“Comin’ a time, B.D. women they ain’t going to need no men,” sang Lucille Bogan in 1935. B.D. was short for bulldagger, the black slang term for a butch lesbian.

“B.D. women, you sure can’t understand. They got a head like a sweet angel and they walk just like a natural man.”

Having debuted in the bawdy black vaudeville scene of 1920s New York, Bogan was comfortable making people uncomfortable. As a blues singer, she was about as blunt as they came. She wrote songs about her experiences as a sex worker, her encounters with violent men, her drinking dependency — and, in “B.D. Woman Blues,” her sexual affinity for women.

Ma Rainey (Wikimedia)

And yet, hardly an eyelash was batted. Not only was “B.D. Woman Blues” tamer than many Lucille Bogan songs, but by that point lesbianism was old news in blues circles. Back in 1928, Ma Rainey had beaten her to the punch with a song called “Prove It On Me”:

“Went out last night with a crowd of my friends. They must’ve been women, ’cause I don’t like no men. It’s true I wear a collar and a tie… Talk to the gals just like any old man… Don’t you say I do it, ain’t nobody caught me. You sure got to prove it on me.”

The song was a response to rumors about Rainey’s lesbianism, which circulated after she was arrested in 1925 for participating in an orgy with multiple women. Rainey had been picked up at the police station by blues singer Bessie Smith, the highest-paid black entertainer in the entire country, who was also known to sleep with women. Sam Chatom, who played guitar for Ma Rainey, was of the opinion that Rainey and Bessie Smith were themselves involved. “I believe she was courting Bessie,” he said. “If Bessie’d be around, if she’d get to talking to another man, she’d run up. She didn’t want no man talking with her.”

Ma Rainey and her band, 1924. (Georgia Music Hall of Fame)

While that rumor was never corroborated, Bessie Smith was no doubt bisexual, and had many affairs with women while on the road, away from her husband. One night she was overheard snapping at her lover Lillian Simpson, “The hell with you, bitch. I got twelve women on this show and I can have one every night if I want it.” She later sang:

“When you see two women walking hand in hand, just look ’em over and try to understand: They’ll go to those parties — have the lights down low — only those parties where women can go.”