Cise the Gayborhood | Cy Gui | San Anton | San Anton Current

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.

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

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.

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. 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.

CISE THE GAYBORHOOD

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.

THE “GAYBORHOODS” OF TEXAS

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 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 .

GAY BARS DOWNTOWN SAN ANTON

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.

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.

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. 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.

SAN ANTON GAY BARS

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.

SAN ANTON GAY MAP

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.

" reveal how the cy's lonial and ary history affected the formatn of racialized gay space as well as how Weathers imagatively ed San Anton to historicize and procs her personal experience of the movement for LGBTQ+ rights. Wrg "Cheers" as a bildungsroman—or g-of-age tale whose generic nventns and narrative stcture nsist of tracg a character's psychologil growth om youth to young adulthood—allowed Weathers to pict the gay cultural i she experienced pre-Stonewall San Anton while offerg didactic historil msag about LGBTQ+ muny formatn, substance and alhol abe, polil anizg, wrg, and reprentatn.

The msag—nveyed through the polil awakeng of the story's protagonist—ultimately culmate the text's primary theme: while the gay bar should be celebrated as the foundatn of gay socialy— that enabl muny, iendships, and timate relatnships— should also be criqued for s limed abily to psychologilly and physilly sta muny. Wrten om the third-person perspective of an unnamed narrator, the twenty-ne-page narrative mimics the experience of gay bar hoppg, followg the partyg trail of Jane Jon (the protagonist and Weathers's fictnal self) as she mov om The Acme to The Country to Fernando's Hiaway (all actual historil bars).

Although ci such as Chigo, San Francis, and Los Angel were home to the burgeong homophile movement durg this time, which offered alternative, if siarly clanste, spac to those of the bar, scholars have neher disvered anized polil activy associated wh or spired by anizatns like the Dghters of Bilis or the Mattache Society San Anton, nor have dividuals who participated the pre-Stonewall San Anton gay scene reported such activy. 22As of publitn, there are only two other amic studi of pre-Stonewall San Anton: Melissa Gohlke's "Out the Alamo Cy: Revealg San Anton's Gay and Lbian, World War II to the 1990s, " (master's this, Universy of Texas at San Anton, 2012); and Amy Stone's Cornyatn: San Anton's Outrageo Fita Tradn (San Anton: Maverick Books, 2017)—om which her article, "Crowng Kg Anchovy, " nns rmatn. While ONE, a monthly magaze published by ONE, Inc., a gay rights anizatn found Los Angel 1952, was available for purchase San Anton, Weathers remembers "g out when there was absolutely nothg but the bars—no thought or hope that there would ever be anythg else.

Stone wr, "Bars, ffee shops, and newsstands that sold ONE Magaze sprang up on the edg of Travis Park, a downtown green space known as a meetg place for gay men"; Weathers, Shkickers, 13.

In short, the gay bar was then the only tablished subcultural space for gay people to meet other gay people San Anton. The gay bars, as Weathers told me, serviced a mixed-genr crowd of men and women on a daily basis and were the source of iendships, hook-ups, and mted relatnships.