If gay bars are actually in decline, it’s for a myriad of reasons.
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After all, lots of queer people continue to go to gay bars to cruise, and many others go for reasons other than sex - to see friends, to dance, to drink, to enjoy a drag show, to enjoy go-go boys, plus many other delights that apps and the digital world just can’t offer. But why? Numerous articles decry gay hook-up apps for “killing gay bars,” but it’s an explanation that seems too easy. One estimate says that between 2005 to 2011, the number of LGBTQ bars and clubs dropped 12%, from 1,605 venues to 1,405 nationwide. More than half of London’s gay bars and pubs have closed in the last decade. In August of 2016, Tel Aviv, Israel, had closed down “its last gay bar.” Earlier that February, the legendary Hong Kong nightclub Propaganda closed its doors after 25 years.
The month before that, Fusion Waikiki, an LGBTQ-friendly nightclub in Hawaii, announced its closure after nearly three decades. Barely a month before that, Washington, D.C.’s biggest gay nightclub, Town Danceboutique, announced it would close within the year. A few weeks prior to that, Purr Cocktail Bar in Seattle closed, as did The Bridge Club, a gay bar in Vermont that had only recently opened.
In 2017, BJ’s NXS, a gay strip bar in Dallas, closed down after eight years in the same location. It’s where many older members of our community saw their first drag show, danced with their same-sex partner or attended their first political rally.īut despite the vital role that bars have played throughout the modern LGBTQ movement, each year seems to bring more news of gay bars closing. Well into the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s, gay bars provided libations and liberation for many queer people. But even before its patrons finally rebelled against the cops in 1969, certain bars across America had become a political meeting place where LGBTQ people could drink, dance and forge a community amid the dangerous and unaccepting world.