Our Dyke Histories | Podcast Guru

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Come for the history; stay for the revolution, gossip, and desire that built it. 🤌

About Us :: Decade by decade, Our Dyke Histories dives deep into the living, breathing past and present of lesbian, queer, bisexual, trans, & nonbinary communities. Each season traces how we made space for ourselves—sometimes in bars, bookstores, and protests; sometimes in basements, alleyways, and prisons; & always against the odds.

Host :: Our Dyke Histories is hosted by historian, geographer, and environmental psychologist Dr. Jack Jen Gieseking, and produced in collaboration with Sinister Wisdom, the oldest lesbian multicultural literary and art journal.

Season One :: Our first season traces the history of dyke bars* - yes, with an asterisk - including lesbian bars, queer parties, & trans hangouts. Before Pride marches and hashtags, there were bars, parties, and whispered invitations that built whole worlds. Our Dyke Histories uncovers the stories of the women, trans, and nonbinary people who turned repression into resistance and nightlife into liberation.

Join Our Community :: Want to be part of our community? We'd love to have you. 😏 Come comment, connect, and get your gayme on!

Newsletter to your inbox: Jack's Queer Geographies newsletter with detailed takes on each episode, & more about lezbiqueertrans spaces across time
Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories @ourdykehistories
Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, Sinister Wisdom
Email us at [email protected]

Donate <3 :: Subscribe and/or donate to the fabulous, in-print Sinister Wisdom, a multicultural lesbian literary & art journal founded in 1976. Sinister Wisdom recognizes the power of language and art to create radical, empowering, resilient, and joyous sanctuaries that build and sustain vibrant lesbian futures.

What Does Our Tarot Reading Say about What's Next? :: In future seasons, we will move decade by decade through other defining places, objects, and ideas in lesbian, bi, queer, and trans history—mapping the worlds we’ve made and the futures we’re still imagining.

Funny and fierce, sexy and smart, and full of dyke spirit, this podcast isn’t nostalgia—it’s a survival guide disguised as a love letter.

Recent Episodes

NOV 24, 2025

When Paris and Berlin Were Dyke Bars*

What if Paris and Berlin were the first great dyke bars*? In Episode Two of Our Dyke Histories, Jack Gieseking, Lillian Faderman, and Cookie Woolner follow the trail of queer women, trans patrons, and gender rebels from Harlem across the U.S. as well into the theaters and hotel parties of Black artists and performers in the U.S. We then head across the Atlantic to trace queer modernisms into the salons and show of Paris and cabarets and clubs of Berlin. This episode is brimming with Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness, Natalie Barney’s infamous salon, and the urban legend behind Ma Rainey writing "Prove It on Me Blues" after getting bailed out of jail for lesbian pursuits. The 1920s to 1930s shimmer with both liberation and backlash. From Black vaudeville circuits and Bessie Smith’s private train car parties to the queer glamour of Paris’ Le Monocle, the episode captures the dazzling creativity—and the precarity—of queer life between the wars.**CreditsProducer, Editor, Host, & Creative Director: Jack GiesekingCo-Producer & Sound Editor: Cade WaldoCo-Sound Editor: Mel WhitesellCo-Producer: Julie Enszer & Sinister WisdomSocial Media: Audrey WilkinsonInterns: Michaela Hayes, Syd Guntharp, Sophie McClain, Paige LeMay, and Sarah ParsonsConsulting Producer: Rachel FagenMusic: Our theme song: "Like Honey" by Kit Orion <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.kitorion.com/">https://www.kitorion.com/</a>CC-BY-NC-ND 2025. Write to us at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a> for permission to use any of our content.

51 MIN

NOV 17, 2025

The LezQueer World before Bars

Before the first lesbian bars, there were queer worlds built in rented rooms, smoky clubs, and parlor parties. In our premiere episode of Our Dyke Histories, host Jack Gieseking joins historians Lillian Faderman and Cookie Woolner trace the roots of lesbian and queer nightlife to the 1920s—a time before the first official “lesbian bars” in the 1930s, when parties, salons, and underground theaters created fleeting but fierce shindigs as sanctuaries. We visit spaces like Harlem’s rent parties and salons, Los Angeles Jane Jones’ Club and Tess’ Café Internationale, San Francisco’s Finocchio’s, Eve Adams’s legendary Eve’s Hangout in Greenwich Village, and even fly off with Amelia Earhart to South Dakota. Through stories of performers like Gladys Bentley, Bessie Smith, and A’Lelia Walker, we reveal how queer women of color shaped nightlife, pleasure, and possibility even under segregation, censorship, and prohibition. These were the rooms and places where we made dykedom public.**CreditsProducer, Editor, Host, & Creative Director: Jack GiesekingCo-Producer & Sound Editor: Cade WaldoCo-Sound Editor: Mel WhitesellCo-Producer: Julie Enszer & Sinister WisdomSocial Media: Audrey WilkinsonInterns: Michaela Hayes, Syd Guntharp, Sophie McClain, Paige LeMay, and Sarah ParsonsConsulting Producer: Rachel FagenMusic: Our theme song: "Like Honey" by Kit Orion <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.kitorion.com/">https://www.kitorion.com/</a>CC-BY-NC-ND 2025. Write to us at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a> for permission to use any of our content.

46 MIN

OCT 23, 2025

Teaser: Lez Dive into Our History

Come for the history; stay for the revolution, gossip, and desire that built it. 🤌**About UsDecade by decade, Our Dyke Histories dives deep into the living, breathing past and present of lesbian, queer, trans, & nonbinary communities. Each season traces how we made space for ourselves—sometimes in bars, bookstores, and protests; sometimes in basements, alleyways, and prisons; & always against the odds.Our Dyke Histories is hosted by historian, geographer, and environmental psychologist <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://queergeographies.com">Dr. Jack Jen Gieseking</a>, and produced in collaboration with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.sinisterwisdom.org/podcast">Sinister Wisdom</a>, the oldest lesbian multicultural literary and art journal.**Season OneOur first season traces the history of dyke bars* - yes, with an asterisk - including lesbian bars, queer parties, & trans hangouts.Before Pride marches and hashtags, there were bars, parties, and whispered invitations that built whole worlds. Our Dyke Histories uncovers the stories of the women, trans, and nonbinary people who turned repression into resistance and nightlife into liberation.From the 1920s tearooms of Eve Adams to Harlem rent parties, from the Women’s House of Detention to 1970s consciousness-raising collectives and 1980s synthesizer-lit dance floors, each episode uncovers how we turned danger into joy, censorship into art, & survival into community.**Join Our CommunityWant to be part of our community? We'd love to have you. 😏 Come comment, connect, and get your gayme on!<ul><li>Newsletter to your inbox: Jack's <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://queergeographies.ghost.io/">Queer Geographies newsletter</a> with detailed takes on each episode, & more about lezbiqueertrans spaces across time</li><li>Instagram for more dyke visuals and stories <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.instagram.com/ourdykehistories">@ourdykehistories</a></li><li>Read and follow our co-producer and collaborator, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.sinisterwisdom.org/podcast">Sinister Wisdom</a></li><li>Email us at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a></li></ul>**CreditsProducer, Editor, Host, & Creative Director: Jack GiesekingCo-Producer & Sound Editor: Cade WaldoCo-Producer: Julie Enszer & Sinister WisdomSocial Media: Audrey WilkinsonInterns: Michaela Hayes, Mel Whitesell, Syd Guntharp, Sophie McClain, Paige LeMay, and Sarah ParsonsConsulting Producer: Rachel FagenMusic:<ul><li>"Hot Water" by National Sweetheart</li><li>1920s-1930s background:</li><li>1940s-1960s background:</li><li>1970s background:</li><li>1980s background:</li><li>Radio fade:</li></ul>CC-BY-NC-ND 2025. Write to us at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a> for permission to use any of our content.

4 MIN