The first gay pub I dared set foot now has a rabow plaque. Here’s why that matters | Gary Nunn | The Guardian

Contents:

• THE FIRST GAY PUB I DARED SET FOOT NOW HAS A RABOW PLAQUE. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS
• GAY SERIAL KILLER SPECT'S ESTATE TURNS UP TWO MORE DNA SAMPL
• ANTHONY MACKIE REVEALS HE OWNS THE “CROWN JEWEL” OF GAY BARS
• FATAL STABBG OF GAY MAN AT GAS STATN BEG VTIGATED AS HATE CRIME

THE FIRST GAY PUB I DARED SET FOOT NOW HAS A RABOW PLAQUE. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS

’s newt LGBTQ+ venue March, the tr sought to create a space clive of the diverse people who make up the, about two months after The Ltle Gay Pub opened s doors, the tablishment has quickly bee a popular statn for lols and the great lotn, iendly staff, great atmosphere, and fortg ambiance, many who e to LGP go straight to the bathroom for a selfie. It’s bee so much of a thg that the acunt Royal_Fih_LGP on Instagram is dited to pturg and documentg the gogs on the pub’s ltle gay bathrooms.

And as a child beg a gay boy, I was like, ‘This is fabulo. Runng low on money, the team ially nsired overhead lightg, Sevilla explas, but me to md that “oh no girl, the gays need lights their face, ” so the flatterg illumatn beme one more vtment to the pub’s atmosphere. Frankly, I’d have served a prison jt for him to hold my hand, like he did his off-whe Vxhall Nova on the drive there, breakg only to change, he took me for strawberry cir the Gloucter, a pub at the park’s edge, takg my tremblg hand his and reassurg me: “It’s actually a gay bar.

Gay pubs are far more than bars; they’re refug. On Sunday, the first a new seri of rabow plaqu will be stalled at the Gloucter – now the Greenwich Tavern – cementg s place gay home the workg-class Medway area of Kent, where we met when he sold me a phone cred rd at the lol petrol statn, “queers” like were wily perceived as predatory, perverted, spic or simply scum.

GAY SERIAL KILLER SPECT'S ESTATE TURNS UP TWO MORE DNA SAMPL

”After the strawberry cir, served by a man a tight whe vt – the only other gay man I’d seen real life – the squiggly summer sunlight ma a strobe effect through the park’s tre. The first time I saw wh him, when I was 18, I realised he had echoed the love story of the two protagonists, who also had their first kiss the twilight of Greenwich Park’s tre, and their first experience of a gay pub at the Gloucter. The explanatn for his obssn is now clear: there was such a pcy of same-sex love stori that this was the first time many young people had seen a same-sex kiss, or peeked si an actual gay bar after dark.

The project remds people “that we have always been here, good tim and bad, ” David Robson of the London LGBT+ Foms’ Network said when the plaqu were film and my own story were workg-class gay love: not dandyish and sheltered by the polse of privilege, but the btal realy of beg perceived a non-mascule boy.

ANTHONY MACKIE REVEALS HE OWNS THE “CROWN JEWEL” OF GAY BARS

It was a powerful and rarely told tersectn – and one that, even more rarely, ends rather happily, wh a betiful scene of fiance and acceptance played to a Mama Cass waltz on the sk I disvered that I wasn’t the only wi-eyed baby gay my boyiend had been chasg through those ancient chtnuts that summer. For me, the plaque honours that private moment as well as the shared history of the LGBTQ+ ’s the msage I’d impart to anyone who thks such symbols are meangls, as the unique social history of the UK’s gay bars is endangered by gentrifitn, hook-up apps, the st of livg crisis and even assiatn. Like many workg-class, closeted gay boys, I’d hi unr the glovebox of my boyiend’s Nova when we drove back om the park, lt anyone saw.

It whispered to ckney-accented gay boys like me: there are others like you. Indiana State Police have extracted two DNA profil om human remas found on the property of the late spected gay serial killer Herbert Bmeister.

Bmeister, a wealthy Republin bsman who was married wh three children, was spected of killg over 20 boys and young men he met at or around gay bars durg the 1980s and ’90s. While he appeared to be a lovg hband and father and a succsful bsman, he’s also spected of cisg lol gay bars for young men he’d lure back to his tate and strangle to also believe Bmeister was the I-70 strangler, a serial killer who killed 11 young men and boys and dumped their bodi throughout Indiana and Oh between June 1980 and October 1991. The uple ran the succsful Sav-A-Lot cha of stor, allowg them to move to the exclive Fox Hollow said she fot about the cint until November of the followg year when police asked for permissn to search the property as part of their vtigatn to a strg of killgs targetg young gay men the area.

FATAL STABBG OF GAY MAN AT GAS STATN BEG VTIGATED AS HATE CRIME

In a sea of nned cktails, Gay Water wants to stand out. In other words, where Bud Light has buckled unr prsure as bigotry grows agast the LGBTQ+ muny, Gay Water’s creator Spencer Hodson wants his new boozy brand to be the anthis of that.

“The key issue that Bud Light tapped to was the fact that they didn’t unrstand their re dience and know enough about them,” Hodson, a gay man, told CNN about the ntroversy that began when the Anhser-Bch beer brand sent fluencer Dylan Mulvaney a n of beer. Gay Water, however, is out and proud. The nned cktail is named after a lloquialism given to the popular mixed drk (vodka and soda) orred at bars by the gay muny.