📺 Searching for the Last Lesbian Bars in America
TAKE NOTICE. BE AWARE OF WHATS GOING ON IN THE LESBIAN COMMUNITY
Share your thoughts on what you saw in the video.
1) why is it that everything that was “Lesbian” is either gone or has been turned into a general “queer” event or space?
2) how is gentrification of traditionally gay & les neighbourhoods effecting the Les community?
3) what is the true economic disparity between gay men and lesbians?
(is this why gay bars are still around and lesbian bars aren’t?)
4) why is “the U-haul theory” being blamed for the closure of dyke bars?
5) if these lesbian bars were more then just bars, what does their extinction mean for lesbian history and lesbian erasure?
“Phase is now 45 years old, I don’t think of it as a bar. It’s been a community centre, it is a museum, it is a historical marker, I mean, the things that have happened just within those 4 walls are just mind blowing. When Phase opened, there was a big clash between the military bases located there and the gay bars and if you go into Phase to this day, when you first walk in through the front door, there’s actually a secondary cubby-hole area, because people have thrown bottles, tear gas, they battled to like get us to where we’re at. Phase 1 has shaped so many people’s lives, I mean I struggled with coming out but it wasn’t until I came to Phase, where I was like, I’m ok, we can do this ”
- Angela Lombardi, former manager, Phase 1 (est 1970) Washington DC
6) what does the absence of public lesbian meeting spaces like this mean for the next generation of lesbians? how is this impacting our relationship with the older generations?
7) does our generation of Les and Gay people take our spaces, which were literally fought for by older generations, for granted? what can we do to fully take advantage of the ones still left?
8) is the closer of lesbian bars symbolic of a similar trend in lesbian organizations or will it lead to the creation of more social and political lesbian orgs?
9) how do lesbian or queer women focused nights at clubs and bars fill this void, if at all? what effect will this have on this generation of lesbians?
10) has our meeting online blinded us from our need to have IRL connections to lesbians of all ages, to learn about our history, to gather?
11) what effect has the absence of a physical meeting place for lesbians had?
12) if we are all meeting online now instead of in dyke bars, why are so many lesbians dissatisfied with dating apps for women?
13) if no gay bars at all would be “a catastrophe” what would be the reaction to no lesbian bars at all?
14) why are we hearing so little about this in the mainstream GLBTWTF+ Community?
15) if our label as “lesbian only” has excluded women who 10 years ago would have been lesbians but are now “queer” or “trans”, how are we meant to re-create or survive as a lesbian community?
16) at one point in this video, someone says that if dyke spaces don’t evolve into queer spaces, they will disappear entirely. what does this mean for lesbians and in a larger sense, women?
17) this video posits the theory that because lesbians are more accepted now, the need for lesbian bars is over, since we can exist openly in any bar. is this accurate in your area?
18) this video ends on the idea that lesbians are more accepted, the gay and lesbian community is evolving, that this is all magic, etc. how do you feel about that?
