Mappg Seattle's Gay and Lbian History | UW College of Arts & Scienc

Contents:

• WHERE TO FD THE GHOSTS OF SEATTLE'S FIRST GAYBORHOOD
• AS SEATTLE’S GAYBORHOOD MIGRAT, CAPOL HILL QUEER BARS FIGHT TO REMA A REFUGE
• MAPPG SEATTLE'S GAY AND LBIAN HISTORY
• QUEEN CY COM OUT: EXPLORG SEATTLE'S LBIAN AND GAY HISTORY, BY THE NORTHWT LBIAN & GAY HISTORY MM PROJECT
• THE BT GAY BARS SEATTLE, WASHGTON

WHERE TO FD THE GHOSTS OF SEATTLE'S FIRST GAYBORHOOD

Not enough, apparently, to keep this gay-dive-turned-trashy-hipster-hangout all l up; closed early this year but jt may be back for another round. Christopher FrizzelleWh Pri season upon and bs utly re-openg, now might be a nice time to spend some time Seattle’s tradnal gayborhood: The mudflats below the Deadle. Long before Capol Hill beme the home of rabow crosswalks, and before Renton Hill was briefly Seattle’s gay statn the 1970s, Pneer Square (as the mudflats are now known) was where all the seedy, secret, same-sex actn happened.

Seattle went through wav of moral eedom and moral panic, but for most of the cy’s post-lonizer history, gay life was centered around Send Avenue and S. Next door was the upstairs gay bar The Double Hear — which state liquor spectors, who had to approve all bar nam, were too nse to realize was a sexual phemism.

Shelly Bman was a drifter stayg wh some gay iends when she attend a Bastille Day para Pneer Square; a flty non blew a solid wad of nfetti to the crowd, htg her and requirg the amputatn of her leg.

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

It was Seattle’s first real dis, and had a giant sign out ont readg “Shelly’s Leg is a GAY BAR provid for Seattle’s gay muny and their guts.

It’s a ttament to queer peopl’ sheer force of will and tense need to nnect that they were able to endure the homophobia and rptn the police force to the extent that they had to orr to keep the doors open. Eventually, revelopment changed the face of Pneer Square, and the burgeong boulevard of Broadway on Capol Hill, upled wh the availabily of hog after the Boeg Bt, lured the gayborhood away om s early roots.

Personally, I thk the gay ghosts of the People’s Theater, the Double Hear, and the Atlas Steam Bath serve a ltle more than we’ve given them. ClubFly provis a gay bar, club, nightlife, and GLBT center mapper for Seattle, Washgton and the rt of the US filtered by 80s Seattle gay bars and clubs are mapped the gayborhood wh an overview, tags, ntact tails, webse, social media lks, trans/walkg directns, and drivg directns.

MAPPG SEATTLE'S GAY AND LBIAN HISTORY

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. 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.

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. 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.

QUEEN CY COM OUT: EXPLORG SEATTLE'S LBIAN AND GAY HISTORY, BY THE NORTHWT LBIAN & GAY HISTORY MM PROJECT

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.

THE BT GAY BARS SEATTLE, WASHGTON

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.