by Aaron Spencer
HISTORY | PRIDE
Reflections
Q&A: Bar Owners
Roxy
Darcelle XV Showplace
Tommy Breazeale
Silverado
What was being gay in Portland like in the
‘60s?
You’re from Mississip-
pi. Was being gay in
Portland in the 1980s
easier than being
gay in the South?
Roxy: We didn’t know about gay rights
back then. People were just being rebels
in society, but even some of those rebels
got very ambiguous about a gay person
– it was OK for them to be rebels and op-
pose societal norms, but if you were gay,
they still didn’t appreciate the idea that you
were gay.
Breazeale: Gay people would walk around
holding hands here, and you couldn’t do
that in the South.
What was the status of gay rights in the
‘80s?
Were people openly gay?
Roxy: We used code words. If you were
a gay person and talking to another gay
person, there were certain code words
you would use to conceal your gayness
– like “gay” for instance. To other people
gay meant happy. To call someone queer
was fighting words for most gay people,
but that term has graduated, and now it’s
perfectly acceptable to be queer.
Darcelle
Darcelle XV Showplace
What was Portland like after Stonewall?
Darcelle: We didn’t have any parades, but
we didn’t have any trouble with the police
in Portland. The bars here were rather low
key. At that time, it was more like a news
thing – in New York they stood up and
marched. But for us here, that happened
in New York, thousands of miles away.
Was it difficult to be gay in Portland?
Darcelle: We were never harassed, but
we also were very careful of where we
went. I mean, I would not walk from here
to another bar in drag; we would drive
there. We didn’t give it a chance to be a
problem.
June 2012
Breazeale: You couldn’t even mention that
you were gay, much less have a boyfriend.
And then you want insurance for him too?
Please. You didn’t even have a job.
Don Sexton
Silverado
Did you find Portland
to be hostile to gay
people in the ‘80s?
Sexton: I didn’t find
that at all. I would
almost bet it’s worse
now than it was then.
What was living through the AIDS crisis
like?
Sexton: You got afraid to ask about some-
body you hadn’t seen in a week or two
because in the beginning, people died
rather quickly from AIDS. AIDS permeated
everything in the bar business in Portland
for three or four years. You had to drink to
get away from it, and that sounds strange
to me now, but it’s true.
Interested in local gay history? A group of community-based historians started Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest (GLAPN) in October
1994. GLAPN members are involved in many activities that promote a greater awareness and understanding of our long history - including processing
collections and doing independent research. One of the best ways to gather our history is to interview members of the community and record their stories.
GLAPN material is stored at the Oregon Historical Society in Portland. www.glapn.org
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