Long before Stonewall or Castro Street, San Francisco had Mona’s 440 Club — a pioneering lesbian bar and drag cabaret that opened in the 1930s on Broadway in North Beach. With its glowing neon “Mona’s” sign and slogan “Where Girls Will Be Boys,” it was decades ahead of its time — a place where gender, music, and identity flowed as freely as the whiskey.
Mona’s wasn’t just a nightclub; it was a revolution in sequins and smoke. Its cross-dressing waitresses, blues singers, and jazz performers blurred the lines of performance and personhood, creating one of the first public spaces in America where queer women could gather openly.
