Though the pandemic dealt a blow to LGBTQ+ bars across the country, NYC has more queer bars now than it did in 2019. Jordan Gass-Poore', creator and host of the Hazard NJ podcast and Jack Jen Gieseking, research fellow Five College Women’s Studies Research Center and author of A Queer New York: Geographies of Lesbians, Dykes, and Queers (NYU Press, 2020), reflect on the significance of these spaces and consider their influence on the city.
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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Coming up a little later this hour, Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation, will be with us to break down in more detail the affirmative action ruling from the Supreme Court this morning, striking down Harvard's and University of North Carolina's affirmative action and admissions policies.
We'll also take your calls with your own experiences with affirmative action, or anybody who works in college admissions as we talk about this with Elie Mystal coming up. First, we want to wrap up while Elie continues to pick through this very thick decision, we want to wrap up our month-long series of segments celebrating LGBTQ Pride. We did it every Thursday this June, and there were five Thursdays, so that's a good thing. This is the fifth.
We've heard from members of the LGBTQ community about the joyous aspects of their lives not often covered like what gives them gender euphoria. We hear about gender dysphoria in the news. We talked about gender euphoria on the show, people's favorite queer media, and the experience of being pregnant while not identifying as a woman. If you miss those previous conversations, you can find them at wnyc.org.
We turn now, and finally, turn the page to New York City's thriving LGBTQ nightlife. This is in contrast to some other cities because there is a trend visible in the national LGBTQ bar scene. LGBTQ+ bars are closing across the country. But in NYC, they are thriving. That's the headline of a recent piece for Gothamist that you may have seen penned by Jordan Gass-Poore, creator and host of the Hazard NJ podcast.
She now joins us to talk about New York City's thriving LGBTQ bar scene and how it compares to the rest of the country. Jordan, thanks very much for being here. Hello.
Jordan Gass-Poore: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Brian Lehrer: Also with us to talk a little about the history of LGBTQ nightlife in New York City, plus the significance of bars for the community is Jack Jen Gieseking, a research fellow at Five College Women’s Studies Research Center, and author of A Queer New York: Geographies of Lesbians, Dykes, and Queers. Jack, welcome.
Jack Jen Gieseking: It's a pleasure to be here, Brian. Thanks.
Brian Lehrer: Jordan, what inspired your Gothamist article? Why did you decide to look into LGBTQ bars here in New York City and compare to around the country?
Jordan Gass-Poore: I am from a small town in Texas. [unintelligible 00:02:50] I say about six months ago, I wrote an article for Texas Monthly that looked at the decline in LGBTQ+ bars in Texas, and that all sprang from my college town, San Marcos, Texas, the only LGBTQ+ bar was closing at the time. They actually opened when I first started going to school at Texas State University.
When that closed, my college town now has zero LGBTQ+ bars. After I wrote the article for Texas Monthly, I kept thinking, there are all of these very famous, obviously, Stonewall, but all these other famous LGBTQ+ bars in New York City, I would like to look into this a little bit deeper about how these spaces are able to survive while the spaces in my home community declined. That's where this all came from. I will have to say that Jack was an amazing and is an amazing resource in this history, so I just want to give a shoutout about how knowledgeable Jack is about the topic.
Brian Lehrer: We're going to pluck Jack for some of his knowledge in just a second, but I do also want to open up the phones. You are invited folks to call out your favorite LGBTQ bars in New York City. Shout them out. In New York City or across the country, what, let's say, safe for radio memories do you hold close to you from a night out at your favorite queer establishment? Are you an owner of an LGBTQ bar in New York City? What's business like and what's the community like?
Anybody with a connection to an LGBTQ+ bar, anywhere else in the country. I don't know if anybody can anecdotally help fill us in on the trend of them closing elsewhere. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Jack, maybe a first history question for you might be, why do gay bars exist in the first place, or is that just too obvious?
Jack Jen Gieseking: Well, it is and it isn't. They start back as early as the 1920s. There's a lesbian bar guide in Berlin, but for women in New York City, you could only have tea rooms. Women weren't allowed to drink publicly in bars so you don't really get a lot of-- For gay men, you couldn't really go into a boarding house together, you couldn't have any privacy. George Chauncey, the historian says, "Gay men had privacy in public." That's where a lot of cruising practices come from.
Eventually, we start to see bars really growing after World War II, especially in those cities that had a lot of service people in them. The sexes, as we think of them at that time, the binary sexes of who were thought of as men and women were divided, and more people got to come out and find one another, and these spaces grew as the one key public forum for getting together and finding community.
These were really predominantly white spaces. Those were the people who are allowed to get together, very working middle class. Over time, the idea, there's so few places that LGBTQ+ people have, what is a gay bar, or a lesbian bar, an LGBTQ bar has become quintessential to understanding what LGBQness is in the world, especially in the United States.
Brian Lehrer: Did it develop that they were separate from cis or heterosexual nightclubs and other kinds of bars because people weren't accepted there if they seemed to be interested in same-sex relationships?
Jack Jen Gieseking: It really ran the gamut. There were some nights that would tend to be more gay or lesbian in places. There were places where only the mafia would support gays and lesbians bribing the police, paying the fines, paying the fees to be able to have those kind of establishments. In New York City, the very famous bar, Julius', was a public demonstration of a sip in of gay men from the management society dressing up in suits and saying that they were gay and having a beer in public.
Actually, it's been bars in New York and LA especially that have been a huge place to fight over legal rights for LGBQ people in the '50s and '60s and to the '70s. Having those spaces to gather where you could feel safe, recognizing someone else is gay, where you could identify yourself as gay were incredibly important. In part, it's safety and also desire, comfort, but those places were also, of course, heavily policed until Stonewall, which is why we celebrate Pride now.
Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we'll get to your calls in a second. Jim in Brooklyn, I see you. Mario in Milford, Pennsylvania, I see you. Jordan, your piece on Gothamist is called LGBTQ+ bars are closing across the country. But in NYC, they are thriving. Can you give us a sense of what that actually looks like outside of New York City? Because people may be surprised to hear that part of the story at a time when more people are coming out with their sexual orientation or their gender identity than ever before.
Jordan Gass-Poore: Yes, so I'll give you an example. I mentioned how my college town has zero LGBTQ+ bars at this point. Even in a city like Austin, Texas, which has historically been very LGBTQ+ friendly, that in a previous article that I wrote that I mentioned about the bars in Texas closing, the bars in Austin are closing, it seems like one almost every single day. Austin is changing, the bars are closing there.
I think that's a really good example of other metropolitan cities across the United States that rise in rent is a major contributing factor in Austin. People can't afford to keep the doors open anymore. Even if there's tourism in Austin or there's a lot of wealth being poured in by people moving to Austin, folks can't afford to keep the doors open. I think that's a big contributing factor in a lot of the major cities, and take San Francisco as well. The rent is getting really high and people can't keep those places open.
Brian Lehrer: Would that be particular to LGBTQ+ bars or bars in general?
Jordan Gass-Poore: I would say bars in general, but I think, and Jack can probably speak to this as well about some of the more complex, different factors about why this is hitting LGBTQ+ bars in particular, and I think harder than your maybe generic non-LGBTQ+ bar.
Brian Lehrer: Jack?
Jack Jen Gieseking: Yes, I definitely think the anti-trans, anti-drug legislation is really hurting a lot of places in the South and the Midwest. Then when it comes to trans-exclusionary, radical feminist politics, there's a lot of people who are supportive of trans people, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming people. When you have something called a gay bar or a lesbian bar, people who are younger or coming out later are wondering, are these places safe? Are these places welcoming? I would say for the most part, because I've read a lot and talked to a lot of people attached to so many bars across the US. I also heartily recommend my colleague, Greggor Mattson, Who Needs Gay Bars book that just came out.
There really is a sentiment that trans people are welcome in these spaces but rent is the hugest problem. People who sign female at birth can't drink as much, literally can't put as much alcohol in their body. When rent is not going up-- Rent is also going up at home. The cost of living is going up so the money people have to spend on going out and enjoying a night out is shrinking so much. While bars everywhere are hurting, LGBTQ people who are just marginalized in the money that they make and the jobs that they have as well are experiencing that even harder.
Brian Lehrer: All right. Listeners, who wants to help us report this story, or who has a question about LGBTQ+ bars thriving in New York City but closing in a lot of other places around the country, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Jim in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jim.
Jim: Good morning. Hi, Brian.
Brian Lehrer: Welcome. What you got for us?
Jim: I think it's interesting because I'm one of the owners of The Exley, which is a queer cocktail bar in Brooklyn. The obituary for gay bars has been written multiple times of late, especially with the advent of apps, for example. I think in the end, what we did, for example, at The Exley is we've always wanted to do a queer cocktail bar, something that we thought never existed. At the same time, do a queer space that you always age into and you never age out of. With something like the apps that came out, it actually gave us an opportunity to have queer spaces that we weren't just going to to hook up because oftentimes queer bars were just these dive bar spaces that you couldn't get a nice cocktail, for example.
Oddly enough, as gay people, we've always been like the style mavens, but yet we've never had nice queer cocktail bars. Even COVID has given us that opportunity in a weird way. Sounds weird to say that COVID was an opportunity, but it allowed us to stay open and to show that there's a real multiplicity of what we could have in queer spaces that we never had before.
Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Jordan, what are you thinking?
Jordan Gass-Poore: No, I have to agree as well. I think that it is something I think-- I guess I'll backtrack that I don't necessarily think. I mentioned my college town, and I'll keep mentioning that just because that was where things began for me and I think so many other people, it begins in college, 18, you're off living on your own. What I'm getting at is I don't think that a space like the caller mentioned would be able to be successful in that college town or maybe anywhere else but a major metropolitan city. I just wanted to put that out there that I'm glad those spaces exist and that it exists in New York, but I don't see how that could be something that would be able to thrive in a place like my college town.
Brian Lehrer: Right. Are you not naming your college town? Is that what I'm hearing?
Jordan Gass-Poore: Oh, no, it's called San Marcos, Texas. Go Bobcats, Texas State University. Go Bobcats.
Brian Lehrer: Obviously, there's a great sort happening in America right now by where people feel comfortable living always where jobs are and where people can afford to live, but also where people feel comfortable living now, given what's going on in the culture wars. Obviously, New York City is a huge tourist destination, as well as long been a magnet for LGBTQ+ people from elsewhere in the United States. Jack, what would you say about what it is about New York that attracts the LGBTQ community from around the world?
Jack Jen Gieseking: It's a great question. My favorite example, and it's a bit absurd, but for the 40th anniversary of Pride, Christine Quinn under Bloomberg, launched a queer pilgrimage campaign to visit Stonewall and to visit it. They even called it going to Mecca, which I was like, "Wow, what a claim to language." There is something about people coming from all over the world to go to Stonewall. It was an idea and an experience that was-- There were major protests in the US and other places before Stonewall, but it was the idea that, and what spread from it. The parade was usually March, was originally called Christopher Street Day in London and LA. In Berlin, still called CST Pride.
There's this moment in time when Pride that links everyone back. It goes back to New York City. People are just compelled by why is New York queer? What is so captivating about it? I think that's a huge part of it. Also after that is all of the incredible activism that came out of New York City and is tied to the LGBT center like Act Up, Queer Nation, Lesbian Avengers. These groups wind up having international chapters. There's something that just keeps bringing people back to New York. There's so little LGBTQ history. When you know just a few things, you keep coming back, and you keep being pulled back to a place like Stonewall.
Brian Lehrer: In fact, maybe I assume that most of our listeners know this, but for people who don't know this, why is June even Pride Month? It's because the police violence at the Stonewall bar in the village and the riots in response to that happened on a day in late June in 1969. What flowed from that eventually became Pride Month globally from the events at one gay bar, right, in New York.
Jack Jen Gieseking: Exactly. It's also that sentiment of, "Wow, that happened at a bar." How bars are so important in the imagination. That's why we keep coming back to New York City.
Brian Lehrer: Sandy in Point Pleasant in Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sandy.
Sandy: Hi. How are you?
Brian Lehrer: Good. How's the Jersey Shore today?
Sandy: It's beautiful. It's a little humid, but it's very nice. [laughs]
Brian Lehrer: Good. I hope your air quality index is good. Anyway, go ahead.
Sandy: Yes, it is actually. The point I wanted to make, but no one has brought up yet, is it could be the shortage of LGBTQ bars, could be that there's just not a large enough demographic for them to serve in this economy.
Brian Lehrer: Yes, in places other than New York. Jordan, you did mention some economic factors earlier. In fact, in addition to Sandy's call, Sandy, thank you very much, we have a text from a listener who writes, "Does she have any info about why New Jersey is lacking in LGBTQ bars?" By contrast to that, another listener writes, "Elsewhere in the tri-state, my frequent and I have loved going to the drag night and trivia nights at Troupe429 in Norwalk, Connecticut." At least Norwalk doesn't score a zero in this respect. Jordan, any thought about New Jersey?
Jordan Gass-Poore: Yes. Since I cover New Jersey for a separate podcast and a separate topic, I can speak to why New Jersey doesn't have a high number of LGBTQ+ bars. I think one of those reasons is unlike New York City, for instance, that it's not as much of a walking culture that you're not being able to walk and discover new places, for instance. Someone who might be on the fence about going to an LGBTQ+ bar, for instance, won't just be able to stumble into one. I think it takes a little bit more planning to go to one of these spaces, especially if you're not LGBTQ+ and you're wanting to go to show your support to these spaces. It's a driving culture. I think that is one of the reasons too.
Also, tourism, again, that I think New Jersey, the nightlife there, I don't personally see a lot of folks specifically going to New Jersey that live outside of the tri-state area for the nightlife. That's not a knock against New Jersey. That's just what I've seen. I think those are two contributing factors to why there's not many LGBTQ+ spaces there that are bars.
Brian Lehrer: All right. One last quick question before we get to Elie Mystal in today's Supreme Court rulings. You want to shout out your own favorite LGBTQ bar destination in New York City, or one or two? Jack, do you?
Jack Jen Gieseking: I don't think I should say the name of one of them on live radio. I will definitely give a shout-out in my memory. I did enjoy Meow Mix, but a personal favorite was technically not LGBTQ bar, but there was a women's night at Doc Holliday's over on Avenue A. Somehow the rugby team, the softball team, and a bunch of cultural performer, very different lesbic queer trans people heard about this and there was no cover. We were dancing on the bar every Monday night over at Doc Holliday's for over a year. It's places like that, and then also being able to go to Henrietta Hudson's and get a cupcake on the way home, that make it really magical.
Brian Lehrer: Jordan, you?
Jordan Gass-Poore: I was going to mention Henrietta's. I was also just going to mention two, Cubbyhole and Julius' and just giving a shoutout to the owners there especially because they were so giving of their time when I spoke with them for the article.
Jack Jen Gieseking: Always Ginger's in Brooklyn. We should not leave that out. Forever Brooklyn.
Jordan Gass-Poore: And The Bush, The Bush, which is a new spot that I mention in the article.
Brian Lehrer: That was Ginger's, not Junior's, in Brooklyn, right?
Jack Jen Gieseking: Ginger's, yes. Ginger's on 5th Ave.
Brian Lehrer: Jack Jen Gieseking, research fellow at Five College Women’s Studies Research Center and author of the book, A Queer New York: Geographies of Lesbians, Dykes, and Queers, and Jordan Gass-Poore, creator and host of the Hazard NJ podcast, and she has the article on Gothamist that says LGBTQ+ bars are closing across the country. But in NYC, they are thriving. That completes our Thursday Pride Month series. Thanks to both of you for joining us and wrapping it up. Happy Pride.
Jack Jen Gieseking: Happy Pride.
Jordan Gass-Poore': Thank you.
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