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.