Northfield author Krista Burton on her quest to visit every remaining lesbian bar in the country
Krista Burton author of ‘Moby Dyke’, a book that follows her journey to visit the last 20 lesbian bars remaining in the country.
Courtesy of Tanya Sweetpea Konobeck
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You may already know that Pride Month began as a riot against police harassing LGBTQ+ people at a gay bar in New York City called The Stonewall Inn. Gay bars have long been lauded as safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people to celebrate who they are and explore their identity, but over the past 30 years, the number of lesbian bars in the U.S. has shrunk from 206 to just about 20.
To Northfield, Minn., author Krista Burton, these closing gathering spaces represent a huge loss. Her new book, “Moby Dyke,” follows her journey to visit the last 20 lesbian bars remaining in the country. She joined MPR News producer Ellen Finn to talk about it.
Burton will speak at Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis on Monday at 7 p.m. along with state Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley. Burton will also be at Content Bookstore in Northfield at 7 p.m. on Thursday.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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Audio transcript
SPEAKER: You may already know that Pride Month began as a riot against police harassing LGBT people at a gay bar in New York City called the Stonewall Inn. Gay bars have long been lauded as safe spaces for LGBTQ people to celebrate who they are and explore their identity. But over the past 30 years, the number of lesbian bars in the US has shrunk from 206 to just about 20.
To Northfield author Krista Burton, those closing gathering spaces represent a big loss. Her new book Moby Dyke, follows a journey to visit the last 20 lesbian bars remaining in the country. She joined producer Ellen Finn to talk about it.
ELLEN FINN: Krista, thanks so much for being here.
KRISTA BURTON: Thank you so much.
ELLEN FINN: You write with so much enthusiasm about lesbian bars and dedicated a whole year of your life to visiting them. Why are they so special to you?
KRISTA BURTON: OK, so I am 40, and I came out like 20ish, 21ish. So I've been out and gay for 20 years. And I spent all of my queer youth, queer growing into myself, adulthood in lesbian and queer spaces. that is where I did all of my socializing, if I possibly could.
You know that T-shirt that's like, Sounds gay, I'm in? That is me. If it sounds gay, I'm going.
And so these spaces were huge for me. Having those spaces was not just a formative experience. It was my experience. And I love them. And I also feel like it's incredibly important for the younger generation to have spaces like that.
ELLEN FINN: You came up with a bunch of reasons in your book about why lesbian bars might be closing at such a fast rate. Can you tell me just a few of those reasons you found most compelling?
KRISTA BURTON: Sure. I ended up coming out with 10 to 12, maybe more reasons, all of them intersecting. Gentrification is number one. If you don't own the building that your bar is in, your landlord at any time can be like-- even if you've been there for 20 years, can be like, let's put condos here. Sounds good. And just your bar can close.
The next one is women and queers not making as much money as cis men and not being able to spend as much money as cis men going out. That's a big one as well. And when they do make money, tend-- frequently will choose to spend that money on something else.
And third, I would say, is-- the one I heard a lot of was dating apps because at this point, you don't need to necessarily bring someone to these bars to verify that they're queer. You don't need to go to these bars to meet someone who you are pretty sure is queer. So those were the top three that I heard, I think, the most, from owners especially.
Then there's offshoots. One of them is a lack of succession planning. That was one I hadn't even thought of.
Let's say you own a bar. And you're fairly young and very healthy. And maybe you unexpectedly die. If there's no plans in place for someone else to take the bar, then who does the bar belong to?
And then I heard a really, really compelling reason that I never even considered toward the end of my trip. And that was the fact that it's really hard to run a bar. And it's exhausting.
The hours are ridiculous. And sometimes the owners have just had enough. After a couple of years, maybe a couple of years, maybe 10, maybe even 20, they're just like, I am ready to be home at night and just chill. It would be great.
ELLEN FINN: So there are so many reasons. And yet you write in your book about this paradox that people are so sad when lesbian bars close. And they really care for these bars. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're showing up to these bars. What's that all about?
KRISTA BURTON: For a lot of queer people, especially if they were out in their 20s or 30s and spending a lot of time in one of these spaces in particular-- let's say you have a favorite that you go to all the time with your friends. And then as you age out of that period of time in your life, where everybody is fairly young-- most people are single. Most people are having lots of little dramas in their lives.
And then people partner up. Or they just stop going out as much to that bar. So that bar was formative in your queer experience. And then you don't go as much.
And so when it closes, and you haven't been in, let's say, five years. You haven't really gone there very often in five years. When it closes, it feels horrible.
It feels like you are fully shutting the door on a large chapter of your life. And there-- you can never-- there's no place for you to put that. You can't just walk in the doors randomly on a Saturday and be like, oh, my God, I remember this.
You can't do it anymore. That is your past homecoming. And so it feels awful when these bars close. But also, we do need to go to the bars to keep them open.
ELLEN FINN: You point out in your book that something like 1 in 5 of Gen Z identifies as queer. Do you think we still need lesbian bars?
KRISTA BURTON: Totally. I think we do still need lesbian bars. I feel like as society becomes more accepting, the need is different. It's not like in the '50s, in the '60s, in the '70s and '80s. It's not like that, where that was the only place you could possibly go and either meet other queers or dance with other queers.
Now, in general-- and this is me speaking as a cis, able-bodied white woman. But now, you can, in most major cities, feel relatively OK, I think, being out with your queer friends in a restaurant or in a bar. That desperate need for a space where you can do that and have it be the only space there is, that is not here anymore as much.
But I do think the need is-- for me, it has more changed into much more like a desperate want. I still want very much to be surrounded by queers completely. And it does kind of-- it feels like a need. I need to not go to an Irish pub. I need that.
ELLEN FINN: You have this really infectious enthusiasm writing about lesbian bars. And your book is just full of jokes. It's totally hilarious. It would have been really easy to make this book about the important role lesbian bars have played in history or even talk about queer theory. Why did you choose to avoid going down those routes?
KRISTA BURTON: I've always had a really hard time with queer academic theory. I struggle to read it. I struggle to understand it. And I don't find it accessible.
And the most major reason is because I didn't want to. I wanted to show what these bars meant to me. And for me, these bars have been almost exclusively queer joy. And I feel like not enough media in general reflects how much joy you get from these spaces and the queer community. I wanted to reflect queer joy.
ELLEN FINN: As far as I know, Minnesota does not currently have any lesbian bars. Is that correct?
KRISTA BURTON: That is crushingly true. For a brief moment, for one year in my queer early youth, there was a bar called Pi. And I basically lived there.
[CHUCKLES]
It was-- they let me have my birthday party where everybody else was flat-footed. And I think this was my 23rd birthday. And they let me be on roller skates the entire night. I loved that bar. Shout out to Pi, RIP.
And we have tons of things like Lesbian Nights. There's GRRRL Scout. And there's a couple others. And then there's events all the time. But we don't have a regular place.
And the one thing that does give me hope, though, is there's a new group that is called The Brass Strap. And they are fundraising to open a bar. And I hope that they get there. I hope that they open a bar because I would love that.
We need one. There are so many queer people, especially in the cities. We need one. We need a space.
ELLEN FINN: Maybe you should be the one to open the new Minnesota lesbian bar. You spent so much time studying them. Have you ever considered being a part of opening one yourself?
KRISTA BURTON: [CHUCKLES] I love this question. OK, so my partner is Davin. Davin is a trans man that-- and we are married.
And we have spent so much time discussing this exact thing, you wouldn't believe it. Davin's ready tomorrow. He's ready to open a bar tomorrow.
I, having talked to so many owners, know a little bit more about, let's call it "the lifestyle." [CHUCKLES] And I definitely want to be home in the evenings and not-- I don't know that I want to own a bar. But we talk about all the time, what it would have.
We're really rooting for a beach volleyball court, even though it's Minnesota. I mean, come on. It could be-- it could really be something.
Maybe it could turn into an ice rink in the winter? We could have hockey. I mean, I don't know.
But, yeah, our dream is to have one in Northfield. There's actually this building in Northfield that is abandoned that looks out over the river. And I am-- it's owned by somebody. I don't know who.
And it is incredible. It's got the only patio that actually overlooks the river. Who owns this building? I want to own it.
Imagine, [CHUCKLES] this could be the destination lesbian bar. I mean, why not?
[CHUCKLING]
ELLEN FINN: Well, Krista, thank you so much for chatting with me.
KRISTA BURTON: Oh, it has been awesome. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER: That was producer Ellen Finn talking to Northfield author Krista Burton about her new book Moby Dyke. She'll be giving an author talk at the wonderful Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis this evening, 7:00 PM, along with State Senator Erin Maye Quade. And she'll be at Content Bookstore in Northfield 7:00 PM this Thursday.
To Northfield author Krista Burton, those closing gathering spaces represent a big loss. Her new book Moby Dyke, follows a journey to visit the last 20 lesbian bars remaining in the country. She joined producer Ellen Finn to talk about it.
ELLEN FINN: Krista, thanks so much for being here.
KRISTA BURTON: Thank you so much.
ELLEN FINN: You write with so much enthusiasm about lesbian bars and dedicated a whole year of your life to visiting them. Why are they so special to you?
KRISTA BURTON: OK, so I am 40, and I came out like 20ish, 21ish. So I've been out and gay for 20 years. And I spent all of my queer youth, queer growing into myself, adulthood in lesbian and queer spaces. that is where I did all of my socializing, if I possibly could.
You know that T-shirt that's like, Sounds gay, I'm in? That is me. If it sounds gay, I'm going.
And so these spaces were huge for me. Having those spaces was not just a formative experience. It was my experience. And I love them. And I also feel like it's incredibly important for the younger generation to have spaces like that.
ELLEN FINN: You came up with a bunch of reasons in your book about why lesbian bars might be closing at such a fast rate. Can you tell me just a few of those reasons you found most compelling?
KRISTA BURTON: Sure. I ended up coming out with 10 to 12, maybe more reasons, all of them intersecting. Gentrification is number one. If you don't own the building that your bar is in, your landlord at any time can be like-- even if you've been there for 20 years, can be like, let's put condos here. Sounds good. And just your bar can close.
The next one is women and queers not making as much money as cis men and not being able to spend as much money as cis men going out. That's a big one as well. And when they do make money, tend-- frequently will choose to spend that money on something else.
And third, I would say, is-- the one I heard a lot of was dating apps because at this point, you don't need to necessarily bring someone to these bars to verify that they're queer. You don't need to go to these bars to meet someone who you are pretty sure is queer. So those were the top three that I heard, I think, the most, from owners especially.
Then there's offshoots. One of them is a lack of succession planning. That was one I hadn't even thought of.
Let's say you own a bar. And you're fairly young and very healthy. And maybe you unexpectedly die. If there's no plans in place for someone else to take the bar, then who does the bar belong to?
And then I heard a really, really compelling reason that I never even considered toward the end of my trip. And that was the fact that it's really hard to run a bar. And it's exhausting.
The hours are ridiculous. And sometimes the owners have just had enough. After a couple of years, maybe a couple of years, maybe 10, maybe even 20, they're just like, I am ready to be home at night and just chill. It would be great.
ELLEN FINN: So there are so many reasons. And yet you write in your book about this paradox that people are so sad when lesbian bars close. And they really care for these bars. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're showing up to these bars. What's that all about?
KRISTA BURTON: For a lot of queer people, especially if they were out in their 20s or 30s and spending a lot of time in one of these spaces in particular-- let's say you have a favorite that you go to all the time with your friends. And then as you age out of that period of time in your life, where everybody is fairly young-- most people are single. Most people are having lots of little dramas in their lives.
And then people partner up. Or they just stop going out as much to that bar. So that bar was formative in your queer experience. And then you don't go as much.
And so when it closes, and you haven't been in, let's say, five years. You haven't really gone there very often in five years. When it closes, it feels horrible.
It feels like you are fully shutting the door on a large chapter of your life. And there-- you can never-- there's no place for you to put that. You can't just walk in the doors randomly on a Saturday and be like, oh, my God, I remember this.
You can't do it anymore. That is your past homecoming. And so it feels awful when these bars close. But also, we do need to go to the bars to keep them open.
ELLEN FINN: You point out in your book that something like 1 in 5 of Gen Z identifies as queer. Do you think we still need lesbian bars?
KRISTA BURTON: Totally. I think we do still need lesbian bars. I feel like as society becomes more accepting, the need is different. It's not like in the '50s, in the '60s, in the '70s and '80s. It's not like that, where that was the only place you could possibly go and either meet other queers or dance with other queers.
Now, in general-- and this is me speaking as a cis, able-bodied white woman. But now, you can, in most major cities, feel relatively OK, I think, being out with your queer friends in a restaurant or in a bar. That desperate need for a space where you can do that and have it be the only space there is, that is not here anymore as much.
But I do think the need is-- for me, it has more changed into much more like a desperate want. I still want very much to be surrounded by queers completely. And it does kind of-- it feels like a need. I need to not go to an Irish pub. I need that.
ELLEN FINN: You have this really infectious enthusiasm writing about lesbian bars. And your book is just full of jokes. It's totally hilarious. It would have been really easy to make this book about the important role lesbian bars have played in history or even talk about queer theory. Why did you choose to avoid going down those routes?
KRISTA BURTON: I've always had a really hard time with queer academic theory. I struggle to read it. I struggle to understand it. And I don't find it accessible.
And the most major reason is because I didn't want to. I wanted to show what these bars meant to me. And for me, these bars have been almost exclusively queer joy. And I feel like not enough media in general reflects how much joy you get from these spaces and the queer community. I wanted to reflect queer joy.
ELLEN FINN: As far as I know, Minnesota does not currently have any lesbian bars. Is that correct?
KRISTA BURTON: That is crushingly true. For a brief moment, for one year in my queer early youth, there was a bar called Pi. And I basically lived there.
[CHUCKLES]
It was-- they let me have my birthday party where everybody else was flat-footed. And I think this was my 23rd birthday. And they let me be on roller skates the entire night. I loved that bar. Shout out to Pi, RIP.
And we have tons of things like Lesbian Nights. There's GRRRL Scout. And there's a couple others. And then there's events all the time. But we don't have a regular place.
And the one thing that does give me hope, though, is there's a new group that is called The Brass Strap. And they are fundraising to open a bar. And I hope that they get there. I hope that they open a bar because I would love that.
We need one. There are so many queer people, especially in the cities. We need one. We need a space.
ELLEN FINN: Maybe you should be the one to open the new Minnesota lesbian bar. You spent so much time studying them. Have you ever considered being a part of opening one yourself?
KRISTA BURTON: [CHUCKLES] I love this question. OK, so my partner is Davin. Davin is a trans man that-- and we are married.
And we have spent so much time discussing this exact thing, you wouldn't believe it. Davin's ready tomorrow. He's ready to open a bar tomorrow.
I, having talked to so many owners, know a little bit more about, let's call it "the lifestyle." [CHUCKLES] And I definitely want to be home in the evenings and not-- I don't know that I want to own a bar. But we talk about all the time, what it would have.
We're really rooting for a beach volleyball court, even though it's Minnesota. I mean, come on. It could be-- it could really be something.
Maybe it could turn into an ice rink in the winter? We could have hockey. I mean, I don't know.
But, yeah, our dream is to have one in Northfield. There's actually this building in Northfield that is abandoned that looks out over the river. And I am-- it's owned by somebody. I don't know who.
And it is incredible. It's got the only patio that actually overlooks the river. Who owns this building? I want to own it.
Imagine, [CHUCKLES] this could be the destination lesbian bar. I mean, why not?
[CHUCKLING]
ELLEN FINN: Well, Krista, thank you so much for chatting with me.
KRISTA BURTON: Oh, it has been awesome. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER: That was producer Ellen Finn talking to Northfield author Krista Burton about her new book Moby Dyke. She'll be giving an author talk at the wonderful Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis this evening, 7:00 PM, along with State Senator Erin Maye Quade. And she'll be at Content Bookstore in Northfield 7:00 PM this Thursday.
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