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Sir Lady Java, the pioneering transgender performer and activist who bravely challenged discrimination laws and police harassment as a star of the Los Angeles nightclub scene in the 1960s, died Saturday after suffering a stroke. Close friends confirmed this on Tuesday. She was 82 years old.
“This is a huge loss to the community,” said actor Haley Sahar, who is preparing to play Java in the biopic and has been one of her primary caregivers for the past two years. “She started the LGBTQ+ movement before there really was an LGBTQ+ community to rally behind.”
Also known as Lady Java, she worked as a drag queen, singer, dancer, comedian, and “female impersonator” at a time when cross-dressing without permission was prohibited, and she performed in mainly heterosexual clubs. He charmed the audience and ran around in circles with straight men. L.A. celebrities such as Lena Horne;
Java was a milliner and designer, and incorporated those skills into her own ensembles. She sat at the starting table at the Red Fox Club on La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood, where her beauty caught the attention of her and invited her to the stage where she was born. Soon she was performing regularly, friends said, with such big names as Richard Pryor.
“Her comedic beats were spot on,” said Sahar, a transgender woman of color best known for her role as Lulu Abundance on the award-winning FX series “Pose.”
In 1967, Java joined the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge his arrest by the Los Angeles Police Department for performing in drag without permission. This was a violation of the local cross-dressing ordinance, then known as Rule 9. She ultimately lost her case in the California Supreme Court, but the ordinance was repealed two years later.
Java’s position predates similar anti-LGBTQ+ police harassment riots at New York’s Stonewall Inn two years ago, but has never received similar attention. But the issue has become more prevalent in recent years, as historians and young queer people seek to bring more attention to the traditionally overlooked heroes of the queer rights movement, especially transgender people of color like Javanese. It is attracting a lot of attention.
“The important thing about Java is that she was born long before there were social circles, long before the Stonewall riots in New York, so she was really a pioneer,” Sahar said. Ta.
Sahar said she first heard the name Java about 15 years ago, when a man at a rehearsal told her that it reminded her of Java. Sahar said she went home and started Googling Java and “became so obsessed with her beauty and what she represented.”
She made an effort to find and meet Java and was ultimately successful. Soon, Java became her “trans mother” and queer role model, the same “light-skinned mixed-race woman” who came from a poor family and took Hollywood by storm. Bigotry and discriminatory laws are abhorrent.
She also became a dear friend, Sahar said. “She was the funniest person I’ve ever met. She was very quick-witted, very intelligent, very classy. But she knew exactly how she felt, and… Don’t try it,” Sahar said with a laugh.
Jace Barron, another of Java’s caretakers in his later years, said that today’s queer people “are benefiting as a community from the backs and shoulders of transgender people of color, but we are They are rarely given the credit or recognition they deserve.”
He said this should change, as understanding history is critical to continuing the fight for queer rights into the future.
“If Java could do the kind of work it did in the 1960s, we can continue to do the work today,” he said. “Her legacy is not finished.”
Indeed, Javanese heritage is especially relevant today, gay activists say, as LGBTQ+ rights are under attack and President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign centered in part on an anti-transgender agenda. He said he was buoyed by the win.
Trevor Ladner, director of education programs at One Institute, an LGBTQ+ history and education organization in Los Angeles, teaches Javanese’s story as part of the institute’s youth programs and spends weekends with students. He said he learned of Java’s death while researching her story.
He said California law requires school-age students to receive education about the contributions of homosexuals and people of color, and that Java’s “pioneering fight for workers’ rights” in the 1960s was an example of that. He said it fully complies with the requirements.
“The importance of her story is underscored by continued legal attacks on transgender autonomy, drug entertainment, and the increased visibility of transgender youth in schools,” Radner said. “There is,” he said.
Sahar said Java was “perplexed” by the rise in anti-trans sentiment in recent years. This is because she “came at a time when she was helping to lay the foundations” for changing the trend of acceptance, and she did not believe that the country would go backwards.
But Sahar is also happy about the biopic about his life, which he is working with producer Anthony Hemingway to get support for.
“She felt that if people saw her life story and understood what it took to get to this point, they would have a deeper understanding of love, acceptance and equality,” Sahar said. said. That was an agreement between the two.
“Jawas said to me, ‘Baby, I used to work.’ I fought for our rights. You have to think about what you’re going to do. ” said Sahar. “And I said, ‘Java, that’s why we’re making your movie.’
Before his death, Java said in an interview about the biopic that he felt his story “needed to be told,” especially today.
“Many of my brothers and sisters were killed during my time,” she said. I’m going to tell you that. ”
Times staff writer Grace Twohey contributed to this report.
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