#28: Last Night at the Telegraph Club
On queer space, Dyke Beer, and realistic historical fiction
Earlier this week, my girlfriend sent me a post from @gaybarsthataregone on Instagram and we were both incredibly excited to learn that the site of our first date, Art Bar, was originally a lesbian bar called Sea Colony.
Popular in the 50s and 60s, the bar had “a whole system of warning lights, codes, and back rooms to guard against police harassment” and protect patrons from arrest and violence. It was a sanctuary for lesbians at the time, and has been memorialized in several short stories by writer and activist Joan Nestle, which I plan to read this weekend.
There’s something poetic about the fact that we first met in the exact spot that countless other queer women met and danced and drank and hooked up roughly six decades prior, but I will avoid getting sappy here because this is not that kind of newsletter.
The space is no longer a lesbian bar, which sucks but is not surprising, and is a great tie-in to Dyke Beer. I’ve briefly touched on this project before, but it pays tribute to lost dyke space and aims to create future ones. They also make very good beer.
I had the chance to talk to organizer Sarah Hallonquist last week about her activism and this project, and our conversation will be published in tomorrow’s edition of coolstuff.nyc. Check it out, especially if you’re located in NYC—there are dozens of bars already serving cans of Dyke Beer, and lots of events coming up in the next few months.
Our historical discovery also ties in nicely with this week’s book rec, which is set at the same time the Sea Colony was a lesbian hotspot but on the complete other side of the country. Enjoy!
— Becca
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
Fiction, January 2021
TW: racism, homophobia, police brutality
At the height of the Red Scare in 1954, San Francisco is not a safe place to be Chinese. It's also not a safe place to be a lesbian, and 17-year-old Lily Hu is both.
It all starts when Lily sees a newspaper advertisement for a male impersonator. She’s immediately taken by the accompanying photo, of the debonair Tommy Andrews, and tucks it away into one of her books. Later, she stares at it in the privacy of her bedroom and can’t quite put her finger on what it is about Tommy that gives her “a hot and restless urge to look.”
Shortly after, she finds herself drawn to a white girl at her school named Kath. Their friendship is a distant one until Kath saves Lily from having to attend a school dance with a boy (classic), and Kath reveals that she’s already seen Tommy perform at the Telegraph Club. They arrange to sneak out and go to the club together, and what follows is a full-on sexual awakening.
Their romance is sweet and very true to what it feels like to be 17 and in love and wholly obsessed with another person in the way that only teenagers can be. But what’s more interesting, at least to me, is how Lily navigates her seemingly conflicting identities as a “good Chinese girl” and a queer person.
Though Lily and Kath both put themselves at risk every time they go to the Telegraph Club, Lily also has to consider the looming threat of deportation that hangs over her family. With her father’s citizenship papers already confiscated, she certainly doesn’t want to get involved with the police—so what’s she supposed to do when the only queer space she knows faces the constant threat of raids?
To the book’s credit, it doesn’t romanticize the era like we see so often of stories set in the 50s. It’s a time when this country was even more blatantly racist and homophobic than it is today, without bothering to pretend to be progressive like it sometimes does now. The State Department was systematically finding and bullying “perverts” out of their jobs, Postal Service was screening mail for homosexual content, and police surveillance and arrests were common occurrences at queer spaces.
The story strikes the right balance for a YA novel, with just enough darkness to feel believable, but a hopeful-ish ending that didn’t leave me as sad as I’d expected. It’s the kind of book I wish I’d had when I was a deeply closeted teenager, and I’m just really happy that it exists.
Queer points:
+7 for a sexual awakening at a drugstore, sparked by lesbian pulp fiction
+11 for an after-school rendezvous in the classroom of a teacher (and bowling coach) who was most definitely gay
Buy it from your favorite local bookstore on Bookshop