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Contents:

• THERE GO THE GAYBORHOOD
• GAY PRI
• WHAT’S A NAME? GAY STREET
• HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
• LAKE BLUFF NSIRS FLYG GAY PRI FLAG ON VILLAGE FLAGPOLE; ‘WE N SEND THE RIGHT MSAGE, THAT WE ARE AN ACCEPTG ... MUNY’
• IS GAY STREET REALLY ‘GAY’?

THERE GO THE GAYBORHOOD

() Wh a transgenr woman  Congrs and the immense populary of shows like Queer Eye and RuPl's Drag Race, gay culture is currently at the foreont of mastream Filipo nscns a way has never been before.

GAY PRI

As our age note on the term stat, “up until 1973, homosexualy was listed The Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM), psychiatry’s standard reference on the classifitn of mental illns. ” In fact, the term homosexual was liberately rejected by early gay rights activists bee, acrdg to The New York Tim, “they did not want to be intified as exclively sexual begs.

WHAT’S A NAME? GAY STREET

“There go the neighborhood, ” I thought as the last illn I had of this part of the cy as an clive yet uniquely gay space dissolved before my the past few years, the “ath of the Gayborhood” — a phrase once uttered mock horror whenever a favore hangout changed hands or a well-known stutn screwed up — has taken on an air of evabily. Two popular Gayborhood bars, Venture Inn and ICandy, have closed down, and Voyr and Woody’s have tried to broan their ctomer base by hostg bachelorette parti, exotic male revue shows for women, and even NFL watch parti.

We saw this the polil arena 2018, when two openly gay black ndidat, Mallm Kenyatta and Alex Deerg, peted for a state Hoe seat the 181st District — a sectn of North Philalphia that’s both geographilly and enomilly distant om the Gayborhood. Cywi, LGBTQ visibily is siarly creasg the cultural realm: Large-sle LGBTQ-themed events have moved beyond the tradnal Pri weekend June and Outft October, and many former Gayborhood event producers and performers are bookg venu throughout the cy.

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

For many Philalphians, the Gayborhood is no longer the sole place for an LGBTQ experience, but jt another optn a growg field of clive this 50th anniversary year of the Stonewall rts New York, which brought the gay rights movement the U.

To mastream attentn, members of Philly’s LGBTQ muny are reflectg — some wistfully, some crilly — on what the Gayborhood means today, and wonrg whether there’s really anythg left to be lost by venturg outsi the neighborhood’s now-fadg rabow-pated crosswalks.

LAKE BLUFF NSIRS FLYG GAY PRI FLAG ON VILLAGE FLAGPOLE; ‘WE N SEND THE RIGHT MSAGE, THAT WE ARE AN ACCEPTG ... MUNY’

•In the 1950s, Center Cy the vicy of 13th and Loct streets, which we now ll the Gayborhood, was known as the Loct Strip — a red-light district full of strip and htler bars, some of which tered to a gay clientele.

”“When the gay bars and shops were lumped wh the ‘unsirable’ elements of the ’60s and ’70s and threatened wh police raids, the attacks had the effect of galvanizg the muny, ” says Bob Skiba, a Gayborhood historian and curator. ”In the wake of extensive civil rights work by LGBTQ activists around the untry the 1970s and durg the AIDS epimic the 1980s, the openly gay character of the neighborhood was firmly entrenched by the time Cy Paper edor and lumnist David Warner scribed an Outft celebratn as “a betiful day the gayborhood” the early 1990s. By 1999, the term Warner had ed was appearg on maps, and veloper tert soon stoked a rapid revalizatn that would turn the area om a llectn of bars and niche bs to a hot spot filled wh high-end rtrants and stutns played their own large rol the Gayborhood’s growth.

IS GAY STREET REALLY ‘GAY’?

In 2003, the Greater Philalphia Tourism Marketg Corporatn, now known as Vis Philalphia, lnched a hugely succsful mpaign vg potential visors to “Get Your History Straight and Your Nightlife Gay. And while some observers would suggt that the change is a natural nsequence of wispread LGBTQ acceptance, others argue ’s a paful sign of gentrifitn that’s erasg the inty, culture, and tersectn of racial and genr diversy wh the Gayborhood.

”“The Gayborhood has changed along wh all of Center Cy, ” unters Valerie Saan, who wh her partner, Marcie Turney, owns Barbuzzo, Bud & Marilyn’s, and several other popular rtrants and retail shops the neighborhood. The Gayborhood stopped beg a neighborhood which the most margalized uld fd and be themselv and started to feel more like a tourist attractn for cultural this time, two natnal movements — Black Liv Matter, spearhead by queer black women, and the fight for marriage equaly, upheld by the Supreme Court 2015 — awakened my social nscns. By then, I was a young journalist verg the muny, and I began to notice ownership and learship dispari at Gayborhood spac, which were led predomantly by cisgenr whe men spe the notable role that people of lor across the genr spectm played shapg the area’s had, of urse, seen this before I did.

While some iativ, such as creased fundg for LGBTQ nonprofs, improved due to the Gayborhood’s newfound viabily, he says there were untend nsequenc that began to overshadow the progrs.