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New York City’s Marie’s Crisis began broadcasting show tune sing-alongs on Facebook. Some well-known establishments from big cities have responded to the coronavirus closures by moving their programming online. When one of them closes, whether it’s due to the coronavirus or an owner’s retirement, entire regions are left without an LGBT community hub. In many smaller municipalities – from McAlester, Oklahoma, to Lima, Ohio, to Dothan, Alabama – the local gay bar is the only public place that caters to an LGBT crowd. They’re also fundraising powerhouses and regularly host events for queer cancer survivors, gender affirmation surgeries or burial fees.īig cities have many gay bars and LGBT organizations, but most places only have one or two gay bars. They’re the training ground of America’s Next Drag Superstars, and the place some parents call for advice about their child’s coming out. Going to a gay bar is still a rite of passage for every LGBT person’s coming out.Ī wellspring of modern LGBT politics and social life, they’re still hubs for political organizing. Today, they are often the only place where they regularly do. They were once the only places where LGBT people could gather in public. The mainstreaming of LGBT people is a positive sign of progress, but something is lost when gay bars close. And in the nation’s interior, economic and population declines have eroded patron bases. Similarly, bars serving working-class and poor LGBTQ people are more likely to be pushed out by gentrification than bars that serve middle-class and white gay men. Bars serving women and people of color, along with those that cater to men interested in fetishes, kink and BDSM, faced closure rates of over 50% between 20. Not all gay bars face equal risks of closure, however. And in coastal cities, gentrification is blamed for pushing gay bars out of the neighborhoods they helped make hip. The Great Recession also hammered bars and full-service restaurants, pushing some vulnerable establishments to the edge. “Every bar is a gay bar.” In addition, the debut of geolocating smartphone dating and hookup apps like Grindr also heralded an era where cruising for sex – one of bars’ primary offerings – could be conducted anywhere, anytime. “I go wherever I want with my friends,” one former employee of a gay bar told Talking Points Memo in 2015. What’s behind the trend? In this era of increasing LGBT acceptance, there’s growing competition from straight establishments. Unfortunately, gay bars in communities where they’re needed most – where they serve the most vulnerable segments of the LGBT population – will have the most difficult time rebounding from the crisis. On the one hand, this decline can be seen as a sign of shifting attitudes toward LGBT people on the other hand, their closure represents the loss of a vital community space. My research shows that as many as 37% of the United States’ gay bars shut down from 2007 to 2019. Their decline began sometime around 2002 and has since accelerated. But gay bars were already closing their doors before the virus hit.