'Gay Bar' Tracks The Wave Of A Whole Culture — And One Life : NPR

Contents:

• THE HISTORY OF HOW GAY BARS BEME THE BATTLEGROUND FOR LGBTQ+ RIGHTS
• 'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
• HOW GAY BARS HAVE BEEN A BUILDG BLOCK OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNY
• THE DOS & DON'TS OF GAY CLUBBG
• "FOR THE MORNG GAYS": THE IMPORTANCE OF LGBTQ-OWNED F AS SOBER, QUEER SPAC
• RAISG THE BAR: A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY BARS
• WHAT EXACTLY IS THE POT OF A “STRAIGHT-FRIENDLY” GAY BAR?
• DEFINITIONS FOR GAY BARGAY BAR
• HOW ‘GAY’ SHOULD A GAY BAR BE?

THE HISTORY OF HOW GAY BARS BEME THE BATTLEGROUND FOR LGBTQ+ RIGHTS

Although is nice to thk of gay bars as unanimoly safe plac, where the LGBTQ+ muny uld exist whout threat, that clearly wasn’t always the se.

'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE

” Unfortunately, police reports and mastream media verage of a gay bar 1880 proved to be extremely unreliable and hyperbolic, fueled mostly by pearl-clutchg and fear-mongerg rather than actual rmatn. “ orr to tablish 'good e' for spensn of platiff's license, somethg more mt be shown than that many of his patrons were homosexuals and that they ed his rtrant and bar as a meetg place. Jt as did California, this state law was short lived, wh urts eventually led that gays uld ‘peacefully’ assemble at bars, which paved the way for the inic Stonewall Inn to open 1967.

HOW GAY BARS HAVE BEEN A BUILDG BLOCK OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNY

The sign the wdow reads: "We homosexuals plead wh our people to please help mata peaceful and quiet nduct on the streets of the Village.

“But that night, for the first time, the ual acquicence turned to vlent that night the liv of lns of gay men and lbians, and the attu toward them of the larger culture which they lived, began to change rapidly. This month pecially, ’s important to remember the signifince of the gay bar as an Amerin in, as somethg fiant and revolutnary— the most grassroots sense of the word.

THE DOS & DON'TS OF GAY CLUBBG

Whether you are a member of the LGBTQ+ muny, work at a gay bar, are an ally the dtry, or if you plan on celebratg this June, jt remember the bars and people who helped make all possible.

Atherton L's book starts off a crowd room a gay bar where he's gone cisg wh his partner, whom he refers to throughout the book wh the Leonard Cohen-spired nickname Famo Blue Raat.

That kd of gay bar — all kds of gay bars, really — are danger of closg, Atherton L wr, due to the populary of datg apps and risg property sts. He wr betifully about his llege days Los Angel, where he went to his first one, though he n't rell the name, wryly notg, "Of urse I n't remember my first gay bar — I was dnk. " That history clus the famo 1969 uprisg at the Stonewall Inn New York, but Atherton L also div to other, lser-known bars, cludg on that endured police raids meant to put gay people their place.

"FOR THE MORNG GAYS": THE IMPORTANCE OF LGBTQ-OWNED F AS SOBER, QUEER SPAC

" Atherton L explor topics like archecture and urban geography, as they relate to gay bars, betifully; he wr wh a real knowledge that's more than jt tellectual dilettantism. About the changg looks of bars before the turn of the century, he observ, "A new type of gay bar began to appear London's Soho the neti — airy, glossy, ntental. " Along the way, Atherton L dips to other topics related to the gay muny: the appropriatn of gay culture by straight people, mic, drkg, and the valu of the younger generatn of LGBTQ people.

RAISG THE BAR: A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY BARS

And while succeeds on many levels, perhaps the most remarkable one is Atherton L's nstant qutng of himself, and the realizatns of how he's changed sce he walked to his first gay bar years ago: "Maybe, I thought, I'm a dis ball.

WHAT EXACTLY IS THE POT OF A “STRAIGHT-FRIENDLY” GAY BAR?

Insi The Monster, a gay bar around the rner om Stonewall, where the event played out on vio screens, was difficult to hear for a different reason.

But the muny and mararie ma the bar’s buzz of activy special, and (thankfully) ordary: Space to socialize and celebrate at a gay bar 2016 isn’t hard to fd. Dpe the massive stris the lbian, gay, transgenr, bisexual, and queer muni have ma the last few s, the shockg horror of the weekend’s shootgs ma clear the ntued relevance and importance of the bars and nightclubs. While the protts and march at The Stonewall Inn turned the bar to a symbolic headquarters for the Gay Pri movement, gay nightlife has always served as val space for muny buildg and pg societal persecutn.

DEFINITIONS FOR GAY BARGAY BAR

The people behd the plac have sparked polil activism (Joe Scialo, the late former owner of The Monster, supported employe the ‘80s fightg AIDS and even traveled to Mexi to brg back life-savg dgs) and have fostered mic and creative exprsn for s (gay clubs such as the Warehoe Chigo and Paradise Garage New York gave birth to hoe and var stras of electronic mic). The worldwi ralli honorg the Orlando victims, often at plac siar to where their liv were cut short, unrsr the importance of gay nightlife over the last half century.

HOW ‘GAY’ SHOULD A GAY BAR BE?

Jt a ltle more than 60 years ago, famo police raids Miami attempted to shut down the cy’s gay nightlife, rultg newspaper headl such as "Perverts Seized Bar Raids, " "Crackdown on Deviant Nts Urged, " and "Great Civilizatns Plagued by Deviat.

The notor "Purple Pamphlets" dissemated by state Senator Charley Johns, who had led wch hunts agast gays state ernment and led vtigative mte that fired hundreds of gay schoolteachers, portrayed the culture as viant and dangero.

A man holdg an Amerin flag stands outsi Ramrod, a gay leather bar on Christopher and Wt 10th Streets the Wt Village New York, Dec. Like the gay muny, gay nightlife has always been around, "sce time immemorial, " as poet Allen Gsberg would say, one form or another. But wasn’t until the seismic shift of World War II changed gay culture the Uned Stat that the bars and nightlife of today began to tly take shape.