Rikki Streicher (1922–1994) was an American activist and community leader inSan Francisco's LGBTQ movement. In the 1960s, she had an active leadership role in theSociety for Individual Rights, an organization that promoted equal rights for gays and lesbians. In 1966, she opened and ranMaud's, a year prior to theSan Francisco’s Summer of Love; it stayed open for 23 years, at that time the longest continuously running lesbian-ownedlesbian bar in the country. She opened a second bar, Amelia’s, in 1978 in the city’sMission district, with both venues serving as makeshift community centers for lesbians who had very few accepting socializing options. In the early 1980s, she was a co-founder of the internationalGay Olympics, later called Gay Games, she helped to create theFederation of Gay Games and served on the board of directors. In 1994, she received theDr. Tom Waddell Award for her contribution to Gay Athletics.
Streicher died of cancer later that year, and was survived by her partner, Mary Sager. The Rikki Streicher Field, an athletic field and recreation center in San Francisco'sCastro District, was named after her.
Streicher was born in 1922.[1] She served in the military and lived inLos Angeles in the 1940s, where she spent time in the gay bars of that city. She also frequented the gay bars ofNorth Beach inSan Francisco.Butch-Femme roles were very fixed at that time. Streicher then identified asbutch, and was photographed in 1945 in a widely published image, sitting inOakland'sClaremont Resort with otherlesbians, wearing a suit and tie.[2][3] She worked as anX-ray technician after moving to San Francisco in 1944, then enteredrestaurant management.[4]
Streicher had an active leadership role in theSociety for Individual Rights (SIR), an organization of gay men and lesbians created in San Francisco in 1964 that promoted equal rights for homosexuals, political empowerment, and community building through fundraisers, dances, and classes.[5] By 1966, SIR had established the first public gay community center in the United States, and become the largesthomophile organization in the country.[6]
In 1966, Streicher openedMaud's, originally called "Maud's Study", or "The Study", a lesbian bar on Cole St. in theHaight-Ashbury district of San Francisco.[7] The following year, the Haight-Ashbury would become the epicenter of thehippie movement during the 1967Summer of Love. Maud's, said one historian, served to "bridge the gap between San Francisco's lesbian community and its hippie generation."[8] Because women were not allowed to be employed asbartenders in San Francisco until 1971, Streicher had to either tend bar herself or hire male bartenders.[9] The bar quickly became a popular gathering place for San Francisco lesbians andbisexual women. One notable customer of Maud's was singerJanis Joplin.[10] ActivistsDel Martin andPhyllis Lyon were also early patrons of Maud's.[11] Maud's remained opened for twenty-three years, becoming at that time the longest continuously running lesbian-owned lesbian bar in the country. In the bookWide Open Town,Nan Amilla Boyd describes Maud's as a "lesbian bar, clubhouse and community center". She highlights the fight of bar owners like Streicher during the 1950s and 1960s to "secure public space for queer people and says many lesbians 'depended on bar life, the central artery of queer life' for their activities.'[12]
The bar and its closing in 1989 were documented in Paris Poirier's internationally distributed filmLast Call at Maud's.[13] The film weaves the broader history of lesbian bars in the United States into customers' reminisces about old times. In it, Streicher speculated that increased acceptance of lesbianism in public spaces and a turn towards sobriety brought on by the1980s AIDS crisis may have been contributing factors to Maud's closing.[14]
In 1978, at the height of thedisco era, Streicher opened Amelia's, a more spacious bar and dance club at 647 Valencia Street in San Francisco'sMission District, named afterAmelia Earhart. The Mission district, and particularly Valencia Street, became a gathering place for lesbians from the 1970s through the early 1990s, and was home to several organizations and businesses that catered to women, includingThe Women's Building, a non-profit organization; Old Wives Tales, a bookstore; Osento, a woman-only bathhouse;[15] and the Artemis Society, a lesbian club which later became the Artemis Cafe.[16][17]
Amelia's was open until 1991, when Streicher sold it and it became the Elbo Room bar (the Elbo Room closed in 2018).[18] Its closure signaled a change in how lesbians met and congregated in San Francisco. As Rob Morse of theSan Francisco Examiner wrote about Amelia's, "More lesbians than ever live in San Francisco, but...the last lesbian bar in The City, Amelia's, will close."[19] "It's a victim of the lesbian community becoming more diverse," Streicher said, "the 30-and-over lesbian crowd just isn't going out to bars as much anymore. The ones who do tend to go to mainstream bars and clubs."[19] There was no lesbian bar again in San Francisco until the opening of theLexington Club in 1996 ("The Lex" closed in 2015 as a result of the city's increasinggentrification).[20]
An obituary inThe Advocate, published two months after Streicher's death, erroneously reported that Amelia's was called "Amanda's".[21] Every June duringPride Week, the Elbo Room replaced its sign with Amelia's to honor the bar and its lesbian clientele.[22]
Streicher was a passionate promoter of gay and lesbian softball teams and co-founder of theGay Olympics, later named Gay Games, which started in San Francisco.[23] She helped to create the Federation of Gay Games and served on the board of directors.[24] "Sports are the great social equalizer," she said. "It is perhaps the only time that it does not matter who you are but how you play the game."[25] At the fourth annual Gay Games inNew York City in 1994, attended by 55,000 people, she received the Dr.Tom Waddell Award for her contribution to Gay Athletics.[26][27] She is also listed in the hall of fame for the San Francisco Gay Softball League.[28]
Streicher died of cancer at age 68 on August 21, 1994, and was survived by her partner, Mary Sager.[1] Upon her death, the mayor of San Francisco lowered the city flags to half-mast.[29] The Rikki Streicher Field, an athletic field and recreation center in San Francisco'sCastro District, was named after her. Scholars of LGBT history have speculated that the lesbian bars of Streicher's era, which served an important purpose at that time, have closed as the result of gentrification, greater acceptance of lesbians in mainstream society and the popularity ofonline dating and social media.[30][31] One writer looking back on the era noted that Streicher and her lesbian bars were instrumental in creating a protective space where lesbian women could come of age and help others do the same:
'Women would call Maud's and say, "I've got a friend who's been abused, can you help?" And everyone would put their heads together to solve the problem. People were very protective of people. That doesn't exist anymore. Rikki Streicher, the owner of Maud's and Amelia's on Valencia, created that environment for 20 years. She was always conscious of being there for the community. Every few months, a new crop would come in and try to figure out how to be, and it felt like we were bringing them up.'[32]