Queer, There, and Everywhere

by Sarah Prager

Intent on making it out alive, Josef found a way to get extra food rations to help him survive: a kapo—a fellow prisoner given authority over other prisoners—propositioned Josef about exchanging preferential treatment for sexual favors. The prevailing attitude of those in power at the camps was that a man might be in need of an “emergency outlet” because no women were available; it was okay as long as that man wasn’t gay outside of this situation. If love had been involved, these acts would have been magically transformed into the filthy sin of homosexuality. Josef was disgusted by the idea of performing sex acts on anyone under these conditions, but he did what he had to do to survive.

  After just a few weeks of his arrangement with the kapo, Josef was transferred to another camp as part of the routine reshuffling of prisoners. Whatever safety Josef had managed to carve out for himself could be totally obliterated by the move.

  Flossenbürg

  * * *

  Josef spent the next five years at Flossenbürg. What he witnessed there is almost unbelievable: Prisoners’ bodies hanging as “decorations” from a Christmas tree. Naked men whipped to death while a commander masturbated at the sight of it. Forced trips to a brothel full of imprisoned Jewish and Romany girls—one of the Nazis’ attempts to cure homosexuality. At one point the camp received so many shipments of new prisoners marked for extermination that the amount of blood flowing out of the firing squad’s drains turned the local pond completely red.

  Here, too, Josef managed to find someone to look out for him in exchange for sex. An SS sergeant approached Josef on his first day in the camp, simply asking, “You want to come with me?” Josef said yes right away, knowing exactly what he meant. The sergeant protected Josef from beatings and got him extra food and safer work details. In a world where hard labor could be as deadly as the gas chambers, that last “perk” may have been the biggest.

  During his time at Flossenbürg, the handsome Josef had multiple kapos fight over him. A Hungarian Romany kapo even paid off his rivals to have Josef all to himself. Josef later wrote that he came to care for some of these men—almost—because they saved him from torture. His life in the camp was still brutally hard, dangerous, and miserable, but Josef knew others had it far worse.

  Getting Out

  * * *

  While at Flossenbürg, Josef accomplished something few 175ers ever did: he became a kapo himself. He was put in charge of a work detail making Nazi airplanes for the war. Josef had a couple of dozen prisoners under his command during the day, mostly young men who had the same arrangement with someone in power as he did. They all spoke different languages, so Josef needed a way to get everyone to finish the assembly tasks by the end of the day and avoid punishment. His solution? Number the parts rather than name them. It worked! Josef’s group always finished their projects with time to spare. And because Josef had earned trust as a kapo, he and his men were able to spend their “free” time unsupervised. Rest and recuperation were an almost unheard-of luxury in the camps, and the downtime for Josef and his men saved lives: the men assigned to Josef all survived while under his supervision.

  Liberation finally arrived in 1945. Josef went home to Vienna and was reunited with his mother. He learned that his father had killed himself in the middle of the war, leaving a note that read, “God protect our son!”

  Josef tried returning to college, but memories of the camp kept creeping up on him during lectures. After those six years it was surreal to go back to normal. Josef wasn’t eligible for government compensation like other survivors because homosexuality was still a crime in Austria until 1971, so he got an office job that paid the bills and life went on. He never saw Fred again—and he never found out who gave the photo of the two of them to the Gestapo.

  Josef was lucky to be free; thousands of pink-triangle prisoners were transferred to regular German prisons after being released from Nazi concentration camps. Astoundingly, Paragraph 175 wasn’t fully repealed in Germany until 1994.

  Josef lived out a full life in Vienna beside longtime partner Wilhelm Kroepfl. He forever kept his badge (pink triangle number 1896) in a box in a closet.

  JOSÉ SARRIA

  1922–2013

  tl;dr A “royal” drag queen takes on the San Francisco government

  If you were a drag queen in the 1950s, Halloween was basically a national holiday. In San Francisco, as in many cities around the country, October 31 was the only day that anti-cross-dressing laws weren’t in effect. But at twelve midnight on November 1, the San Francisco Police Department was there to round up anyone still in gender nonconforming garb and load them into the waiting paddy wagons.

  José, a drag queen famous for his act throughout SF, had had enough. This year was going to be different. In the months leading up to Halloween, he looked up the exact wording of California’s cross-dressing prohibition, got an idea, and got to work. Throughout October he gathered the materials he needed to carry out his plan (felt, glue, safety pins, scissors) and then distributed his handiwork around the community.

  When Halloween night came, the typical wild party was under way at the Black Cat, the bar where people flocked to see José perform in drag. As usual, the police rolled up at midnight, but instead of scattering, the queens stood their ground.

  An officer went up to one queen and told her she’d have to come with him.

  “What’s the charge, officer?” she asked.

  “You’re a man in girls’ clothes. That’s a violation of code.”

  “But officer, the law clearly states that it is unlawful to dress with intent to deceive. Looky here.” She pointed to the cat-shaped felt button attached to her dress. It read, “I am a boy.” “There is no intent to deceive, officer,” the queen recited, following José’s plan. “I am stating my sex clearly for all to see.”

  Not a single person wearing one of José’s badges was arrested that night. For the first time they could remember, the queens had a win in their column.

  Great Expectations

  * * *

  Handsome José hadn’t set out to become an activist drag queen. Originally, he’d intended to be a teacher.

  When the United States entered World War II, José wanted to serve—staying on the sidelines for any reason would have been embarrassing and dishonorable for a patriotic American guy. But there was a problem: to serve in any branch of the military, you had to be at least five feet tall and weigh at least one hundred pounds. José was too small on both counts, just under five feet and shy of ninety pounds. Still, José was determined to serve. He first tried getting into the navy (they had the most attractive uniforms) and then his next choice, the Marines (the second most attractive uniforms). Both rejected the slight Latino. Desperate, José showed up to an army recruiting station and told the man in charge he was willing to do anything to get in. The major asked him out to lunch, and after a few hours in a nearby hotel room, the major signed up José as a five-foot, one-hundred-pound soldier.

  When the war ended, José did go to college to pursue his goal of becoming a teacher. But that dream was dashed when he was arrested for solicitation in a hotel bathroom by an undercover cop, a charge he later said was invented to prosecute him for being gay. With that on his record, there was no chance of working in schools. José dropped out and had to find a new career.

  The Nightingale of Montgomery Street

  * * *

  Naturally, with military experience and some higher education under his belt, José’s career search led him to . . . drag opera performer? José became a female impersonator, a man who identified as male but sometimes performed as a woman. When he started performing at the Black Cat in the 1940s, he introduced “drag opera” to the crowd . . . who went wild when José took the stage, breaking the cross-dressing law every time. She’d squeezed her curves into a long, tight dress and always wore her signature red stilettos. Her tenor voice was beautiful, but her overdramatic acting was what stole the show—especially when she performed Carmen. José would flirt with the guys in the crowd an
d redo the dramatic death scene as many times as the audience wanted.

  But José was so much more than the entertainment. Every performance ended with a pep talk in which José would counsel the audience, telling them what they never heard anywhere else: being gay isn’t wrong; believe in yourself, and work to change the system. “United we stand,” she’d say. “Divided they will catch us one by one.” Then she’d lead the group, holding hands, in singing “God Save Us Nelly Queens” to the tune of “God Save the Queen” (also the basis for “My Country ’Tis of Thee”). They’d direct the last verse to the police station across the street, to the local men who had been arrested the night before. One man from the Black Cat remembered, tearing up: “José was the first person to ever tell me that I was okay, that I wasn’t a second-class citizen.”

  Even though the show had to go on, José’s main venue was always under attack. The California State Alcoholic Beverage Control Department was determined to shut down all the gay bars. In 1956, they revoked the Black Cat’s liquor license on the grounds that “lewd acts” took place there. The bar was able to win on appeal, but the next years were marked by a constant struggle to keep the doors open.

  José wanted to do something, but he wasn’t the type to riot or break the law like other activists. Just like his “I am a boy” move earlier, he again worked within the system in 1961. He decided the only way the gay community was going to get any power was to have an elected official representing them, so he became the first openly gay person to run for office.

  He didn’t win, but he had a strong showing. Thousands voted for him for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. “I proved my point,” José said. “From that day, at every election, the politicians in San Francisco have talked to us.” Sixteen years later, Harvey Milk would win the same seat José had run for.

  The Empress

  * * *

  José needed to find a new venue where he could perform and spread his message of empowerment once the Black Cat was shut down for good in 1964. He decided to start a nonprofit to serve the queer community, but the requirement for all certified nonprofits to hold an “election of officers” sounded stuffy and boring. True to his style, José decided this organization would instead have an annual coronation of a new emperor and empress, with dukes and duchesses to make up the Royal Court. José wasn’t executive director or president of the board; he was Her Royal Majesty, Empress One of San Francisco, José I, the Widow Norton. He was already a queen—why not upgrade to empress?

  From that day on, José was royalty in the queer community. The “Widow Norton” referenced Joshua Norton, a San Francisco man who had declared himself emperor of the United States in 1859. José decided he would play the part of the grieving widow of this eccentric man and organized an annual memorial for him at his grave. That event became an extension of the same community José had built at the Black Cat, a place where queer people could be themselves.

  José was now the leader of a large court of dignitaries that came to be called the International Court System. As an official nonprofit organization, the ICS served as a link to the queer community for many people, and over the years its members have raised funds for HIV/AIDS services, LGBTQ community centers, Pride parades, and student scholarships. More than sixty chapters of the Court were established across all of North America during the empress’s reign, and they’re still going strong today.

  In 1970, José decided to attend the first coronation being held outside of California, one for the empress of Portland. A royal entourage (okay, two cars) left San Francisco in the morning and parked at a highway rest stop near the Oregon border for lunch. Two bearded men in Victorian dresses exited first, lifted their veils, and began unpacking a banquet from the trunk of the car while two guards positioned themselves by the cars. The ladies draped a lace tablecloth over a picnic table and set out fine china, crystal glasses, and silver utensils. When the places were set, the empress herself stepped regally out of the lead car and waved to the nearby dumbstruck onlookers, who ogled as the posse lunched on fried chicken.

  As they approached their destination, the group pulled over to call the empress of Portland and inform her that the Dowager Empress, Her Most Royal Majesty, José I would soon be arriving at the gates of the city. The Portland Court immediately sent out a caravan of cars led by a winged Cadillac to escort the convoy from the freeway exit into town.

  From that moment to the elaborate state funeral that marked José’s death at the ripe old age of ninety, it was nothing but the finest for the empress.

  DEL MARTIN & PHYLLIS LYON

  1921–2008 & 1924–PRESENT

  tl;dr Two women in love found the American lesbian movement

  Phyllis couldn’t stop staring. A new employee at Pacific Builder and Engineer in Seattle—a journalist like Phyllis—had just walked in for her first day. She looked sharp in her open-toed pumps and green gabardine suit, but the thing that really caught Phyllis’s eye was what the woman carried. No female employee at the office had ever waltzed through the door with one of those in hand; after all, it was 1950 and there were rules. Unspoken rules, but still . . .

  Phyllis had to get to know this stranger, who was bold enough to walk through the doors holding a brown leather briefcase.

  For Phyllis, it was practically a revolution.

  Believe It or Not (Believe It)

  * * *

  If you had told Del and Phyllis on that day in 1950 that they’d eventually spend the rest of their lives together, they wouldn’t have believed you. And they definitely wouldn’t have believed they’d get legally married fifty-eight years later.

  Long before the two women met, they were just two people trying to figure out who they were in a world that didn’t quite seem to get them. As a child, Del Martin always took on the role of the husband when playing house with other girls. But the way she played house as an adult was a bit more scandalous. When her marriage to a man ended after four years (spurred by her husband’s discovering her lesbian love letters), Del began sharing beds with her neighbors . . . or rather, the married women who lived in the houses on either side of hers. When one woman’s husband went off to the Middle East for work, he told Del to “take care of” his wife while he was gone. “So I did,” remembered Del with a wink in a 2007 documentary.

  Phyllis, on the other hand, wasn’t quite so forward. As a girl, she thought it would be nice to get to touch another girl’s boobs, but since that was clearly never going to be possible, “why worry about it?” She just put it out of her mind. Eleanor Roosevelt was her absolute idol and heroine, but she wanted to grow up to be a pilot like Eleanor’s friend Amelia Earhart. That dream was dashed when she found out her imperfect eyesight was a problem. So she became a journalist instead.

  While Del and Phyllis were both originally from Northern California, they happened to end up in Seattle working for the same company: Pacific Builder and Engineer, which published reports about construction. Del later revealed that women who worked at PB&E got “titles of editor and assistant editor in lieu of decent pay.” The company was a major boys’ club, which was part of the reason Phyllis was so intrigued by Del’s briefcase-toting appearance in 1950. Phyllis invited the new girl to a party at her house and was curious why Del spent the whole night in the kitchen with the guys, smoking cigars and learning how to tie a tie. Phyllis had no clue what lesbianism was—she had never even heard the word “lesbian” before. Later on, when Del professed to be one, Phyllis was completely shocked.

  After a couple of years of Phyllis being Del’s “straight friend,” they landed in bed together one night. The two women eventually committed to each other in 1953 and moved into an apartment on Castro Street in San Francisco on Valentine’s Day. Their goal was to stay together for an entire year—which was tough, given their extremely bumpy start. They had no idea how to make a long-term relationship work, or how to cohabitate. When Del left her shoes in the middle of the floor, Phyllis threw them out the window
instead of asking her to move them.

  Thankfully, a friend gave them a kitten, and they joked that they stayed together through some tough times because they couldn’t have figured out how to divide the cat. When the year was up, neither woman wanted the “experiment” to end. The first year might have been about proving something to themselves, but the next fifty had “something to do with love.”

  “Only Women Know the Art of Love”

  * * *

  Finding other lesbians in the 1950s was nearly impossible. The only real option was the bar scene, which left women vulnerable to arrest from police raids. Del and Phyllis felt isolated and were desperate to meet other lady-loving women. In 1955, the one lesbian they knew, Rose Bamberger, called them up and invited them into a secret social club of five others. Phyllis and Del were ecstatic (it was all-caps AMAZING) to increase the number of lesbians they knew by 500 percent. Those eight women formed the first lesbian organization in the United States: the Daughters of Bilitis. They named themselves after the nineteenth-century erotic lesbian poem “The Songs of Bilitis,” which professed that “only women know the art of love.” If one of their meetings was ever raided, they figured they could use the cover of being a poetry club.

  In 1957, lawyer Kenneth Zwerin drew up the DOB’s application for incorporation and noted they “could have been a society for raising cats” for all anyone knew. At first the club only hosted parties at members’ homes. Secrecy was the highest priority—the women didn’t have to give a phone number or last name to join. The group also made up a rule, after three women came to a meeting in men’s clothing, that “if slacks are worn they be women’s slacks.” The idea was to avoid looking like—gasp!—lesbians.