Wild Side West No. 1

Wild Side West is a lesbian bar in Bernal Heights, San Francisco. Started in 1962 by two lesbians, the bar is arguably the last great lesbian bar in San Francisco. Certainly, it is the oldest lesbian bar still open today. However, it flies under the radar. A community dive bar, you’re more likely to hear a group of friends discussing kegel exercises in the luscious back garden than find people partying. What a back garden! It’s full of plants, quirky art, and tchotchkes of all stripes. When the bar first moved to the Bernal Heights location it’s in today, people threw toilets through the front windows in an attempt to show that a lesbian bar was not welcome. The owners boarded up the windows (as they remain today) and moved the toilets to the garden, where they look fun and funky. Like all great dive bars, Wild Side West bears the accumulated weight of decades of gathering. Lesbian bars are a vanishing breed. There are now about 20 left in the whole country. I’m too young to have experienced the heyday of those spaces, but I do feel the absence personally now. To be clear, I think there’s something to critique about these spaces being only for people who fit the strict label of “lesbian,” a label which has historically been exclusive towards trans women and others. However, I worry that there is a real lack of space for queer people who are not cis gay men, at least in this city. As queer people are increasingly assimilated into a capitalist mainstream (although still facing violence and oppression), what are we losing when we lose these venues and spaces? What would it look like to imagine both more inclusive spaces and more spaces specifically for queer women cis and trans, nonbinary people, the sapphic-ly leaning of all tendencies? Wild Side West isn’t the answer, but it is a piece of our history, and I hope it can be a touchstone for this conversation. . . . . Kalie McGuirl is a queer visual artist based in Oakland, California. She works in many mediums, including paint, ink, paper, and printmaking. She is obsessed with accessible forms of image reproduction and how this allows images to permeate the world. Drawing inspiration from dreams, interior architecture, and plant life, Kalie’s work explores organic form and the beauty of the natural world. @kaliemcguirl