Gay bars were supposed to be safe spac. But they often weren’t. - The Washgton Post

Contents:

• THE NUMBER OF GAY BARS HAS DWDLED. A NEW GENERATN PLANS TO BRG THEM BACK.
• IN THE FACE OF HOSTILY AT CHIGO GAY BARS, TWO BLACK LBIANS CREATE THEIR OWN
• THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI
• GAY BARS ARE DISAPPEARG. THEIR PAST HOLDS KEYS TO THEIR FUTURE.
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
• GAY WASHGTON DC
• GAY BARS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SAFE SPAC. BUT THEY OFTEN WEREN’T.

THE NUMBER OF GAY BARS HAS DWDLED. A NEW GENERATN PLANS TO BRG THEM BACK.

A group is planng a lbian and queer “clubhoe” Los Angel, and an “old-school gay girl” Norfolk plans to reopen the lbian bar she found four s ago. Pike and McDaniel know openg a bar durg a panmic may be risky, but they say they’ve learned one thg om years of visg and workg other queer tablishments: If they want to survive, they first have to build a better and more clive than a barThe gay bar was long the ma, and sometim only, space where queer people uld gather.

A few opened quietly the early 1930s, then after World War II, hundreds more began servg gay men and women. About 200 of those tered to, like Hershee Bar Norfolk, opened when their stat had laws that prohibed bar owners om employg gay people or creatg gatherg spots for them. She mentored foster children whose parents had kicked them out, and every Thanksgivg, she threw a dner for people whose fai didn’t accept 1987, Norfolk had four or five gay bars, and the number natnwi peaked at more than 1, 700.

Many stayed open through the 1990s, but the early 2000s, hundreds of gay bars started to close.

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

Those servg lbians and people of lor were h all gay bar listgs cled by 37 percent between 2007 and 2019, the number of queer bars servg people of lor cled by 59 percent, and bars for lbians cled by 52 percent, Mattson Francis lost the Lexgton Club, and Rubyu Jungle shut s doors New Orleans.

Still, Mattson has found two prevailg factors — the rise of datg apps and a growg acceptance of gay people. “Gay bars were never jt hookup plac, but they were plac to meet other LGBTQ+ people, and now that you n meet them om your bedroom or while you’re wag for the b, that has taken away some of gay bars’ monopoly on beg the place where you fd other LGBTQ+ folks, ” he bars are also no longer the only place some queer people, pecially Whe and cisgenr men, feel safe. “I thk this is highly uneven, ” Mattson said, “but for gay, Whe, middle-class people like myself, any bar feels like a gay bar if you show up wh six iends.

THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI

”Mattson has terviewed 120 bar owners 35 stat for a forthg book lled “Who Needs Gay Bars? For some bar owners, Mattson found, that’s jt enomics, but for a new generatn, “lbian” and “gay” don’t pture their full and fluid inti. ”A fay-oriented spacePike and McDaniel have spent the past 20 years workg gay and lbian spac.

Pike did secury for Nellie’s Sports Bar, and McDaniel bartend at APEX, Cobalt and other gay bars before workg alongsi Pike at A League of Her Own (ALOHO) Adams was one of jt 21 lbian bars left the untry when Pike and McDaniel worked there, but durg the early days of the ronavis panmic, the uple cid they wanted to create a new spot, one they owned. As You Are won’t have secury guards; stead, Pike is trag a fleet of “safety managers” — a change Pike hop will attract applints who are ls ncerned wh actg tough and more terted creatg a safe atmosphere for and McDaniel know that some people thk the gay bar era is over, that spac like theirs are no longer need, but people who say that tend to have more privilege, McDaniel said.

“My experience of tryg to fd safe space here the Stat, and parg wh trips back to vis fay Mexi, has probably rmed my fervor for creatg a space where you are able to jt exist regardls of how or where you were born, who you want to love and how you intify, ” Castellanos, the owner of Hershee Bar Norfolk, nsirs herself an “old-school gay girl, ” but she’s rootg for the next generatn of queer bar owners. A lot of LGBTQ people will be able to tell you about their first trip si a gay bar.

GAY BARS ARE DISAPPEARG. THEIR PAST HOLDS KEYS TO THEIR FUTURE.

Sudnly, they relaxed: Here were women kissg women and men holdg men, wh, well, gay ’s been jt over 10 years sce then, and I now live London, but LGBTQ clubs and venu rema among the plac where I fd the most joy. Held south London’s Royal Vxhall Tavern — where Freddie Mercury is mored to have once smuggled Prcs Diana si — the night is specifilly for queer women, trans and nonbary people, who are often siled on the gay nightlife scene London. Earlier this year, three people were nvicted the homophobic murr of Gary Jenks, a bisexual man, Cardiff, Wal.

A few years ago Cumbria, a whe supremacist was jailed for his plot to rry out a “slghter” at a gay pri night. In 2016, 49 people were killed Orlando at the LGBTQ nightclub Pulse — exactly where they were supposed to be a lbian, I’m often subjected to a specific kd of homophobia: one laced wh misogyny and the fetishizatn of my relatnships.

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

Globally, my sexualy ntu to be persecuted (homosexualy is still crimalized about 70 untri) by the hate crime statistics, there is a greater need than ever for LGBTQ-specific spac, cludg on not centered around alhol.

As a closeted teenager, Outrageo ma me feel ls alone: I ed to stand on the edge of the dance floor my plaid shirt — my way of sayg I was gay whout actually sayg — avoidg eye ntact and nervoly sg at the floor. CHICAGO — Last year, this cy’s Boystown gayborhood faced a racial reckong after one bar owner tried to ban rap mic and others were acced of opprsive drs s and unrpayment of non-Whe staff.

Lbian bars: by s unt, jt 21 left, 52, and Riddle, 41, met 10 years ago on a women’s actn mtee at a gay muny center. You have women their 60s next to gay guys their 20s or lbians their 40s.

GAY WASHGTON DC

”In short, they’ve created the only thg better than a bar for regulars: a bar for Tunney, a Whe man who reprents Boystown as Chigo’s first openly gay alrman, cled to ment on his neighborhood’s tensns. “You go to a gay bar, and you feel like an var, vadg their misogyny, ” Angeve ntued. “Funnily enough, my therapist told me to e here ‘before the cis Whe gays take over, ’ ” Morse said.

’ ” Phipps chimed : “And they thk gay men n grope women bee ‘ don’t unt.

GAY BARS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SAFE SPAC. BUT THEY OFTEN WEREN’T.

Beg gay is sorta agast the l, but some gay people don’t know which l are still valid. ”Héctor Torr, 46, a Lato gay clil psychologist, set the venue s 2021 ntext: “Wh pre-vid gay bars, you had to give up who you are to be part of muny, ” he said. “This is a post-vid gay bar, one where we know how much we need each other.

But Chigo — where Verna Gray ran a queer hotle wh the phone number FBI-LIST — has been sential to queer life 1924, Henry Gerber, a German immigrant postal clerk Chigo, created the Society for Human Rights, the natn’s first gay rights anizatn. ” In 1939, Aled Ksey disvered what he lled “a scientific gold me” the sexual histori of gay men Chigo, upon whom the amic foundatns of human sexualy were based when Ksey lerally wrote the book on the matter.