More than Stonewall: How gay bars helped build community and today’s LGBTQIA+ culture

If it weren’t for gay-friendly bars, we might not have been where we are today. Here’s how night spots helped to build the modern LGBTQIA+ civil rights movement.

Imagine that you were born in a small American town, some time in the early half of the twentieth century. Where doesn’t quite matter. What does matter here is that, as you come of age during the Cold War, you begin to realize that you are “different”. An acronym like LGBTQIA+ doesn’t exist, not here, and you are left adrift.

Perhaps you’re a girl, and you begin to understand that the joyful thrill you get looking at other girls isn’t common. You realize that you’re supposed to feel that way about boys, even if the thought of going on a date with one fills you with indifference or revulsion.

You learn to hide. Everything, everyone around you thinks that this way of being is deeply wrong. Perhaps someone says that it is sinful. You don’t want to go to hell. You certainly don’t want to be harmed or even killed. So, you start burying that difference deep inside. No one but yourself has to know. Even if you must resign yourself to a miserable, unfulfilled life, you do it. There’s simply no other way to live, as far as you can tell.

Imagine, then, moving to a larger city. Maybe you’re going to college. Maybe you’ve secured a job with better pay and more excitement than your home town can offer. Then, at the office or in a classroom, like a miracle, you come across someone who is “different” too. You get an invite to a bar.

When you get there, you see that it’s a dark, dank little place on the outskirts of a neighborhood, These bars aren’t welcome in the “right” kind of places. The window is painted over. The entrance is narrow, so the bouncer can scrutinize you and your friend before letting you in. Then, suddenly, you are surrounded by others like you. No one gives you a strange look for sitting next to the wrong person. For the first time in your life, you understand that you are not alone.

NEW YORK, NY – JUNE 12: Mourners gather outside of the iconic New York City gay and lesbian bar the Stonewall Inn to light candles,lay flowers and grieve for those killed in Orlando last evening on June 12, 2016 in New York City. An American-born man who’d recently pledged allegiance to ISIS killed 50 people early Sunday at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The massacre was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Bars as community

Even if you’re not a member of the LGBTQ community, chances are good that you’ve heard of a couple gay bars and clubs. These stories range from the triumphant to the tragic, and everything in between. There’s the Stonewall Inn, a seedy dive bar that was the site of the 1969 Stonewall uprising and, many argue, the birth of the modern LGBTQ rights movement.

There’s also the massacre at the Pulse nightclub, an Orlando gay bar that saw one of the worst acts of domestic terrorism in the United States. In June 2016, a gunman killed 49 people at the club and wounded a further 53.

The Pulse mass shooting stands as a reminder of the violence and discrimination that can still strike the LGBTQ community. Even in an era where major companies feel safe selling rainbow gear during Pride month, those strains of paranoia and fear that rose up in mid-century America  and other places are still very much alive.

Before Stonewall

The history of gay-friendly night spots goes back even further than the Stonewall uprising. For generations before and after that time, clubs and bars friendly to LGBTQIA_+ people have been sites for building community, finding partners, and establishing identities in the face of widespread discrimination.

Before World War II, some cities hosted clandestine gathering spots. Harry Hay, an activist and labor organizer who founded the pro-gay Mattachine Society in 1950, was also part of an underground gay scene in 1930s California. He recalled parties held in private homes, where men danced with men and women with women. Even in a deeply closeted society, LGBTQIA+ people found each other.

Finding your people wasn’t easy. You had to make the right kind of friends. You might need to recognize that difference in ways too subtle for others to see. Often, you also had to be of a similar class or race. At least with the rise of bar culture and queer-friendly areas, it became a little easier to learn where you could go.

Even in a deeply closeted society, LGBTQIA+ people found each other.

Though these early gatherings grew in popularity, not everyone wanted to organize for gay rights. Sure, there were early protests, like the Annual Reminder picket held in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall beginning in 1965. However, as the decade moved forward, many were frustrated by the attempts to gently remind everyone that gays were people, too. Some also bristled at the notion that LGBTQIA+ people needed to dress properly and conform to gender norms in order to be accepted. Could well-groomed protestors quietly holding signs really make a difference?

Not everyone was interested in playing nice. Other gathering spots gave rise to early protests that turned confrontational. Cooper’s Do-Nuts, a Los Angeles business, was a gathering spot for a wide array of LGBTQIA+ residents, including transgender people and drag queens. LAPD officers were known to harass restaurant patrons, checking IDs against gender presentations and detaining those who weren’t wearing “appropriate” clothing. When the LAPD targeted the spot again in May 1959, people had had enough. A riot erupted. Patrons pelted the officers with donuts and coffee cups while detainees sat in a police car. This became one of the earliest LGBTQIA+ protests in the United States.

The rise of LGBTQIA+ bar culture

Around this time, bars were becoming popular gathering places for gay people in the United States. Ad-hoc spots like Cooper’s Do-Nuts didn’t offer as much privacy and acceptance as some may have hoped. Though secluded and often pushed to the margins, these spots provided a greater sense of community and acceptance. Inside, patrons weren’t subject to the constant pressure to conform to heterosexuality that they faced on the outside.

Because they were magnets for members of the LGBTQIA+ community, these bars naturally fostered the seeds of a burgeoning gay culture. This complemented the growth of “homophile” groups like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, which relied on newsletters and magazines to foster connection across the nation.

These spots also provided the space and community to begin organizing in earnest.  Before, homophile organizations advocated for acceptance and equality, but were often only accessible and friendly towards a small group of people. How were you supposed to access those newsletters if you couldn’t afford a subscription or didn’t have a mailing address? Would you think those organizations were for you if they didn’t have voices like yours? In some bars, at least, you could see others like you, especially if you were transgender or a person of color.

Plenty of trouble came from outside the community, too. The conservative backlash of the 1950s brought about especially bad times for LGBTQIA+ Americans. With Senator Joseph McCarthy whipping people into an anti-communist frenzy with the “red scare”, a parallel “lavender scare” menaced homophobic Americans. Gay people were painted as sexual deviants and predators. They were just as bad as commies when it came to threatening the American way of life. Well, at least the American way of life as defined by McCarthy, which happened to be overwhelmingly white and straight.

The Stonewall uprising

The Stonewall Inn, site of the Stonewall uprising on June 28, 1969, was one such place. On that evening, an unexpected police raid come up against a crowd of LGBTQ patrons that had endured enough. A few people have been pinpointed as the one who started the uprising, from drag queen and activist Marsha P. Johnson, to bouncer Stormé DeLarverie, to the homeless “street kids” that gathered around the Inn that night. Regardless of who, exactly, touched off the uprising, the event was a pivotal moment for LGBTQ rights.

Things weren’t easy for the people inside the Stonewall that night. In the days of anti-LGBTQIA+ laws that punished things like sodomy and cross-dressing, gay bars were subject to frequent raids. In the raids that led up to the night of the Stonewall uprising, officers were obliged to complete invasive gender checks in the bathrooms of the bar. If someone’s clothing didn’t match with their privates, as judged by the officer, they were detained.

That night, witnessing a slew of  arrests, bar patrons and a gathering crowd outside fought back. The initial group of officers barricaded themselves in the bar, calling for backup. Meanwhile, the crowd grew aggressive, throwing objects at the officers and attempting to set the bar on fire. They eluded the backup forces and continued protesting the following night.

After Stonewall, more and more people organized in loud ways, echoing the earlier resistance seen at Cooper’s Do-Nuts and other places like Compton’s Cafeteria. The mannered activism of homophile organizations was deemed too gentle for the times. The events of those few nights in June 1969 directly let to the first gay pride parade, held in New York City on the one-year anniversary of the uprising.

Complications

As much as gay bars like the Stonewall Inn provided space to build community and advocate for equal rights, they weren’t perfect. The illegal nature of many LGBTQ spaces left them open for exploitation, even by organized crime. During the summer of 1969, the Stonewall Inn was controlled by the Mafia, who demanded considerable payouts for inconsistent protection. The Mafia also overcharged for drinks and sometimes blackmailed patrons by threatening to reveal their identity and after-dark activities.

Neither were these places free from homegrown prejudice. Many bars were segregated, especially before the Stonewall uprising. Queer people of color were often forced to establish their own gathering places, driven away by racial prejudice from within the community.

Even the Stonewall Inn has a spotty past here. In its beginning, the Stonewall only allowed men inside. Women and transgender people weren’t welcome. Indeed, many other gay clubs in the city were purposefully unwelcoming for “queens” and other LGBTQIA+ people deemed to be too “loud” or flamboyant.

Class divides also marred many spaces. One bar might be for working class folks, while another catered to an upper-class group with very different conceptions of what it meant to be gay. The Stonewall was a site for this tension as well. After the uprising, the newsletter for the Mattachine Society said of the people there:

"This club was more than a dance bar, more than just a gay gathering place. It catered largely to a group of people who are not welcome in, or cannot afford, other places of homosexual social gathering… The Stonewall became “home” to these kids. When it was raided, they fought for it. That, and the fact that they had nothing to lose other than the most tolerant and broadminded gay place in town, explains why the Stone riots were begun, led and spearheaded by “queens”."

As the gay rights movements progressed, bars remained important places for community-building and activism. During the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, bars were sites for comfort and support while the President was busy laughing at the tragedy. Advocacy groups also hosted fundraisers and helped to disseminate knowledge via the clubs and bars.

NEW YORK, NY – JUNE 27: People attend a dedication ceremony officially designating the Stonewall Inn as a national monument to gay rights on June 27, 2016 in New York City. Elected and federal officials joined members of the LGBT community at the dedication ceremony of the historic bar that has played a pivotal role in the battle for the rights of people in the gay community. Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama, Director of the National Park Service Jonathan Jarvis, Mayor Bill de Blasio and others were all on hand for the afternoon ceremony. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The future of gay bars

Where does this lead us today? Gay bars remain, but in many communities, they have changed their faces and their purpose. Advocacy is no longer confined only to an out-of-the-way club, but can be done, in many cases, out in the open. The rise of the internet has taken the place of many advocacy and organizing efforts that were previously in the realm of the clubs.

Some worry that, in this growing diversification of LGBTQIA+ gathering places, gentrification has come for many of these bars. And others wonder if it’s entirely appropriate that important gathering places also hinge on alcohol consumption. Where should underage kids gather? What about those who are recovering from addiction and substance abuse? To that end, there is a growing movement of sober gathering places, from community centers to queer-friendly coffee shops.

It’s hard to say what’s going to happen to gay bars. It seems all but certain that they are bound to dwindle, with the growth of online communities and increasing openness, even with a complex cultural context. Yet, there’s something to be said for gathering with your people. It’s not as if the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights is over. There have been big strides in terms of legal rights and growing representation, to be sure. The Stonewall Inn is even a National Monument, the first such site recognized for its place in LGBTQIA+ civil rights history.

Yet, we also face a presidential administration that is decidedly un-friendly to LGBTQIA+ Americans, while there are still communities at home and abroad that are dangerous for anyone with a whiff of “difference” about them. Now, as much as ever, there is great value in building community in the face of rampant prejudice. Pride month may bring extra crowds to the Stonewall, bedecked in rainbow gear, but the need for organizing remains all year long.