Bars play an important role for Milwaukee's LGBTQ community, serving as a focal point for community, safety and understanding. And, bouncer, bartender, businesswoman and community advocate Sharon Dixon has played a major part in that history.
Throughout her career, Dixon has been involved with nearly every women’s bar in town. Starting in 1975, Dixon and her partner Joann Kilsdonk were the first gay women in Milwaukee to open a bar that was “owned and operated by and for women.” It was called the Sugar Shack, and it was the start of Dixon’s career of not just being a bar owner, but a community protector who helped countless people in times of need.
"Sharon Dixon is really quite a pioneer in the Wisconsin LGBTQ history scene for over five decades, for almost three generations. Sharon has been part of the community as a friend, as a business owner, as a champion, as a protector, as somebody who created spaces for women by women, which is of important distinction," explains Michael Takach, chair of the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project.
"For many, many years, there were lesbian bars or places that welcomed or in even earlier years, tolerated lesbians. But Sharon saw a need and a need to be the difference. She knew that most of the bars that women were allowed to attend were owned by straight people, and those straight people were there to make money off the community. They weren't there to create a great experience, they weren't there to create a community, they really didn't care much about their customers so Sharon saw a real need," he adds. "She saw a need for spaces that understood women, that would create a community of women and she set forth a plan in motion to own and open her first bar in 1975 and that really changed everything. There was nothing like it."
Women would travel from all over Wisconsin and even from out of state to visit the Sugar Shack. Before she became a community figure here in Milwaukee, Dixon grew up in Hurley, Wisconsin. According to Takach, she was having problems at home and decided it was time to leave, and wound up hitchhiking to Milwaukee.
"Now keep in mind she was 14 at the time, so at 14, Sharon was a homeless youth. Very much like youth of today, you know, leaving home because they were not understood, not welcomed and not supported. She spent a lot of time in gas station bathrooms. ... The guys would close the station for the night and she'd have a safe and warm place to sleep and somehow made it survive. She would stay in downtown movie theaters that were open 24 hours," he says.
Dixon lived around the city and worked various jobs in Milwaukee until she got a cross-country sales job at just 17 years old. "Eventually she did see all 48 states and basically went from coast to coast with this job. And that's really where she became aware of her sexual identity and who she really was," explains Takach.
Resourcefulness, grit, determination — all of these qualities are true of Dixon. In addition to the cofounding the Sugar Shack, Dixon also ran Fannie’s, Kathy’s Nut Hut and Studio 200 throughout the Milwaukee area.
Diane Gregory, board member of the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project and local performer also known as “Legs,” shares what Dixon’s bars were like: "It was just a whole different kind of a vibe because [it was] all women, mostly giggling, laughing. It was a club, you know? It was somewhere that you knew when you walked in, you'd see somebody you knew. [Sharon] had softball teams ... then she opened Fannie's and that's where everything happened. Wonderful dance floor, it was a great bar, the patio. ... She did Fanny Fest every year and raise money for AIDS, she did a lot of things for the community, it's giving us a safe place. [Sharon really was] a protector. You'd go into Fannie's and she'd be at the corner of the bar and she'd been watching her people, you know what I mean? Her ladies. I give her credit, she gave these young people a venue and they came from all over."
Takach says Dixon's role of being a protector goes back to 1971 when she came back to Milwaukee.
"She was a bouncer at the River Queen, which was a very popular bar, very hip and happening that actually puts some of the most popular gay bars of the '60s right out of business because it was so popular. And as a bouncer, there she really protected people from police harassment, from people harassing them on the street. She really took that job very seriously and that is a job I think she's had ever since," he notes.
Part of Dixon’s motivation to open her own bar was to change what she experienced as a bouncer, bartender and cook in local LGBTQ bars. While they catered to the community, they were owned by straight people, and Takach notes that most owners did not look out for their customers the way Dixon did at her establishments.
"No one was looking out for the women in these bars, they were just looking to make sure the women were spending money. And women didn't have as much money because they had, in some cases, children, women made less money because there were not as many equal rights protections in the workplace, so people thought Sharon was crazy when she opened a bar for women because women don't have any money. What are you doing? But she saw the need and she felt it was really, really important," he explains.
In addition to giving people a safe space to enjoy dancing and being in community, Dixon also got involved in philanthropy, helping people both through big fundraisers and also in smaller ways, such as leaving gift baskets on people’s porches who needed extra support.
"She took this commitment seriously," says Takach. "She raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for AIDS, cancer, LGBT causes as well as individuals in need of care. So her idea was that everyone supported her right from the start, so she was going to support everyone around her and that's something that she just kept on doing as long as she was able."
Jessica Fenner is the founder of Apart Music and a friend of Dixon. They met when Dixon owned Studio 200. They worked together on a weekly basis to put on events for the electronic music community.
"At the time, there's sort of a rotation where we look for a home in Milwaukee. What is the venue going to be that welcomes what we call 'the underground' and is interested in giving a home for that? And Studio 200 became that place very quickly," she says.
"Historically house and techno music was born out of the gay and Black communities in Chicago and Detroit. And so although we are the music community, there's still a very strong connection there, and I think a very strong connection in attitude. The welcome, and the sort of protectiveness and defender of being different, living out loud, being safe, that Sharon gave to the LGBTQIA + community is also what she gave to the music community. And so our relationship really flourished given that approach, so although the music was completely foreign to her, she showed a great fondness for the people," adds Fenner.
The COVID-19 pandemic clearly had a massive impact on local bars and at-risk populations. Fenner says she was concerned about Dixon being isolated, being more elderly in her seventies, and not as tech savvy to be able to access support networks. So, she and some friends made a point to keep in touch with Dixon.
"We developed that side of the relationship a lot more during COVID and shortly after COVID 2022, I had moved to Chicago that fall and then heard from Melody [Spesard] and Sharon that she had been receiving eviction notices for Studio 200, and there's more to that story that I won't get into, but the end result was basically that someone she had trusted on a business level had, unknowingly to her, had her sign over the property and she found herself evicted from the property. She didn't know she was no longer the owner, and early in 2023 she received that notice that she was had to vacate," Fenner recalls.
"Sharon, part of her fighting spirit that that made her survive as a teen and build her life the way she has means there's a certain amount of pride there and self-reliance and resilience that makes it tough to ask for help," she adds.
Losing Studio 200 also meant Dixon lost her decades-long home that was above the club. Fenner says Dixon was determined to handle the situation on her own, and was staying in hotels using her savings as well as a period in a shelter while Fenner and others were trying to help find more permanent and safe housing for Dixon. Fenner stayed in touch and visited Dixon every month as she could. Eventually, Fenner discovered that Dixon was completely unhoused full-time and had clearly been though trauma.
"It was tough," she recalls. "It was a really tough situation, she was absolutely destitute. She had all her belongings on her walking frame [and] she had declined severely just from what she was experiencing. Luckily, social services was able to kick into overdrive ... and about 10 days later, Sharon was in housing, thank goodness. But she had been unhoused for a good four or five months overall. And so you can imagine what that does to a person.
"Then after some time of her having a chance to get her feet under her, that housing was also sold, and we went back onto this treadmill of needing to find her a new place. But luckily we were able to do that pretty quickly as well, and then visiting her in her new place two weeks later for Thanksgiving, she finally felt comfortable enough for us to be public about what she had been going through," Fenner explains.
After Thanksgiving, Fenner and others began a GoFundMe campaign for Dixon to help raise funds to help her reestablish not just a home, but her quality of life. On March 30, hundreds of community members came together for “Remember When: A Tribute to Sharon Dixon” at LaCage nightclub in Walker’s Point.
Michael Takach of the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project, shares what motivated them to organize a public tribute for Dixon. "The [Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project] really was inspired by the fundraiser that Jessica and Melody had put together and thought you know this is a community taking care of Sharon, but it's our community that Sharon has taken care of the most. So our idea was to step up and really pull people together whose lives have been touched by Sharon in some way and really allow them to say thank you."
This is a community taking care of Sharon, but it's our community that Sharon has taken care of the most."Michael Takach, Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project
The afternoon was filled with open mic tributes, drag performances and more, in celebration of a woman who helped shape Wisconsin LGBTQ history. The fundraiser marked the end of women’s history month, but more importantly honored Dixon’s legacy of creating safe spaces.
Dixon says being able to create safe spaces for her community will always be her biggest accomplishment. “I prided myself on the fact that I tried my very best to make sure that they were always safe … women at the time still needed a place to go where they could still be themselves," she says. "But I ruffled a few feathers — one of my first business cards said ‘a place owned and operated by women for women,’ and some of the gay guys took it funny, but they got over it.”
“I always wanted to help people if I could but the women’s community, whether it be gay or straight, they all needed a safe space to go where they would be treated right. … It had to be done. It was the right time and I was still young enough,” she adds.
The event, which also served as an “old timers reunion party,” had people coming from near and far to celebrate Dixon — from old bar patrons to past employees flying in from out of state.
"That was heartfelt," says Dixon. "I didn’t expect such a big turnout and I’m glad I showed up. ... I’m somewhat embarrassed, but I’m also very pleased that so many showed up and that’s all I can really say. I was fortunate.”
Dixon says she enjoyed everything she got to do and gained a lot of respect out of it from all the women in the community. And in turn, the community showed up for her. They returned the favor of providing a safe haven to someone who provided that to them for decades. Over $2,000 was raised just that afternoon, and to date over $10,000 has been raised to help Dixon with housing and medical care.
