Rikki Streicher

Rikki Streicher (1922-1994) was a leader in San Francisco's LGBT movement, a co-founder of the international Gay Games, and the owner of two lesbian bars of the 1970's and 80's, Maud's and Amelia's.

Early life

Streicher was born in 1922.^[1] She served in the military and lived in Los Angeles in the 1940's, where she spent time in the gay bars of that city. She also frequented the gay bars of North Beach in San Francisco. Butch-Femme roles were very fixed at that time. Streicher then identified as butch, and was photographed in 1945 in a widely published image, sitting in Oakland's Claremont Resort with other lesbians , wearing a suit and tie.^[2][3]

San Francisco and National Activities

Society for Individual Rights

Streicher had an active leadership role in the Society for Individual Rights, an organization of gay men and lesbians created in San Francisco in 1964 that promoted equal rights for homosexuals, political empowerment, and community building through fundraisers, dances, and classes.^[4] By 1966, SIR had established the first public gay community center in the United States, and become the largest homophile organization in the country.^[5]

Maud's

In 1966, Streicher opened Maud's, originally called "Maud's Study", or "The Study", a lesbian bar on Cole St. in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco.^[6] The following year, the Haight-Ashbury would become the epicenter of the hippie movement during the 1967 Summer of Love. Maud's, said one historian, served to "bridge the gap between San Francisco's lesbian community and its hippie generation." ^[7] Because women were not allowed to be employed as bartenders in San Francisco until 1971, Streicher had to either tend bar herself or hire male bartenders.^[8] The bar quickly became a popular gathering place for San Francisco lesbians and bisexual women. One notable customer of Maud's was singer Janis Joplin.^[9] Activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon were also early patrons of Maud's.^[10]

Maud's remained opened for twenty-three years, becoming at that time the longest continuously running lesbian-owned lesbian bar in the country. In the book Wide Open Town, Nan Amilla Boyd describes Maud's as a " lesbian bar, clubhouse and community center”. She highlights the fight of bar owners like Streicher during the 50's and 60's to “secure public space for queer people and says many lesbians 'depended on bar life, the central artery of queer life' for their activities.' ^[11]

The bar and its closing in 1989 were documented in Paris Poirier's internationally distributed film “Last Call at Maud's”.^[12] The film weaves the broader history of lesbian bars in the United States into customers' reminisces about old times. In it, Streicher speculated that increased acceptance of lesbianism in public spaces and a turn towards sobriety brought on by the 1980's AIDS crisis may have been contributing factors to Maud's closing.^[13]

Amelia's

During Pride Week, San Francisco's Elbo Room replaces their sign with the sign of the lesbian dance club, Amelia's, owned by Rikki Streicher from 1978-91.

In 1978, at the height of the disco era, Streicher opened a more spacious bar and dance club on Valencia Street in San Francisco's Mission District called Amelia's, named after Amelia Earhardt. While Amelia's was open in the late 70's and 80's, the Mission district , and particularly Valencia Street, became a gathering place for lesbians and was home to several organizations and businesses that catered to women, including Old Wives Tales, a bookstore, Osento, a woman only bathhouse, and the Women's Building, a non-profit organization.^[14] Amelia's was open until 1991 when Streicher sold it and it became the Elbo Room. When it closed, it was the last lesbian bar in San Francisco until the opening of the Lexington Club in 1997, signaling an ongoing change in how lesbians met and congregated. A writer for the San Francisco Examiner noted that, “More lesbians than ever live in San Francisco, but the last lesbian bar is set to close.” ^[15]

“It's just changing times,” Streicher said of Amelia's closure. “By and large, women are no longer going to bars that represent lesbians. They're just going where they want to go.”^[16]

An obituary published and reprinted after Streicher's death in 1994 erroneously reported that Amelia's was called Amanda's.^[17][18] Every June during Pride Week in San Francisco, the Elbo Room on Valencia Street has put up the Amelia's sign to honor the bar and its lesbian clientele.^[19]

Gay Games

Streicher was a passionate promoter of gay and lesbian softball teams and co-founder of the Gay Games which started in San Francisco in 1986.^[20] She helped to create the Federation of Gay Games and served on their board of the directors.^[21] "Sports are the great social equalizer," she said. "It is perhaps the only time that it does not matter who you are but how you play the game." ^[22] At the fourth annual Gay Games in New York City in 1994, attended by 55,000 people, she received the Dr. Tom Waddell Award for her contribution to Gay Athletics.^[23][24] She is also listed in the hall of fame for the San Francisco Gay Softball League.^[25]

Death and Legacy

A plaque near the Rikki Streicher Field in San Francisco honors her life's work.

Streicher died of cancer in 1994, and was survived by her partner, Mary Sager.^[26] Upon her death, the mayor of San Francisco lowered the city flags to half-mast.^[27] The Rikki Streicher Field, an athletic field and recreation center in San Francisco's Castro District, was named after her. Scholars of LGBT history have speculated that the lesbian bars of Streicher's era, which served an important purpose at that time, have closed as the result of gentrification, greater acceptance of lesbians in mainstream society and the popularity of online dating and social media.^[28][29] One writer looking back on the era noted that Rikki Streicher and the lesbian bars she started were instrumental in creating a protective space where lesbian women could come of age and help others do the same:

“Women would call Maud's and say, "I've got a friend who's been abused, can you help?" And everyone would put their heads together to solve the problem. People were very protective of people. That doesn't exist anymore. Rikki Streicher, the owner of Maud's and Amelia's on Valencia, created that environment for 20 years. She was always conscious of being there for the community. Every few months, a new crop would come in and try to figure out how to be, and it felt like we were bringing them up.”^[30]

References