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As noted in the Lesbian Bar Project, up until the 1980s some lesbian bars in New York often had door policies that limited the number of lesbians of color allowed inside at one time. There are also generation gaps and cultural changes, as well as an overdue reckoning with a past of racism and transphobia that divided the lesbian community. Gentrification in America’s cities and astronomical real-estate prices are certainly part of the problem, as are technological changes that have romance, dating, and sex often shifting to online forms of meeting. There is an overall examination as to why these bars are closing, and the filmmakers note that it’s multifaceted and complicated. It’s not just a place to get a drink, it’s so much more.”īoth the film and the movement have a surprisingly optimistic tone considering the dire nature of the loss of lesbian bars. They aren’t just bars, it’s also a community center. “Embracing the language of what they really are is important. “We wanted to explore the past and the present, and who are the patrons over that time until now,” says Street. (L – R) Lea DeLaria, filmmakers Elina Street and Erica Rose, Lisa Meninchino Produced and narrated by Provincetown’s own Lea DeLaria and directed by Erica Rose and Elina Street, the Lesbian Bar Project will screen at Waters Edge Cinema this Women’s Week in companion with the full-length documentary Ahead of the Curve, a look at the influential lesbian magazine Curve. And now, a new documentary short of the same name further examines the issue.
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To assist those bars still operating, whose needs only deepened during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Lesbian Bar Project began a fundraising campaign in 2020 to offer financial assistance. Pre-pandemic that number dwindled to 21, and at the moment there are just 15 known lesbian bars open in America, with six others still closed since the beginning of the pandemic. According to the Lesbian Bar Project, an organization and movement founded to “celebrate, support, and preserve” lesbian bars, in 1980 the United States had an estimated 200 bars for gay women. And the issue is particularly acute with lesbian bars. Over the past decade, conversation within the LGBTQ+ community has shifted to concern that too many of these queer spaces are being lost as gay bars are closing. You could even say that, to some degree, these bars aren’t just safe spaces, but sacred ones. Ask any queer person what the first “gay bar” they ever went to was and chances are you’ll get an answer quite quickly, as no one forgets that experience of entering a safe space where you can fully exhale. But aside from major historical events and depictions in media, bars for LGBTQ+ people are intensely personal places for the community, even if upon a surface level inspection they seem like any other bar, just with a queer clientele. National Monument with President Barack Obama’s signature in 2016. After all, the Stonewall Riots, the event that gave birth to the modern LGBTQ+ right movement in 1969, happened at a Greenwich Village gay bar, with said bar becoming a U.S.
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Within LGBTQ+ culture, bars are an integral part of not just fun and recreation, but also politics, community, and even art. Thursday, July 5 on KPBS2.TOP IMAGE: Owner of New York City’s the Cubbyhole Lisa Meninchino “San Diego’s Gay Bar History” premieres Thursday, June 14 at 9 p.m.
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They still have to have places where they are safe and where there are other people like them.” “There are a lot of people who can’t assimilate, especially transgender kids. “If you are too femme as a guy or too butchy as a girl, you are still not going to be comfortable,” filmmaker Detwiler said. The history of San Diego’s gay bars may still have a few chapters to go. Just because the mainstream bar scene is more welcoming than it used to be doesn’t mean everyone feels welcome there. For some members of the community, havens are still important. In the documentary, Numbers owner Nick Moede chalks it up to a changing market, where LGBTQ people feel more widely accepted, and having their own space isn’t as important as it used to be. September of 2017 marked the closing of Numbers, a bar on the edge of Hillcrest that had been the home of Pride parties, drag shows and the Club Sabbat goth night. The documentary ends with a long goodbye and a lingering debate. “It was a difficult time, but it was a time when the community rose to the occasion.” “It was a nonstop 24/7 battle for seven or eight years,” says Susan Jester, founder of the San Diego AIDS Walk.