Washgton, D.C.'s hidn gay history is unvered 'Secret Cy'

Contents:

• LICHT CAFé, D.C.’S NEWT GAY BAR, IS A COZY, ART-FILLED U STREET HIAWAY
• THE U STREET CORRIDOR FALLY HAS A GAY CLUB AGA
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
• D.C.'S BT GAY BARS AND HANGOUTS
• WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'
• THE BT GAY BARS WASHGTON, D.C.
• D.C. GAY NIGHTCLUB COBALT CLOS WH LTLE WARNG
• D.C. GAY CLUBS' VANISHG TURF

LICHT CAFé, D.C.’S NEWT GAY BAR, IS A COZY, ART-FILLED U STREET HIAWAY

Owner Spencer Hurd moled Licht after his favore gay fé Mannheim, Germany. His dream: lnchg a cktail bar moled after his favore gay fé Mannheim, Germany. “The goal is to foc on the classic cktails, rather than jt vodka-sodas and rose Kennedys, as you may get at other gay bars, ” he says.

Licht Café is a reference to the spiratn om his go-to gay spot Mannheim, but also reflects his ial zy space. “I love art and sign, ” Hurd says, “and I wanted to make the bar unapologetilly gay. “I want the to be a bid edgy—this is a part of gay culture.

The U Street NW strip’s gay bar scene is on the up as of late. Kiki owner Keaton Fedak, the former general manager at nearby gay bar Dirty Goose, will expand Kiki to the next-door space that formerly hoed dive Dodge Cy. “We’re hopg to make a gayborhood Shaw, ” he told Eater last month.

THE U STREET CORRIDOR FALLY HAS A GAY CLUB AGA

Meet Kiki, an Excg New Gay Bar Replacg a Pair of Shuttered Shaw Div. Val Dupont Gay Bar Cobalt Is Closg After Two Des. That began when a iend troduced him to the then gay nightclub Pier 9, loted the buildg that later beme Ziegfeld’s-Secrets, where drag shows were held.

Gay bar Pl One on Capol Hill, which also hosted drag shows. It was at the Pl One about a year later when Robson met Mother Mame Dennis, the drag performer and lead anizer of the Amy of Washgton, a lol drag social club that anized drag events, cludg the Gay Miss Universe drag petn. Gay bars, Robson quickly learned what he lls the art form of drag and veloped a followg among those patronizg drag shows D.

’ And 10 years later, Mame crowned me Miss Gay Universe.

A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.

Bunker, a subterranean gay club, opened s massive doors to live DJ sets on Thursday, Febary 23. In the past three years, all of the cy’s siar clubs have closed, cludg Cobalt, Secrets, DC Eagle, and the largt gay dance club D. While Bunker is the first bona fi gay club D.

D.C.'S BT GAY BARS AND HANGOUTS

Go Gay DC has anized an LGBTQ+ Pri Bnch at Freddie’s Beach Bar Arlgton, Va. For Supergay Happy Hour / 9 p. For Supergay Happy Hour wh the big party planned for 9 p.

Capal Pri, one of the largt gay pri celebratns the US, is this weekend. The above map and s acpanyg history tell the story of the bars, bookstor, group hom, clics, and church that have played sential rol DC's gay muny for the past half century.

WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'

Durg the 60s and 70s, as LGBT activism moved more to the public foreont, the number of gay bars grew throughout the District; also emergg this time were Guild Prs, which published gay travel guis, fictn, and a newspaper lled Gay Fom, as well as the Washgton Free Clic, which provid STD unselg to gay men. The growth of gay spac slowed down the 1980s, she says, but at the same time the clud DC's first gural High Heel Drag Queen Race, which has now bee an stutn. The slowed growth ntued the 90s and 2000s, but 's very possible that's bee time has passed, there's been ls of a need for gay people to hi pla sight.

“Wh greater acceptance has me blurrier l to what nstut gay bars and spac, ” wr Kate. “Nowadays bars like Nellie's, one of the few notable gay bars to open sce 2000, are attend by straight people, and many bars whout the tentn of beg a gay bar wele and celebrate their LGBT muny. The data Kate ed to create the map is available through the Rabow History Project, an anizatn dited to llectg, prervg, and promotg gay, lbian, bisexual, and transgenr history DC.

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTJam Kirchick’s new book talli the st of homophobia on liv and reers Washgton, D. Published May 22, 2022Updated May 23, 2022When you purchase an penntly reviewed book through our se, we earn an affiliate CITYThe Hidn History of Gay WashgtonBy Jam Kirchick826 pag. “Secret Cy, ” by Jam Kirchick, is a sprawlg and enthrallg history of how the gay subculture Washgton, D.

THE BT GAY BARS WASHGTON, D.C.

)And yet the very skills gay people had to velop to survive — studns, partmentalizatn, discretn, erancy — ma them uniquely skilled, Kirchick pots out, to sensive tasks like pnage or high-level advisg. Fil, rrponnce, terview transcripts and prs clippgs — you n almost hear the old microfiche sheets tickg by — Kirchick holds the most dited persecutors, some of whom were themselv the closet, to sthg Morigi“Even at the height of the Cold War, was safer to be a Communist than a homosexual, ” he wr.

A homosexual was forever tated. ” Later, as tolerance grew (thanks part to the efforts of the Mattache Society, the gay rights anizatn whose evolutn is traced here), some nfirmed bachelors took the important seat once occupied by Perle Mta, the cy’s famed “hosts wh the mosts. ”)Kennedy’s and Reagan’s first ladi were both tightly encircled by gay urtiers, though loyalty both directns uld easily waver.

D.C. GAY NIGHTCLUB COBALT CLOS WH LTLE WARNG

Kirchick wr of Nancy Reagan: “Her own persona is pably, irreprsibly gay, embodied by the retue that signed, drsed, rted, entertaed, flattered, hoed, humored, pampered, styled and tillated her. It would be bt read at the vlet hour wh a snifter of brandy a wood-paneled library, one of those wh a rollg ladr to brg down some of the fad midcentury bt-sellers rurfaced the pag, like Vidal’s “The Cy and the Pillar” — the narrative perks up nsirably whenever this ntent, urbane wrer arriv on the premis — “Washgton Confintial, ” by Jack La and Lee Mortimer (1951), wh s fabled “Garn of Pansi”; and “Advise and Consent, ” by Allen Dry (1959), which won a Pulzer and was ma to a movie by Otto ’s also a Baeker of important plac (map clud): the rollickg Chicken Hut bar where Teboe met his murrers; the “F Loop” of the Dupont Circle pickup scene that veloped the 1960s; the Cema Folli, the pornographic theater where ne men died a 1977 fire; the “gay rner” of the Congrsnal Cemetery; and, more hopefully, the Lambda Risg is overwhelmgly a gallery of the whe male gaytriarchy, wh lbians and people of lor mostly on the sil.

And Kirchick seems to n out of gas toward the end, as the gay suatn improv.

The bsman and his wife, Melissa, first plaed to the Front Porch proprietors about pre-dawn vendor liveri 2019, not long after the nservative Christian uple moved their fancial firm right next door to the rtrant, which fli a gay Pri flag. (Front Porch Market and Grill)What’s more, the Washers say, the ad rat was jt one more sult that the uple, who once planted an “all liv matter” sign their ont yard, have endured sce movg next door to a rtrant owned by a gay uple.

D.C. GAY CLUBS' VANISHG TURF

They married 2020, five years after they opened the Front Porch, which quickly beme a statn The Front Porch has been flyg a Pri flag on s pat sce 2016, not long after a gunman killed 49 people a gay bar Orlando. Waybourn was print of the Dallas Gay Alliance when sued Parkland Memorial Hospal for failg to provi readily available medic to AIDS patients. In 1991, he lnched the Gay and Lbian Victory Fund (now the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund) to elect openly gay policians to office.

He served as managg director of the Gay & Lbian Alliance Agast Defamatn, or GLAAD, which he helped turn to a natnal group. He owned gay newspapers Hoton, Atlanta, New York and Washgton. “I had so many threats agast me that even the Dallas police statned squad rs outsi our home, ” Waybourn an activist, Waybourn says, his goals were clear: same-sex marriage, gays and lbians the ary, accs to lifavg medic.