In this first of a two-part conversation, host Jack Gieseing interviews historian Finn Enke about lesbian, queer, and trans spaces in the Upper Midwest during the 1970s, with a focus on Detroit, Minneapolis–St. Paul, and Chicago. Moving beyond bars as isolated sites, the episode explores how networks of movement—what Enke calls “travel stories”—connected house parties, dollar parties, bookstores, coffeehouses, softball fields, warehouses, and bars into living constellations of queer life. Drawing on Enke’s book Finding the Movement, the conversation foregrounds how race, class, gender, music, and the built environment shaped who could gather where, who could dance, and who felt welcome.

Particular attention is paid to Black lesbian dollar parties in Detroit, feminist institutions like Amazon Bookstore in Minneapolis, the impact of blue laws in Detroit, and the role of print culture such as Lesbian Connection and Dykes to Watch Out For, as well as the economic precarity and feminist organizing that structured all of these spaces everywhere. For example, Black lesbian dollar parties in Detroit—vital spaces of dancing, economic mutual aid, and community building that often equaled bars in their importance. It also examines how music, race, and design structured belonging, explaining why many white lesbian bars did not feel accessible to Black women, and how segregation persisted even within queer worlds. The episode frames queer space not as permanent territory but as fragile, imaginative world-building sustained through movement, care, and resistance.

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Credits

Producer, Editor, Host, & Creative Director: Jack Gieseking

Co-Producer: Julie Enszer & Sinister Wisdom

Co-Producer & Co-Editor: Cade Waldo

Assistant Editor: Mel Whitesell

Social Media: Audrey Wilkinson

Interns: Michaela Hayes and Sophie McClain

Consulting Producer: Rachel Fagen

Music: Our theme song: "Like Honey" by Kit Orion https://www.kitorion.com/

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