The “Gayborhoods” of Texas

Contents:

• BT GAY CLUBS SAN ANTON
• GAY BARS SAN ANTON
• THE BEST SAN ANTON GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS SAN ANTON
• CISE THE GAYBORHOOD
• THE “GAYBORHOODS” OF TEXAS
• GAY BARS DOWNTOWN SAN ANTON
• "OUT LONG ENOUGH TO BE HISTORIC": RACIALIZED GAY SPACE PRE-STONEWALL SAN ANTON
• SAN ANTON GAY BARS
• SAN ANTON GAY MAP

BT GAY CLUBS SAN ANTON

Remend for Gay Clubs bee: If you're lookg for a ltle g, a ltle sk and perhaps a ltle s, Club Essence is the place to be! Remend for Gay Clubs bee: Although you n't really go dancg at Candlelight, is a great place to grab a glass of we, dner or a snack before partyg. May be the first official gay sports bar San Anton, where you n watch gam on one of their big screens or over 15 flat screen TVs.

Remend for Gay Clubs bee: Kockout is the newt bar to open up on the strip, and therefore is the new hot place to hangout. They say they're the #1 dance club town â€" God knows all the divas love to dance to the beats at the Heat, one San Anton's classier gay clubs.

San Anton gay bars are a popular statn for not only the cy’s gay men, but for straight men and women terted havg a “gay old time”. The cy’s gay bars feature large, outdoor celebratns (not unlike a gay pri para) that attract people of all strip that wish to be entertaed by a group of eclectic and unique sgers and dancers.

GAY BARS SAN ANTON

Jt north of downtown San Anton, at the tersectn of North Ma Avenue and Evergreen Street, you’ll fd a rabow crosswalk to dite that you’ve ma to The Strip SA — the gay district of the cy. A uple of other bars make up the heart of the gay Strip, but visors n also fd a hair salon, the LGBTQ+ t-shirt store Ouch Apparel (which also sells queer signer unrwear, swimwear, and other goodi), the leather apparel and BDSM accsori shop Hardre Leather Co., and Pup’s Pizza, which is open late and offers pizza-by-the-slice. Loted jt north of Downtown, San Anton's "gayborhood" is currently "on the rise" wh new addns to the neighborhood (check out Ouch Unrwear and the soon-to-open Boxer Bar) and recent renovatns and expansns to many of s long-standg bs.

Heat • Loted on the rner of East Evergreen and North Ma, the Heat nightclub is a towerg figure the cy's gay nightlife. Luther's Cafe • Servg up Texas-style burgers and a variety of homema stews sce 1949, Luther's Cafe has been a staple the muny even before the arrival of the gay nightlife on Ma Ave. Silver Dollar Saloon • The Silver Dollar is supposed to be SA's untry bar, but really, 's jt another gay bar wh plenty of dancg, karaoke and drag performanc.

THE BEST SAN ANTON GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS SAN ANTON

As one of the largt gay bars on the strip, the Silver Dollar is divid to several rooms for drkg, dancg, drag performanc and petn shows.

CISE THE GAYBORHOOD

Texas’ “gayborhoods” aren’t jt neighborhoods wh rabow-pated crosswalks at their tersectns; they’re historic muni where Texas pri and gay pri tersect ever-fascatg unison.

Their one-of-a-kd rtrants, vivac nightclubs, and lovable lols crown the gayborhoods as attractive statns—no matter where you fall on the sexualy spectm. In 1947, one of the first gay bars Texas, Club Reno, opened Dallas, heraldg the cy’s LGBTQ muny as one of the earlit to form the state.

As that group grew to over 3, 000 while marchg through downtown, Dallas beme the se of the first gay pri para all of Texas.

THE “GAYBORHOODS” OF TEXAS

The sign’s backdrop is JR’s Bar & Grill, an inic gay club that has served Amerin eats sce 1980 wh regular drag queen and celebry appearanc. More than 1, 000 people showed up, which began the gay liberatn movement Montrose and led Hill to help tablish The Montrose Center, an anizatn still operatg today that foc not only on advocy but also on offerg rourc to the muny.

Ls than five wt downtown, Montrose featur gayborhood stapl like permanently stalled rabow crosswalks and historic saloons.

San Anton’s Ma Avenue is terchangeably referred to as “The Strip” and “The Gay Strip, ” but ’s gay no matter what you ll . In 2016, Luther’s hosted a spontaneo meetg wh San Anton Police Chief William McMan to discs the rponse of lol law enforcement after the tragic mass shootg at a gay nightclub Orlando, Florida. A short stri over a nearby rabow crosswalk will land you at the pnacle of gay nightlife San Anton, North Ma Avenue’s bar strip.

GAY BARS DOWNTOWN SAN ANTON

Nightlife n be equally as rowdy, wh LGBT favor like the Bonham Exchange and the Silver Dollar Saloon drawg s own crowd of midnight wboys gay San Anton.

Many of Ibiza's gay bars are cltered around the port and a street lled “Calle la Virg” (= Carrer la Mare Déu), the tradnal center of the LGBTQ scene. Combg materials om the Carolyn Weathers Collectn the ONE Natnal Gay and Lbian Archiv and a 2015 terview wh Weathers herself, Amanda Mixon sketch queer experience early 1960s San Anton, Texas.

"OUT LONG ENOUGH TO BE HISTORIC": RACIALIZED GAY SPACE PRE-STONEWALL SAN ANTON

Mixon reviss gay bars, muny formatn, racial dynamics, policg practic, cultural reprentatns, and ary suasn to highlight the ongog need for further exploratn and study of historic gay spac across Texas.

I had spent the past few weeks pesg her papers at the ONE Natnal Gay and Lbian Archiv Los Angel mostly on a whim: she was one of the few dividuals the archive who hailed om the US South—Texas specifilly—and as a queer southerner om Texas myself, I wonred what sights her llectn might offer about LGBTQ+ experience our home state. I never expected to e across photos of gay bars pre-Stonewall San Anton or a short story Weathers had wrten about her time them.

SAN ANTON GAY BARS

Together, the objects of analysis not only reveal the centraly of the gay bar to LGBTQ+ life early 1960s San Anton, but they also provi clu as to how the cy's lonial and ary history affected the formatn of racialized gay space. In other words, although attentive to patron activi, mographics, and police enunters, the bar sketch vtigate how the histori fluenced the creatn of gay space, which racialized subjects had accs to gay space, and how that space was racialized or imbued wh ias about race as a nsequence.

2Bis the studi of San Anton ced later the say, some relevant th and dissertatns of tert clu: Kyle Elbrock, "Takg to the Streets: The History of Gay Pri Paras Dallas, Texas, 1972–1986" (master's this, Universy of North Texas, 2015); Carl J.

SAN ANTON GAY MAP

The mobilizatns, acrdg to scholars such as John D'E, Allan Bébé, and Gee Chncey, were part of a historil phenomenon that facilated the formatn of urban gay subcultur US ci.

10See Allan Bébé, Comg Out Unr Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women World War II (New York: Plume, 1991); Gee Chncey, Gay New York: Genr, Urban Culture, and the Makg of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940 (New York: Basic Books, 1994); and John D'E, "Capalism and Gay Inty" The Lbian and Gay Studi Rear, eded by Henry Abelove, Michèle Aa Barale, and David M. Post-WWII suburbanizatn, which ed property pric urban r to plummet, makg easier to purchase real tate and open gay bars and nightclubs, as well as the foundg of homophile civil rights anizatns, such as the Mattache Society (1950–1969) and the Dghters of Bilis (1955–1995), whose rpective publitns, the Mattache Review (1955–1967) and the Ladr (1956–1972), reached rears across the Uned Stat, enabled the growth of gay and lbian neighborhoods, readg publics, and social works. Stone, "Crowng Kg Anchovy: Cold War Gay Visibily San Anton's Urban Ftival, " Journal of the History of Sexualy 25, no.

Products of the 1941 May Act, which gave ary police the thory to surveil and rtrict accs to plac associated wh prostutn and homosexualy, the "off-lims" lists, posed and released by ary officials, nversely rulted givg gay bars more publicy and patronage. " While the ary did not standardize anti-homosexual polici until the creatn of the Department of Defense 1949, each branch prohibed and prosecuted homosexualy through psychologil screengs and forms of ary discharge prr to and throughout WWII.

15For further specifitn on the procr, see Bébé, Comg Out unr Fire; Chncey, Gay New York; and Margot Canaday's The Straight State: Sexualy and Cizenship Twentieth-Century Ameri (Prceton, NJ: Prceton Universy Prs, 2009). A native whe Texan and self-intified lbian born 1941, Carolyn Weathers entered the San Anton gay scene her early twenti, at a time of creased scty and persecutn as a nsequence of "antigay laws, the medilizatn of homosexualy, natnwi panics about homosexualy as ntagn, and anti-Communist anizg agast homosexualy. As members of the Los Angel Gay Liberatn Front (GLF-LA), Brenda found the Alholism Center for Women (still existence), and Carolyn was the first out lbian on an Los Angel televisn show, as well as a participant the GLF raid of the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn's 1970 nventn Los Angel.