Do the math on lesbian bars and it reads like an endangered-species report. In the 1980s, the United States had roughly 200 of them. By the time the pandemic arrived, the count had cratered to 16 in the entire country, and a single bad year threatened to take that number to zero. These were never just bars. They were, and are, some of the few dedicated physical spaces where queer women could gather, organize, argue across generations, and simply exist out loud.
Filmmaker Erica Rose refused to watch them go quietly. In 2020, she and fellow queer filmmaker Elina Street launched The Lesbian Bar Project, a PSA and fundraising campaign that grew into a documentary short and, eventually, a Roku docuseries hosted by Lea DeLaria. It worked. The effort has raised well over a quarter of a million dollars across its campaigns, and since it began, 11 more lesbian bars have opened their doors in the U.S. Rose has, in other words, helped move the needle in the right direction for the first time in a generation.
She also has a Miniature Schnauzer named Patty Mayonnaise, and if you ask her, Patty deserves partial credit for keeping her sane through all of it.
A dog named Madame Mayo
Rose and her girlfriend waited a long time for Patty. Both grew up with dogs, Rose with Standard Poodles and her partner with Mini Schnauzers, so the beard won out. By Rose’s account, Patty arrived as a five-month-old force of nature: sharp, relentlessly social, and, in her favorite word for the dog, full of chutzpah. Patty is apparently a fixture in their Brooklyn neighborhood with a suspiciously long list of friends, and Rose cheerfully admits the household now revolves entirely around the dog, who runs the place while the humans just happen to live there.
The project that started with one alarming statistic
The origin story is grimly specific. In March 2020, Rose’s entire industry shut down overnight. Around the same time, she read an NBC Out article reporting that just 16 lesbian bars remained in the country, and that the pandemic could push that number to zero. She called Street, and the two decided they simply couldn’t accept a world where those spaces disappeared. For Rose, these bars aren’t nightlife trivia; they’re where she came of age, and she describes them as essential ground for community, political organizing, conversation across generations, and queer friendship.
So they built something. The October 2020 PSA and fundraising push brought in more than $117,000. A 2021 short documentary followed, spotlighting bar owners, activists, and regulars in New York City; Mobile, Alabama; and Washington, D.C., and its accompanying campaign raised over $150,000. From there the thing kept growing: the short racked up two Webby Awards and an ANA Award, screened at the Library of Congress for a Congressional caucus, earned a Tribeca X nomination, and was acquired by AMC+ and Sundance TV. In 2022 came the Roku docuseries adaptation, which won a GLAAD Media Award and was honored at a Sundance-sanctioned storytelling event. The whole enterprise has been executive-produced by DeLaria and supported by Jägermeister’s #savethenight initiative.
What the dog is actually for
Rose is candid that work this personal is as draining as it is meaningful; the stakes felt enormous, and she pours herself into it. Which is exactly where Patty stops being a cute footnote and becomes something closer to a coping mechanism. Rose credits the dog with dragging a bit of work-life balance back into her days: because she often works from home, Patty is the one insisting on cuddle breaks and walks, and the dog’s steady stream of theatrics and silly noises breaks up the grind. It’s the quiet, unglamorous thing dogs do for people carrying heavy work. They demand, several times a day, that you get up, go outside, and remember you have a body and a neighborhood.
Has Patty been to set? Only as talent for a photoshoot, Rose reports, deadpan. The dog is strictly an on-screen presence, offer-only, though she might be persuaded to audition for the right director.
Still hustling
Rose isn’t slowing down. The Lesbian Bar Project has gone international, with a special focused on Lesbian+ communities in Germany, and she’s juggling her own films alongside it, including a narrative short, LET LIV, that premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival, and a comedy feature in development with comedian Ali Clayton.
She’s also clear-eyed about how precarious the industry is for everyone in it, and especially for queer stories, which studios too often wave off as niche. Her counterargument is blunt: queer stories are universal, not a specialty item, and there’s always an audience hungry for them. Ask her what Pride means and you get the same ethic that powers the bar project, a refusal to stay silent and a commitment to telling her community’s stories for her community. Patty, presumably, will be supervising from the couch.
