The United States is not alone-European gay bars have been failing for some time now. In the entire country there are only fifteen lesbian bars left, a fact that spurred the creation of The Lesbian Bar Project in October of last year.

Greggor Mattson, a sociology professor at Oberlin College, found that 37 percent of U.S. Gay bars around the country are going under. Today it feels like that history is slipping through our fingers. Most famously, President Barack Obama designated the Stonewall Inn in New York City a National Monument in June 2016, honoring the site of the famous 1969 riots. In recent years more and more gay bars have won similar recognition. In 2013 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to give Twin Peaks landmark status, elevating it into the pantheon of queer sites that the government has officially recognized as culturally and historically significant. They installed massive windows, making it the first gay bar in the city, and perhaps even the country, to give passersby on the street a clear view of the people inside. Mary Ellen Cunha and Peggy Forster, known as “the girls,” bought the bar in 1971. In a world in which queer people are ever more accepted and rigid identity categories make less and less sense, what is the purpose of gay bars? Do we still need them?Īnd not without reason.