From drag queens to inmates: The ACLU's battle for civil liberties in Southern California
LOS ANGELES — Sir Lady Java wore feathers and danced in Los Angeles nightclubs a half-century ago. A transgender woman, known then as a female impersonator, she was of her time but also very much ahead of it, a performer whose battles and brash glamour resonate today as drag queens and LGBTQ+ rights are under siege across the nation.
A hat maker and designer, Sir Lady Java, who arrived in a blaze amid the counterculture, saw her act threatened in 1967 by a city regulation that prohibited performers from cross-dressing in clubs, except by permit. Hers was denied. The American Civil Liberties Union took her case to the California Supreme Court. She lost, but the ordinance was revoked two years later.
Now known as Lady Java, the 79-year-old is revered as an early activist in the LGBTQ+ community. Her story is tucked into the files of the ACLU of Southern California, which opened in 1923 after muckraking writer Upton Sinclair was jailed for reading the 1st Amendment while supporting protesting San Pedro dockworkers.
Since then, the organization, which during World War II. The ACLU's national office has been at the forefront of seminal moments in American history, including and Roe v. Wade.
