Lillian Faderman

Angela Brinskele interviews historian Lillian Faderman about Los Angeles lesbian bar culture from the 1920s through the 1980s, drawing on both her research and her own life experiences.

Faderman recalls her first visit to the Open Door in 1956 at age 16, with a gay male friend. She remembers the bar as working class, with the If Club across the street with a military sign declaring it off limits to service members. She discusses the constant threat of raids from the LAPD and policing within the bars by staff attempting to avoid such raids. Club Laurel, which she first visited in 1957, immediately appealed to her because women there were not forced into butch or femme roles.

She discusses the research behind her book Gay L.A., which she began around 2000 and published in 2006 with co-author Stuart Timmons. She points to Mazer Archives holdings that guided her. She discusses the glamorous bar culture of the 1920s-1940s, and describes locations including the Flamingo Club, The Gypsy Room, Tess’ Continental, Jane Jones’ Little Club, BBB’s Cellar, and Jimmy’s Backyard. These bars in the Sunset Strip thrived because of the area’s proximity to Hollywood and because then Sherman (now West Hollywood) was policed by local sheriffs rather than the brutal Los Angeles police department. She briefly also discusses being amazed by the glamorous women who visited The Palms, and Peanuts in the 1980s.

Faderman also discusses her career as a lesbian feminist scholar-activist. The emergence of lesbian feminism changed her life as a young Professor. The movement provided a readership and the will to publish lesbian and feminist history. Her first lesbian publication appeared in the new lesbian feminist magazine Conditions, and her paper on Emily Dickinson’s love letters to Sue Gilbert appeared in the Massachusetts Review in 1978. She then published the groundbreaking survey of lesbian history Surpassing the Love of Men in 1981. Her liberal colleagues and the protections of tenure also made this work possible.