Where else is there to go when you have your own in-home bar?

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Apartments like the airy, two-story, three bedroom unit just off Retro Row rented by Susan Janz and Jennifer Celio can at once leave you feeling overwhelmed and pissed. Overwhelmed, because you realize this is but one of our city’s legion [...]

From page-boy to testosterone injections: One person’s journey fom female to male

Jim Howley was a girl who wanted to be a boy by the time she was four. It was 1979, in a town with the absolutely literary-perfect name of Plain City, Ohio. At preschool, she hung out with the boys. There—and we can imagine [...]

Nine to five is never a drag when you’re Jewels

PHOTO by JOHN GILHOOLEY
Renowned Long Beach drag queen Jewels (real name a closely guarded secret!) has been performing—as Marilyn, as Dolly, as Tammy Faye and Courtney Love and Mariah, too—since she was 18 years old. Seven years ago, she became part of the Long Beach scene [...]

Is the Long Beach Gay Pride Parade only worth it if you’re gay?
Despite minoring in women’s studies at Cal State Long Beach and ranting feministically in the Daily Forty-Niner, it was only a few weeks ago that I had my first drink at Que Sera. Surprised? Apparently, you’re supposed to be. But although my feminism [...]

That’s the conception—but of course, the city has always had a vibrant gay nightlife scene

PHOTO by RUSS ROCA
We’re standing in the Crest, outwardly a nondescript little cinderblock of a bear bar on an industrial stretch of Cherry Avenue near Long Beach’s border with Paramount. Inside, there’s a fireplace, and out back a waterfall.
What’s a [...]