'I developed a passion for these stories,' he says. In search of Chicago's gay history, de la Croix has interviewed bar-goers in alleys. 'There would be cops outside with a flashlight checking to see if they had their flies in front,' which was considered a masculine style, de la Croix says.
Police enforced an old cross-dressing law that required women to wear three items of 'female apparel.' In the frantic early minutes of a raid, some women would run to the bathroom and trade clothes in an attempt to achieve the legally mandated minimum of women's attire. In the 1960s, lesbian bars were subjected to a particular form of police scrutiny. A few blocks away is a lesbian bar that opened in 1965. Across the street was the now defunct Blue Pub, which de la Croix has traced back to at least 1971. Irving Park Rd., was part of a triangle of gay bars.
