Our Dyke Histories

Jack Gieseking with Sinister Wisdom
  • 5.0 (22)
  • History
  • Updated Weekly

Come for the history; stay for the revolution, gossip, and desire that built it. 🤌 About Us :: Decade by decade, Our Dyke Histories dives deep into the living, breathing past and present of lesbian, queer, bisexual, trans, & nonbinary communities. Each season traces how we made space for ourselves—sometimes in bars, bookstores, and protests; sometimes in basements, alleyways, and prisons; & always against the odds. Host :: Our Dyke Histories is hosted by historian, geographer, and environmental psychologist Dr. Jack Jen Gieseking, and produced in collaboration with Sinister Wisdom, the oldest lesbian multicultural literary and art journal. Season One :: Our first season traces the history of dyke bars* - yes, with an asterisk - including lesbian bars, queer parties, & trans hangouts. Before Pride marches and hashtags, there were bars, parties, and whispered invitations that built whole worlds. Our Dyke Histories uncovers the stories of the women, trans, and nonbinary people who turned repression into resistance and nightlife into liberation. Join Our Community :: Want to be part of our community? We'd love to have you. 😏 Come comment, connect, and get your gayme on! Newsletter to your inbox: Jack's Queer Geographies newsletter with detailed takes on each episode, & more about lezbiqueertrans spaces across timeInstagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistoriesRead and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister WisdomEmail us at ourdykehistories@gmail.comDonate 3 :: Subscribe and/or donate to the fabulous, in-print Sinister Wisdom, a multicultural lesbian literary & art journal founded in 1976. Sinister Wisdom recognizes the power of language and art to create radical, empowering, resilient, and joyous sanctuaries that build and sustain vibrant lesbian futures. What Does Our Tarot Reading Say about What's Next? :: In future seasons, we will move decade by decade through other defining places, objects, and ideas in lesbian, bi, queer, and trans history—mapping the worlds we’ve made and the futures we’re still imagining. Funny and fierce, sexy and smart, and full of dyke spirit, this podcast isn’t nostalgia—it’s a survival guide disguised as a love letter.

  1. 6d ago

    Did The L Word Kill the Lesbian Bar?: Trish Bendix, Katherine Griffiths, & Mairead Sullivan, 1990s-2000s

    Did The L Word kill the lesbian bar? In the second part of our ’90s and ’00s series, Jack Gieseking is joined by Mairead Sullivan, Katherine Griffiths, and Trish Bendix to discuss this and many other complicated questions. Lesbian bars began declining in the 1990s, but the episode looks beyond the easy story of changing sexuality or television culture. Racism, gentrification, rising rents, restaurant groups, globalization, changing drinking habits, smoking bans, and the growing fragility of nightlife all transformed queer space. Race and gender are central to this story. Trish discusses Chicago’s Black lesbian spaces and the emergence of Nobody’s Darling and Dorothy’s, while Katherine describes the role of Black music and Black women’s organizing in London nightlife—and the racism that could still determine who was allowed through the door. Camp Trans and the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival become a major site of conflict and organizing, while more and more trans-centered parties and spaces emerge. The conversation asks what happens when identities and communities don't stay neatly inside the categories we inherited. The question isn't simply where the lesbian bars went. It's what happened to the worlds around them, and what new worlds people built in their place. Because spaces don't just disappear...sometimes they evolve. ** Join Our Community Want to be part of our community? We'd love to have you. 😏 Come comment, connect, and get your gayme on! Newsletter to your inbox: Jack's Queer Geographies newsletter with detailed takes on each episode, & more about lezbiqueertrans spaces across timeInstagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistoriesRead and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister WisdomEmail us questions and comments at ourdykehistories@gmail.com** Credits Producer, Editor, Host, & Creative Director: Jack Gieseking Co-Producer: Julie Enszer & Sinister Wisdom Co-Producer & Co-Editor: Cade Waldo Assistant Editor: Becca Moses & Sophie McClain Social Media Manager: Audrey Wilkinson Consulting Producer: Rachel Fagen Music: Our theme song: "Like Honey" by Kit Orion https://www.kitorion.com/ CC-BY-NC-ND 2025. Write to us at ourdykehistories@gmail.com for permission to use any of our content.

    Did The L Word Kill the Lesbian Bar?: Trish Bendix, Katherine Griffiths, & Mairead Sullivan, 1990s-2000s

  2. Aug 30

    Lesbian Chic, Dyke Politics: Trish Bendix, Katherine Griffiths, & Mairead Sullivan, 1990s-2000s

    Welcome to dyke bars* in the 1990s and the 2000s! Jack Gieseking joins Mairead Sullivan, Katherine Griffiths, and Trish Bendix to talk about queer parties, lesbian bars, identity, sex, music, and the changing geography of queer life. From My Sister’s Room in Atlanta and Tease in Chicago to London’s Royal Oak, San Francisco’s Lexington Club, and Boston’s Diesel Cafe, they ask what makes a space a dyke bar—and what makes it feel like home. The conversation moves through women’s nights, DIY parties, bookstores, health centers, dancing, trans inclusion and exclusion, aging, race, and the economics of keeping queer spaces alive. They explore how lesbian bars were represented in indie films including Chasing Amy, Go Fish, Bound, Boys on the Side, and The First Wives Club. The episode digs in to lesbian chic, the 1993 Dyke March on Washington, language, and the biomedicalization of “lesbian.” Through it all, bars emerge as spaces of possibility, projection, connection, and community. ** Join Our Community Want to be part of our community? We'd love to have you. 😏 Come comment, connect, and get your gayme on! Newsletter to your inbox: Jack's Queer Geographies newsletter with detailed takes on each episode, & more about lezbiqueertrans spaces across timeInstagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistoriesRead and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister WisdomEmail us questions and comments at ourdykehistories@gmail.com** Credits Producer, Editor, Host, & Creative Director: Jack Gieseking Co-Producer: Julie Enszer & Sinister Wisdom Co-Producer & Co-Editor: Cade Waldo Assistant Editor: Becca Moses & Sophie McClain Social Media Manager: Audrey Wilkinson Consulting Producer: Rachel Fagen Music: Our theme song: "Like Honey" by Kit Orion https://www.kitorion.com/ CC-BY-NC-ND 2025. Write to us at ourdykehistories@gmail.com for permission to use any of our content.

    Lesbian Chic, Dyke Politics: Trish Bendix, Katherine Griffiths, & Mairead Sullivan, 1990s-2000s

  3. Aug 23

    How to Be an Activist: the 1980s from Auntie Valerie Walker

    In this extra 1980s episode of Our Dyke Histories, Jack Gieseking sits down again with one of his favorite people. activist and artist, legendary Auntie Valerie Walker to talk about bars, dancing, organizing, racism, AIDS, ACT UP, the Lesbian Avengers, and the queer joy that keeps us connected. Valerie remembers Garbo’s, The Duchess, Henrietta’s, Cubbyhole, Nanny’s, and the bars where she danced so hard that they paid her to keep the party going. For her, the bar was never just a place to drink. It was where people met across differences, found one another, shared information, organized, hooked up, and made community. The conversation moves from the racism Valerie experienced inside ACT UP to her work with the Lesbian Avengers, including a delightfully thorough protest involving phone trees, Dyke TV, Hershey’s Kisses, and a whole lot of kissing. And underneath it all is Valerie's call to keep building who all lezbiqueertrans people can call Auntie Yes. She leaves us with mic drop wisdom and love: "Joy is a connector." "We deserve everything." And "the bar scene is its own movement." ** Join Our Community Want to be part of our community? We'd love to have you. 😏 Come comment, connect, and get your gayme on! Newsletter to your inbox: Jack's Queer Geographies newsletter with detailed takes on each episode, & more about lezbiqueertrans spaces across timeInstagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistoriesRead and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister WisdomEmail us questions and comments at ourdykehistories@gmail.com** Credits Producer, Editor, Host, & Creative Director: Jack Gieseking Co-Producer: Julie Enszer & Sinister Wisdom Co-Producer & Co-Editor: Cade Waldo Assistant Editor: Becca Moses & Sophie McClain Social Media Manager: Audrey Wilkinson Consulting Producer: Rachel Fagen Music: Our theme song: "Like Honey" by Kit Orion https://www.kitorion.com/ CC-BY-NC-ND 2025. Write to us at ourdykehistories@gmail.com for permission to use any of our content.

    How to Be an Activist: the 1980s from Auntie Valerie Walker

  4. Aug 17

    But Do We Get to Stay?: Sex, Gentrification, and the 1980s, with Sarah Schulman, Katherine V. Forrest, & Valarie Walker

    In this episode of Our Dyke Histories, we keep rocking through the 1980s: sex wars, lesbian bars, gentrification, bookstores, health centers, fiction, and the complicated work of building community. Jack Gieseking talks with Katherine V. Forrest, Sarah Schulman, and Valerie Walker about the places where queer people found one another—and what happened when those places changed. We visit Crazy Nanny’s, the only Black lesbian bar in Greenwich Village, the Christopher Street Pier, lesbian health centers, and the W.O.W. Café. We talk about bars as community, sobriety and the economics of keeping spaces alive, and the ways racism and class shaped who could gather. We also tackle (or are tackled by) the sex wars: the 1982 Barnard Conference on Sexuality, Women Against Pornography (the other WAP), pro-sex feminism, BDSM, leather, On Our Backs, and the essentialism versus social construction debate. We see gentrification begin to rear its head against and with queers just as the AIDS crisis evolves. In the end, we turn to representation and ask the enduring question: do we get to stay? ** Join Our Community Want to be part of our community? We'd love to have you. 😏 Come comment, connect, and get your gayme on! Newsletter to your inbox: Jack's Queer Geographies newsletter with detailed takes on each episode, & more about lezbiqueertrans spaces across timeInstagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistoriesRead and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister WisdomEmail us questions and comments at ourdykehistories@gmail.com** Credits Producer, Editor, Host, & Creative Director: Jack Gieseking Co-Producer: Julie Enszer & Sinister Wisdom Co-Producer & Co-Editor: Cade Waldo Assistant Editor: Becca Moses & Sophie McClain Social Media Manager: Audrey Wilkinson Consulting Producer: Rachel Fagen Music: Our theme song: "Like Honey" by Kit Orion https://www.kitorion.com/ CC-BY-NC-ND 2025. Write to us at ourdykehistories@gmail.com for permission to use any of our content.

    But Do We Get to Stay?: Sex, Gentrification, and the 1980s, with Sarah Schulman, Katherine V. Forrest, & Valarie Walker

  5. Aug 9

    The 1980s: Sex, Space, and Survival, with Sarah Schulman, Valarie Walker, & Katherine V. Forrest

    Welcome to the 1980s! In the first of two episodes on the decade, Jack Gieseking is joined by novelist and essayist Sarah Schulman, mystery writer Katherine V. Forrest, and activist Valerie Walker to talk dyke bars, queer parties, sex, race and racism, AIDS, activism, and the worlds we made from them. From The Duchess in Greenwich Village and a secret lesbian bar in 1960 Detroit to the 1990s C**t Club in the Meatpacking District, Black and tan bars, sex parties, and the enormous landscape of 1980s organizing, the conversation asks what bars made possible—and who they kept out. We hear about rigid butch-femme roles and the 1980s rethinking, rejecting, and accepting them in different ways, Black and brown exclusion, carding, women-only spaces, trans people finding and making community, and the political transformation brought by HIV/AIDS. The episode moves from New York to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, London, and Hartford, following the networks of people, publications, organizations, bookstores, bars, and parties that held queer communities together. Come for the history, stay for the revolution, gossip, and desire that built us. Lez keep doing it, y’all. ** Join Our Community Want to be part of our community? We'd love to have you. 😏 Come comment, connect, and get your gayme on! Newsletter to your inbox: Jack's Queer Geographies newsletter with detailed takes on each episode, & more about lezbiqueertrans spaces across timeInstagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistoriesRead and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister WisdomEmail us questions and comments at ourdykehistories@gmail.com** Credits Producer, Editor, Host, & Creative Director: Jack Gieseking Co-Producer: Julie Enszer & Sinister Wisdom Co-Producer & Co-Editor: Cade Waldo Assistant Editor: Becca Moses & Sophie McClain Social Media Manager: Audrey Wilkinson Consulting Producer: Rachel Fagen Music: Our theme song: "Like Honey" by Kit Orion https://www.kitorion.com/ CC-BY-NC-ND 2025. Write to us at ourdykehistories@gmail.com for permission to use any of our content.

    The 1980s: Sex, Space, and Survival, with Sarah Schulman, Valarie Walker, & Katherine V. Forrest

  6. Aug 3

    The Bars Are Ours: Queer Nightlife, AIDS, and Community in the 1980s & 1990s, with Lucas Hilderbrand

    In this episode, Jack talks with historian Lucas Hilderbrand about the transformation of lesbian, queer, and trans nightlife during the 1980s and 1990s. Drawing from Hilderbrand's The Bars Are Ours, the conversation traces the shift from neighborhood lesbian bars and lgbtq bars to super queer parties that reimagined queer community during the early years of the AIDS crisis. Together they explore how queer archives preserve not only places but feelings, how generations inherit different understandings of queerness, and why nightlife became central to survival, activism, and pleasure. The episode moves from San Francisco's explosion of queer parties and Boston's early gay-meets-anti-trans gentrification to Dallas' enduring Sue Ellen's, while considering the economics of bars, the emergence of lesbian chic, interracial and inter-gender and interracial dance spaces, and the rise of queer as a political identity. Throughout, Jack situates these histories within questions of geography, memory, and environmental psychology, showing that queer nightlife has always been about more than entertainment—it is infrastructure for community, intimacy, and imagining better worlds. Topics include: AIDS activism, grief, and joyQueer archives and historical researchLesbian bars and super-partiesRace, gender, and inclusion in nightlifeThe economics of queer spacePage Hodel, On Our Backs, and lesbian chicWhy queer history is always localDo lesbians cruise?** Join Our Community Want to be part of our community? We'd love to have you. 😏 Come comment, connect, and get your gayme on! Newsletter to your inbox: Jack's Queer Geographies newsletter with detailed takes on each episode, & more about lezbiqueertrans spaces across timeInstagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistoriesRead and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister WisdomEmail us questions and comments at ourdykehistories@gmail.com** Credits Producer, Editor, Host, & Creative Director: Jack Gieseking Co-Producer: Julie Enszer & Sinister Wisdom Co-Producer & Co-Editor: Cade Waldo Assistant Editor: Becca Moses & Sophie McClain Social Media Manager: Audrey Wilkinson Consulting Producer: Rachel Fagen Music: Our theme song: "Like Honey" by Kit Orion https://www.kitorion.com/ CC-BY-NC-ND 2025. Write to us at ourdykehistories@gmail.com for permission to use any of our content.

    The Bars Are Ours: Queer Nightlife, AIDS, and Community in the 1980s & 1990s, with Lucas Hilderbrand

  7. Jul 26

    Teaser: It Is Time to Get Back to Dyke Bars*

    We’re backkkkkkkk. Get ready for the theorists and the activists, the lovers and the fighters, the rock stars and the resistance, the friendships and definitely the f*ckers (of all types) – welcome back to Our Dyke Histories! In this second part of our first season, we are continuing to create and share more of this content we love about dyke bars*, including lesbian bars, queer parties, and trans hangouts. We'll pick up where we left off, digging into the 1980s through the present day. We'll dive deep in Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian-American queer, trans, and Two-Spirit dyke bars*, and explore the art and why dyke bars* are so popular. I’ll be chatting with more incredible guests like Sarah Schulman, Kemi Adeyemi, Lucas Hildebrand, the hosts of Cruising Pod, Dian Million, Katherine Forrest, Trish Bendix, and more. And to get y’all revved up for the shows to come, we’re sharing our truly delicious first season promo again. Because, really, our friends and commenters said it was so hot we should release it again. ** Come for the history; stay for the revolution, gossip, and desire that built it. 🤌 ** About Us Decade by decade, Our Dyke Histories dives deep into the living, breathing past and present of lesbian, queer, trans, & nonbinary communities. Each season traces how we made space for ourselves—sometimes in bars, bookstores, and protests; sometimes in basements, alleyways, and prisons; & always against the odds. Our Dyke Histories is hosted by historian, geographer, and environmental psychologist Dr. Jack Jen Gieseking, and produced in collaboration with Sinister Wisdom, the oldest lesbian multicultural literary and art journal. ** Join Our Community Want to be part of our community? We'd love to have you. 😏 Come comment, connect, and get your gayme on! Newsletter to your inbox: Jack's Queer Geographies newsletter with detailed takes on each episode, & more about lezbiqueertrans spaces across timeInstagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistoriesRead and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister WisdomEmail us at ourdykehistories@gmail.com** Credits Producer, Editor, Host, & Creative Director: Jack Gieseking Co-Producer: Julie Enszer & Sinister Wisdom Co-Producer & Co-Editor: Cade Waldo Social Media: Audrey Wilkinson Interns: Becca Moses, Sophie McClain Consulting Producer: Rachel Fagen Music: "Like Honey" from Kit OrionCC-BY-NC-ND 2026. Write to us at ourdykehistories@gmail.com for permission to use any of our content.

    Teaser: It Is Time to Get Back to Dyke Bars*

  8. Feb 9

    Sex Work, Bars, and Picnics before Stonewall, 1930s-1970s Detroit with Roey Thorpe

    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 how bars functioned not only as sites of leisure but as workplaces, political hubs, and mutual aid networks. The conversation foregrounds Detroit as a major site of lesbian and queer history, shaped by industrial labor, racial segregation, and the Great Migration. Together, Jack and Thorpe show that resistance, world-building, and dyke life were already flourishing for decades. The season closes with a powerful reminder: dyke history has always been rooted in labor, risk, pleasure, and the ongoing creation of livable worlds. ** Join Our Community Want to be part of our community? We'd love to have you. 😏 Come comment, connect, and get your gayme on! Newsletter to your inbox: Jack's Queer Geographies newsletter with detailed takes on each episode, & more about lezbiqueertrans spaces across timeInstagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistoriesRead and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister WisdomEmail us questions and comments at ourdykehistories@gmail.com** Credits Producer, Editor, Host, & Creative Director: Jack Gieseking Co-Producer: Julie Enszer & Sinister Wisdom Co-Producer & Co-Editor: Cade Waldo Co-Editor: Becca Moses Assistant Editor: Mel Whitesell Social Media: Audrey Wilkinson Interns: Michaela Hayes and Sophie McClain Consulting Producer: Rachel Fagen Music: Our theme song: "Like Honey" by Kit Orion https://www.kitorion.com/ CC-BY-NC-ND 2025. Write to us at ourdykehistories@gmail.com for permission to use any of our content.

    Sex Work, Bars, and Picnics before Stonewall, 1930s-1970s Detroit with Roey Thorpe
See All (21)

Trailer

5
out of 5
22 Ratings

About

Come for the history; stay for the revolution, gossip, and desire that built it. 🤌 About Us :: Decade by decade, Our Dyke Histories dives deep into the living, breathing past and present of lesbian, queer, bisexual, trans, & nonbinary communities. Each season traces how we made space for ourselves—sometimes in bars, bookstores, and protests; sometimes in basements, alleyways, and prisons; & always against the odds. Host :: Our Dyke Histories is hosted by historian, geographer, and environmental psychologist Dr. Jack Jen Gieseking, and produced in collaboration with Sinister Wisdom, the oldest lesbian multicultural literary and art journal. Season One :: Our first season traces the history of dyke bars* - yes, with an asterisk - including lesbian bars, queer parties, & trans hangouts. Before Pride marches and hashtags, there were bars, parties, and whispered invitations that built whole worlds. Our Dyke Histories uncovers the stories of the women, trans, and nonbinary people who turned repression into resistance and nightlife into liberation. Join Our Community :: Want to be part of our community? We'd love to have you. 😏 Come comment, connect, and get your gayme on! Newsletter to your inbox: Jack's Queer Geographies newsletter with detailed takes on each episode, & more about lezbiqueertrans spaces across timeInstagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistoriesRead and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister WisdomEmail us at ourdykehistories@gmail.comDonate 3 :: Subscribe and/or donate to the fabulous, in-print Sinister Wisdom, a multicultural lesbian literary & art journal founded in 1976. Sinister Wisdom recognizes the power of language and art to create radical, empowering, resilient, and joyous sanctuaries that build and sustain vibrant lesbian futures. What Does Our Tarot Reading Say about What's Next? :: In future seasons, we will move decade by decade through other defining places, objects, and ideas in lesbian, bi, queer, and trans history—mapping the worlds we’ve made and the futures we’re still imagining. Funny and fierce, sexy and smart, and full of dyke spirit, this podcast isn’t nostalgia—it’s a survival guide disguised as a love letter.

Information

  • Creator
    Jack Gieseking with Sinister Wisdom
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    21
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © CC-BY-NC-ND Jack Gieseking & Sinister Wisdom 2025
  • Show Website
    Our Dyke Histories

You Might Also Like