Writer and social commentator Roxane Gay chuckled while describing her first visit to a lesbian bar—Panic Bar in Lincoln, Nebraska. Across the country, nightlife spaces dedicated to queer and gay women have been closing at a staggering rate over the past 30 years. The Panic Bar shuttered for good in November after first closing temporarily due to the Covid pandemic.
In the late s , an estimated lesbian bars existed in the United States. By , researchers believed only 15 remained. Despite their ever-decreasing numbers, lesbian bars still matter.
More than a safe space for people of marginalized genders—including transgender and nonbinary people—to gather, these bars figure strongly into queer history. While numbers began dwindling before the pandemic began, owners and patrons of the remaining lesbian institutions are now even more worried for their futures as nightlife and service industries have been hit especially hard by regulations designed to minimize the spread of Covid After initial closures, some bars were allowed to reopen over the summer, but most never returned to maximum capacity.
The onset of winter and a second wave of infections have left watering holes in limbo. She and her business partner took part-time jobs this year and, for the first time in two decades, were forced to lay off employees. In the spring, most of the remaining lesbian bars launched GoFundMe campaigns to help pay bills and support staff.
The idea of losing these bars catapulted two Brooklyn filmmakers into action. In October, Erica Rose and Elina Street launched the Lesbian Bar Project , a nationwide fundraising campaign to help the bars stay afloat through the pandemic. Ott suggests lesbian bars—or their prototypes—began even earlier, when cities enacted dress laws prohibiting people from wearing clothing of the opposite sex in public.
