Kev Maxen be first male ach a US men’s pro sports league to publicly e out as gay | CNN

Contents:

• GAY BARS AREN’T DISAPPEARG; THEY’RE CHANGG
• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
• DO WE STILL NEED GAY BARS? THIS AUTHOR’S BOOK TACKL WHY THEY’RE DYG — AND WHY WE SHOULDN’T LET THEM
• RH, “AN ALL NEW GAY BAR” G TO SHAW, POSTS LIQUOR LICENSE PLARD
• GAY BARS NEAR ME
• THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT COACH KEV MAXEN MAK HISTORY AFTER COMG OUT AS GAY
• THE BT GAY BARS LONDON
• A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME
• GAY SAN DIEGO
• HOW TO BEE POPULAR AT A GAY BAR

GAY BARS AREN’T DISAPPEARG; THEY’RE CHANGG

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. 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. ” 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. Here I rely on David Halper, who wrote a book, How to Be Gay, and he nclus that even if was a world whout opprsn, we still are raised a heteronormative world.

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

I’m not married to the ia of a gay bar always beg everythg — if ’s a queer fe, if ’s a nonprof LGBTQ+ center — but I thk the panmic tght all how important is to have physil plac to ngregate, and those will rema important even a hypothetil, non-opprsive future. Was there anythg else your rearch you were surprised by, posively or negatively, or maybe a prenceived notn that you had about gay bars that was challenged? The fact that you have a bar that’s maly Latx folks or a bar that’s Ain-Amerin LGBTQ+ folks, that didn’t surprise me, although I was very terted to fd out what were the challeng of nng those kds of bs bee those are the bars that’ve been closg among the fastt — gay bars that serve people of lor.

Per Outsports, Maxen is the “first publicly out male ach a major Amerin men’s pro sports league, ” wh WNBA ach Curt Miller, who publicly me out to the media as gay 2015, also a publicly out male ach an Amerin profsnal sports league. “The fastt clg typ of gay bars have been bars servg people of lor and bars servg men’s kk muni, ” says Greggor Mattson, an Oberl College profsor and thor of “Who Needs Gay Bars?

Mattson tackl the latter qutn his book, which he tails htg the road across Ameri — 39 stat and 10, 000 on his r — and visg every gay bar he uld.

DO WE STILL NEED GAY BARS? THIS AUTHOR’S BOOK TACKL WHY THEY’RE DYG — AND WHY WE SHOULDN’T LET THEM

But Mattson also noticed that gay bars varied across how they treated patrons of lor, how they treated olr gay men and how they treated straight patrons. Some — like The Woodward, which Mattson c as a standout gay bar — do well wh race and other intifiers, but many don’t take to nsiratn anyone other than “whe, cisgenr, middle-class men, ” Mattson says.

RH, “AN ALL NEW GAY BAR” G TO SHAW, POSTS LIQUOR LICENSE PLARD

It’s one of the few plac that Mattson feels fortable as a “middle-aged” gay, but “some of the old, whe, cis guys are creeps” when to his partner. On one hand, gay bars are a necsy bee of their historic role as s for anizg the fight for civil rights and their role as fundraisers for var margalized muni beyond their own. A realizatn durg his rearch was that Mattson was vlated several ways while equentg gay bars, as the bar for nsent around touchg has shifted recent years.

GAY BARS NEAR ME

Gay bars n get to their North Star, Mattson says, by rememberg their rol as not jt provirs of safe spac, but by unrstandg how money flows through the muny. One uld argue that gay bars aren’t need anymore as acceptance has bee more wispread on topics like the ballroom movement, drag gog mastream, gay marriage beg upheld, the rise of gay apps and straight people beg better alli. “It’s dangero to over ialize gay bars bee they haven’t always clud all of , and at the end of the day they are small bs that need to pay their bills.

THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI

The bars are safe spac where members of the lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and tersex (LGBTI) muny n e together and celebrate their inti whout fear of discrimatn or judgement. The kd where a man celebrated his first unn job by buyg a round of drks for the strangers at the bar—the most touchg thg that has ever happened to me at a gay bar. Hundreds of fundraisers the bars provid a lifele for HIV/AIDS chari, gay sports leagu, polil mpaigns, and direct-actn funds to help people pay for their rent, meditns, utili, or funeral expens.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT COACH KEV MAXEN MAK HISTORY AFTER COMG OUT AS GAY

The bar plex also anchored what was, for much of the early 2000s, the only gay hub Cleveland, the clost thg to a gayborhood the cy had seen before or sce.

A uple blocks down Detro Shoreway was Club Cleveland, one of the few purpose-built gay bathho the Uned Stat, and the cy’s prime palace of promiscuy until a rival opened 2006. A uple blocks up the street was Bounce, at the time the only gay dance club the unty open to people who were 18 to 20 and the primary stage for Cleveland’s vibrant drag scene.

THE BT GAY BARS LONDON

The Dean Ruf Hoe of Fun, scribed by a journalist as an “upsle gay boutique, ” but by onle reviewers as a “gay-iendly variety store” and “a gay porn shop wh a large selectn of soul rerds, ” was open until early morng for sual purchas of signer unrwear, statnery, wigs, or lube.

A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME

New owners bought the Man’s World’s buildg early 2013, evicted the gay men who lived the n-down apartments upstairs, and began massive renovatns.

Durg the bar’s last ll, flyers thanked the longtime owner, Rick Harick, for providg “an oasis for the gay muny Cleveland; where ctomers, employe and tenants alike uld gather together to build iendships, celebrate diversy and support the muny. 10 A whe former bartenr om A Man’s World herald a kd of post-gay realy, reportg “I don’t thk there’s a need for a gay scene Cleveland anymore. By my unt, 37 percent of gay bars closed between 2007 and 2019, and that was before COVID-19 brought the natn’s nightlife to s kne and shuttered an addnal 16 percent by 2021.

” is very different if you’re stg Manhattan, New York, or Manhattan, Kansas—the difference between a cy wh the most gay bars the untry vers a cy that has zero. But the rponse to my Man’s World say nvced me that people really red about gay bars: LGBTQ+ people, y, but straight neighbors and alli and journalists red as well, or were at least very cur.

GAY SAN DIEGO

I go to bed early, the product of chronic fatigue that has not abated spe gettg my severe prsn unr ntrol and acquirg that most sential life accsory for a gay bear, a CPAP night breathg mache. 21 That I was hired precisely as one of those viants—the gay man workg for straight women—was an irony lost on me until much later, after I was fired for aternizg wh the “subjects. It was once pared to the Negro Motorist Green Book for lotg safe plac a homophobic world, a false equatn of race and sexualy but one that gtured at prted media’s role kntg together a gay natn of travelers.

Next, I’d go see for myself and talk to the people who were bt posned to know what was happeng their hyper-lol rners of the Uned Stat: the gay bar owners and managers and drag queens and DJs who’d been them over the s. I gmented my Damron page-turng wh some ep googlg, plottg a route to enunter gay bars servg women, people of lor, and lone gay bars more than an hour’s drive om another: I spected that not all gay bars were equal.

My trip took me through gayborhoods Washgton, DC, and Dallas; big-cy bars Atlanta and Philalphia; lone roadho Spartanburg, South Carola, and Malter, Oklahoma; and downtown small-cy bars Muncie, Indiana, and Sprgfield, Massachetts. I learned that there is great diversy the way gay bar profsnals intify their tablishments: gay bars and lbian bars, y, but also queer bars, “women’s bars, ” and “everybody” or “alternative liftyle” bars.

HOW TO BEE POPULAR AT A GAY BAR

26 Small ci like Mantown (Wt Virgia), Potello (Idaho), or Waterloo (Iowa) may feature far fewer nsumer choic than big ci, but you n still get micro-brews and craft kombucha, vis farmer’s markets and farm-to-table rtrants, listen to NPR, take the b, and h up a gay bar.

So I planned a send, more most voyage of 2, 400 om Oh to Philly up to Mae and back across Pennsylvania, stoppg every state of New England and the Mid-Atlantic except Vermont, which at the time had no gay bars. Add to other regnal road trips, we racked up more than 135 terviews om 39 stat and the District of Columbia, vised over 300 gay bars 6 years, and put nearly 10, 000 on my r. And for every gay bar squeezed by enomic revelopment and gentrifitn, there were more squeezed by lol enomic llaps, the changg landspe of marijuana legalizatn, regnal populatn cl, or an abily to serve new populatns who mand racial jtice and equaly for transgenr and genr-nonnformg patrons.