Trigger warning: police, mentions of domestic violence
Bar Dykes is a one-act play by Merril Mushroom written in the 1980s, made into a zine format by Faythe Levine and Caroline Paquita in 2016. The play itself is based on an article that Mushroom wrote called “How to Engage in Courting Rituals 1950s Butch Style in the Bar,” which is exactly what it sounds like (you can read the article here) The inside cover of the zine includes a list of all seven steps of courting [see below]. These courting rituals provide necessary context for how the characters interact with each other.
The zine starts with a note from Faythe and Caroline, discussing how the zine version of Bar Dykes came to be. When Merril lost her home and archives in a fire, community members helped rebuild her collection by sending copies of her work, including Bar Dykes. Faythe first suggested the idea of turning the play into a zine over a lunch discussion about dyke bars. Part of the note is excerpted below:
With this publication, we hope to preserve not only the cultural legacy of Merril’s work but to share her herstory with a larger audience. Contemporary conversations surrounding queerness and gender nonconformity have made massive strides towards breaking down ignorance, intolerance, and hate. These advancements have been wrought with persecution, police brutality, and death. By publishing Bar Dykes and the accompanying interview, we not only celebrate the life and work of Merril Mushroom but also honor those who have fought to live freely, love whom they want, and make the world a safer, more accepting, and interesting place. We recognize there is still a long way to go–Bar Dykes offers new perspectives on our past, acting as a catalyst for progression into the future.
I, personally, agree. Not only is this such an eloquent way of putting it, but I’ve learned a lot from this zine. I read it for the first time in one sitting, and I knew I had to write about it. And I’ve thought about it for weeks afterwards, and have told all my friends to read it, too. Butch and Femme history hasn’t been discussed in any queer space I’ve been part of, and that includes my gender studies classes. When Butch/Femme is talked in online, mainstream queer circles, people are incorrectly assuming that it’s heteronormative. It’s annoying. I want more people to see the rich history of Butch/Femme culture.
How to Engage in Courting Rituals 1950’s Butch Style in the Bar:
Ritual #1: Cruising
Ritual#2: The Buying of the Drink
Ritual #3: The Playing of the Jukebox
Ritual #4: The Approach
Ritual #5: The Lighting of the Cigarette
Ritual #6: The Asking to Dance
Ritual #7: The Dancing
Bar Dykes describes a night at an unnamed bar in an undisclosed U.S. city in the 1950s. With the exception of the three characters who are new to the city (Sherry, Elaine, and Trick) and the mysterious newcomer (Lorraine), everyone knows each other in some way. And the bartender, Bo, knows them too. Mixed in with 1950s slang and complexities of romance and lesbian social dynamics are pockets of humor and critiques of state violence. I think it’s such a cool concept, to walk into a bar/restaurant/place that isn’t home or work and have the regulars there know you. To be a regular yourself. It’s not something I’ve had a chance to experience, especially with other lesbians.
The play starts with some small talk between Bo, the bartender, and Rusty, a regular at this bar. Bo is the character in this play that talks sense. She’s got the lowdown. She’s very cool and wise. The latter asks about Jo Ellen, who seems to be a regular, but makes no appearances on the page. According to Bo, Jo Ellen is a gay girl who was broken up with by another off-page character and decided to go back to exclusively dating men. Rusty and Bo both make their own comments. Part of it is social commentary, and part of it is them goofing around (I loved it though):
Rusty: [shaking her head] It’ll never work. Jo Ellen’s gay. And once a woman’s been with a woman, she’ll never be satisfied with a man.
Bo: I’m hip. I wish her all the luck in the world getting out of “the life”, but she’ll never be satisfied without a woman now.
Rusty: I’m hip. But some have to learn the hard way — if you’re queer, you’ll never be straight.
Bo: [striking an orator’s pose] Playing the game don’t make you a member of the team.
Rusty: [striking the same pose] Sitting on eggs don’t make you a chicken.
This story is very familiar to me. There’s a silent expectation from some of my straight friends and family members to either be straight, or to return to straightness after coming out as queer. Letting myself love women has been extremely freeing–especially when I don’t desire romance or sex with men. While this particular quote doesn’t take into account the existence of bisexuality, it makes an important point that straightness and being closeted can be painful and disappointing once someone has experienced being queer. It still happens today, but I would guess that it was more common in the 195os, when this is set.
Another important point is how Bo refers to queerness and being out as a gay person as “The Life.” This phrasing nods toward the sacrifices someone has to make to live as an out queer person in this era, as well as the sense of community and solidarity that comes with it. As I read the list of characters and looked at their experiences throughout this play, I noticed how different they all are. Every character doesn’t belong the same racial group, isn’t the same body size, and doesn’t present their gender in the same way. They’re brought together by their need for community, and held together in solidarity while navigating a hetero-patriarchal society. Even when characters make small talk, it is underscored by familiarity and intimacy. Cynthia and Rusty both make a point of asking Bo about Carol (an off-page character with some kind of relationship to Bo) within moments of entering the bar. And even with the quote above, Rusty and Bo striking identical poses and joking was endearing, radiant, and revolutionary. I really love to see it!
Similar to how Bo uses the phrase “The Life”, “Found Out” is a written as a proper noun, even though it’s a pretty common combination of words. It’s used when Joyce first comes into the bar, distraught and looking to get drunk. It’s later revealed that Joyce is upset because her mother “Found Out” she was gay. Linda, who’s also in the bar, asks “Was it bad?” and Cynthia replies “It’s always bad.” And it makes sense. Like I mentioned earlier, openly refusing straightness can be dangerous–you risk losing everything. I’ve lost friends almost every time I’ve come out, whether as not straight, or not cisgender.
Bette and Andy, a femme-presenting couple, come into the bar dressed alike. Halfway through the play, Andy makes a comment about Cynthia, who is dancing with Elaine, being promiscuous. Bette then suggests that Andy is jealous of Elaine, and wants to be the one dancing with Cynthia, who she was once romantically involved with. And from Andy’s reaction, it’s clear that Bette struck a nerve–and a very accurate one at that.
Bette: [grabs her by the arm] You whore! You do! [shouts] You wish you were still with Cynthia and not with me, don’t you? [everyone else in the bar stops and looks at Bette, then back to what they were doing. Cynthia shakes her head and rolls her eyes, then engages Elaine in “serious conversation” to distract her from what seems to be a fight over Cynthia.]
Andy: [pulls away from Bette] You keep your fucking hands off me…
Bette: [grabs her again] I’ll do whatever the fuck I please with you. You’re my girl [shakes her.]
Andy: [swings back and smacks Bette, shrieks] I said keep your fucking hands off me!
In this scene, Bette is verbally and physically abusive towards Andy, grabbing her arm and calling her a whore. The fact that Bette treats Andy like property in this moment is concerning and jarring. Nobody intervenes in Bette and Andy’s argument, but everybody looks their way. But this scenario is very concerning, and somebody should’ve intervened and protected Andy. There’s the pervasive idea that a couple fighting in public (even when one is very clearly being verbally, emotionally, or physically abusive) is “their business,” and no one else’s. for example, Bo says to them when things get more intense/physical: “if you wanna fight, go on home and do it.” Furthermore, Bo seems to be equating the way Bette acted towards her partner with the fact that Andy felt the need to smack her partner away in self defense. It seems like everyone is allowing it because Bette is a woman. If a man was acting this way, everyone would have immediately clocked it as domestic violence. During this scene, I kept thinking, what kind of community is this? Why is nobody concerned?
Cynthia is the only character in this play described as “ki-ki,” which refers to someone who is neither butch nor femme, or moves between both. In response to Cynthia’s question about whether anyone has tried “flipping” Rusty (meaning she would become femme), Bo makes a comment about Rusty being a “real stone butch,” in comparison to what she calls “wishy-washy ki-ki girls.” This comment is very clearly directed toward Cynthia, and even though Bo attempts to indicate that she’s joking with a playful punch on Cynthia’s arm, Cynthia is bothered by it.
But there’s some truth in jest, as illustrated by how the scene plays out:
Cynthia: [defensively] Listen, sometimes I like to be the butch, and sometimes I like to be the femme. Depends on who I’m interested in. Wishy-washy has nothing to do with it.
Bo: [seriously] Well, a girl has to be one or the other; other-wise, how would she know who she could go with?
Cynthia: [offended] I’m hip that some of you tough butches don’t have a very high opinion of us ki-ki girls, but I think we have it best of all, because we can go with whoever we want to. I mean, look at poor Irish and Kathy — they both really dig the hell out of each other; but they won’t get it on because they’re both too butch, and neither one wants to catch shit for going femme. But anyone can tell that they’re really crazy about each other.
The way Bo speaks about the categories of butch and femme and their roles in the lesbian community leaves minimal room for those who don’t fit cleanly into one category, as well as butch4butch and femme4femme relationships. The existence of categories should be accompanied by space to exist outside, between, and around them. Cynthia’s example about Irish and Kathy applies to the earlier conversation about what would happen to Rusty if Lorraine turned out to be butch as well. Rusty wouldn’t have to become femme, and neither would Lorraine. They could be butch, and date each other. This part of the play stuck out to me because I see myself in Cynthia more than anyone else.
Around the same time I read Bar Dykes, I read a few issues of Brat Attack. There was this article in Brat Attack #5 called “Butch: An Evolving Identity,” written by Lori Hartmann. Like my past self, Hartmann had internalized a ton of incorrect, butchphobic, and femmephobic ideas about butch and femme identities, and they confessed to associating butch with “looking or acting like a male, and that it was shameful and bad.” It reminds me of how so many lesbians (including myself) have thought that their attraction to women was gross or predatory. That gender-nonconformity meant being more like a predatory, misogynistic man (it doesn’t). People assume so often that butch/femme is trying to mimic heterosexuality, and it sucks to see that rhetoric resurfacing in the queer community.
Hartmann ends this essay with a list of questions that they asked themself while unpacking beliefs and biases about both butches and femmes. I bring this up because I felt that almost all the characters in the play would benefit from asking themselves these questions, as most lesbians would.
How do you identify–butch, femme, butch queen, glamor femme, dandy, tomboy femme, femmy-butch, butchy-femme, sissyboy, princess, scruffy punk femme, androgyne, fagdyke, other?
Who are you attracted to? Is there a connection between who you’re attracted to and how you identify yourself? E.g., do you call yourself a femme because you are attracted to butches?
How do you define butch or femme or whatever term you choose to identify yourself?
What are some of the beliefs you have about butches/femmes? E.g., butches don’t have feelings, femmes are histrionic.
If you’re butch, do you resent femmes for their access to heterosexual privilege because they can be mistaken for straight women? If you’re femme, do you resent butches for their ability to pass for men or their being easily recognized as dykes?
Do you feel that FTMs are more butch than butch women? What value do you attach to “degree of butchness”? Is there such a thing?
In your personal experience, what is the relationship between maleness and butchness? (mas-culinity and butchulinity?) Between femaleness/ femininity and femmeness?
Write about your experiences of being neither or both genders. Describe any characters you might use during role play.
In the last pages of the play, the bar is raided by the police. It’s drawing close to the bar’s closing time, and several characters have left, either alone or with someone. There are seven characters still in the bar when the police arrive: Bo, Rusty, Lorraine, Linda, Sherry, Andy, and Trick. The police officers ask each person for ID, and everyone obliges. Then, several characters are arrested:
- Linda and Sherry – perversion
- Trick – Suspicion
- Rusty – impersonating
These charges are pretty bogus. The cops are manipulating legal language to fit their homophobic and transphobic biases. In the case of Linda and Sherry, the policeman cannot even name a reason to arrest them. Instead, he comes up with the following:
Policeman #1: Who cares? Perversion. I’ll thing of something. I saw what you goddam bulldykes were doing. Makes me sick. [he spits on the floor.] Now, let’s go, or I’ll charge you with resisting arrest.
It’s clear that the police officer is abusing his power, justifying it with bigotry. Trick and Rusty are masculine presenting, and this is clear to both police officers. Once again, they make up reasons to arrest them. It mimics the way black men are stopped on the street or in their cars for “fitting the description” or for a “routine traffic stop.”
Andy is one of the more femme-presenting people in this bar. Instead of facing discrimination for being gender nonconforming, she faces a strange combination of sexual harassment and assumed victimhood at the hands of the lesbians at this bar:
Policeman #2: …[He looks at Andy] Hm, I’ve seen you around, too. Don’t you know you can get into trouble hanging around with these bulldaggers?
Andy: Fuck off, you bastard.
Policeman #2: [laughs] You’re a real sweetheart, aintcha? [His eyes narrow] You can just come along with me too. I’ll give you something to take the sass out of you when we get to the station.
In this situation, Andy is viewed as an object that can be “fixed” by a man. This is heavily implied in the last line of the above dialogue. Also, the police officer’s words rely on the belief that masculine lesbians will “corrupt” feminine straight women. Not only is this not close to what’s happening, but it also reinforces stereotypes of what a lesbian is supposed to look like.
Lorraine, however, does not interact with the police once. She is, in a way, invisible during this scene–an observer. Bo also has limited interaction, but because she’s the bartender, she takes the responsibility of trying to get the girls out of police custody. In the last lines, she is described making a phone call explaining to another person (named Eddie) what went down. Then, she returns to what she was doing when the play started: polishing glasses, with Lorraine at a table in the corner. The final descriptions don’t show any interaction between them, as the early exposition did; Lorraine was described as “watching her [Bo] hungrily,” putting new meaning to the note in Bo’s character description where she is called “the type every young bar dyke falls in love with.” Lorraine is the young bar dyke in question (which I totally didn’t realize until I reread the play for the third time)
The police’s and behavior points the audience back to the roots of queer liberation movements, which fought against police control and violence enacted on queer, especially gender non-conforming, people. And it’s a sour note to leave the play off on, but maybe Merril Mushroom wanted it to be that way.
Lauren (they/them) is a summer 2025 QZAP intern. They are an undergraduate student at Emory University studying creative writing and gender studies. They are Haitian-American, queer, and from rural Maryland. In their free time, Lauren writes various things, reads, does crossword puzzles, and cooks.
