Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest To Track Down The Last Remaining Lesbian Bars In America by Krista Burton

the cover of Moby Dyke

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This book really just had to live up to the title for me to love it, and it did.

Krista Burton used to run a blog called Effing Dykes that I followed and enjoyed, so I knew I was already a fan of her writing. In Moby Dyke, she weaves together a travelogue of lesbian bars, personal writing about her own life, and discussions about why lesbian bars keep closing.

In the introduction, Krista paints a picture of her journey to writing this book. She’s married to a trans man named Davin, and they’re about both middle-aged, living in rural Minnesota. When COVID hit and they were sheltering in place, Krista found that what she missed most was the “feeling of being in a packed, sweaty dyke bar, surrounded on all sides by queers so close they’re touching me, and then to feel someone with a drink in one hand try to inch past me.” But those kinds of bars kept closing. Where there was about 200 in the 1980s, it was down to 20 across the whole country. Pandemic or not, when was she going to experience that again?

And that’s how Moby Dyke was born. Krista made a plan to visit all 20 of the remaining lesbian bars in the United States. Each would be visited twice. She’d talk to at least two people at each bar. (Approaching strangers! In a lesbian bar!) And half of the time, she’d come with her husband, while half of the time, she’d go alone.

This is, of course, an exploration and celebration of these lesbian bars, each lovingly described, but that ended up not being the main draw for me. It was interesting to get a glimpse into these bars, but I’m unlikely to go to any of them, being neither a bar/club person nor from the U.S. Instead, I was pulled in by Krista’s personal writing as well as the discussion around lesbian bars.

This book has a charming, personal voice—it feels like a friend telling you a story. There are brief detours into the rest of Krista’s exploration of a city, and some glimpses into her personal life. It makes for a very readable book that somehow didn’t feel repetitive, even though each chapter is essentially the same thing: describing a new bar and recounting how patrons/owners answered her questions.

It’s interesting to get a broad look at how lesbian bars operate and how they describe themselves. Krista quickly found out that while these bars were usually owned by lesbians and were in some way lesbian bars, each of them said they “welcome everyone.” She discusses this push and pull between wanting be inclusive and wanting to have a space for queer people:

“Queers want dedicated spaces where they can go and have everyone around them be queer. That’s because that shit is fun. And it’s such a relief, not to mention so much safer, for us all to be able to be together. But most of us also want each and every version of queerness to be welcomed in those spaces, and who gets to decide who’s queer and who’s not?”

As one bar owner put it, “Sometimes [lesbian patrons] will look around and want to know why there’s ‘”so many men here,” and—she threw up her hands—’I don’t know what to tell you! How am I supposed to have a woman-centric space that’s a lesbian bar but also be fully inclusive? How?’”

I also found it interesting the many reasons people had, especially bar owners, for why lesbian bars keep closing: because queer women are more accepted into greater society now. Because lesbians have less money to spend than gay men. Because of infighting. Gentrification and rent price. Trump. The instability of time investment of running a bar. Lesbians don’t go out.

These discussions about queer spaces were fascinating to me, and I also liked seeing the many different ways that these spaces are designed. Each has its own feel, its own events, its own kind of community. I’m not about to go out and start a lesbian bar now, but I did find it inspirational. Queer groups and communities, especially between queer women, have a reputation of breaking down and dissolving in conflict. These many different bars, whether it’s a Black-owned queer cocktail bar or a rural lesbian bar covered in novelty signs, show that it’s worth trying to build something, and that they can survive—and even thrive.

I wasn’t sure if this would end up being a eulogy for lesbian bars, a document to preserve them before they all disappear forever, or whether it would be a celebration. Thankfully, it’s much more of the latter—spoiler alert: the number of lesbian bars has grown since she started writing the book!

If the title piqued your interest, definitely pick up Moby Dyke. It’s part travelogue, part memoir, and 100% queer.

Tierney reviews Real Queer America by Samantha Allen

Real Queer America by Samantha Allen

Samantha Allen’s Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States is a must-read for all LGBTQ Americans, regardless of whether they hail from or live in red states. Following the motto “Something gay every day,” Allen and her friend Billy took a road trip across the Midwest and South in summer 2017, visiting places like LGBTQ centers and gay bars from Utah to Georgia, and uncovering queer and trans stories along the way.

Allen’s travelogue is an important and necessary response to the common societal narrative of LGBTQ folks fleeing their rural small towns to big cities on either coast the minute they get the chance. Allen showcases the vibrant, resilient, interconnected LGBTQ community that exists wherever there are LGBTQ folks – and especially in places where the community has had to band together and organize to push back against political or societal adversity. Allen makes no bones about the fact that life in a big (and expensive) city like New York is absolutely not for her: her book is a love letter to the places that have shaped her into the queer, trans woman that she is today, and to all the places that hold those wondrous possibilities for others in the LGBTQ community.

The LGBTQ community Allen depicts is so much more than gay bars (though she certainly depicts some awesome ones, like the Back Door in Bloomington, Indiana, and WonderLust in Jackson, Mississippi): she tenderly paints a picture of queer gathering spaces and networks of support, and she places the people who bring these spaces and movements alive front and center. Real Queer America reads smoothly, like cruising down the highway with the wind in your hair and the open road ahead of you – you feel like you’re along for the ride with her and Billy, like you’re hearing from the folks she interviewed yourself, firsthand. Allen invites you into their world, and their struggles and triumphs become your own, all members of one big, beautiful community together.

Throughout the book, Allen pays particularly loving attention to sharing the stories of trans and gender nonconforming folks across the southern and midwestern United States, starting with her own story of the development of her identity, from attending BYU as an unhappy Mormon student furtively wearing women’s clothing, to coming out and transitioning as a graduate student at Emory, to meeting her wife-to-be on a summer research trip to the Kinsey Institute (you just can’t make up a queerer meet-cute!). Through her travels we meet trans parents and partners, business owners and politicians, activists and youth – each person richly described, and illuminated by their relationships to the places that have made them the people they are today.

Real Queer America is a gorgeous patchwork of a book, bringing together so many places in America and people in the LGBTQ community, interwoven with Allen’s thoughtful musings and memories, solid yet accessible connections to theory and statistics, zippy pop culture references, and even a center spread of road trip photos (be still my heart!). It’s the definition of a crowd-pleaser, with something for everyone – approachable and thoroughly enjoyable for anyone on the LGBTQ spectrum, no matter where they are in their own journey. Allen’s work pays tribute to the undersung backbone of queer America.