden Valley Nixes PWA [people with AIDS] Home,” Equal Time, issue 179, February 15, 1989, 7.

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112. Sue Webber, “Golden Valley Approves Domestic Partners Registration,” Sun Newspapers, November 24, 2010; see http://mnsun.com/articles/2010/11/24/golden_valley/news/ gv25domesticpartners.txt. 113. Colin Covert, “ ‘Homo Heights’ Gets Second Chance,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 5, 2001, 26. 114. Phillip Ward, “A Conversation with ‘Homo Heights,’ ” Quentin Crisp Archives, 2006: http:// www.crisperanto.org/interviews/homoheights.html. 115. I learned about the three hills of Loring Park while chatting with Tretter very early in my work with his collection. He or I would periodically forget the precise name of “Gay Hill,” and when asked if there was any documented use of the terms, he replied, “Oh, I really doubt it.” 116. Some reject the term “Miao,” a Chinese word, because its ancient roots link it to “barbarism.” 117. Sarah R. Mason, They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the State’s Ethnic Groups (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1981), 581. 118. Art Hughes, “Hmong Population Rises Dramatically,” Minnesota Public Radio, August 1, 2001. 119. From the Shades of Yellow Web site: http://www.shadesofyellow.org/page24213811. aspx?print=Y; retrieved December 19, 2010. 120. Chong Moua, interview with the author, December 7, 2010. 121. Bao Ong, “Group to Watch: Shades of Yellow,” Advocate, April 25, 2006, 30. 122. Ashley Kay Rantala, e-mail to the author, March 4, 2011. 123. Anonymous testimonial sent by Rantala in ibid. 124. Ashley Kay Rantala, interview with Chris Mason and Driving Equality, 2009; transcribed by the author from an interview posted on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=xA24WmorwkI.

Index

Index Aaberg, Justin, 225–26 ACT-UP. See AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power Adonis Theater, 121, 149–52 Advocate (magazine), 4, 90, 237, 274 African Americans, 32–36, 163–64, 189–91, 197, 264 AIDS. See HIV/AIDS AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, 84, 111–14 AIDS Quilt. See NAMES Project AIDS Trek, 176–77 alcohol, 33–34, 48, 63, 67, 124, 126–27, 132, 152, 159–60, 240–42, 278 All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church, 246–48 Amazing Grace, 111–12 Amazon Feminist Bookstore, 203–5, 213, 239–40, 249 American Indian Gays and Lesbians (AIGL), 258 American Psychological Association (APA), 87–88, 236 Andersen, Elmer, 3–4 Andersen Library, 1–5 Anderson, Andy, 123, 142–45, 166 Anderson, Craig, 100–101 androgeny, 37–38 Angels in America, 223–24 Anguksuar (Richard LaFortune), 117–18, 187 Angwin, Richard, 95, 99 Anoka–Hennepin School District, 224–26 arson, 126, 128

assimilation, 119, 154, 191, 194, 236, 274 Athey, Ron, 215–16 At the Foot of the Mountain (theater), 209–10 Aurora Lesbian Center, 226, 254–55 Bachmann, Michele, 115–16 Baker, Jack, 84, 86–88, 123, 167, 202–3 Baker, Josephine, 35–36 Baptist church, 99, 247 Bare Ass Beach, 147–49, 252 Barefoot Boy Health Club. See bathhouses bars, gay and lesbian, 2, 47–49, 55, 93, 121– 24, 139–42, 164, 187, 194, 208, 233, 280. See also Anderson, Andy; Brass Rail; Castle Royale; Dugout; Foxy’s; Gay 90’s; Happy Hour; Harold, Honey; Kirmser’s; Ladies Night; Main Club; Margarita Bella; Nineteen; Noble Roman; Onyx; Pi Bar; Saloon; Town House Basket and the Bow (gathering), 18, 187, 192, 258–59 bathhouses, 49, 56–57, 102, 106–7, 122–24, 142, 145–47, 248 bear subculture, 155–56, 181–82, 302 BECAUSE Conference, 115, 236, 261–63 Bechdel, Alison, 204–5, 249 “berdache,” 15–18 Berean League. See Minnesota Family Council Bérubé, Allan, 45–46, 67–68 BiCities!, 2, 114, 236, 260, 265–67

317

318

Index

Big Daddy’s. See bathhouses bisexuality, 9, 59, 224, 262, 266–67 Bisexual Organizing Project (BOP), 84, 114–15, 262 Black Pride, 189–91 blacks. See African Americans Blake, Eubie, 35–36 Block E, 121–24, 150–52, 183 BOP. See Bisexual Organizing Project Bouza, Anthony, 147, 149 Brass Rail, 79–82, 120, 145 Bremer Arcade, 52, 60, 69–71 Brockway, Bruce, 101–2 brothels, 50. See also prostitution Brother’s Touch Books, A (bookstore), 212–14, 217 Brown, Ricardo, 3, 29, 32, 37, 41, 43, 52, 55, 60, 62–64, 69, 283 Brown House (commune), 203, 239 Bryant, Anita, 2, 22, 83–86, 93, 185, 234. See also Angwin, Richard Bufkin, Clark, 248–49 Burleson, Bill, 115, 236, 262, 265 buses, 59–60, 81, 112 Butch (magazine), 75–76 Campbell, Tim, 84–85, 91, 100–103, 146–47, 149, 151, 212, 248, 257 Capital City Pride, 184–87, 332 Captain Condom, 250, 330 Carleton College, 133, 207–8 Carlson, Barbara, 125–26, 257, 299 Castle Royale, 128 Catholic Church, 97–99, 152, 214, 227–28 Catlin, George, 15–17 Cedar-Riverside complex, 105 Chalgren, Jim, 7, 177, 210–12, 257 Charmoli, Marge, 114, 260–61, 265–67 Chenowith, John, 149 Chicago, 33, 40–41, 109, 142, 145, 167, 169, 173, 177, 184, 217–18 Chicago Avenue, 205, 244 Chmielewski, Florian, 93 Chocolate Dandies, 35–36 Christopher Street (rehabilitation center), 110, 234, 240–42, 278–79 Church of St. Stephen’s, 98, 214

Citizens Alert for Morality (CAM), 99–100, 185 Clark, Karen, 85, 89, 91–92, 95, 107, 173, 218, 243, 245 Clifford, Nina, 50, 290 Club, the, 138–39, 143–44, 195–96, 205–7 Club Cabaret, 138–40 Club Vogue, 135–36, 205 Coleman, Nick, 23–24 Coleman, Norm, 186, 223–24 Collegeville, Minnesota, 227 communes, 169–70, 203, 239 community, 164–65, 233–36, 278–81; criticisms of, 114–15, 119–20, 150, 236; gay, 85, 87, 90, 93, 96–97, 109–11; lesbian, 91–93, 172, 249, 254–55, 277 Comstock Laws, 75–76 Concerned Parents for Abstinence (CPA), 112–14 Coney Island, 52, 54–56, 60–61 Coyle, Brian, 84, 95, 105–7, 110, 251, 257 Craig, Larry, 160–62 Crisp, Quentin, 213, 217, 270–71 cruising, 9, 28–29, 32, 50–52, 55, 62, 68–69, 121–22, 144, 147, 154, 168, 185, 252, 272 custody, 103–5, 111 Dafydd, Julie, 196, 200, 206 Dahlem, Janet, 84, 92, 245 Dakota (tribe), 13, 15, 258 DeGroot, Ann, 110, 257 De Lago (commune), 170 Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party, 83, 88–89, 95, 141, 146 department stores, 28–32, 37, 60, 65, 69 Dignity (organization), 97–99 disco, 72–74, 82, 123, 128–29, 135, 146, 212 District 202, 205, 220–23, 279, 332 D n O (bar), 127 Donnelly, Ignatius, 22–24 drag. See female impersonators Dugout (bar), 49, 65–67, 155, 254–55 Duluth, Minnesota, 10, 152–54, 171, 175–76, 226–27, 275 Dworkin, Andrea, 151 Dyke Heights, 158, 205, 233–34, 244–46, 272. See also Powderhorn Park

Index

Dykes on Bikes, 112, 163, 247 Dykes to Watch Out For (comic). See Bechdel, Alison El Salvador, 157 Emporium. See department stores Endean, Steve, 84–85, 87, 90, 93–95, 166, 168–69, 237 Enke, Anne, 34, 128, 132, 137–38, 172, 238, 283 Equal Time (newspaper), 248–49, 280; articles, 107–8, 110, 114, 154, 174–75, 180, 254 Ewin, Donna “Big Mama,” 198, 200 “faggot,” 14, 34, 37, 65, 102, 169, 206 farming, 116, 169–71, 224 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 91, 108, 243 Feinberg, Leslie, 223 female impersonators, 9, 64–65, 82, 138–41, 157, 163, 178, 186, 194–96, 206–8, 270–72 feminism, 84, 91–92, 150–51, 170, 172, 203–5, 209–10, 239–41, 245, 249, 278–79, 283 Fesbian Lemonists (softball team), 134 fetishes, 74, 145, 150, 155–56, 181–82, 268–69 Fight Repression of Erotic Expression (FREE), 86, 142, 195–96, 200–203, 207–8, 236–37, 262 First Amendment, 75–76, 99, 151, 229 Fort Snelling, 13–15, 43–46, 244 Foxy’s (bar), 128, 132–35, 172, 246 Frank, Barney, 160–62 Fraser, Donald, 146, 149, 151, 163, 173 FREE. See Fight Repression of Erotic Expression “Free University,” 105, 202 “fruit” (pejorative term), 84–86, 99, 175 Garrick Theater, 60–62 Gateway District, 47–49, 65–67, 71–74, 78–82, 125, 129, 163 Gay and Lesbian Elders Active in Minnesota (GLEAM), 236, 259–60

319

Gay Community Services, 109–10, 114 Gay Games, 172–74, 303 “gay ghetto,” 96, 107, 125, 233–37, 270–72 Gay House, 109, 167, 202, 207, 218, 234, 236–38, 241, 246 Gay 90’s (bar), 77–79, 81, 120–21, 123, 145, 156, 191, 207–8, 258. See also Happy Hour Gay Rights Legislative Committee, 93 “Gay State Fair,” 141–42 Gay Vue (periodical), 165–66, 198, 206 gender nonconformity, 36–39, 64, 132, 138–40, 205–8, 270 Germans, 14, 63–64, 66–67 GLCAC (Gay and Lesbian Community Action Council), 110–11, 114–15, 149, 222, 263, 330 GLC Voice (newspaper), 101–3, 248–49, 280; articles, 91, 100, 122, 125–26, 145, 147, 150–51, 212, 235–36, 240 Golden Rule. See department stores Golden Valley, Minnesota, 267–70 Gold Medal Park, 120 good-time parties, 32–35 Grand Opera House, 25–26, 60–62 Grant, Cary, 37 Great Depression, 65, 40–43, 81 great migration, 35 “Great Split,” 245–46, 329. See also Twin Cities Pride committee guardianship, 103–5 Halfhill, Robert, 125–26, 166, 233, 299 Happy Hour (bar), 71, 74. See also Gay 90’s Harlem Renaissance, 33, 35–36, 189 Harmonia Hall, 65–67 Harold, Honey, 9, 126–28, 132–35, 138 Hastings, Donald, 195, 197–200 Haupers, Clement, 40–44 Hennepin Avenue, 8, 25, 47, 49, 56–59, 67, 71, 77–82, 121–24, 138–39, 144–46, 149– 52, 163, 172, 183–84, 195, 204–7, 213 Hennepin Baths, 56–59, 138, 146 Hennepin County, 86–88, 110, 269 Hertz, Harvey, 212–14, 217, 257 Hewetson, Dick, 216–18 Hibbing, Minnesota, 104, 275–76

320

Index

Hill, James J., 23–24; library, 40, 50–51 Hirschfeld, Magnus, 1, 4, 218, 281 HIV/AIDS, 102–3, 111–14, 122–23, 146, 149, 213, 215, 222–23, 248–49; deaths, 95, 105–8, 140, 212; organizations, 74, 157–58, 176–77, 189, 191, 219–20, 234, 249–52, 255–57, 263–64, 269 Hmong community, 273–74 Hoeft, Marjean, 133–34 Hoffman, Lou, 260–61 Holdgrafer, George, 217 Holland (bar), 127 Hollywood Victory Caravan, 37 Homo Heights, 234, 270–72 homophobia, 101, 105, 114, 191–92, 202, 229, 255, 262, 279–81; violent instances of, 27–28, 118, 142–44, 147–49, 165–68, 183–84, 212 Hot Dish!, 270 Hotel Andrews, 77–79 Hotel Lowry, 39–40 house parties, 33–34, 126, 242, 269 housing, 33, 49, 55, 90, 105, 111, 226, 230, 269–70 Human Rights Campaign, 95, 159, 237, 263 Hurst, Fannie, 39–40 Ihrig, Steven, 200 immigration, 25, 45, 157–58, 273–74 International Gay Rodeo Association, 178 Interstate 94, 8, 33–34, 235 Ireland, John, 25–26 Irish, 22, 25–26, 286 Iron Range, 104, 236, 275–76 Irwin, David, 216–18 itinerant labor, 27, 35, 47–48, 155, 168 jazz, 33, 35, 72, 137, 140 Jet (magazine), 197 Jewel, Emmett, 137–38 Jewel, Kelly, 138 Johns Hopkins University, 197 Jorgensen, Christine, 198–99 Keillor, Garrison, 223 Keller, John, 27–28 Kester, Mary, 141–42

Kimberly, Susan, 224 Kirmser’s (bar), 3, 29, 32, 43, 52, 60–65, 283 Kirshbaum, Harry, 124 Koch, Joseph, 124 Koering, Paul, 115–17 Kowalski, Sharon, 103–5 Kushner, Tony, 223 Ladies Night (bar), 128 LaFortune, Richard. See Anguksuar Laine, Cleo (drag queen), 140 Lake Minnetonka, 19–20 Lake Street, 57, 102, 151, 204, 216, 233, 244–47 Latimer, George, 101, 173 Latino community, 157–58, 263–64 Lavender (magazine), 9, 11, 155, 186, 217–18, 226, 236 Lavender Hills, 267–70 Leech Lake, 15–16 Lee sisters, 195, 197–200 Lenius, Steve, 155 lesbian coffee shop movement. See Woman’s Coffeehouse, A lesbian co-op movement. See Amazon Feminist Bookstore Lesbian Feminist Organizing Committee, 84–85, 91–92 Lesbian Pride, 245–46, 329 Lesbian Resource Center, 110, 169, 203, 207, 234, 238–43, 277 Les’binformed, 239 Lingen, Gary, 114, 262 Little Thunder, Beverly, 188–89, 258, 333 Lobdell, Lucy (La-Roi), 18–21 Locker Room Baths. See bathhouses Loring Park, 25, 49, 52, 125–26, 142, 147–49, 165–67, 185, 205, 213, 233–35, 245, 270–72 Lutherans Concerned, 95–97 MacKinnon, Catharine, 151 Madam Cleo. See Williams, Michael “Mad Dog Killers,” 124–25 Magney and Tusler, 124 Main Club, 10, 152–54, 174–75, 226, 254 Maldonado, Mario, 157–58

Index

Mall of America, 71, 183 Manannah, Minnesota, 2, 18–21 Mankato, Minnesota, 191, 210–12 MAP. See Minnesota AIDS Project March on Washington, 261 Margarita Bella (bar), 157–58 marijuana, 170 marriage, xi–xiii, 37, 84, 86–88, 109, 111, 115–17, 159, 240, 245, 259, 270, 279–80 Mason, Chris, 275 Matthesen, Elise, 183–84, 259, 261 McConnell, Michael, 84, 86–88, 166, 237 McNaron, Toni, 238–39, 241, 243, 277–80 Mears Park, 50, 185–86 Metcalf, Nick, 263 Metrodome, 255–57 Metropolitan Community Church (MCC). See All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church Miami-Dade, 83–84 Milk, Harvey, 102, 218 Minneapolis City Council, 106–7, 122–24, 126, 143, 151, 163–64, 183–84 Minneapolis Star Tribune, 169, 177, 192, 215, 225, 229, 249, 270, 272 Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, 160–62 Minnesota AIDS Project, 10, 220, 234, 49–52, 330 Minnesota Civil Liberties Union, 88, 218 Minnesota Daily, 129–31, 200 Minnesota Family Council, 107–9 Minnesota Historical Society, 23, 105 Minnesota Human Rights Amendment, 111 Minnesota Men of Color, 220, 236, 263–65 Minnesota State Capitol, 69, 90, 116, 137 Minnesota State Fair, 165, 168–69 Miss Richfield 1981, 186 Moby Dick’s bar. See Block E Montague, James, 52–54 Mora, Minnesota, 111–14 murder, 27–28, 52–54, 71, 77–79, 124–25, 142, 148–49, 165–66, 183, 212 Nabozny, Jamie, 222 NAMES Project, 255–57 National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), 215

321

National Fruit Day, 85–86 National Register of Historic Places, 138 Neighborhood Counseling Center, 110 Newman Center, 97–99 newspapers, 4, 91, 93, 124–25, 132, 197–98, 214, 218, 244–45, 253, 257, 280–81, 283; See also Equal Time; Gay Vue; GLC Voice; Minneapolis Star Tribune; Minnesota Daily; St. Paul Pioneer Press New York City, 1, 35, 41, 119, 136, 160, 173, 180, 183–84, 189, 200, 208, 283 Nichols, Angie, 226–27 Nicollet Hotel, 9, 24, 36–39, 77 Nicollet Mall, 167, 206 19, the (bar), 9, 124–26 Noble Roman (bar), 134, 140–42, 168 nonalcoholic venues, 2, 135, 205–7, 223, 239, 242–44, 254, 279 North Country Bears, 181–82 Northfield Gay Liberation Front, 207–8 Northland Gay Men’s Center, 226, 254–55 North Star Gay Rodeo Association (NSGRA), 177–79 Northstar Project, 111 Obama, Barack, 194 Ojibwe (tribe), 15, 18, 194 Onyx (bar), 46, 67–68 ordinances, 83–86, 90, 93, 99–101, 107, 111, 138, 151, 212–13, 234, 267 organized crime, 1, 27–71, 142–43, 145 OutFront Minnesota, 109–11, 222 outing, 23–24, 115–17, 248 Out-State Lesbians United, 91 Out to Brunch, 244, 252–54 Outwoods, 180–81 Ozaawindib, 15–18 Patrick’s Cabaret. See Scully, Patrick people of color, 9, 32–34, 48, 110, 119–20, 135, 140, 159, 190, 220, 236, 244, 253, 262–65 People Representing the Sexual Minority, 227–28 People with AIDS (PWAs), 102, 251, 269 Perry, Troy, 246–48 Pesis family, 123, 129, 142–45

322

Index

Phelps, Fred, 247 Philanthrofund, 219–20, 263 Pi Bar, 158–60 pieing, 84, 97–98 Pine City Pride, 191–92 Pioneer Press. See St. Paul Pioneer Press Plymouth Congregational Church, 242–44 police, 27–28, 33–34, 39, 50, 52–55, 77, 85, 101–2, 119–20, 124, 127, 136, 138, 142, 144–49, 151–54, 161, 165–67, 170, 172, 202, 218, 222 poppers (drug), 135 pornography, 4, 75–77, 121–23, 149–52, 209, 213, 248–49 pot. See marijuana Powderhorn Park, 158, 233–36, 272. See also Dyke Heights “pro-family” picnic, 191–92 Prohibition, 33, 253 prostitution, 17–18, 23–24, 47–48, 50, 54–55, 57, 60, 65, 125, 160, 184, 235 protest march, 7, 84–86, 111–14, 119–20, 167, 261 public sex, 49–52, 107, 125, 161 Quatrefoil Library, 11, 216–19, 259–60 “queer”: definition, 9 Queer Street Patrol, 165, 183–84 Queer Twin Cities (GLBT Oral History Project), 3, 107, 283 Quie, Al, 108 racism, 110, 127, 173, 263–64, 280 Radisson Hotel, 37, 65, 77, 79 Rainbow Road, 213–14 rainbow symbol, 1, 4, 119, 216, 227, 248, 256, 268, 332 Ramsey, Alexander, 6, 22–24 Rantala, Ashley, 275–76 red light district. See vice district religion, 83, 209. See also All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church; Angwin, Richard; Bryant, Anita; Catholic Church; Lutherans Concerned; People Representing the Sexual Minority Republican party, 4, 115–18, 160, 171, 215 reservations, 258

Rice Park, 49–52, 60–61 Rising Moon, 169–71 Roach, John, 97–99 Robbins, Kathy, 218 Rocky Horror Picture Show, The, 196, 241 Rondo neighborhood, 32–35 Rossmor Building, 128, 133–36, 146 Rowland, Chuck, 44, 46, 67–68 Rukes, Ashley, 167, 331–32 Rumours/Innuendo, 128, 135–36 Rural AIDS Action Network, 191, 234 Saloon, 121, 129, 142–44, 171, 208 Sampson, Sam, 82, 139, 201, 206 Sandbox, 138–40, 207 Sanders, Nancy, 169–71 San Francisco, 158, 172–73, 183, 241, 262, 283 Save Our Children. See Bryant, Anita Sayles Belton, Sharon, 107, 163–64, 333 Schiff, Gary, 184 Schwartz, Patrick, 97 Scully, Patrick, 214–16 sexism, 173, 248, 284 Shades of Yellow, 236, 273–74 Shoreview, Minnesota, 126–28 Sissle, Noble, 35–36 Skogie and the Flaming Pachucos, 195–96, 206–7 softball, 4, 133–34, 144, 171–72, 174, 245 So’s Your Old Lady ( journal), 239–40 Spear, Allan, 22, 87–90, 95, 107, 173, 257 sports, 103, 134, 173–74, 176, 180, 253. See also softball Staples, Lee, 189, 258 Star Tribune. See Minneapolis Star Tribune Stein, Gertrude, 6, 39–40, 168 Steven’s Square Park, 234 Stonewall riots, 1, 119–20, 122–23, 175, 200–203, 240, 281 St. Paul Citizens for Human Rights, 99–101, 234 St. Paul City Council, 83, 99, 101, 184–86, 224 St. Paul Gallery and School of Art, 41 St. Paul Pioneer Press, 102, 251, 269 streetcars, 25, 33, 60, 66, 69, 244–45, 286

Index

suburbs, 70–71, 123–24, 127–28, 132, 221, 224–26, 236, 243, 267–70 suicide, 194, 198, 222, 225–26 Sumner–Glenwood, 15, 48, 129, 189 Sutton Place (bar), 93, 129–31, 142–43, 145 Swish Alps. See Lavender Hills Target City Coalition, 97–100, 234 theaters, 35–36, 60–62, 79, 111–12, 121–23, 149–51, 205, 209–10, 214–16, 223–24, 239 Thompson, Karen, 84, 103–5 Toklas, Alice, 39–40 Town House (bar), 127, 136–38, 159, 205 Town Square, 32 transphobia, 118, 120, 130, 159, 184, 196, 198, 200, 224–26, 243 Transsexual Research Project, 195–200, 230 Tretter, Jean-Nickolaus, 22–4, 93, 141–42, 166–67, 173, 217, 235, 272; recollections of, 101, 125, 134, 139–40, 149–50, 168–69 Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, 1–11, 105, 117, 167, 196, 218–19, 223, 271, 277–81 True Colors (bookstore), 205 Twin Cities GAZE (newspaper), 167, 183–84, 248, 262, 280, 330 Twin Cities Pride committee, 119, 178–79, 184–85, 187, 190, 203, 230, 238, 243–44, 261; festival, 1–2, 6, 22–23, 147–48, 186; guide, 89, 164–68, 174, 180, 327–34; parade, 7, 164–68 Twin Cities Trans March, 84, 119–20 Twin Ports Pride, 154, 174–76 Two Spirit Gathering, 18, 187–89, 192–94, 258–59 Two Spirit Press Room, 117–18, 192, 194, 236 University Avenue, 127, 136–38 University of Minnesota, 1–6, 9, 11, 22–23, 87–89, 97–98, 105, 115, 117, 126, 129, 174, 184, 195–203, 206, 208, 220, 226–27, 229–31, 235, 237, 241, 243 urbanization, 47–52, 60, 244–45 urban renewal, 49, 54–55, 67, 71, 77, 79, 122, 155, 183, 223, 233

323

Vecoli, Lisa, 133–34 vice district, xii–xiii, 47–49 vice squad, 59, 101–2, 124, 147–51, 233 Vietnam War, 203, 235, 273 Viking Room, 37, 65 Village People, 135 Villeda, LaCoco, 9, 157–58 Virginia, Minnesota, 275–76 visibility, 49, 123–24, 173, 195–97, 242, 257, 264 Voice. See GLC Voice voyeurism, 116 Wabasha Street, 49, 63 Waddell, Tom, 172–73 Walker Arts Center, 215–16 Warehouse District, 81, 93, 123, 129, 131–33, 145, 253 West Bank (neighborhood), 1, 105–7, 206, 210 Wilde, Oscar, 6, 24–26, 37, 50, 168 Wilder Ones (softball team), 172 Williams, Michael, 140 Williams, William, 27–28 Wisconsin, xii, 10, 34, 39, 145, 152–54, 175–76, 192, 222, 254, 274 Woman’s Coffeehouse, A, 1, 239–41, 242–44, 252, 277, 279 women’s music, 134, 279 women’s social organizations, 36–40 Works Progress Administration, 40–44 World Theater, 223–24 World War II, 10, 14–15, 44–46, 65, 81, 137, 155, 252, 267 Yaeger, Rob, 184 Y’all Come Back Saloon. See Saloon Yoakam, John, 109, 135, 164, 182 youth, 52–54, 77, 136, 195–96, 205–7, 220–23, 237–38

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Stewart Van Cleve is a former assistant curator of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies at the University of Minnesota.

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A History through Pride Guides

1973: The first Twin Cities Pride Guide is a single sheet of paper designed to be folded and thrown like a Frisbee in the event of a police raid.

1974: About 350 attend the second annual event, which includes the first transgender speaker.

1976: A scandal erupts when bisexual activists suggest a “Bi-Centennial,” in reference to the America’s Bicentennial, and are ignored.

1975: Ruth Sherman is the first Grand Marshal of the Twin Cities Pride Parade. Approximately five hundred attend.

1977: The first booths and vendors set up in Loring Park, and the first parade marches down Hennepin Avenue. Previously, the “parades” were protest marches.

1978: The festival moves to St. Paul for the first and only time in a ceremonial gesture to the St. Paul community after it lost equal rights in a voter referendum.

1979: The rally, picnic, and parade become recognizable as a cohesive festival.

1980: More than two thousand attend, and a scandal erupts when the committee chooses “Cruising into the 80’s” as the year’s theme.

1981: Fresh Fruit airs the first public broadcast of Pride events through KFAI Radio.

1982: The Pride Committee removes Lesbian from its title, resulting in a “Great Split”: Women hold Lesbian Pride in Powderhorn Park and men remain in Loring Park.

1983: The city of Minneapolis allows street closures for the parade and pride-hosted block party for the first time.

1984: More than five thousand attend the festival, and a history exhibit in St. Paul’s Landmark Center commemorates the fifteenth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

1985: The Pride Committee attempts to gate the festival and charge admission. Amid the AIDS crisis, the community rejected this decision. Attendance was low.

1986: The Minnesota AIDS Project organizes Pride after the committee disbands. A caped crusader, Captain Condom, distributes HIV/AIDS prevention materials.

1987: A new Pride Committee, supported by the GLCAC, hosts the event at Powderhorn Park and extends the parade route to two-and-a-half miles along 32nd Street.

1988: 7,500 attend the festival, and the Pride Committee shortens the parade route.

1989: The Pride Committee becomes independent, and registers as a nonprofit. Five Grand Marshals commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

1990: The Twin Cities Pride Festival expands to a weeklong event, and more than fifteen thousand attend.

1991: More than twenty-five thousand attend popular Pride weekend events and the committee begins selecting festival vendors from a large pool of applications.

1992: More than a hundred vendors set up in Loring Park, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter debuts the History Pavilion, and fifty thousand enjoy the warm weather during Pride weekend.

1993: A transgender woman named Ashley Rukes coordinates more than a hundred entries in the Twin Cities Pride Parade, and seventy-five thousand attendees become “A Family of Pride.”

1994: The Pride Committee builds a second performance stage in Loring Park, and St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman refuses to sign a proclamation of GLBT Pride Month.

1995: Despite rainy weather, a hundred thousand take part in Pride events. Issues with Lavender Magazine result in a “Guideless Pride.”

1996: District 202 leads the Twin Cities Pride Parade, and the Minneapolis Star Tribune prints a one hundred-page Pride Guide. Corporations begin sponsoring the event.

1997: The committee moves pride to Nicollet Island while Loring Park is under reconstruction; Capital City Pride establishes in St. Paul.

1998: Two hundred thousand attend the festival in a reconstructed Loring Park despite rumors that the festival was on the verge of financial ruin.

1999: 108 Rainbow banners line Hennepin Avenue, commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and the founding of FREE.

2000: 250,000 attend, and the committee renames the parade in honor of Ashley Rukes to commemorate the director’s unexpected passing.

2001: 350,000 attend Pride weekend, and Beverly Little Thunder becomes the world’s first female Native American Grand Marshal.

2002: Minneapolis’s first African American mayor, Sharon Sayles Belton, is Grand Marshal—she dresses as Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz.

2003: Four hundred thousand attend, despite mounting concerns related to corporate fund-raising and sexually explicit themes.

2004: Twin Cities Pride becomes the third-largest Pride event in the nation. Dr. Linnea Stenson, an activist and scholar promoting GLBT Studies, is Grand Marshal.

2005: Anguksuar (Richard LaFortune), a two-spirited citizen of the Yuupit Nation, is Grand Marshal. More than four hundred vendors and exhibitors sign up for the festival.

2006: The committee introduces a fourth performance stage, and 435,000 attend. Ann Bancroft, the first woman to finish an Antarctic expedition, is Grand Marshal.

2007: Rainbow Families partners with Twin Cities Pride to host the festival. A pocket-sized Pride Guide debuts and ends a thirty-year tradition of more substantial publications.

2008: Archbishop John Nienstedt informs the Catholic St. Joan of Arc Church that it cannot provide Pride services—events that his predecessor, Harry Flynn, permitted.

2009: Eric Colleary, with assistance from the University of Minnesota Libraries, unveils “40 Years since Stonewall” at the History Pavilion.

2011: Forty years since a group of friends frequented Gay House, the Twin Cities Pride Committee has a paid executive director and more than twenty volunteer staff.

2012: Twin Cities Pride commemorates four decades of celebrations and the collective work of seven succeeding organizations on the last weekend of June in Loring Park.

2010: The Pride Committee takes the Minneapolis Park Board to court regarding whether an antigay religious organization had the right to demonstrate during the festival.