“Latina Glitter”, a story of mine was selected for The Best Sex Writing of 2012. This is the story BEHIND that story.  The meta best sex writing of 2012. All photos taken at La Cueva by Edmund X White.

Outside the car window, Chicago’s South Side is a-glow.There are lively taquerias, a store with a neon sign that reads “joyeria”, the “i” dotted with a diamond and a series of boutiques named, curiously, “Brazilian Seduction Jeans”. At the center is La Cueva — the only establishment in this neighborhood not listed by the official City of Chicago website, though the place is a landmark. La Cueva is the oldest Latino Drag bar in the United States. Drag bar is a bit of a misnomer though, as all of the performers are trans, Female to Male.

Recently neighbors began protesting the bar– calling it a site for “transgender prostitution and drug deals”. I read this on a citizen journalism blog, community members were lobbying for the bar to close, and there might be some pull. Yet there was nothing in the Chicago Tribune or the Sun Times, or even The Chicago Reader and closing this place would be closing a piece of LGBTQ history.

I led the way into the bar but when the door guy looks at me and says “Hay un precio de portada”, I let Lucia, who I brought to translate, take over . I read online the bar was strictly Spanish speaking only and after ordering a gin and tonic and getting a rum and coke, it sinks in.

The place is dark and dive-y. Crowding the bar are men in cowboy hats and tight jeans, straight men drinking solo. In an adjacent room, the rays of a disco ball mark a stage area. Seated beneath the sparkles are a few groups of gay men and one or two lesbian couples. As Lucia and I find a table, I notice Ketty Teanga at the bar. Teanga started the drag show at La Cueva in the early 80’s and has been performing since the 1960’s. She no longer performs but looks, perhaps, even more glamorous in her retirement, lips red, hair puffed to the Gods.

The lights dimmed and the first performer, Cassandra, took stage. She lip-synced to a Mexican pop ballad wearing a tight bun and glittery blue gown. Next was Vanessa, in a Marilyn Monroe wig with gold leaves decoupaged to her body, ala Garden of Eden. Her style was more strip-club, wrapping a leg around a patron and accepting his dollar bill into cleavage.We spent most of the night talking to bartenders and managers trying to get interviews between the sets. We were finally told to come back next Thursday. But before we left, I pushed Lucia toward Ketty Teanga, and she returned with Teanga’s phone number, and acceptance to do an interview.
The following Thursday we came early, the performers were just arriving, wearing street clothes. Here, with their clean faces and shiny ponytails it was all the more clear this was not drag, the women looked even more beautiful than they had on stage.

Lucia blew through my list of questions, I guessed by facial expression how it was going. But, when the conversation turned to the protesters, I could tell, and worried if things were getting too heated. Lucia was nodding sympathetically.

Later, she would fill me in on everything they said: they were not prostitutes, it was true that this neighborhood had lots of prostitution, but they had jobs, why would they sell themselves in the street? The women described their work in the club with such tenderness– “I have worked here for 10 years,” Vanessa said, who was soft spoken in contrast to the stage persona. “Before, I worked out in the fields in Mexico, but I always dreamed about working in a place doing what I do now.”

Lucia and I stayed post-interview, hanging out and drinking at the bar. I watched the straight cowboys put their arms around the performers, and ask them to have a drink. I didn’t see any prostitution, but regardless, I know that sex work for trans people isn’t always from choice, but rather circumstance because of workplace discrimination. Add to this being Hispanic and not speaking English and it becomes near impossible to find work.

It was afternoon when we went to see Ketty Teanga. Teanga, while retired, still keeps the hours of a showgirl. For her, it was morning. Teanga’s apartment was filled with mahogany foreign furniture which popped against lime colored walls. As we talked, Teanga brought out her gown collection– a white cha-cha dress, a holographic blue one. Of a long satin dress she said, “see, regular dresses, for when I am meeting my public.”

Teanga had grown up in drag shows in Puerto Rico, she started at 15. Back then, the police would arrest anyone they thought were in shows, On, the street, they wiped a handkerchief over Teanga’s face, if there was a trace of make-up she would be arrested. In the 70’s Teanga moved to New York City, where she began transitioning with hormones. “Back then, you could do your transition and take hormones, but you still had to dress like a man. Only on the weekends, could you be a woman — this is in New York, not even Puerto Rico!”

It was in the 80’s that she came to Chicago and started the shows at La Cueva. When I ask Teanga about the claims of prostitution, she says there has always been prostitution in the neighborhood— but mostly among gay males. “I don’t see the girls in La Cueva on the streets. A lot of girls work in nightclubs but will clean offices during the day.”

Teanga says the neighborhood actually used to be a lot rougher, there was more prostitution and the performers had to run from the car to the club, because people would shoot at them with BB guns.

She talked about how the women have it so much easier today with transitioning, the hormones are better and more accessible. So many things had gotten better, but it was now that the neighbors were calling for the bar to close. Perhaps it was best put by one of the performers in the interview, who pointed out that Mexico City may have legalized gay marriage but homophobia within the community remained, maybe it have even made it worse. Teanga blazed a path, but there was still so long to go.

To read the printed story I wrote about La Cueva, order a copy of Best Sex Writing of 2012!