Lesbian bar

Lesbian bars predate current LGBT offerings such as queer community centers, health care centers, bookstores, and coffeeshops. While few lesbian-specific bars exist today, lesbian bars have long been sites of refuge, validation, community, and resistance for women whose sexual preferences are considered "deviant" or non-normative.[1] They have been spaces for intergenerational community building, where women had the opportunity to come out without being "outed", which can result in the loss of jobs, family, and social status.[1][2] They could, however, also be sites of intense isolation.[1]

While women have historically been barred from public spaces promoting alcohol consumption, women's saloon presence rose in the 1920s. Prohibition's speakeasies allowed women to drink publicly more freely.[3] San Francisco's Mona's 440 Club, opened in 1936, is widely cited as the first lesbian bar in the United States.[4] In the 1950s, bars began to emerge for working-class lesbians, white and black.[1][5] Very characteristic of these (often referred to as "Old Gay"[6]) bars was binary heterosexist models of coupling and an enforcement of a (white) butch/femme or (black) stud/femme binary.[7] Because of a lack of economic capital and segregation, house parties were popular among black lesbians.[8] Lesbians who changed roles were looked down upon and sometimes referred to as "KiKi" or "AC/DC".[9] There were not, however, alternatives available at this time.[10] Out of this early organizing of lesbians came the Homophile movement and the Daughters of Bilitis.[10]

Lesbian and gay identification and bar culture expanded exponentially with the migration and passing through of people in big cities during and after World War II.[1][5][6][9][11]

In the 1960s, with the rise of the gay liberation movement and an increasing identification with the term and identity "lesbian", women's bars increased in popularity. The 1970s saw the rise of Lesbian Feminism, and bars became important community activist spaces.

Policing has been a constant for lesbian bars in the US. Some bar owners banded together to fight back against this, collecting funds to defend patrons who had been arrested in raids.[10] Undercover[5] and off-duty police officers[1] have terrorized lesbian bars since their inception. Lesbians could be harassed and detained by the police for publicly gathering in a place where alcohol was being served, dancing with someone of the same gender, or failure to present identification.[1]

Men were often the landlords of lesbian bars, in order to secure liquor licenses and navigate relationships with the police and the Mafia.[12][13] Bar owners often bribed police to warn them just prior to raids, upon which they would turn on the lights in the bar and lesbians would separate.[1]

As a form of protection, some bars covered their windows, did not have identifying signage, or could only be entered through a back door.[1] Some bar owners tried membership-based models, which heightened security but was also exclusionary.[1][7]

In addition to drinking, lesbian bar culture has also revolved around community building, dancing, and pool playing. This targeted but not lucrative patronage was not always profitable and caused many bars to shut their doors.[1]

These pieces of history are being lost as the "neighborhood lesbian bar" is increasingly unable to make rent payments, and as gentrification contributes to declining patronage. Gay male bars persist as gay men have more economic capital, and the rise of internet dating culture is displacing the cultivation of intergenerational lesbian communities historically created in lesbian bars.[2] Because lesbian women are more likely to be primary caretakers of children than gay men, lesbian neighborhoods take on a different shape than gay neighborhoods, and as a result, lesbian night life decreases.[14]

Along with the increased mainstreaming of LGBTQ culture, use of the term "queer" for self-identification, instead of "lesbian", has grown among many younger members of the lesbian community;[15][16] and with the rise in internet dating culture, lesbian-specific bars have become less common in modern times.[7]

Some documentaries about the decline include:

• The Death of Lesbian Bars (focus on Australia).[17]
• The Last Lesbian Bars (2015) (focus on the United States).[18]

Lesbian bars have become rare in Western culture nations. However, there are some gay-friendly bars today that host "lesbian nights" or "queer women" nights.[2] Some current and past lesbian bars include:

• Last Call at Maud's (1993 documentary about the last evening at a San Francisco lesbian bar)
• Dyke marches
• Save Our Children
• White Horse Inn
• Types of drinking establishment

Academia

• Mattson, Greggor (January 1, 2019). "Are Gay Bars Closing? Using Business Listings to Infer Rates of Gay Bar Closure in the United States, 1977–2019". Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World. American Sociological Association. 5. doi:10.1177/2378023119894832. ISSN 2378-0231.
• Wolfe, Maxine (1992). "Invisible Women in Invisible Places: Lesbians, Lesbian Bars, and the Social Production of People/Environment Relationships" (PDF). Architecture & Comportement/Architecture & Behaviour. 8 (2): 137–157. ISSN 0379-8585. OCLC 7360243.

Books

• Faderman, Lillian (1991). Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0231074889.
• Hankin, Kelly (2002). The Girls in the Back Room: Looking at the Lesbian Bar. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0816639281.

• Lesbian Nightlife Map at the Addresses Project
• The Boy Mechanic project (history of lesbian bars in the United States and Europe)
• Eulogy for the Dyke Bar by Macon Reed