Meme Dump ... Happy Pride

Happy Pride: Sir Lady Java

In the Los Angeles club scene of the 1960s, Sir Lady Java—a dancer, comedian and drag queen—was a two-shows-a-night fixture. But two shows a night wasn’t all she did; Java—who passed away in 2024—was not just a performer, but also a pioneering activist—even though her work for the LGBTQ+ community and laws that restricted drag performance is not always taught as a part of LGBTQ+ history much less American history.

As a Black gender non-conforming woman, Java was at the intersection of discriminatory policing targeting both Black and brown communities and queer communities in 1960s Los Angeles and across America in cities like San Francisco and Chicago and St. Louis that welcomed diversity.

Born in 1940, Java moved from New Orleans to Los Angeles as a child with her family, and transitioned at a young age with the help, support and love of her mother. After graduating high school, Java became part of the vibrant Black performance art scene in L.A. and took on stand-up comedy and go-go dancing gigs at nightclubs across the city. But while she was taking the nightlife scene by storm and was featured in magazines like Jet, Ebony and Sepia, she was also the focus of increasing surveillance from the LAPD.

First introduced in 1958, the notorious Rule #9 of the local municipal code dictated that no bar owner could employ anyone who performed as the opposite sex to the one they were assigned at birth. For Java, the consequences of that law reached fever pitch during a run of performances in October 1967 at the Redd Foxx, a Black-owned nightclub which catered to a wide audience—the club was took the stage name of its owner, comedian and actor John Elroy Sanford.

Now, Sanford applied for a permit that would enable Java to perform, but the LAPD denied the permit, mentioning “female impersonators” which is how Java referred to herself. But her decision to live openly as a woman at that time is part of what made her trailblazing and her use of the phrase “female impersonator” encapsulated a variety of identities that today we might think of as transgender woman or cross-dresser.

After the permit was refused, Java held a protest arguing for her right to work, and the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] backed her efforts to try to overturn Rule #9 but California’s state supreme court wouldn’t hear the suit; due to the way Rule #9 was framed, the plaintiff had to be a bar owner rather than a performer, and the ACLU couldn’t find a bar owner willing to see the lawsuit through.

And while Java’s case was unsuccessful in court, her protest did raise awareness and visibility, and two years later, the rule was overturned via a separate lawsuit. In many ways, those challenges have continued to the present day. It was only in 2021 that the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling protecting LGBTQ+ employees from discrimination and yet that same year we saw a number of bills rolling back transgender rights across the United States, largely targeting transgender youth access to healthcare and participation in sports.

And today we continue to face an onslaught of anti-LGBTQ+ policies and bad-faith legislation, especially toward our trans brothers and sisters. We must remember that the rights and spaces we have today are the result of decades of struggle and resilience by people like Sir Lady Java.

There’s a couple of old sayings about history that if we don’t learn from it, we are doomed to repeat it, and another that says history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. While we’ve made strides in codifying LGBTQIA+ rights, many of the issues Lady Java fought against—discrimination, erasure, and marginalization—are still with us as the federal government seeks to strip transgender and gender nonconforming people of legal recognition and protection.

Our history is important, especially in a society that does not see our history and culture as worth teaching. We need to remember, and speak about, our Black queer and trans elders who fought so that we could have the rights and visibility we do today. Their stories are not “old stories”—they’re a battle plan for the future—as we face the butchering of transgender legal protections.

We must look back at the courage of people like [from left to right] Sir Lady Java, Stormé Delarverie, a biracial, lesbian drag king, and Marsha P. Johnson, a key figure in the 1969 Stonewall uprising, and advocate for unhoused and transgender youth.

We need to know where we come from so we can fight to be where we want to be, where we have a right to be.

Meme Dump

Bobservations

Prepare yourselves … last week Carlos had some stomach stuff and the diarrhea was happening. It got so bad he even called his doctor about it, but she suggested white rice and mashed potatoes and lots of fluids. Which he did but … once the diarrhea—god that word makes me wanna hurl—was done and gone, the constipation set in and now he was having the opposite problem made worse by the fact that he would describe his bathroom deposits to me. ME? The one who hurls at the sound of a word??

“I’m just waiting for that one Titanic poop and then I’ll be fine.”

“Titanic?”

“Yes, one giant poop.”

“Is it gonna float in the toilet until it hits an iceberg and then sink?”

Yesterday, he almost had a poop but is still hoping for ‘his poop to go on and on …

From November 2025 … It’s not that he’s egotistical, it’s just that no story is as good as a Great Tuxedo story …or so he tells me.

After Minnesota Democratic State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were shot and killed at their home, and after Minnesota Democrat State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were both shot at their home but managed to survive, The Felon said he would not call Minnesota Democrat Governor Tim Walz because:

“I’m not calling him. The guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a mess. So, you know, I could be nice and call him, but why waste time?”

Four Americans shot, two of them killed, and picking up a phone would be a waste of time. Thanks, America. We could have had decency but you voted for a fucking pig.

Nothing says it’s Summer like temperatures in the 90s and some hot beefy manly tan cakes, eh?

On the upside, while The Felon doesn’t want drag queens on stage at the Kennedy Center he couldn’t stop them from being in the audience and being cheered by the crowd.

When The Felon and his Slovenian Hooker attended a performance of Les Misérables at the Kennedy Center last week drag artists Tara Hoot, Ricky Rosé, Vagenesis, and Mari Con Carne also attended the show in full drag. And when the queens entered the theater, the crowd greeted them with cheers and applause while The Felon and Couch Fucker were loudly booed upon arrival.

The queens received their tickets from season ticket holders who donated them through Qommittee—a national advocacy network of drag artists and allies led by survivors of high-profile hate crimes such as the Pulse and Club Q mass shootings, a firebombing at an Ohio church, and an attack on a power grid in North Carolina.

Werk, queens.

I didn’t write this but it’s perfection …

One thing no one has explained is why women’s rights should vary by state, while men keep the same rights across the entire country, no matter where they live.

Don’t Americans have equal protection under the 14^th Amendment? Misogyny as policy treats women as “less than.” There is no law that controls a man’s body.

Now do the same for women.

And so it begins … work is being done at Casa Bob y Carlos with the removal of the two skylights in the sunroom. Both were failing and since the room has four sliding glass doors in it, as you can see below, do we really need windows in the ceiling? No, I say, we don’t. 

Next up, a meeting with a cabinet maker to start the work on the new kitchen.

Lastly, or close to last, we attended the No Kings protest at the statehouse last Saturday and were surprised at the nice crowd in mostly Red South Carolina.

Great spirit from the crowd and very few MAGAts out in a counter-protest, and those that were stayed back from the No Kings group.

The crowd was enthusiastic and large, but I loved this picture I got from the newspaper showing just two people protesting.

I also loved this photo from the protests in San Francisco where their message was loud and clear on ocean Beach.

And this last one, of another event the same day, that was sparely attended …

Sean O'Pry is a thirty-six-year-old American who began modeling in 2006 and is now the nest paid male model, but still … Would You Hit It?

After some of the nastiness in politics this week, I thought I could use a little joy and then I found this …

Bobservations

The other night as we ate dinner, the kids of the family who live behind us were playing in their yard, and as kids do there was a lot of shrieking and screaming and laughing and yelling which spurred Carlos:

“I’m going to call over there and ask them to quiet down those kids.”

“No you are not. When I was that age [and these kids were 12 and 10 or so] we used to play with our friends and scream and shriek and yell.”

“Well, I don’t like it.”

“That’s because when you were an only child and at that age you were probably wearing a tutu and giving a piano recital.”

His sly smile told me I was probably correct.

This Tuxedo Says is from October 2020:

Tuxedo has discovered Twitter and really enjoys finding people’s Tweets and sharing them. This is one of his Favorites …

The owner of an Idaho bar and restaurant plans to host a two-day “Hetero Awesome Fest” outside of the state Capitol in Boise in June to coincide with LGBTQ Pride Month because there is no more oppressed group in the entire world who need a celebration to stoke their egos than straight people.

I may start a GoFundMe for them, but I’ll call it a GoFuckYourself.

After that last snippet, I’m’a need me some Summertime Beach Cakes to cleanse my palate.

Let’s try this again … because of the tariffs there are fewer ships arriving from China which means less work for dock workers … for truck drivers … for retailers and fewer dollars circulating.

It’s a cascading effect and will affect all of us.

RuPaul’s Drag Race icon Jinkx Monsoon, left, is eligible to be nominated for a Tony Award in the category, “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical” for her performance in the musical ‘Pirates.’

Yes ma’am.

On the flip side, we lost the wonderful Jiggly Caliente, right, AKA Bianca Castro-Arabejo this past week.

May I call you Jiggly.

RIP

This is model Brennan Aldred and I don’t know how old he is or where he’s from or much of anything else so we’re flying blind here but: Would You Hit It?