This week I talked with author Sarah F. Pearlman about “Bar Time: A Lesbian Rite of Passage: Bar Stories by Older Lesbians” which is a new collection of writings by 26 older lesbians telling their not-to-be-erased lesbian history through stories, poetry, a play and a collection of beloved disco songs. “Bar Time” was produced by the Boston OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change) editorial team including Alice Fisher, Sarah F. Pearlman and Sue Reamer. The stories mostly come from the Boston area but also include contributors from New Hampshire, Connecticut, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Minnesota, California, Washington & Melbourne, Australia. Pearlman stated, “Some of our writers were adolescents when they entered their first lesbian bar. To our generation, lesbian bars were a part of our lives & an opportunity to meet women different than ourselves. Where lesbian-feminists met bar dykes.” For most lesbians of our older LGBTQ generation bars were the only place to go to connect with other women to have their first meeting of other lesbians & connect with a lesbian social world. Before Stonewall since it was illegal to be LGBTQ, bar owners had to pay off the police to keep bars from being raided because selling liquor to gay men & lesbians was also illegal. After Stonewall things slowly changed for our LGBTQ community & by 1987 there were an estimated two hundred lesbian bars nationwide. That number has dwindled to a mere fifteen lesbian bars left in 2021. The booklet for “Bar Time: A Lesbian Rite of Passage” will be released in a few week but you can request a PDF. I talked to Sarah about what she hopes to accomplish with “Bar Time: A Lesbian Rite of Passage” & her spin on our LGBTQ issues. (Graphic by Geri Davis)
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