“Houston is the perfect melting pot of all different styles of drag,” Vallier opines. He describes Blackberri as “a Disney Villain with the heart of gold,” and created the character in 2016 for a 10-week local drag race competition. “I love that Houston has so many opportunities for entertainers to express their art in any form,” Vallier tells me.
That night I return to the Eagle for a full immersion in Houston’s LGBTQ present, with a bar crawl and performance by one of the area’s most beloved, impossible-to-miss drag personalities, Blackberri ( The alter-ego of Louisiana native Darius Vallier, Blackberri numbers among the small but noteworthy (and international) population of bearded drag queens which includes Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst, Berlin’s Bambi Mercury, Montreal’s Anaconda La Sabrosa, and Portland’s Diana Fire. Other areas of the Eagle bear collages of vintage Houston LGBTQ newspaper and magazine covers, content, and advertisements (some for rather seedy, long since shuttered bars), which is also the handiwork of Doyle: check out his website, for a near exhaustive collection of timelines and archival material including photos and video.
On the wall opposite the timeline, one of gay artist Scott Swoveland’s famed murals depicts a scene from Mary’s, a legendary Houston bar that between 19 served as an invaluable social, organizing, and resource hub, especially during the worst years of the AIDS crisis. The lesson concludes with the 2010 win of the Mayor’s office by openly lesbian candidate Annise Parker who served three terms until 2016, and the huge nationwide success of Marriage Equality in 2015. Also covered that evening was the 1991 gay bashing of local Paul Broussard whose murder led to a high-profile case, protests, and conviction, which the 2015 documentary The Guy With The Knife ( revisits. Doyle has assembled a small group of visiting queer journalists who look above at an illustrated timeline that stretches from one end to the other, marked by national and Houston-specific milestones, starting with the 1950s formation of the Mattachine Society and 1969’s Stonewall Riots. In the Eagle’s second floor bar space, LGBTQ historian J.D.
), in the city’s nearby, leafy “gayborhood” of Montrose, is an integral part of The Bayou City’s LGBTQ timeline and as well as a still buzzing, multilevel drinking and dancing destination. Despite its world-class Museum District, the Eagle Houston (611 Hyde Park Blvd. Houston’s Art Gallery Scene Is Prolific With Several Gay-owned Spaces Worth Stopping ByĪ leather bar isn’t the first venue I’d expect to serve as classroom for a gay history lesson, but that’s exactly how they roll in Houston, Texas.