Gay bar
A gay bar is a drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively or predominantly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer clientele; the term gay is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBTQ+ communities.
Gay bars once served as the centre of gay culture and were one of the few places people with same-sex orientations and gender-variant identities could openly socialize. Other names used to describe these establishments include boy bar, girl bar, gay club, gay pub, queer bar, lesbian bar, drag bar, and dyke bar, depending on the communities that they serve.
With the advent of the Internet and an increasing acceptance of LGBTQ+ people across the Western world, the relevance of gay bars in the LGBTQ+ community has somewhat diminished. In areas without a gay bar, certain establishments may hold a gay night instead.
History
Gathering places favoured by homosexuals have operated for centuries. Reports from as early as the 17th century record the existence of bars and clubs that catered to, or at least tolerated, openly gay clientele in several major European cities. The White Swan on Vere Street, in London, England, was raided in 1810 during the so-called Vere Street Coterie. The raid led to the executions of John Hepburn and Thomas White for sodomy. The site was the scene of alleged gay marriages carried out by the Reverend John Church.It is not clear which place is the first gay bar in the modern sense. In Cannes, France, such a bar had already opened in 1885, and there were many more in Berlin around 1900. In the United Kingdom and the Netherlands gay bars were established throughout the first quarter of the 20th century.
China
The oldest gay bar in Beijing is the Half-and-Half, which in 2004 had been open over ten years. The first lesbian bar in China was Maple Bar, opened in 2000 by pop singer Qiao Qiao. The On/Off was a popular bar for both gay men and lesbians. The increase in China's gay and lesbian bars in recent years is linked to China's opening up to global capitalism and its consequent economic and social restructuring.Denmark
The bar Centralhjørnet in Copenhagen opened in 1917 It is the oldest gay bar in Denmark and claims to be "the world's oldest gay bar". The main Copenhagen gay district is the Latin Quarter.France
The very first gay bar in Europe and probably in the world was the Zanzibar in Cannes on the French Riviera. The Zanzibar was opened in 1885 and existed for 125 years, before it was closed in December 2010. Among its visitors were many artists, like actor Jean Marais and comedians Thierry Le Luron and Coluche.Paris became known as a centre for gay culture in the 19th century, making the city a queer capital during the early 20th century, when the Montmartre and Pigalle districts were meeting places of the LGBTQ+ community. Although Amsterdam, Berlin, and London had more meeting places and organizations than Paris, the latter was known for the "flamboyance" of LGBTQ+ quarters and "visibility" of LGBTQ+ celebrities.
Paris retained the LGBTQ+ capital image after the end of World War II, but the center of the meeting place shifted to Saint-Germain-des-Prés. In the 1950s and 1960s the police and authorities tolerated homosexuals as long as the conduct was private and out of view, but gay bar raids occurred and there were occasions when the owners of the bars were involved in facilitating the raids. Lesbians rarely visited gay bars and instead socialized in circles of friends. Lesbians who did go to bars often originated from the working class. Chez Moune, opened in 1936, and New Moon were 20th-century lesbian cabarets located in Place Pigalle, which converted to mixed music clubs in the 21st century.
Since the 1980s, the Le Marais district is the center of the gay scene in Paris.
Germany
In Berlin, there was gay and lesbian night life already around 1900, which throughout the 1920s became very open and vibrant, especially when compared to other capitals. Especially in the Schöneberg district around Nollendorfplatz there were many cafes, bars and clubs, which also attracted gay people who had to flee their own country in fear of prosecution, like for example Christopher Isherwood. The gay club Eldorado in the Motzstraße was internationally known for its transvestite shows. There was also a relatively high number of places for lesbians. Within a few weeks after the Nazis took over government in 1933, fourteen of the best known gay establishments were closed. After homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969, many gay bars opened in West Berlin, resulting in a lively gay scene.In Munich, a number of gay and lesbian bars are documented as early as the Golden Twenties. Since the 1960s, the Rosa Viertel developed in the Glockenbachviertel and around Gärtnerplatz, which in the 1980s made Munich "one of the four gayest metropolises in the world" along with San Francisco, New York City and Amsterdam. In particular, the area around Müllerstraße and Hans-Sachs-Straße was characterized by numerous gay bars and nightclubs. One of them was the travesty nightclub Old Mrs. Henderson, where Freddie Mercury, who lived in Munich from 1979 to 1985, filmed the music video for the song Living on My Own at his 39th birthday party. Other gay venues include Pompon Rouge, Mandy's Club, Pimpernel nightclub, the bar Mylord, the Ochsengarten, which was "Germany's first bar for leather men", as well as the gay hotel-pub Deutsche Eiche. Regulars in many of these bars and nightclubs include, for example, Freddie Mercury, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Walter Sedlmayr, Inge Meysel and Hildegard Knef.
Japan
The oldest continuously operating Japanese gay bar, New Sazae, opened in Tokyo in 1966. Most gay bars in Tokyo are located in the Shinjuku Ni-chōme district, which is home to about 300 bars. Each bar may only have room to seat about a dozen people; as a result, many bars are specialized according to interest.Mexico
Because of a raid on a Mexico City drag ball in 1901, when 41 men were arrested, the number 41 has come to symbolize male homosexuality in Mexican popular culture, figuring frequently in jokes and in casual teasing. The raid on the "Dance of the 41" was followed by a less-publicized raid of a lesbian bar on 4 December 1901 in Santa Maria. Despite the international depression of the 1930s and along with the social revolution overseen by Lázaro Cárdenas, the growth of Mexico City was accompanied by the opening of gay bars and gay bathhouses. During the Second World War, ten to fifteen gay bars operated in Mexico City, with dancing permitted in at least two, El África and El Triunfo. Relative freedom from official harassment continued until 1959 when Mayor Ernesto Uruchurtu closed every gay bar following a triple-murder. But by the late 1960s several Mexican cities had gay bars and, later, U.S.-style dance clubs. These places, however, were sometimes clandestine but tolerated by local authorities, which often meant that they were allowed to exist so long as the owners paid bribes. A fairly visible presence was developed in large cities such as Guadalajara, Acapulco, Veracruz and Mexico City. Today, Mexico City is home to numerous gay bars, many of them located in the Zona Rosa, particularly on Amberes street, while a broad and varied gay nightlife also flourishes in Guadalajara, Acapulco, in Cancún attracting global tourists, Puerto Vallarta which attracts many Americans and Canadians, and Tijuana with its cross-border crowd. However, there are at least several gay bars in most major cities.Netherlands
In Amsterdam, there were already a few gay bars in the first quarter of the 20th century. The best known was, in Nes, which was first mentioned in 1911 and existed until the late 1930s. The oldest that still exists is Café 't Mandje, which was opened in 1927 by lesbian Bet van Beeren. It closed in 1982, but was reopened in 2008.After World War II, the Amsterdam city government acted rather pragmatic and tolerated the existence of gay bars. In the 1960s their number grew rapidly and they clustered in and around a number of streets, although this was limited to bars, clubs and shops and they never became residential areas for gays, like the gay villages in the US.
Since the late 1950s the main Amsterdam gay street was Kerkstraat, which was succeeded by Reguliersdwarsstraat in the early 1980s, when the first openly gay places opened here, like the famous cafe April in 1981, followed by dancing Havana in 1989. Other streets where there are still concentrations of gay bars are Zeedijk, Amstel and Warmoesstraat, the latter being the center of the Amsterdam leather scene, where the first leather bar already opened around 1955. The Queen's Head is a gay bar located at Zeedijk 20 in the centre of Amsterdam.