“The lesbian nightlife scene in Chicago is like a really beautiful hobo…moving from place to place,” says Jenae Williams of the production company Chicago Dirty Girls.
Zeng cites a member survey in which not one bar party ranked in the top 20 events as proof that “lesbians prefer a much wider range of cultural, outdoor and entertainment activities outside of bars.” Still, just like many lesbian party promoters, she announces upcoming events via Sapphic’s Facebook page, embracing social media as a way to garner support for a very fluid scene. Guerilla Girl Bar aside, Sapphic has hosted more than 150 meetup events to bring lesbians together over common interests other than drinking and dancing. “With society becoming more open and acceptable to the GLBT community, we have more options than before, so being a gay- or lesbian-focused bar is no longer good enough,” says Kelly Zeng, founder of Sapphic Adventures Meetup group and organizer of Guerilla Girl Bar (a bimonthly event in which members of the lesbian community take over a straight bar for a night). “For many women in Chicago, it may not have been relevant to them anymore, or ever.” Kaza contends that “gay male bars receive significantly higher traffic because the men are usually there for the main purpose of meeting and possibly hooking up, and gay women often need an additional, or just alternative, motivation.” Kaza cites film screenings, music concerts, and roller derby as events that bring out gay women, and she echoes a growing sentiment that Chicago’s modern lesbians don’t feel the need to have a designated lesbian bar. Kristen Kaza, producer of the Chicago-produced gay documentary Fish out of Water, couldn’t agree more. “But it won’t necessarily impact the lesbian community as far as a lack of places to go.” “I think Star Gaze is probably a greater loss in the scope of LGBT history in the city and to older gay women who found it a safe place,” says Trish Bendix, the Chicago editor of. The younger lesbians politely pay respects to Star Gaze, but in reality the closing barely registered as a blip on their radar screen.
When the Andersonville lesbian mainstay Star Gaze closed, the demographic of lesbians similar to its 62-year-old owner Mamie Lake felt the hit the most. Soon, Spyners doesn’t look like the last surviving lesbian bar in Chicago-it just looks like a bar trying to survive. As the night wears on at this divey watering hole (often referred to by heteros as “Lesbian Karaoke Bar”), the college kids start to outnumber the sapphic regulars. A handful of middle-aged lesbians halfheartedly clap at the song’s close but never really break conversation with their old friend Jack Daniel’s. It’s a little after 10pm on Saturday night, and two fresh-faced girls are belting out Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me” at Spyners Pub.