Pozanc Robyn Miessler Marilyn
Robyn Pozanc and Marilyn Miessler, a couple and owners of Tattoos Bar, reflect on the LGBTQ+ community in La Crosse in the 80s. The gay community, especially lesbians, was mostly underground until they opened Tattoos on the North Side. They talked about the softball team they formed, and having a space for anyone who needed it on Christmas.
Transcript
Location: Tattoos Bar 1511 Rose St.
Marilyn: I happened to stumble upon the community in college.
Robyn: There was a lot of hidden community. They would go to a certain bar, and-but they would never associate it with being gay. It was pretty well hidden then, yeah.
Marilyn: I mean, there was a community before us that was pretty underground. That was before our time, and then when we opened the bar, then it all kinda surfaced more.
Robyn: Everybody tried to make it a home.
Marilyn: Yeah, yeah, there were a lot of different groups. The older-
Robyn: The older set, the more progressive set the-
Marilyn: Political set.
Robyn: Mhm, there was things like that.
Marilyn: But you know, the potlucks were something, you know, once a month because not everybody liked the bar community, but potlucks-
Robyn: Got a lot of the people together that didn’t really care to go to the bar that much.
Marilyn: Yeah, and that’s kind of when the Leaping La Crosse News started, there were these monthly potlucks and people trying to reach people that they didn’t see very often or knew that we’re out there and we had a ball team, you know.
Robyn: We weren’t that great.
Marilyn: No
Marylyn and Robyn: (laugh)
Robyn: surprisingly, but
Marilyn: Well, it was a little different to recruit. Not everybody wanted to
Robyn: Be out.
Marilyn: Out, yeah, because you had to be out because it was the Tattoos ball team that would go out. And then it’s like, okay, you’re playing on Tattoos, that means you must be gay. It was only those women that felt confident-
Robyn: Comfortable-
Marilyn: in being out that. So we kind of had a mixed bag on our ball team. Everyone expected it to be all the dykes have this-
Robyn: It wasn’t very good (laugh).
Marilyn: Yeah, they put us in A league, and we came in last place the first year. We just had a conglomerate of people that just wanted to play ball.
Robyn: There wasn’t much of a community till we had the bar.
Robyn: We were always open Christmas for people who didn’t have anywhere to go, and we got as surprisingly as many straight people as we did gay people who did not have anywhere to go at Christmas, and they didn’t care, so we had-somebody-somewhere to go.
Robyn: I’m Robin Pozanc.
Marilyn: I’m Marilyn Meisler.