Stoneham, "How Prophecy Got Her Queer Back: (Re)discovering the Prophetic at the Rainbow Lounge, 40 Years and Eight Minutes Later" (master's thesis, Texas Christian University, 2010) and John D. 2 Besides the studies of San Antonio cited later in the essay, some relevant theses and dissertations of interest include: Kyle Edelbrock, "Taking it to the Streets: The History of Gay Pride Parades in Dallas, Texas, 1972–1986" (master's thesis, University of North Texas, 2015) Carl J. Few studies-most of them unpublished dissertations and theses-about LGBTQ+ life in Texas during this period currently exist. 1 I follow Michael Omi and Howard Winant's definition of racialization: "the extension of racial meaning to a previously racially unclassified social relationship, social practice or group." Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States (New York: Routledge, 2014), 111. In other words, although attentive to patron activities, demographics, and police encounters, the bar sketches investigate how these histories influenced the creation of gay space, which racialized subjects had access to gay space, and how that space was racialized or imbued with ideas about race as a consequence. Together, these objects of analysis not only reveal the centrality of the gay bar to LGBTQ+ life in early 1960s San Antonio, but they also provide clues as to how the city's colonial and military history affected the formation of racialized gay space. I develop the bar sketches primarily through my interview with Weathers-with occasional references to how she fictionalizes them in "Cheers"-and the archival photos from ONE. I approach "Cheers" as a historical document that records how Weathers imaginatively used San Antonio to historicize and process her experience of the movement for LGBTQ+ rights. Structurally, I begin with a brief history of San Antonio to situate us in place before analyzing how Weathers narrativizes her experience in the city in her 1987 self-published short story "Cheers Everybody!" Next, I sketch four real historical bars that Weathers frequented: The Acme, Fernando's Hideaway, The Country, and Mary Ellen's Top Hat. This essay combines information from that interview with the short story and photos from the Weathers Collection at ONE to develop a historical case study of LGBTQ+ experience in early 1960s San Antonio. Agreeing to an interview with me after an archivist put us in touch, Weathers and I spent a temperate, sunny southern California day together, lunching at a local café, walking the nearby boardwalk, and sitting down in her living room for a two-hour recorded interview.
HOUSTON GAY BARS 80S AND 90S SAN JACINTO ARCHIVE
But as seasoned researchers already know and novices quickly learn, the archive is full of such surprises.
I never expected to come across photos of gay bars in pre-Stonewall San Antonio or a short story Weathers had written about her time in them. I had spent the past few weeks perusing her papers at the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives in Los Angeles mostly on a whim: she was one of the few individuals in the archive who hailed from the US South-Texas specifically-and as a queer southerner from Texas myself, I wondered what insights her collection might offer about LGBTQ+ experience in our home state.
In October of 2015, I met with Carolyn Weathers in her condo in Long Beach, California. I remembered back to my coming-out days in San Antonio, Texas, in the early 1960s and realized that I had lived long enough and been out long enough to be historic. From a variety of perspectives, and with an emphasis upon the US South, this series, edited by Eric Solomon, offers critical analysis of LGBTQ+ people, practices, spaces, and places. Queer Intersections / Southern Spaces is a collection of interdisciplinary, multimedia publications that explore, trouble, and traverse intersections of queer experiences, past, present, and future.