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Our Dyke Histories

Jack Gieseking with Sinister Wisdom

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!

Donate <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.

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  • 24 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 43 min
  • English

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  • S1 · E23
    Monday · 57 min

    206 to 43: The Rise, Fall, and Revival of Lesbian Bars

    How many lesbian bars were there in the 1980s? How do we know—and what happens when the numbers challenge the story we’ve been telling? In this episode of Our Dyke Histories, host Jack Gieseking sits down with sociologist Greggor Mattson to explain the history, geography, and changing meanings of queer bars across the United States. Greggor's research grew from comparing old editions of the Damron Guides, a directory that documented LGBTQ+ bars, cruising grounds, and other gathering places, into a wider study drawing on archival materials and interviews with more than 110 bar owners. The guides’ categories—from “Black patrons” and “ladies” to “trans friendly”—offer a fascinating, imperfect record of who gathered where, and how those classifications changed over time. Jack and Greggor talk about the rise of mixed-gender spaces, the decline of cruising and bars serving queer people of color, queer bars' hyperlocality, and the roles of AIDS activism, sobriety, changing social habits, economics, and gentrification. Shockingly, the most dramatic decline in dyke bars happened decades ago, particularly between the late 1980s and early 1990s. Meanwhile, recent counts show a resurgence: the biannual gay bar census counted 43 lesbian bars in spring 2025. The question isn’t simply whether bars are closing or opening. Instead we must ask: what kinds of spaces communities need, how they define them, and whose experiences get counted? Featuring: Jack Gieseking and Greggor Mattson. Books mentioned: Who Needs Gay Bars? by Greggor Mattson, and A Queer New York by Jack Gieseking. ** 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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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.

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  • S1 · E22
    October 11 · 33 min

    The Bar Is Just the Beginning, 2010s-2020s with Krista Burton, Theo Greene & Greggor Mattson

    What makes a queer bar last—and what happens when we stop expecting a bar to be just a bar? In this episode of Our Dyke Histories, Jack Gieseking returns with Krista Burton, Greggor Mattson, and Theo Greene to explore the changing worlds of dyke bars*. The conversation asks what these spaces need to survive, who gets to feel welcome, and how queer communities can keep building places to gather. Alcohol is no longer the only draw. The guests discuss sober spaces, cannabis usage, and other sports leagues, and the challenge of balancing a bar’s finances with the care its community requires. They also consider how consent culture has transformed queer nightlife. Trans people's presence and activism increased visibly in dyke bar spaces, making a pointed case for trans inclusion and centering everywhere. But building queer space is not only about keeping a business open. It is also about making room for intergenerational community. The guests talk about queer elders, younger people claiming their right to belong, and the need to create parties, dancing, shared music, and gatherings in places where a dedicated bar may be hours away. The episode closes with favorite bars, astrological signs, tarot, and ideas for bringing people together. Queer community doesn’t happen by accident. We make it—together. Featuring: Jack Gieseking, Krista Burton, Greggor Mattson, and Theo Greene. Books mentioned: Moby Dyke by Krista Burton; Who Needs Gay Bars? by Greggor Mattson; Not in My Gayborhood by Theo Greene; and A Queer New York by Jack Gieseking. ** 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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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.

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  • S1 · E21
    October 4 · 39 min

    Pulse, Trump, and the Politics of Queer Space, 2010s-2025 with Krista Burton, Theo Greene & Greggor Mattson

    What happens to queer nightlife when the bar is no longer just a place to drink, cruise, or hook up—but one of the places where we figure out how to be together? In this episode of Our Dyke Histories, Jack Gieseking talks with Krista Burton, Greggor Mattson, and Theo Greene about lesbian bars, queer spaces, and the changing social life of the 2010s and 2020s. They begin with the supposed “death” of the lesbian bar and the revival that is still happening, The conversation moves through the Obama years and the Trump era, the Pulse nightclub and Club Q shootings, COVID lockdowns, and the ways political danger can make queer spaces feel newly necessary. They talk about mutual aid, the role bars played during crisis, and what happened when a generation came of age during lockdown without nightlife as part of its route into queer community. Then there are the apps; what happens when we forget how to make small talk? Krista talks about “lesbian bar etiquette,” including the famous art of leaning and staring. Greggor argues that bars work best when they cultivate community rather than simply provide a hookup space. Theo reminds us that dancing, music, and shared activity can be their own kind of icebreaker. And of course, there’s drag bingo, viewing parties, karaoke, Olympic rugby, dildo races, lube wrestling, and the collective effervescence of watching something ridiculous together. Because queer nightlife isn't dead. We just have to remember how to talk to each other. ** 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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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.

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  • S1 · E20
    September 20 · 38 min

    The Party on Tuesday: The Space-Time of Black Queer Women, 2000s-2020s with Kemi Adeyemi and Nikki Lane

    What happens when we age out of the club, but don't age out of wanting to party? In part two of this conversation on Black queer women and Black trans folks, Jack Gieseking talks with Nikki Lane and Kemi Adeyemi about house parties, queer nightlife vs/& queer afternoonlife, aging, and the many ways Black queer people continue to make space for themselves. House parties have always been central to Black queer space-making. At home, you get to decide who is there, what music plays, and what can and cannot happen. For trans folks in particular, the house can offer an alternative to navigating transphobia in public nightlife. The conversation connects contemporary house parties to a much longer history of Black queer women throwing salons, house parties, and rent parties. They also talk about drinking and the growing desire for sober or alternative spaces. They dig deep to explore the racialized space-time of queer nightlife—and the remarkable labor of finding one another when the party keeps moving. It is not just the timing of these parties, but their mobility, though sometimes difficult to find, that allowed these parties to flourish. But this is also Black LGBTQ+ people's labor, to stay flexible, constantly track parties, and be mobile enough to get to them. Because while the spaces may change, and the parties may change, Black queer women and trans people will keep finding a way to them. ** 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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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.

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  • S1 · E19
    September 13 · 55 min

    Black Queer Women, Parties, and the Right to the City, 2000s-2020s with Kemi Adeyemi and Nikki Lane

    What does it take to make a Black queer space? What happens when the bar isn’t necessarily the "bar"?And what happens when the space you have is temporary, expensive, gentrifying, imperfect—or all four at once? In this episode of Our Dyke Histories, Jack Gieseking brings together two leading scholars of Black queer women’s spaces. Nikki Lane and Kemi Adeyemi research Black queer women and the politics of partying in Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Together, they rethink the relationship between queer parties, lesbian bars, race, racism, music, and the city. From mega clubs and warehouse parties to smaller bar takeovers and itinerant queer parties, Nikki and Kemi unpack gentrification, race, class, sexuality, gender, and the relentless labor required to create a space where people can actually have a good time. They ask why parties can sometimes be more flexible—and more sustainable—than permanent bars, and how the dance floor becomes a place to negotiate a right to the city. Along the way, we talk about homophobia, transphobia, class politics, party organizing, political expectations, and the imperfect realities of queer community. Because sometimes the politics are messy, the venue is terrible, the rent is rising—and we still find a way to party. Black queer women and trans folks keep finding ways to have a great time. They keep making space. And they keep finding ways to party. ** 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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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.

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  • S1 · E18
    September 7 · 51 min

    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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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.

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  • S1 · E17
    August 30 · 58 min

    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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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.

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  • S1 · E16
    August 23 · 44 min

    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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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.

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  • S1 · E15
    August 17 · 46 min

    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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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.

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  • S1 · E14
    August 9 · 56 min

    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 Clit 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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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.

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  • S1 · E13
    August 3 · 1 hr 7 min

    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 joy Queer archives and historical research Lesbian bars and super-parties Race, gender, and inclusion in nightlife The economics of queer space Page Hodel, On Our Backs, and lesbian chic Why queer history is always local Do 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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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.

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  • July 26 · 5 min

    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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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 Orion CC-BY-NC-ND 2026. Write to us at ourdykehistories@gmail.com for permission to use any of our content.

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  • S1 · E12
    February 9 · 30 min

    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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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.

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  • S1 · E11
    February 2 · 49 min

    A House Where Black Queers Go, 1930s-1970s Detroit with Roey Thorpe

    ** 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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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.

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  • S1 · E10
    January 26 · 37 min

    Finding the Movement: Queer Space, Dance, and Survival, 1970s Detroit, Chicago, & Minneapolis with Finn Enke

    In part two of their conversation about the 1970s, Jack Gieseking and Finn Enke travel through Chicago, Detroit, and Minneapolis to ask what it meant to find—and build—lesbian, queer, trans, feminist, and dyke worlds. Public space was never simply public, especially for lezbiqueertrans people: it was a maze of bars, parties, lesbian lines, softball fields, coffee houses, feminist presses, bookstores, shelters, and the pathways between them. Together, Jack and Finn talk about the racial segregation and exclusion built into bars, the violence of ID checking and “looks,” and the ways white feminist spaces often failed to recognize Black, brown, working-class, and trans gender expression. From the Wilder Ones softball team to the protests over the Town House bar, these spaces could last only a few years and still change lives. Finally, Jack and Finn turn toward disability, access, trans presence, aging, and the question of what it means to build spaces where more of us can actually be. ** 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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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: 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.

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  • S1 · E9
    January 19 · 37 min

    Dollar Parties, Bookstores, and Constellations of Lezbiqueertrans Life, 1970s Detroit, Chicago, & Minneapolis with Finn Enke

    Recorded just before the ICE invasions of the Upper Midwest, this episode takes up queer people’s enduring creativity in making life possible in the Upper Midwest during the 1970s—and why these histories matter urgently now. In this first of a two-part conversation, host Jack Gieseing interviews historian Finn Enke about lesbian, queer, and trans spaces with a focus on Detroit, Minneapolis–St. Paul, and Chicago. Moving beyond bars as isolated sites, the episode explores how networks of movement—what Enke calls “travel stories”—connected house parties, dollar parties, bookstores, coffeehouses, softball fields, warehouses, and bars into living constellations of queer life. Drawing on Enke’s book Finding the Movement, the conversation foregrounds how race, class, gender, music, and the built environment shaped who could gather where, who could dance, and who felt welcome. Particular attention is paid to Black lesbian dollar parties in Detroit, feminist institutions like Amazon Bookstore in Minneapolis, the impact of blue laws in Detroit, and the role of print culture such as Lesbian Connection and Dykes to Watch Out For, as well as the economic precarity, feminist organizing, and dancing that structured all of these spaces everywhere. The episode frames queer space not as permanent territory but as fragile, imaginative world-building sustained through movement, care, and resistance. ** 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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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: 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.

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  • S1 · E8
    January 12 · 44 min

    Lesbian Potentiality 4ever: Consciousness Raising & the Birth of WOC Feminism, 1970s

    Episode 8 of Our Dyke Histories takes us into the revolutionary cultural work of the late 1970s—from consciousness-raising circles to the birth of women of color feminism with all of the work that preceded the creation, production, and envisioning of the most core women's studies text of all time, This Bridge Called My Back. With SaraEllen Strongman, June Thomas, and Maxine Wolfe, host Jack Gieseking explores lesbian archives, lesbian newsletters, house parties, lesbian feminist presses, and dyke bars. All together, these spaces created a vast dyke ecosystem of queer life beyond nightlife alone. The episode spotlights Kitchen Table Press, the Combahee River Collective, and the grassroots publishing networks that preserved lesbian histories and made political coalitions possible. This is the story of how activists labored—in libraries, activist groups, non-profits before they were part of the non-profit industrial complex, prisons, community centers, and bars—to build the world we inherit today. ** 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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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: 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.

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  • S1 · E7
    January 5 · 50 min

    Softball, Separatism, and the Shescape Seven, 1970s

    Episode 7 of Our Dyke Histories breaks open the messy, brilliant contradictions of 1970s lesbian life. Join host Jack Jen Gieseking in conversation with lifelong activist Maxine Wolfe, historian and podcaster June Thomas, and literary scholar and historian SaraEllen Strongman. Together, they trace a decade shaped by separatism, softball leagues, racist bar door policies, the rise of the Christian Right, and the fierce groundwork of lesbian feminism. From Anita Bryant’s Save Our Children crusade to the Shescape Seven’s battle against racial discrimination, the episode reveals how queers built dyke infrastructures—publishers, collectives, consciousness-raising groups, bookstores, and bars—while fighting right-wing fearmongering that still echoes today. This is the decade where lesbian potentiality explodes. ** 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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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: 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.

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  • Dec 29, 2025 · 5 min

    Holigays Special: B.D. Woman's Blues for You

    While we'll back next, this short holigays hallo is sharing one of the queerest songs in blues history. Enjoy! B.D. Woman’s Blues Song by Lucille Bogan Coming a time, B.D. women ain't gon' need no men Coming a time, B.D. womens ain't gon' to need no men Oh, the way treat us is a lowdown and dirty sin B.D. women, you sure can't understand B.D. women, you sure can't understand They got a head like a sweet angel and they walk just like a natural man B.D. women, they all done learnt their plan B.D. women, they all done learnt their plan They can lay their jive just like a natural man B.D. women, B.D. women, you know they sure is rough B.D. women, B.D. women, you know they sure is rough They all drink up plenty whiskey and they sure will strut their stuff B.D. women, you know they work and make their dough B.D. women, you know they work and make their dough And when they get ready to spend it, they know they have to go ** Credits Producer, Editor, Host, & Creative Director: Jack Gieseking Co-Producer: Julie Enszer & Sinister Wisdom 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.

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  • S1 · E6
    Dec 22, 2025 · 56 min

    The Gender of Desire: Joan Nestle’s Last Interview

    In this deeply moving and often electric episode, Our Dyke Histories sits with legendary writer, activist, and Lesbian Herstory Archives co-founder Joan Nestle in her last interview as she reflects on the queer worlds that shaped her life in the 1940s–1960s. Joan guides us through her Friday night walks from a condemned Lower East Side tenement to the Sea Colony bar; the dangers and solidarities of queer street life; the violent policing and erotic possibility inside lesbian bars; and the role of race, class, and labor in shaping queer women’s worlds. Along the way, she brings us into Harlem drag balls with Mabel Hampton, the lesbian feminist relationship to the Women’s House of Detention, the labor histories behind Massachusetts’ Moody Gang, and the erotic power of butch-femme desire. This is Joan Nestle at her usual: always generous, political, and brilliant—offering a vivid map of mid-century queer survival 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 time Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom Email 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: 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.

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Showing 1–20 of 24 episodes