The Past and Future of One of Hoton's Most Historic Gay Bars – Texas Monthly

Contents:

• GUI TO GAY BARS HOTON
• THE 5 BEST HOTON GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS HOTON
• GAY BATHHOE EROS TO OPEN S NEW TENRLO LOTN FOR PRI WEEKEND
• THE PAST AND FUTURE OF ONE OF HOTON’S MOST HISTORIC GAY BARS
• GUI TO GAY BARS HOTON
• BT GAY CLUBS HOTON
• DALLAS GAY SNAS

GUI TO GAY BARS HOTON

For more than a century, even before Pri Month’s orig 1969, gay bars have persevered around the world as a way for the LGBTQ muny to nnect and celebrate. Hoton’s gay bars, particular, have been a place where people n nvene regardls of their inty and have played a key role Montrose velopg s reputatn as the cy’s “gayborhood. ” While more safe spac exist, gay bars are still a rnerstone the muny, while also beg a prime place to enjoy a happy hour cktail, a drag show, or a night of dancg.

And fortunate for Bayou Cy, Hoton’s diversy, even among the LGBT muny, means there’s no shortage of gay hangouts. Grab a beer and relax wh iends at Robert’s Lafte Galvton, the olst gay bar Texas, or h up the newly reopened South Beach Montrose for a long night of drks and dancg. Whether you intify as LGBTQ or if you’re jt an ally for a good time, the 18 sential Hoton gay bars are sure to be your new favore neighborhood bar year-round.

Crocker Bar is a dark, loud, but vg ltle bar that serv as the perfect place to grab a drk before venturg out to the rt of the gayborhood. The self-scribed olst leather bar Texas, Riprd has been a fixture of Hoton’s gay bar scene sce 1982. Take the stairse up to Eagle’s Phoenix room and gaze at a timele of major historil gay events on the wall.

THE 5 BEST HOTON GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS HOTON

After four long years of renovatns, Montrose’s rnerstone gay club re-opened July 2022 for drkg, dancg and partyg. Gui to Gay Bars Hoton.

Neon Boots is Texas' largt gay untry bar -- more than 10, 000 square feet of fun unr one roof. JR’s has been a staple Hoton’s gay scene for s, helpg form the bedrock of Montrose nightlife.

GAY BATHHOE EROS TO OPEN S NEW TENRLO LOTN FOR PRI WEEKEND

WE ARE an all-male clothg optnal bed and breakfast retreat terg to gay, bi, and straight men 21 years or olr. When the 30-year-old bathhoe and sna Eros left ’s old home on Market Street near the Castro December 2021, the cy's only remag gay sex club said they had a new home led up. Historilly known among lols as the Gayborhood, Montrose ed to be where the weirdos were.

The Gulf Coast Archive and Mm of Gay, Lbian, Bisexual and Transgenr History timat that was the se of more than three hundred funeral servic and remas the fal rtg place of an unknown number of people’s 1970 to 2009, this space was part of the legendary Hoton gay bar Mary’s…Naturally!, which fostered such a close muny that some regulars chose to have their funerals there.

THE PAST AND FUTURE OF ONE OF HOTON’S MOST HISTORIC GAY BARS

Mary’s, as wrer Ed Martez put a sprg 1983 issue of Out Texas, was “the mother hoe of all the gay bars Hoton. ” When origal owner Joe Anthony opened Mary’s, was primarily a leather bar where gay bikers would ngregate. But quickly beme known as a place where anyone was wele: gays, lbians, punk micians, wrers, hippi, and bohemians all termgled.

GUI TO GAY BARS HOTON

“The Gayborhood is marked as much, if not more, by absenc as by the visible markers of s past, ” says curator Junr Fernanz, who anized the event along wh S Rodriguez. “We are terted how the disappearance or ‘revelopment’ of the spac to bnch spots and ffee ho might mirror the overall trajectory of gay liberatn, om s earlier ialism to late-palist intarian pfalls like rabow-packaged Oreos.

But one uld argue that Mary’s, too, was a gentrifier—one former patron remds me that gay men the seventi phed Montrose’s heavily Hispanic populatn out of the area to claim a space for themselv.

In one vio piece, for example, Penagos manvers his body to rg a bell agast a brick, which symboliz the mythologized “first brick of the gay rights movement” thrown by gay activists at the 1969 Stonewall uprisg. ”The exhib celebrat the full breadth of Mary’s, which— the way that only a historic gay gatherg place n—served as a hookup spot, a muny anizg hub, and the se of many, many funerals.

BT GAY CLUBS HOTON

After Stonewall and the ceptn of the the AIDS crisis, the bar beme a place for gays to meet, anize, and prott.

DALLAS GAY SNAS

Acrdg to one archive of Hoton LGBT history, the group that beme the Hoton GLBT Polil Cc, which bills self as the olst gay-rights anizatn the South, began at Mary’s. Don Gill, a “fundraiser supreme” at Mary’s, rells s shift om grty gay hookup spot to the go-to venue where LGBT social anizatns uld munite wh the muny. In a 2002 Hoton Prs article, bartenr and part-owner Gaye Yancey said “wasn’t unmon for three Mary’s ctomers to die each month.

And although wispread gay acceptance, cemented by the legalizatn of same-sex marriage 2015, has phed society forward, this exhib is a remr that the need for queer spac like Mary’s is as important as ever—specifilly for brown and black queers and trans dividuals.

Your gui to the gay si of the Bayou Cy. Other central Hoton neighborhoods, cludg gay-popular Montrose and up-and-g Midtown, have also seen big chang for the better, helpg turn the natn's fourth-largt cy to a lively and downright stylish getaway. And the cy's Holot Mm has changg exhibs (which sometim touch on the persecutn of gays and lbians) as well as a permanent display that clus personal effects revered om a Polish ncentratn mp.