The History of How Gay Bars Beme the Battleground for LGBTQ+ Rights

Contents:

• THE GAY BAR: CAN YOU MAKE MONEY NNG ONE?
• THE HISTORY OF HOW GAY BARS BEME THE BATTLEGROUND FOR LGBTQ+ RIGHTS
• A NEW GAY BAR IS ABOUT TO OPEN… A MOST UNLIKELY OH ZIP
• GAY BARS AND GAY RIGHTS
• CAN GAY BARS, AN ANCHOR OF N.Y.C. NIGHTLIFE, SURVIVE THE PANMIC?
• THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI
• HOW THE MOB HELPED ESTABLISH NYC’S GAY BAR SCENE
• GROUNDBREAKG BOOK DETAILS WHEN MAFIA CONTROLLED GAY BARS
• THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW
• MOSW GAY BARS

THE GAY BAR: CAN YOU MAKE MONEY NNG ONE?

Damron, which has been keepg track of gay bars sce 1964, showed a 12 percent drop their number between 2005 and 2011, om 1, 605 LGBT bars and clubs to 1, 405. " Today's bar owners n their bs at a time when gays feel more fortable spendg time all kds of plac, when the AIDS crisis has ma backroom hookups far ls mon, and when gays are as likely to meet on an iPhone app as at a bar. Many "gay bars, " pecially outsi the major urban centers, attract both male and female ctomers, but big ci, far more bars ter to gay male patrons than to lbians.

Acrdg to the bar listgs the 2011-12 edn of the Gayellow Pag San Francis has one lbian bar, 24 ditg a mostly gay male clientele, and seven drawg both gay men and lbians; Atlanta has two lbian bars, 12 for gay men, and eight mixed; Manhattan has two lbian, 28 for men, and 13 mixed; and Seattle has one lbian, four for gay men, and six mixed. " Today, women might take advantage of the cheap, strong drks available gay bars, but when 's time for dancg and romancg, they'll head off to the no-man's land of the girl bar.

Tradnally, lbian and gay bars suated themselv remote lotns, even though that meant potential ctomers had to have the means and motivatn to get to them. The last thg closeted gay men and lbians wanted was for -workers, fay members, or potential blackmailers to wanr to their sanctuary—nor did they want to be seen g and gog om such tablishments. In Gay Bar, her memoir of nng such an tablishment the 1950s, Helen Branson wrote that "If an owner of a gay bar do not want the harassment and plats om the neighbors, he tri to choose a lotn that is not very ele.

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

The days, urban gay bars tend to clter together "gayborhoods"—New York's Greenwich Village and Chelsea, San Francis's Castro and SoMa, or Dupont Circle Washgton, D. In Seattle, Pony is jt steps away om another gay bar, the Madison Pub, though is a uple of blocks om Capol Hill's ma entertament strip, home to Seattle's livelit bars and clubs, both gay and straight.

Pony has tried to re-create that sual vibe—"a place where people n relax and naturally be themselv, " as Stoner scribed —and married wh a gay sensibily.

" Brett Thomas, who owns three gay-iendly straight bars Eastern Iowa addn to Iowa Cy's only gay bar, says gays and straights drk differently: "A gay will e ; they'll try to figure out how they n get the most booze that glass for the lowt price. Perhaps, then, 's the drkg habs of gay bar-goers, as much as growg tolerance among straight on, that explas the creasg tegratn of the gay and straight worlds today's bar scene.

A NEW GAY BAR IS ABOUT TO OPEN… A MOST UNLIKELY OH ZIP

(The number of mixed straight-gay bars and clubs appearg gay-travel-gui publisher Damron's listgs creased by 42 percent, om 352 to 502, between 2005 and 2011.

On the night I vised Tommy Gun, the seats were occupied by a crowd that looked as though had stepped out of a diversy trag vio: a table full of what appeared to be gay men, a lbian uple, two straight upl, and what seemed to be a group of straight women. Ntor is keen to "extend the entertament strip, " and her this-place-is-gay-owned-and-gay-iendly-but-not-a-gay-bar attu feels like a smart bs move.

GAY BARS AND GAY RIGHTS

” 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.

“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. 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.

Cloud's first dg and drkg tablishment marketed to gay, lbian, bisexual and transgenr ctomersGe-Tschida's son, Taylor Plson, is also part of the effort to open The Proud Cloud. So when his mom asked, "Would you be terted openg up a gay bar wh me?, " was a no-braer for Plson to say said as soon as five years ago, he wouldn't have thought the market was there for a space like Ge-Tschida has envisned.

CAN GAY BARS, AN ANCHOR OF N.Y.C. NIGHTLIFE, SURVIVE THE PANMIC?

The Olive Tree BellefontaeAfter hostg their first drag show Febary, The Olive Tree has sce received s liquor license, makg the first ever gay bar Bellefontae.

“Sce we did the first drag show, I learned very quickly that now I’m an tor and have to help stigmatize everythg bee there’s a lot of homophobia around here and Oh general. I thk tak people to meet a iendly, nice gay person to get rid of all the hate and jt happens to be that there aren’t a lot [of out LGBTQ+ people] my muny. “As a kid, if I would have had someone that was openly proud and ma gay beg the olt thg on the pla that would’ve pletely changed my life, ” he said.

The Trevor Project is an Amerin non-prof anizatn found 1998 foced on suici preventn efforts among lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, queer, and qutng youth.

THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI

Gay bars, one of the few public plac of ngregatn for LGBTQ+ people before the Stonewall rebelln of 1969, were flash pots for the crimalizatn of same-sex sexual nduct, acrdg to legal scholar Patricia A. Addnally, a broad terpretatn of “homosexual acts” the twentieth century ma “lbians and gay men thk of themselv as crimals jt for beg who they were, ” wr Ca. Department of Alhol Beverage Control required “somethg more” than the mere prence of homosexuals a California bar for thori to revoke a liquor license.

In 1967, Miami prohibed issug liquor licens to tablishments that employed homosexuals, sold liquor to homosexuals, or allowed two or more homosexuals to ngregate on the premis. ” J Wee for The New York TimPublished June 20, 2020Updated May 7, 2021Protters have returned to the Stonewall Inn aga and aga recent weeks to mand an end to police btaly, raisg their fists, takg a knee and holdg moments of silence on the same ground where a rt 1969 helped spark the morn gay rights public health rtrictns have kept the Greenwich Village bar — which s owners scribe as a waterg hole, muny center and “gay church” — closed sce the ronavis panmic began March.

”Gay bars New York Cy face the same challeng as other bars and rtrants shuttered recent months — high rents, th prof margs, and now ltle-to no-e — but for L. It has stck at the heart of a muny whose culture and history are passed down through generatns of people who are not blood-related, and who pend on spac like bars both to fd safety and to meet their J Wee for The New York TimGay culture and activism have long been woven to the fabric of New York Cy life, makg a mag for people across the untry and around the world, om the “fairy rorts” on the Bowery the 1890s to the Wt Si piers the fancial pa is particularly acute durg June, which is Pri Month, often the most lucrative time of year for L.

HOW THE MOB HELPED ESTABLISH NYC’S GAY BAR SCENE

Muny space, and he worri about the impact of the shutdown on patrons who had found a sense of belongg J Wee for The New York Tim“As gay people, we don’t have a muny like straight fai have — they’re married, they have children, and then those children have iends and those iends have parents, and that all creat a sense of muny, ” Mr.

”The qutn of when to reopen is a plex one for many gay bars, which often hoe stag, dance floors and areas where groups — sometim as large as a weddg receptn — n Sosa, the owner of C’mon Everybody, a club the Bedford-Stuyvant sectn of Brooklyn, said his tablishment would not reopen for months bee dance parti, live mic and other typ of performance were key to s bs mol. More about Liam StackA versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn MB, Page 5 of the New York edn wh the headle: Cy’s Gay Bars Stggle to Survive the Panmic.

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. 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.

GROUNDBREAKG BOOK DETAILS WHEN MAFIA CONTROLLED GAY BARS

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? 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.

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. 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. 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.

THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW

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.

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. Juli’, now the olst gay bar New York Cy (and also one of the olst bars the cy ntuo operatn), is a bar and rtrant that dat back to the neteenth century, wh s current sign probably datg om the late neteenth or early twentieth century.

By the 1960s, some four s after Greenwich Village had bee the center of New York Cy’s LGBT muny, the bar was attractg a signifint number of gay men, although was not exclively a gay bar. ” Their tent was to challenge New York State Liquor Authory regulatns that were promulgated so that bars uld not serve drks to known or spected gay men or lbians, sce their prence was nsired facto disorrly.

MOSW GAY BARS

The State Liquor Authory regulatns were one of the primary ernmental mechanisms of opprsn agast the gay muny bee preclud their right of ee assembly. The sip- was part of a larger mpaign by more radil members of the Mattache Society to clarify laws and l that hibed the nng of gay bars as legimate, non-mob, tablishments and to stop the harassment of gay bar patrons. When Dick Lesch, Craig Rodwell, John Timmons, and Randy Wicker announced that they were homosexuals and asked to be served a drk, the bartenr at Juli’ refed their requt.