'Gay Bar' Tracks The Wave Of A Whole Culture — And One Life : NPR

Contents:

• AS SEATTLE’S GAYBORHOOD MIGRAT, CAPOL HILL QUEER BARS FIGHT TO REMA A REFUGE
• A YEAR GAY BARS
• IN THE FACE OF HOSTILY AT CHIGO GAY BARS, TWO BLACK LBIANS CREATE THEIR OWN
• 'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
• IN ‘GAY BAR,’ TIME-HOPPG SNAPSHOTS OF QUEER NIGHTLIFE

AS SEATTLE’S GAYBORHOOD MIGRAT, CAPOL HILL QUEER BARS FIGHT TO REMA A REFUGE

At the time, the queer bars I pass are stg silent and shuttered: Pony, whose signage announced 2014 to a changg neighborhood, “This is a very gay bar. I cut through Cal Anrson Park, named after Washgton state’s first openly gay legislator.

As spac close or relote search of cheaper rent, there is an opportuny to rethk both the nature of queer space and the boundari of Seattle’s gayborhood. My two gay bt iends and I were dner regulars at the Broadway Grill; hnted mortuary-turned-gay-bar Chapel; and danced our hearts out at club and drag performance venue R Place, where I always felt wele, both before and after I me out as queer and genr-expansive. Its five female founrs chose the space for s large wdows, a revolutnary move durg a time when “gay bars were more like speakeasi, ” as Manng told the Seattle Channel, hoed dark, hidn spac.

A YEAR GAY BARS

But vlence isn’t the only threat to the gayborhood. “When Capol Hill first started gentrifyg, I’d be [workg the] door, and people would ask, ‘Why are there so many gay bars here?

The gayborhood of my youth was punk-rock and unashamedly queer, a rehg ntrast to the homogenized culture and merce that domated downtown and the suburbs. Dpe the “myth of gay affluence, ” LGBTQ people face higher rat of poverty than their cisgenred, heterosexual peers, along wh barriers to social servic and health re. The gayborhood has moved before, however, and uld aga.

IN THE FACE OF HOSTILY AT CHIGO GAY BARS, TWO BLACK LBIANS CREATE THEIR OWN

At the time, strict laws regulatg sodomy, same-sex dancg, and drag forced them unrground, but most “gay bars end up simply payg off the police to prevent them om beg harassed, ” says Peter Boag, profsor and Columbia Chair the History of the Amerin Wt at Washgton State Universy. This bribery system ma Seattle “a hot town for gay people, ” as turn-of-the-century performer Hannah Banana once scribed , wh vville and drag at s center. At the Garn of Allah, Seattle’s first gay-owned baret, renowned performers such as Skippy LaRue were drawg both gay and straight crowds 119 years before Ru Pl’s Drag Race beme a cross-cultural phenomenon.

The historic Dorian Society opened a muny center there 1969; the Uned Ebony Council, a Black gay male anizatn, formed 1975, and both groups met at the Mombo Rtrant and Lounge, whose owner helped end the police bribery system. Seattle’s first publicly gay bar, Shelley’s Leg, opened 1973, terg primarily to lbians, wh other woman-oriented bars followg su. But as gay and lbian activism gaed tractn the 1970s and 1980s, however, s lears displaced many of the genr-expansive people and BIPOC who drove the origal movement.

'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE

“They created a very gay Capol Hill, but they also displaced a lot of Black and Brown muni.

O’Stayformore has found hom Geetown for her drag show, Ban Strip; Burns scrib Whe Center’s nascent gayborhood as remiscent of “old Capol Hill, ” wh a more diverse scene that clus some of the olr lbians who might once have graced the Rose’s booths and barstools. While much of this progrs n be creded to the gay and lbian activist cultur of the 1960s and ’70s, the irony is that they created a future where the next generatn of queer people feel ls affy wh the “G” and “L” labels — and the spac that go along wh them.

Even Toce, spe her publitn’s name, don’t necsarily intify wh the word “lbian” (she prefers “gay”), but feels that the Seattle Lbian is “fillg a niche the muny that I thought need to be there. Gay women are more likely than men to marry or habate, pecially Washgton state, as well as to divorce; this siphons patrons off the lbian bar scene first when they “nt, ” and aga when they bee sgle parents. ” She would like to see more queer space that targets patrons at “different pots our liv, ” such as 25-year Hill veteran Gay Cy, which boasts a library and ffee shop along wh arts and culture programmg, youth servic, and health and tnal rourc.

IN ‘GAY BAR,’ TIME-HOPPG SNAPSHOTS OF QUEER NIGHTLIFE

But jt as the gayborhood has transformed before, perhaps n happen aga.

The first gay bar that I passed through this year was Dallas, Texas. On my first eveng town, after pretendg to wre but mostly cryg over K-dramas, I head out to Oak Lawn, the cy’s gayborhood.

The siwalks were dimly l, and I glid om light to light through the eply balmy eveng, and beyond the pat I found a panmic-era simulacm of a Texas gay bar’s ual weekday crowd: a few (whe) guys watchg sports on their phon, a (whe) man talkg to the bartenr, alongsi a handful of skny (whe) dus lookg to get laid. In Hoton, while ambulance sirens blared at all hours, I ocsnally spent my afternoons walkg up and down the roads of our own lol gayborhood, Montrose.