'Frat Hoe' Tells the Story of a Town's Last Gay Bar

Contents:

• THE FRAT HOE IS THE LAST GAY BAR STANDG GARN GROVE
• AN INPLETE HISTORY OF GAY N LBIAN OC
•  CALIFORNIA LBIAN AND GAY BARS, RTRANTS, LODGG, PRI EVENT, BS MAPS
• GARN GROVE HAS HISTORY OF HARASSG, PERSECUTG GAY MUNY
• THE FRAT HOE IS THE LAST GAY BAR STANDG GARN GROVE
• THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985
• THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW
• MOSW GAY BARS
• GARN GROVE MT PAY $111,000 TO OWNERS OF CLOSED GAY-ORIENTED BAR
• GAY MEN - FRIENDS OF THE OC FRAT HOE BAR
• NO MORE GAY THE GROVE

THE FRAT HOE IS THE LAST GAY BAR STANDG GARN GROVE

M., but Shelly Heier and Cris McKnight — “two straight chicks nng a gay bar, ” they quip — are bit the afternoons, gettg the place clean, stocked and ready for historilly nservative Garn Grove — as recently as last Tuday the Cy Council rejected a motn to fly a rabow flag at Cy Hall, but agreed to light up a clock tower the same lors for Pri Month — don’t have the welg reputatn of, say, Laguna Beach, Long Beach or Santa Ana, once boasted as many as 15 gay bars, acrdg to a recent had nam like the Mug, the Happy Hour, DOK Wt, the Upbeat, Rumour Hazz and the Knotty Keg.

“Everybody knows when you’re gog to Garn Grove and you’re gay [that] you’re gog to the Frat Hoe bee that’s the only thg open, gay, Garn Grove, ” said Monique Chantel Dupre, a drag performer featured the “Frat Hoe” documentary, which bowed at the recent Newport Beach Film Ftival. “I’d known for a while that there was a gay bar a few blocks om my hoe, and I thought was jt so bizarre that there was a church next to , ” she said.

AN INPLETE HISTORY OF GAY N LBIAN OC

But, eventually they stopped g at all after she kept rejectg their promised her father that she’d “keep open and keep gay.

“Back the day, [LGBTQ people] didn’t have nowhere to go, so this was a safe place and a safe haven for the gay people to e, ” Heier said. ”The days, their ctomers tend to be majory Lato men, and while they ed to be open 365 days of the year, they’re now closed Tudays bee there isn’t enough apps, social media, latg real tate sts sparked by gentrifitn, and creasg acceptance of the gay muny are leadg to ls patronage of tradnal gay bars, which mt also pete wh the predomantly straight bars’ gay night said that if wasn’t for the fact that she owns the buildg, the Frat Hoe might not still be bs. “We stay open maly bee of our longevy and the history that we have, ” Heier few tradnal gay bars around the unty that rema have bee, many ways, isolated pockets of the LGBTQ muny, acrdg to Lus Hilrbrand, a film and media studi profsor at UC Irve.

’s gay bar scene, told matchbooks »Sarah Nguyen, who was named Ms.

 CALIFORNIA LBIAN AND GAY BARS, RTRANTS, LODGG, PRI EVENT, BS MAPS

Orange County Gay Pri last year, said she didn’t know her lol history until she began workg across the unty le — at the LGBTQ Center Long Beach.

GARN GROVE HAS HISTORY OF HARASSG, PERSECUTG GAY MUNY

Orange County Gay Pri last year and is popularly known as “Johnny Wt Street, ” after Laguna Beach’s famoly gay beach — said he didn’t learn about this queer history until he was olr. “It’s kd of sad bee you hear the legendary stori of Garn Grove beg as gay as Long Beach and...

Jonathan Alexanr, a UCI English profsor, said that historilly bars were one of the few plac that gay and lbian people uld meet public spac. Bee cross-drsg and dancg wh same-sex partners was illegal much of the untry before the gay civil rights movement took hold, the bars often had to disguise themselv, explaed Alexanr. Garn Grove, Calif., a quiet town historilly nservative Orange County, once had more than 15 gay bars.

The bar is now owned by his dghter Shelly Heier, who operat along wh manager Cris McKnight; they scribe themselv as "two straight chicks nng a gay bar.

THE FRAT HOE IS THE LAST GAY BAR STANDG GARN GROVE

Laguna's first wave of gays arriv as members of the early movie crews. Until both are misned the '90s, an untold number of mostly closeted gay and lbian servicepeople will pass through them.

Lured by cheap rents, other gay bars sprg up the cy throughout the next 10 years, cludg Rumour Hazz, the Tiki Hut, the Mug, the Iron Spur, the Old Bavarian Inn, the Knotty Keg, the Hound's Tooth, the Ranger, the Saddle Club and DOK Wt.

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

For a while, gay bars Garn Grove actually outnumber Wt Hollywood's.

THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW

Take the Ksey Study, which claimed that 10 percent of the populatn is gay, and apply to the approximately 1, 100 ballplayers who've ever put on an Angels uniform durg the team's 33 years. MAY 1966 The Santa Ana Register (later known as The Orange County Register) reports on a “crackdown of spected homosexuals” the Newport Pier area, men who have allegedly been proposng unrver police officers. MARCH 1968 The Advote, which has jt started publishg and will eventually grow to “the natnal gay and lbian newsmagaze, ” reports that an OC man has recently lost his home and r suranc after a neighbor saw him kissg a man his back yard.

MOSW GAY BARS

1971 Christ Chapel Metropolan Communy Church, affiliated wh the church's growg movement of gay-tolerant nomatns, opens s doors Santa Ana.

GARN GROVE MT PAY $111,000 TO OWNERS OF CLOSED GAY-ORIENTED BAR

FEBRUARY 1971 Cal State Fullerton's Experimental College offers a urse lled Gay Life and Lib: A Study In Homosexual Life Styl and Polics. APRIL 1972 The pk mailbox outsi the Costa Ma home of John Rule tells you that you've found what will eventually evolve to the Orange County Gay N Lbian Communy Servic Center—one of the first the untry.

7, 1974 Police harassment of gay bars Garn Grove has been an ongog problem. ” Another bystanr is ls sympathetic: “I was aware [of all the gay bars town]. 1976 Exod Internatnal, a “reparative therapy” group that attempts to change gays and lbians to perfect specimens of heterosexualy, is found at Anaheim's Melodyland Christian Center by Michael Bsee and Gary Cooper.

GAY MEN - FRIENDS OF THE OC FRAT HOE BAR

14, 1977 The San Clemente Sun-Post reports on the growg number of ary men om nearby Camp Pendleton who are g to town and prostutg themselv to olr gay men. 1978 John Briggs, a Republin state senator om Fullerton, gets an iative placed on the November ballot, the Briggs Iniative (Proposn 6), which if passed would make illegal for California public schools to hire gay teachers, mandate the removal of any teacher disvered to be gay after he or she is hired, and prohib even straight teachers om portrayg homosexualy a posive light, unr the penalty of dismissal.

1 fancial ntributor—and soon-to-be-famo homophobe the Reverend Lou Sheldon. 6 San Francis, Briggs lls the cy “the moral garbage dump of homosexualy this untry, ” to which Harvey Milk repli, “Nobody lik garbage 'e smells. MAY 25, 1978 Upward of 20, 000 people attend the first-ever “gay night” at Disneyland, which is sponsored part by a Wt Hollywood dis.

NO MORE GAY THE GROVE

23-25, 1979 The Register ns an excellent, generally posive three-part seri on gay and lbian life OC wrten by staffer Lori Weisberg. 14, 1980 Renowned gay archect Philip Johnson's latt work—the Crystal Cathedral Garn Grove—is dited. FALL 1980 The Orange County Gay N Lbian Rource Booklet is published.