Wh many LGBTQ bars and safe spac closg after COVID-19, wrer John Garry qutns the future of gay bars and LGBTQ safe spac.
Contents:
- GAY HAPPY HOUR, NTRAL PRONOUNS, A ‘GLAM ROOM’: HOTELS GO LGBTQ-IENDLY
- GAY BARS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SAFE SPAC. BUT THEY OFTEN WEREN’T.
- GAY BARS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SAFE SPAC. BUT THEY OFTEN WEREN’T.
- THE GAY BAR AS SAFE SPACE HAS BEEN SHATTERED
GAY HAPPY HOUR, NTRAL PRONOUNS, A ‘GLAM ROOM’: HOTELS GO LGBTQ-IENDLY
* gay safe spaces *
Ameri’s gay bar graveyard has amassed a soberg amount of headston the past year. The immediate e of the aths might be COVID-19, but gay bars were on life support before the panmic began.
Acrdg to soclogist Greggor Mattson, 37 percent of US gay bars closed between 2007 and 2019. Sometime between the birth of datg apps, marriage equaly, and gayborhood gentrifitn, tradnal gay bars beme sential.
What will bee of the gay bar? The menu at a gay bar is the tip of an iceberg — only shows a portn of what’s served si. In the recently released cultural history and memoir, Gay Bar: Why We Went Out, Jeremy Atherton L wr, “a gay bar, will be said, affords refuge.
GAY BARS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SAFE SPAC. BUT THEY OFTEN WEREN’T.
Gay clubs and safe spac have historilly offered a place for experienc and road-ttg new looks, inty exprsns, sir and orientatns. Like “gettg a rse.” * gay safe spaces *
Whether ’s Stonewall or the Stud, gay bars have been nsired LGBTQ “safe spac” — a term scholar and activist Moira Kenney attribut to the gay liberatn movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
GAY BARS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SAFE SPAC. BUT THEY OFTEN WEREN’T.
Through the late 1960s, route police raids meant gay bar patrons uld be threatened wh f, jail time, and possibly job loss or social annihilatn if outed by thori. In 1973, an anti-gay arsonist set fire to a New Orleans gay lounge and killed 32 people. Even as a momentary refuge om the outsi world, gay bars ntuoly fail queer people.
The Philalphia Commissn on Human Relatns released a 2016 report statg that “LGBTQ people of lor, women and transgenr people often feel unwele and unsafe Gayborhood spac. ” In 2019, a gay Chigo tablishment, ironilly named Progrs Bar, momentarily banned rap mic — a policy quickly cried as anti-Black.
THE GAY BAR AS SAFE SPACE HAS BEEN SHATTERED
Haddad, who has cerebral palsy and a walker, reunted his isolatg gural experience at a gay bar: “…the first thg I enuntered was a stairse. Then there’s the ma em on the gay bar menu: alhol.
It would be difficult for those unr 21 or alg wh addictn to ll a gay bar their go-to safe space. Even the labels “gay bar” and “lbian bar” reveal a level of excln. A need for safe space gave birth to the gay bar, but as LGBTQ muni exame what “safe” means 2021, ’s time for the old stutns to adapt.
The 30-year-old jot jos a new le of LGBTQ spots choosg to eva the gay-lbian bary for the clive “queer” label. For some old-school gay bars, “safe” is synonymo wh “faiar. Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, which proudly markets self as the last gay bar San Francis’s Tenrlo, raised over $100, 000 on GoFundMe to keep om closg this past year.