Explicit
Episode notes
In this season one finale, Jack talks with historian Roey Thorpe about lesbian and queer life in Detroit from the 1930s through the early 1970s, before and beyond Stonewall. Centering working-class bars, sex work economies, and informal gathering spaces like softball and picnics, the episode traces how Black and white queer women—especially those who were poor, working-class, and gender nonconforming—built lives under conditions of criminalization, surveillance, and police violence.
Thorpe highlights the central role of sex work as labor, survival, and community infrastructure, and shows h ...
Keywords
lesbian historyqueer historylesbian barsqueer partiesJack GiesekingSinister WisdomLGBTQ barsfeminist historytrans historyqueer geographiesqueer spacesrent partiesqueer archivesCookie WoolnerJack Jen GiesekingBlack queer womenlesbian spacesqueer geographyGreat Migration1930s queer cultureprisonsTea roomsTearoomsbulldaggerLGBTQ persecution1940s queer culture1950s queer culture1960s queer culturetrans spacesbutch-femmebutchfemmequeer desirequeer resistancegender history1970s queer cultureSaraellen StrongmanPat ParkerBlack lesbianssoftballsoftball leaguesBarbara Smithwomen of color feminismwomen of colordyke ecosystembulldykerDetroitUpperMidwestdollar partiestrans partiestrans barslezbiqueertrans spacesdancingDetroit historyUpper Midwesthouse partiessoftball fieldsBlack lesbian dollar partieseconomic mutual aidcommunity buildingfeminist movementRoey ThorpeSweetheart Barpublic spacenightlifecollective resistanceRuth EllisReverend Renee McCoyStormé DeLarverieA League of Their OwnMichiganMichigan historyGentepicnicsFred'slaborindustrial laborThe Palaissex worksex workerssex work economies