This is because gay bars are the one place where LGBT persons are sure to find other people like them in a non-judgemental arena. As Thomas shared, “for people who don’t have a supportive family or supportive friends or a school system or accounts that don’t necessarily understand what they’re going through, bars and clubs are essential to helping people move to the next step in their process.” Not only do bars honor gay history, but they are venues for a person to learn about the gay experience, their bodies, their sexuality, and so much more. Why? It could be due to the fact that cities are becoming more accepting, as Slate's June Thomas mused in 2011. The decline started in the 1980s and continues to dwindle. By the 1970s, gay bars were openly spaces where you could find LGBT persons.
As glbtq has reported, historically gay bars function "as sites for the development of gay culture and for political foment." When police started raiding gay bars in the 1950s and 1960s, they morphed into political zones: people started to fight back as exemplified by The Stonewall Riots. Gay bars have long been important political arenas.
You lose the ability to congregate with other people who are going through the same struggles as you are.” Gay bars and other LGBT spaces are historic places of belonging, where queer persons could go to learn and find themselves in community. “You lose the ability to feel like you belong in a space. "You lose affirmation,” Shane’a Thomas, a Washington D.C.-based social worker and University of Southern California lecturer, told ATTN: by phone. Why are LGBT patrons leaving and where are they going? What are we losing when a storied gay venue loses its life? Are gay bars necessary in the age of marriage equality? Be it because of dating apps or because of rising rent, metropolitan gay bars are disappearing.Ĭultural voices like Michael Musto have mused over the subject but can’t quite figure out why, leaving many with the same lingering questions. Those closures were all in the past year, but they're only a small sample of the gay bars that have closed down.
While there are many watering holes to choose from, it's also true that many iconic heritage spaces have closed their doors: Roosterfish, the only gay bar in Venice Beach, shut down after nearly forty years of business Los Angeles’s Jewel’s Catch One catered to the city’s LGBT African Americans for decades but is now gone for almost twenty years, Escuelita was a space for NYC’s LGBT Latinos but it wrapped up in March London’s Richard Arms closed after thirty years of service Santa Fe’s only gay bar no longer exists and San Francisco’s oldest gay bar - The Gangway - is on the brink of shuttering. This might mean you’ll be attending a Pride parade or heading to a gay bar to grab a drink with friends to celebrate equality. With June being Pride Month, issues impacting the LGBT community and LGBT celebrations are both in the spotlight. This story was written, edited and filed prior to Sunday morning's events.] Prior to the Orlando shooting, ATTN: had begun reporting on the gradual loss of these sanctuaries. In the wake of the shooting, Richard Kim wrote for the Nation about the horrific fact of the shooter targeting a gay bar, an institution that, among other things, serves as a "sanctuary against aggression." The massacre was a tragic reminder of the sometimes intense hatred still directed at gay Americans, even as the country makes gradual strides toward LGBT equality. In total, 50 people were killed and 53 more were injured. [Editor's Note: Early Sunday morning, the largest mass shooting in American history took place at the gay nightclub, Pulse, in Orlando.