Richter, Ivy

Entrepreneur and bar owner who established two pioneering drag bars - Chez Ivy in Bondi Junction in 1962 and Ivy's Birdcage on Oxford Street in 1967. In an interview with Sydney's Pride History Group, Richter described the widespread homophobia experienced by her patrons in both their family lives and careers:

...they'd cry, they'd get a few drinks...It was hard, if you couldn't work properly and if you couldn't go home, it was bloody hard.

She also described what it was like for the community during the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s: 

It was just like one after the other. Terrible. I had a black dress just for going to funerals.