Stateside, gay bars seem to have gotten their ‘start’ in the later part of the 1800s, with a New York City hotspot called “The Slide”. Although it is nice to think of gay bars as unanimously safe places, where the LGBTQ community could exist without threat, that clearly wasn’t always the case. 25 men were arrested, eight were convicted, and two were hanged (one of which was 16, and neither of which were even present at the White Swan on the night of the raid). In London, a bar called the White Swan was raided under laws against sodomy. However, in 1810, we get our first recorded instance of a gay bar - under admittedly unfortunate circumstances. A history that begins a little more than 200 years ago.īecause of the need for intense secrecy, the very earliest history of the gay bar has been mostly lost. In honor of Pride Month, we wanted to highlight the historical significance of gay bars and their impact on equality for all.
These bars have served as (not always) safe places for the LGBTQ community to be together, to mingle, and to simply exist as their true selves. It’s hard to overstate the importance of the gay bar within the LGBTQ rights movement over the past couple hundred years. ‘Wild night out’ stories often include, or end in at the neighborhood gay bar. They’re fun spots if you’re gay, straight, or anywhere in between. Today, people tend to equate gay bars as being places to party especially hard.
