Raisg the Bar: A Brief History of Gay Bars – World Queerstory

Contents:

• 'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
• THE HISTORY OF HOW GAY BARS BEME THE BATTLEGROUND FOR LGBTQ+ RIGHTS
• RAISG THE BAR: A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY BARS
• HOW THE MOB HELPED ESTABLISH NYC’S GAY BAR SCENE
• HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
• THE PANSY CRAZE: WHEN GAY NIGHTLIFE LOS ANGEL REALLY KICKED OFF

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

Gay Bar b memoir, history and cricism; 's a difficult book to p down, but that's what mak so readable and so endlsly fascatg. 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's ambivalent about the velopment, wrg, "I had to nsir whether gay bars promised a sense of belongg then lured to a trap. 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. " He's also spired to dig to the past: "Enough time has passed that gay bars, once a surge, have bee monumental their own way.

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

" 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. Throughout the book, Atherton L scrib the gay bars that he equented, and his scriptns of the tablishments are endlsly evotive. " 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.

RAISG THE BAR: A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY BARS

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. 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.

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. ” 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.

Over the next several s, gay and lbian bars began to pop up all over the untry, each one perhaps takg a cue om those before .

HOW THE MOB HELPED ESTABLISH NYC’S GAY BAR SCENE

Dpe their often short-lived nature, the early gay bars often served as hugely important battlegrounds the fight for LGBTQ+ rights.

“ 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. 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. Jt two years after the Stonewall Rts, gay rights groups existed every major Amerin cy, as well as Canada, Atralia and Europe.

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

“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. Durg the “Pansy Craze” om the 1920s until 1933, people the lbian, gay, bi, trans and queer (LGBTQ) muny were performg on stag ci around the world, and New York Cy’s Greenwich Village, Tim Square and Harlem held some of the most world-renowned drag performanc of the time. All of this activy existed durg cultural time that, as historian Gee Chncey wr his book Gay New York, many people believe “is not supposed to have existed.

Sudnly, when everyone was on the search for newly illegal alhol, black and whe gay and lbian life me to ntact wh one another and domant society. While the Haton Lodge Ball may have begun the 1860s or ‘70s, probably didn’t ga a predomantly gay and lbian prence until the 1920s. By the mid-30s, was the largt annual ball held New York, attractg spectators who were gay, lbian, straight, black and whe all at once.

THE PANSY CRAZE: WHEN GAY NIGHTLIFE LOS ANGEL REALLY KICKED OFF

In the ‘20s and early ‘30s, g out had to do wh makg a but to the gay and lbian world, and was rived om when wealthy women would “e out” formally to high society.

“They didn’t see a nflict between not beg openly gay at work and sort of only beg gay durg their leisure time, ” says Heap, addg that a person’s class was likely ditive of how you might participate gay and lbian culture at the time. “The were moments when workg class gay men and women uld more eely explore their sexualy, sir, and terts cross drsg, but probably no doctor or lawyer is gog to drs up drag at the events, out of risk of beg exposed. ” Most middle and upper class gay men and lbians sat the upper booths at drag events among straight people, g the populary as a ver.