Nearly every owner also mentioned the economic barriers the most vulnerable within the LGBTQ community face. Owners and general managers from 12 of the 21 bars told us several reasons they thought lesbian bars have closed over the years: assimilation of queer folks, gentrification, the prevalence of dating apps.
General manager Ally Spaulding (L) and bartender Astrid Arias (R) prepare for the first Friday night of Pride month at A League of Her Own in Washington, D.C. Later, “as transgender issues became more prominent, and we began to recognize genderqueer and gender nonbinary folks, bars that seemed to be open to all genders became the dominant kind of LGBTQ+ space,” Mattson said. The reasons behind that shift need more research, Mattson said. When the “dramatic decline” in lesbian bars began, the fastest-growing type of LGBTQ bar were those where men and women socialized together. According to the report, listings for bars that served people of color declined by 59.3 percent.
Mattson’s report, too, noted how among the bars most at-risk of closing are spaces that cater to women and people of color.
Overall, he found, gay bars declined by 36.6 percent between 20. Mattson, who has extensively researched recent changes in gay bars, developed his report from the gay bar listings in the Damron Guide, the longest-running and only guidebook that documents LGBTQ places in the nation. Map of lesbian bars from The Lesbian Bar Project
