In ‘Who Needs Gay Bars?,’ Greggor Mattson Explor the Past, Current, and Future of Ameri’s Queer Spac - Eater

Contents:

• THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI
• GAY BARS AREN’T DISAPPEARG; THEY’RE CHANGG
• THE 30 BT GAY BARS NYC
• COMMENT SéDUIRE L HOMM GAYS
• GAY CLUB GRANTS PASS
• COMMENT RENNTRER UN HOMME QUAND ON T GAY
• COMMENT RENNTRER S HOMM GAYS OU BISEXUELS
• MUNICH GAY BARS
• THE 10 BEST TOKYO GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS TOKYO
• GAY NEW YORK CY
• GAY PHILIPP
• GAY BARS LAS VEGAS 
• THE 13 BT GAY BARS BARCELONA
• THE 7 BT GAY BARS PHILALPHIA
• GAY LYON
• GAY BAR

THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI

The word “gay” lls to md our special knack for fdg the light the darkns, for buildg the dance floor off to the si of the cel world. Let’s take a look at some of the bt gay bars Ameri, om the open-air, vil-may-re spac Wt Hollywood to the neighborhood pub downtown St. The entrance is through an unmarked shed behd a Chipotle, and featur a blend but unexpected gay/not crowd which same-sex grdg is rigur.

—Alfonso Fernanz NavasCourtyAt: Cheer Up CharliBack when I was a young gay, I saw the olt, most betiful woman the world at Cheer Up Charli. —Abigail CovgtonCourtyBrooklyn: The ExleyFull of ntradictns, The Exley is a ltle different than other gay bars.

GAY BARS AREN’T DISAPPEARG; THEY’RE CHANGG

When the bar fally reopened Sprg 2022, an entire borough’s worth of gays celebrated by floodg the new back pat all summer and Gger’s has been crowd wh queers ever sce.

THE 30 BT GAY BARS NYC

—Diana HubbellBoston: Club CafeHow is Boston’s stalwart gay bar/rtrant/performance space inic?

It began s life as a beer-and-we offshoot of the Metropolan Health Club, a gym that opened 1983 to serve the gay ctomers who’d been bullied out of other lol clubs at the height of AIDS hysteria. It gave the boys a place to gather the ‘80s, the first outpost that helped tablish the South End as the Boston gayborhood. But perhaps most signifintly, gave the gay muny of Boston somethg sperately need: visibily.

While other gay bars of the time were basements or board up, Club Cafe faced by Columb Avenue wh floor to ceilg wdows. Big Chicks serv a diverse crowd— ’s young, ’s old, ’s one of the only plac you’ll see gay men and lbians together! The legendary hoeband, Diamondback, has a 25, 000-song repertoire and a boot llectn that uld make a gay wboy cry.

COMMENT SéDUIRE L HOMM GAYS

While you won’t fd any Pri flags at Farraguts, you will undoubtedly hear Cele Dn and Melissa Etheri blarg om the bar’s dty, old jebox and, hontly, isn’t that jt as gay? CourtyDallas: Round-Up SaloonEqual parts wboy boots and dis ball, Round Up Saloon opened 42 years ago Dallas as a gay untry wtern dance hall. Thanks to Perez-Gallardo and their team, gay people who love the outdoors (most lbians) now have a iendly place to unwd after a hike.

Billed as Wt Virgia's olst gay bar, the venue regularly brgs some of the biggt queer performg artists the game right now. Live out your Brokeback Mounta fantasi at this verno club, where wboy stum are not nsired drag, and le dancg is not an explic exprsn of homophobia. A gay gatherg spot sce 1939, and gay bar sce 1963, and the Bar Complex sce the 80s, s unassumg exterr beli a triple-threat treat of lounge, performance space, and a mirrored dance club reportedly moled after Stud 54.

) The glorly lively bar and rtrant scene is enhanced by a black box theater downstairs, where farcil plays, lbian standup, and gay dance troup reign. Honey’s is sentially a sexy, gay speakeasy wh a DJ booth where queers of all strip n dance their hearts out until 2 am.

GAY CLUB GRANTS PASS

Jt a uple of blocks om the beach, Twist brgs the whole breadth of the Miami gay world together to dance and flirt and keep movg. CourtyIndianapolis: English IvyEnglish Ivy advertis self as an “LGBTQ+-enthed” “gay-therg place” and that is not an overstatement. If you want to get away om the typil scene at fellow gay bars Olly’s and Gregs Our Place, English Ivy is an ial place to meet iends: mature enough for a proper Ladi Lunch (or bnch or dner.

COMMENT RENNTRER UN HOMME QUAND ON T GAY

But this is Nashville we’re talkg about so the gays who perform at Lipstick Lounge aren’t your average karaoke queens.

They are stars the makg and their rendn of Cele Dn’s “It’s All Comg Back to Me Now” will shatter your pt glass and break your ltle, gay heart.

COMMENT RENNTRER S HOMM GAYS OU BISEXUELS

It’s not a gay bar the tradnal sense, but a place where traed pianists play selectns om Broadway shows and all of the drama teachers and mil theater majors of the tri-state area nverge to sg along.

Juli’ is Greenwich Village’s olst bar and New York’s olst gay bar, havg attracted gay clientele sce the 1950s. It was the se of an early gay-liberatn “sip ” 1966, years before Stonewall, and has been a low-key haven ever sce, wh a diverse clientele, a small menu, classic cktails, and an extensive (and packed) 4:00-7:00 happy hour.

MUNICH GAY BARS

: The Stable Gay nightlife the Ocean State’s pal is cltered the joyoly (though creasgly) seedy downtown. In December, Dave’s hosted a queer holiday market wh “live gay bands” and “cute queer vendors” at nearby Bohemian Beer Garn.

THE 10 BEST TOKYO GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS TOKYO

It’s not que French-themed, ’s not que Mardi Gras-spired, feels as close as we have experienced this untry to a gay neighborhood pub.

The origal was burned down an anti-gay hate-crime a few years back, but the revival has jt opened across the street and is bigger and better, wh a new performance space.

GAY NEW YORK CY

CourtyWashgton DC: TraIn a town where n feel like every other bar is crawlg wh Capol Hill staffers lookg to talk shop, Tra is the rare, glorly gay dive where absolutely everyone is wele to jt kick back. Micky’s WeHo has long been a staple on Wt Hollywood’s strip of gay nightclubs and bars on Santa Moni Boulevard, known for s open-walled two-story buildg where passersby n see the party ragg om the street. The venue is the only Latx gay bar LA that explicly ters to a gay and Mexin dience every night, not jt as a theme once a week.

GAY PHILIPP

But ’s the perfect space to grab a workday bnch wh a lleague or for -workg ssns -hosted on Tudays wh Gay Asstrology. The origal Downtown gay bar, Jalis is a dive bar that ters to the Latx and Mexin LGBTQ muny.

Though Sweetwater isn’t officially known as a lbian bar, the humble tablishment has long been the go-to spot for queer women the lol gayborhood, which featur nearly half a dozen gay bars that le Broadway Long Beach. One of Long Beach’s few, if not only, three-level gay bars, Executive Sue boasts a karaoke bar, vio gam, pool tabl for rent, and regular drag shows.

Dubbed by KCET as Montebello’s bt Lato gay bar, Chi is the sister to Club Cobra, servg as a groundg se for the queer Latx muny the suburbs of East LA.

GAY BARS LAS VEGAS 

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.

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. There was a moment readg Greggor Mattson’s book, Who Needs Gay Bars?, where I found myself beg credibly fensive.

One of the 130 gay bar owners he terviewed is bemoang how his ctomers are no longer ntent to hang wh iends and nverse over a few drks.

THE 13 BT GAY BARS BARCELONA

The differenc are sort of the pot of Mattson’s book, a chronicle of gay bars 39 stat across the untry and throughout Amerin history. ’ bee there is no one ‘who, ’ no one set of ‘needs, ’ and no one kd of ‘gay bar, ’” wr Mattson, a soclogy profsor at Oberl. There are strip clubs and dive bars and f and cktail bars servg both gay and straight people.

Mattson wr that 50 percent of the untry’s gay bars closed between 2012 and 2021, and that the difficulti have not been evenly felt. But even light of all the threats, gay bars are figurg out how to fill hol muny needs, how to pete wh apps and apathy, how to balance muny tradns wh more clive valu.

And what’s more, the “gay bar” as exists popular imagatn — an exclive space by and for eher gay men or women — has never reprented what gay bars actually are. Or if a nightclub has a gay night at least once a week, then I’m willg to say that’s a place where queer culture flourish.

THE 7 BT GAY BARS PHILALPHIA

So then I set out to make a database g the Damron guis and to fd out, were gay bars gog away? And then I wanted to know om people who’ve been volved wh gay bars over the last 20 or so years, what have they seen?

In the book you wre that certa kds of gay bars, like lbian bars or more “cisy” gay bars, are closg at a faster clip than other typ.

GAY LYON

You mentned that a lot of people have been sayg that they personally don’t need gay bars anymore bee they feel wele anywhere.

What do you make of that tensn and the issu that arise wh what we expect out of gay bars vers what they n reasonably offer? Is , “I don’t need gay bars my middle age, but I might as a retiree, ” or is , “I don’t need gay bars now that I’m a mted partnership, but I might if I were sgle”? I don’t know that needg gay bars is an on-off swch for the rt of your life, and so ’s important to me that the bars that n serve all of be open for when we need them.

GAY BAR

In my own life, I start feelg guilty for not equentg the gay bars my neighborhood and my cy. ” A lot of amics bate or wonr whether we’re a post-gay phase, where we — and ’s never que clear who the “we” is — don’t need our gay inti or LGBTQ+ inti anymore.

But one of the thgs I realized talkg to owners of bars that don’t intify as gay bars but are certaly full of gay people is that maybe other bars need to prove to that they’re post-straight. Somethg that sort of surprised me when I was terviewg was the number of straight people who are pillars of the gay muny.