Rita Wanstrom and Roaring Sixties (1967)
On June 23d, 1967, Rita Wanstrom opened Houston's first lesbian bar, The Roaring 60s, in response to the lack of spaces for lesbian women to freely dress due to the cross-dressing laws in place at the time. Even at clubs that catered to gay men, women were required to wear skirts or to flip their pants since “fly-front” pants were considered to be masculine clothing. However, the cross-dressing laws in Houston allowed the police an excuse to raid LGBT spaces. As a result, on August 5th of that same year, the Roaring 60s was raided. Rita, who was also know in the Houston gay community as Pappa Bear, paid everyone’s fines and hired a band to help reopen the bar. While the situation seemed to have been mitigated, the club was raided again two days before New Year’s Eve and eleven women- including Rita- were arrested. With Rita in the lead, a group of women who called themselves the Tumblebugs organized fundraisers to hire famed trial lawyer Percy Foreman. While the case was on docket four different times, the vice squad officers failed to appear on all occasions. On July 26, 1968 the case was dismissed. Houston’s ordinance for the complete reversal of the cross-dressing laws, however, would not occur until 1980. [17][18]