In ‘Who Needs Gay Bars?,’ Greggor Mattson Explor the Past, Current, and Future of Ameri’s Queer Spac - Eater

Contents:

• RUNNG A GAY BAR THE 1950S
• THE GAY BARS AND VICE SQUADS OF 1950'S LOS ANGEL
• HOW GAY BARS HAVE BEEN A BUILDG BLOCK OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNY
• SF GAY HISTORY
• GAY BARS THE 1940S AND 50S WERE ______.
• GAY BARS AREN’T DISAPPEARG; THEY’RE CHANGG
• THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI
• GIGI’S CELEBRAT 50 YEARS: THE OLST GAY-OWNED GAY BAR DETRO IS NOW A HALF-CENTURY OLD
• GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI
• THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW

RUNNG A GAY BAR THE 1950S

But then a Milwkee thor heard about and brought back to life the newly published "Gay Bar: The Fabulo, Te Story of a Darg Woman and Her Boys the 1950s. Will Fellows: Helen Branson had many gay iends the 1940s and 1950s, and she was an extraordary straight ally at a time when beg a straight ally of homosexuals was unheard of.

THE GAY BARS AND VICE SQUADS OF 1950'S LOS ANGEL

She was wrg this book when Senator McCarthy was still rantg and ravg about thgs, a climate of what we uld all ll homophobia -- great antagonism toward homosexualy and homosexuals, perversn and viants, and all that sort of stuff. She really saw as a kd of public livg had a lot of gay iends she'd veloped sce her divorce the 1930s, and she had managed other gay bars for other owners.

She was able to do thgs her own way, a way that created a hospable, iendly and vg atmosphere but still mataed safeguards agast problems wh law enforcement and htlers and people who were not necsarily out to treat her gay iends well. A: At that time, there some gay men who their self-prentatn, bee of feelg so opprsed and beltled and beleaguered and trapped their liv, they kd of acted out almost wildly flamboyant ways, rryg on ways that were more than jt thentic exprsns of maybe an gree of effemacy on their parts. There's another thg that's a fascatg dimensn of homosexual thought at that time: even early gay rights anizatns were very tent on enforcg pretty tradnal standards of drs for men and women.

HOW GAY BARS HAVE BEEN A BUILDG BLOCK OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNY

When she realized that the men she found most appealg as iends when she was workg as a palm rear Los Angel the 1940s were gay, she beme really trigued by that.

"The Brass Rail, which opened s doors Hillcrt 1960 (after apparently movg om downtown), is still a gay bar -- 's now known for s ethnilly diverse clientele -- and ss at the rner of Robson and Fifth. Durg the latter s of his life, gay bars went om rari San Diego to mon sights that serve a variety of typ of gay the past, kissg is most fely allowed. At the same time thoands of gay men found themselv California after World War II, and they were prented wh the problem of livg a life the midst of social disapproval and police reprsn.

SF GAY HISTORY

It was wily njectured that homosexualy rulted om emotnal trmas childhood, as is the se wh other mental illns, and that geics played ltle to no role.

GAY BARS THE 1940S AND 50S WERE ______.

On this basis the practice of nversn therapy took hold, wh wispread attempts to change people om homosexual to heterosexual (here are jt a few exampl om stunts at Oberl College Oh). A survey nducted as late as 1967 for a CBS documentary (see the full program or a shorter versn) termed that two thirds of Amerins viewed homosexuals wh "disgt, disfort, or fear" while a majory favored laws agast all homosexual acts. Some of the well-known gay bars of this time were the Hoe of Ivy and the Wdup Hollywood, and the Crown Jewel, Harold's, the Waldorf, and Maxwell's downtown Los Angel.

The more nservative group of the gay muny took pas to distance themselv om the "obv" crowd, believg that they perpetuated negative stereotyp and drew unwanted attentn. Divisns wh the muny would eventually e to a head the late 1960s, and the homophile label fell by the waysi as the gay muny asserted self more forcefully. Some of them play fair, asmuch as they wa for the gay one to make a pass at them, but many others wa only long enough to get the r before clarg the arrt.

As a trans woman, I fely felt like I was not prent Cherry Grove at that time, but gay men and women were there, rvg out space that I get to hab today. Soon the “theater people” would start to formulate a strong muny where people were able to be openly gay; they uld cross-drs and play wh genr mak the photos so wonrful is that they are very rare. The people are iendly, and we have always been on the ont of LGBTQ+ rights and fightg for eedom to be out and the 1950s, there was no nng water and no electricy, but gay men and women were happy to be roughg bee they were ee to be themselv.

GAY BARS AREN’T DISAPPEARG; THEY’RE CHANGG

If you were gay the cy, you went to the dark and dgy bars, which were n by the Mafia, and at any time uld be raid by the police and you uld be Cherry Grove, the police would leave on the last ferry to the maland at midnight, allowg same-sex dancg and open exprsns of affectn to occur the lol bars and rtrants.

Each year, thoands of people e together to drs up and celebrate Inpennce Day the gayt way possible … wh hundreds of drag queens on a ferry returng to the P to keep the tradn gog. When muny members Cherry Grove would pass away, their straight fay members would clean out their ho to sell bee they did not want to live a “gay town. Insi The Monster, a gay bar around the rner om Stonewall, where the event played out on vio screens, was difficult to hear for a different reason.

But the muny and mararie ma the bar’s buzz of activy special, and (thankfully) ordary: Space to socialize and celebrate at a gay bar 2016 isn’t hard to fd. Dpe the massive stris the lbian, gay, transgenr, bisexual, and queer muni have ma the last few s, the shockg horror of the weekend’s shootgs ma clear the ntued relevance and importance of the bars and nightclubs. While the protts and march at The Stonewall Inn turned the bar to a symbolic headquarters for the Gay Pri movement, gay nightlife has always served as val space for muny buildg and pg societal persecutn.

THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI

The people behd the plac have sparked polil activism (Joe Scialo, the late former owner of The Monster, supported employe the ‘80s fightg AIDS and even traveled to Mexi to brg back life-savg dgs) and have fostered mic and creative exprsn for s (gay clubs such as the Warehoe Chigo and Paradise Garage New York gave birth to hoe and var stras of electronic mic). The worldwi ralli honorg the Orlando victims, often at plac siar to where their liv were cut short, unrsr the importance of gay nightlife over the last half century. Jt a ltle more than 60 years ago, famo police raids Miami attempted to shut down the cy’s gay nightlife, rultg newspaper headl such as "Perverts Seized Bar Raids, " "Crackdown on Deviant Nts Urged, " and "Great Civilizatns Plagued by Deviat.

The notor "Purple Pamphlets" dissemated by state Senator Charley Johns, who had led wch hunts agast gays state ernment and led vtigative mte that fired hundreds of gay schoolteachers, portrayed the culture as viant and dangero. But wasn’t until the seismic shift of World War II changed gay culture the Uned Stat that the bars and nightlife of today began to tly take shape. While on s own the war didn't create any lastg legal chang the shameful way the untry treated homosexuals, did set motn other lastg social shifts.

The sgle-sex arrangement of ary life, as well as creasg pennce (and enomic advanc) of women workg on the homeont, offered many gay Amerins the abily to ngregate greater numbers for the first time. The release of the Ksey Reports (1948’s Sexual Behavr the Human Male and 1953’s Sexual Behavr the Human Female) rerced the then-new notn that beg gay was perfectly normal.

GIGI’S CELEBRAT 50 YEARS: THE OLST GAY-OWNED GAY BAR DETRO IS NOW A HALF-CENTURY OLD

While this risg awarens helped create new gay rights anizatns, such as the Mattache Society and the Dghters of Bilis, was quickly untered wh a nservative backlash of nformy and Communist paranoia, exemplified by Senator Joseph McCarthy. His vtigatns, part of an anti-gay wch hunt the feral ernment lled the Lavenr Sre, would persecute leftists for years, and along wh sual bigotry and wispread amement over terms such as ‘pixie, ’ would help falsely lk beg gay wh viance and anti-Amerin behavr the popular imagatn. At the same time, he ntued, popular culture was "pollutg homosexualy" by labelg gays cultural subversiv, child molters, predators, and disease sprears.

In Provcetown, Massachetts, the A-Hoe, a gay hangout, beme one of the landmarks of the northeastern vatn muny, famo for a nu photo of Tennsee Williams strollg a lol beach hangg on the wall. The Cab Inn, opened by Nat "Big" Ivy Chigo’s South Si Bronzeville neighborhood, put on regular drag shows featurg a chos le of black men, while Esta Noche, a pneerg Missn District gay bar, opened for a predomantly Hispanic clientele 1979. Margalized much like their clientele, gay bars were often forced to set root unrveloped, or dtrial sectns of town, or well off the beaten path ral areas.

Durg the ‘50s and ‘60s, ps nstantly harassed LGBTQ tablishments, pullg cisers up near the entrance to disurage anyone om gog si, parkg police wagons ont of the door durg equent raids, and even sendg unrver ps to try and get someone to h on them—a daily occurrence every bar, gay or straight—which would trigger a lewd nduct charge. In Eric Marc’s book, Makg History, Shirley Willer, a gay civil rights activist, rells a night she spent tryg to fd a bar lled Seven Seas on Chigo’s Rh Street. By 1964, when Bob Damron’s Addrs Book, a self-published gay travel gui, was first issued, ntaed more than 750 bars, rtrants, and clubs across the untry, all personally vised by the thor, a bsman who was equently on the road.

GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI

Outsi of the work of early gay civil rights activists, LGBTQ culture was margalized and often ignored, and rarely enterg the polil bate outsi of lls for a crackdown. In 1959, San Francis Mayoral ndidate Rsell Woln, a Democrat, attacked cumbent Gee Christopher, claimg he ma "homosexuals" feel so wele they moved their natnal anizatn to town. Woln was cricized, lost the electn, and as was often the se when crics or moralizers attacked the LGBTQ muny, merely broadst to others that San Francis was a great place to meet fellow gay and lbian people.

One of the first attempts at an evenhand, nondiscrimatory look at gay life was a 1964 Life magaze photo shoot featurg two San Francis gay bars, the Tool Box and Jumpg Frog. By the end of the , that anonymy would be replaced wh mands for rights and regnn, as the gay rights movement began to achieve velocy, pecially the wake of larger lls for civil rights.

After pourg their drks, a bartenr Juli's Bar ref to serve John Timms, Dick Lesch, Craig Rodwell, and Randy Wicker, members of the Mattache Society, an early Amerin gay rights group, who were prottg New York liquor laws that prevented servg gay ctomers, New York, New York, April 21, 1966.

THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW

In 1962, a group of gay bar owners San Francis formed the Tavern Guild, a pneerg gay bs associatn, settg up a phone le to warn each other of police raids, and tablishg a bail fund.