VRA 2023: Keynote Speaker Melissa Gohlke
The VRA Executive Board is pleased to announce the VRA 2023 Conference keynote speaker, Melissa Gohlke. Gohlke is an urban historian who specializes in San Antonio LGBTQ+ history. For over a decade, Gohlke has been researching queer history in San Antonio and South Texas and sharing her passion for this history through extensive outreach activities such as presentations, media interactions, exhibits, and written work. Gohlke is the Assistant Archivist for UTSA Libraries Special Collections.
In her presentation, titled “Cradle of Texas Gay Liberty: An Alternate History of the Alamo City,” Gohlke will explore hidden threads of San Antonio’s history and stitch together an alternative interpretation of the city’s historical narrative by examining a wealth of primary sources found in archives and personal collections. You can read more about her topic below. The Convocation Keynote is scheduled for September 26th, 2023, at 4:00 p.m. CDT, and will be open to the public via a YouTube livestream at this link: LINK TO STREAM. Please share widely!
Gay Paree Program, LGBTQ Ephemera, UTSA Special Collections
***
Cradle of Texas Gay Liberty: An Alternate History of the Alamo City
A historical record that focuses only on white, heteronormative society and events obscures many facets of San Antonio history. Peel back the veneer of normalcy and one can find rich, diverse, and unexpected strands of the city’s past. From female impersonators of the early 1900s to queer life in derelict spaces during the 1960s and finally, gay and lesbian bar culture of the1970s and beyond, the hidden threads of San Antonio’s history reveal themselves.
Lesbian prom. Lollie Johnson Papers, UTSA Special Collections
In this presentation, LGBTQ Historian Melissa Gohlke guides us on a virtual tour of the hidden history of San Antonio. We explore a subculture of people who pursued a gender bending lifestyle at the turn of the 20th century often amidst the prostitutes who plied their trade in the city’s infamous Red Light District. Vaudeville theaters and downtown cabarets provided venues in which middle and upper class women dominated the audiences. Fascination with gender transgressive performances made its way into elite affairs and fundraisers as affluent women took lessons learned at entertainment halls and appropriated them for their own purposes.
While gender bending displays were popular on the stages of local nightspots, exhibiting such displays outside a theatrical setting met with a different response. Gender transgression in public places was strictly forbidden. Police quickly snapped up and incarcerated men traipsing around in female attire on the sidewalks of San Antonio.
Jimmy James as Marilyn Monroe, performing at the Broadway Cabaret, 1982. Lollie Johnson Papers, UTSA Special Collections
Policing of sexual deviance and difference came not only from the city’s local police, but also from military police. Mediating social and sexual norms was viewed as pivotal for maintaining the physical and moral health of military personnel. Concerns over the spread of venereal disease among the troops underpinned these policing efforts. In the decades between the First and Second World Wars, local officials and military brass formalized mechanisms for surveillance over military personnel on the city’s streets.
Policing by military and local agents was a recurring threat to San Antonio’s emerging queer population. In the decades after WWII, gay and lesbian bars and gathering spots were under constant threat of police incursions. To avoid scrutiny, queer San Antonians selected havens in derelict places and country spaces that were off the radar of policing agencies. Within these spaces, they found social and sexual partners and laid the foundation for an emerging queer community. Over the decades, the city’s LGBTQ community has grown within and beyond spaces claimed by earlier generations. The area in and around San Antonio College emerged as visible queer turf and today is marked by gay bars, businesses, and gayborhoods where a rainbow crosswalk and Pride banners mark the area as safe and welcoming space for gay and trans San Antonians.
Lollie Johnson Papers, UTSA Special Collections
Abstract
A historical record that focuses on white, heteronormative society and events obscures many facets of San Antonio history. Peel back the veneer of normalcy and one can find rich, diverse, and unexpected strands of the city’s past. From female impersonators of the early 1900s to queer life in derelict spaces during the 1960s and finally, gay and lesbian bar culture of the1970s and beyond, the hidden threads of San Antonio’s history reveal themselves. In this presentation, LGBTQ Historian Melissa Gohlke explores these hidden histories and stitches together an alternative interpretation of the city’s historical narrative by examining a wealth of primary sources found in archives and personal collections.