Gay bar closed closing 2019

Greggor Mattson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Gay bars have been shuttered by public-place closure orders during the coronavirus pandemic.

In March, more than half of U. But gay bars were already closing their doors before the virus hit. Their decline began sometime around and has since accelerated. 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.

The Great Recession also hammered bars and full-service restaurantspushing some vulnerable establishments to the edge. And in coastal cities, gentrification is blamed for pushing gay bars out of the neighborhoods they helped make hip. Not all gay bars face equal risks of closure, however.

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. The mainstreaming of LGBT people is a positive sign of progress, but something is lost when gay bars close. They were once the only places where LGBT people could gather in public.

Today, they are often the only place where they regularly do.

Iconic This Is It! bar closed for good

Big cities have many gay bars and LGBT organizations, but most places only have one or two gay bars. Some well-known establishments from big cities have responded to the coronavirus closures 2019 moving their programming online. Partial relief comes in other forms, too. Some states, like New York and Ohiohave relaxed rules to allow carryout liquor sales, giving some bars a revenue stream.

Because these bars in smaller cities are often the only LGBTQ address for multi-county regionstheir temporary closure leaves already-isolated LGBTQ people even more isolated than ever. If these closed closure orders become permanent business failures, bars are unlikely to reopen quickly. Investors are required to open a bar in expensive, gentrified coastal cities.

These owners sometimes commingle personal finances with the professional, and lack the lines of credit to bounce back quickly. The extent to which the stimulus package will help gay bars remains to be seen — all small businesses are in a state of limbo as they await relief funds. But the pathways for financial support for independent contractors and gig workers are even more cumbersome and convoluted in many states.

These are the people not on the payroll who provide the sparkle to LGBT nightlife: the DJs, drag queens, dancers and security guards. True, gay bars were never all things to all LGBT people. Caring about them means reckoning with their histories of exclusion of women, of transgender people, of people of color.

For many LGBT people they never wereeven among the white gay men they primarily served. There are closing histories of gay bars excluding those under 21, the undocumented, the disabled and those in addiction recovery. But only a pessimist would condemn bars for these exclusionary sins, while only a willful optimist would celebrate the closure of what is often the only place for Bar people to find like-minded others to celebrate in our queer ways.