Robert L. Thibelt, pneer gay club entreprenr

Contents:

• ALGARVE GAY BARS & CLUBS
• GAY NIGHTLIFE COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLA: BT BARS, CLUBS, & MORE
• ROBERT L. THIBELT, PNEER GAY CLUB ENTREPRENR

ALGARVE GAY BARS & CLUBS

Home to gays, ravers, hoe heads, Ain-Amerins, Latos, Asians, gangsters, sus, skaters, and breakdancers, The Loft’s achievement was even more remarkable when you nsir that Boston is one of Ameri’s most eply segregated ci. I thk that a huge part of that club was the fact that was predomately a gay club, and that was sort of the drivg force – givg the gay muny a place to grow. It was a straight up gay club and Armand got there and jt changed the whole scene – you had blacks, wh, Asians, skaters, punks, gay and straight.

It also embodied a hard unterpot to the popular (and often racist and homophobic) history of dis as hedonistic and formulaic — even as both praged s glamoro Stud 54 years, and functned as one of the dis era's secret eng of creativy.

"It was really pretty unique, terms of gay, straight, Black, whe, Lato, this whole really tegrated group of people so dited to dancg. In other s, that privacy provid safety and a feelg of home for the many gay, Black and Lato youth who would show up wh iends — future DJs Levan and Knuckl beg the most historilly notable exampl, or at least the bt-known on. It was welg a way gay bars and clubs were not.

GAY NIGHTLIFE COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLA: BT BARS, CLUBS, & MORE

Says Riley, "There were people I met at The Loft, gay, 18-19 years old, who had been thrown out of their ho by their parents, and had, lerally, no place else to go. AboutLoft has been here servg the Norwich gay muny for over 30 years!

£4 entry on a Friday when the place was ad and played the worst mic I have heard ag a gay bar is not good. I am a gay man. I went here (a gay night club) over the pri weekend and was forcibly ejected by secury staff for "appropriately touchg femal".

Andrew Ahn’s father once told him that there were “no gay people Korea. In a culturally nservative muny, where gog to church and buildg a fay were heavily emphasized, Ahn felt his gay inty kept him “om beg able to participate Korean culture. ” Then, he started equentg GAMeBoi, a weekly Asian Amerin gay party at Wt Hollywood’s Rage Nightclub.

ROBERT L. THIBELT, PNEER GAY CLUB ENTREPRENR

He learned to embrace beg both Korean and gay, so much so that he directed “Fire Island, ” a groundbreakg queer Asian Amerin rom- released last year. Beg Asian Amerin and LGBTQ+ n feel lonely, wh stutns such as ethnic church often disavowg non-heterosexual relatnships while tradnal LGBTQ+ spac such as gay bars n be unwelg to people of lor. “Fdg plac like GAMeBoi, where beg queer and Asian do -exist … It’s not like a 1, 000-year-old Korean cultural rual, but I uld create a new rual, ” said Ahn, a recent Friday, hundreds packed QT Nightlife’s monthly K-Pop Night at Micky’s, a Wt Hollywood gay club a block or so east om the old GAMeBoi posed for selfi a pk Barbie box wh dis balls hangg overhead.

” (Michael Owen Baker / For The Tim) Even historilly gay neighborhoods like Wt Hollywood or San Francis’s Castro district, Asian Amerins have long been ignored or fetishized, seen as feme and weak.

In 2019, then-Wt Hollywood Mayor John Duran argued that he did not appropriately touch a member of the Gay Men’s Chos of Los Angel bee “he’s a skny Korean kid wh pimpl on his cheek.

” Asian Amerin advocy groups cricized Duran’s remark, wh API Equaly-LA potg to the long history of discrimatn agast Asian men gay muni such as Wt Hollywood, whose clubs “ed to require three forms of photo intifitn om anyone they perceived as Asian. ” said Crisman, a 36-year-old gay Korean Amerin rearcher and artist.