John Etienne is accustomed to the drifting sounds from vodka-fueled conversations and the tapping of toes towards the floorboards of Commerce, a homosexual bar in D.C.’s Logan Circle. On some other Thursday night time, Etienne — a celebration host, decide, and queer nightlife socialite — could be up on the dance flooring, sipping a gin and ginger ale, dancing to the brand new Beyonce music with pals.
However this isn’t simply any Thursday.
Tonight he’s sitting instantly beneath the dance flooring in a salon chair, adjusting his sparkly inexperienced gown and white go-go boots, flipping between checking his cellphone and searching on the clock, ready for the opposite judges to reach. It’s simply after 9 p.m. and Deep Cvnt is about to start.
Deep Cvnt is a “mini ball deluxe-inspired get together.” Etienne hosts the occasion as soon as a month at Commerce the place queer individuals from throughout town come to stroll down a runway in classes, exhibit their greatest outfits to a longtime theme, and ‘vogue the home down’ making the “dive bar with a dance flooring” really feel just like the set of a 2024 Paris is Burning. The get together’s identify is predicated on a slur, reclaimed into a logo of female and queer empowerment.
Through the day, the 25-year-old works as a Digital Fundraising Director for the Home Majority PAC. To him, homosexual bars that host occasions are instrumental in fostering a sense of welcome and belonging for many who establish as LGBTQ.
“[For me] It’s the sense of group,” Etienne mentioned. “ I feel that with the ability to go to a spot the place there are people who find themselves like me, in some form or kind being that they’re queer or from a marginalized group, and might discover refuge in these spots is one thing that’s extremely essential. After which, too, I feel that these [queer] areas are simply much more enjoyable.”
Traditionally homosexual bars have acted as locations for the LGBTQ group to assemble, rejoice, and mobilize for political causes when the overall angle was extra hostile to the group. D.C.’s distinctive queer nightlife scene units it other than different main homosexual hubs, like New York or San Francisco, as a result of metropolis’s variety of welcoming areas, its enterprise attraction, and the robust presence of the federal authorities in its tradition, permitting for the nation’s capital metropolis to be a statistical anomaly.
Nationwide, homosexual bars have been on the decline because the Nineteen Eighties. Damron’s Journey Information, a database that has been recording the areas and scores of queer/homosexual bars because the Sixties, discovered that within the 12 months 1980 there have been roughly 1,432 homosexual bars throughout america. A latest research printed within the Nationwide Library of Drugs discovered that the variety of homosexual bars within the U.S. has almost been lower in half, with solely 803 queer-identified bars in existence regardless of rising numbers of public assist for the LGBTQ group.
This development is going on similtaneously a report variety of anti-LGBTQ laws is popping up in state legislatures throughout the U.S. In accordance with the American Civil Liberties Union, greater than 500 anti-LGBTQ payments have been launched thus far in 2024. These legal guidelines limit the power of transgender Individuals to get gender-affirming care, power academics to out their college students to folks, and ban First Modification-protected actions like performing in drag, amongst different points.
In the meantime the variety of bars that cater to the LGBTQ group within the nation’s capital has elevated from six in 1980 to a minimum of 22 in 2024.
The LGBTQ inhabitants remains to be massive in D.C., with some estimates placing the quantity at simply over 66,000. Traditionally the “gayborhood,” or major LGBTQ neighborhood was on seventeenth Avenue and within the Dupont Circle space. That has modified as numbers have elevated through the years, making the entire metropolis really feel just like the gayborhood.
“Being one of many gayest cities on the planet — with one of many gayest per capita populations — that’s sort of baked into the material of the nightlife financial system,” mentioned Salah Czapary, director of the D.C. Mayor’s Workplace of Nightlife and Tradition, when requested about how the LGBTQ group has modified the panorama of town. “In case you have a look at these sure neighborhoods [17th Street and Dupont], their character has actually been outlined by the ‘gayborhood’ within the space. That has sort of modified and now you may’t actually level to 1 space as being the only gayborhood.”
Then the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, inflicting the federal government to pause all non-essential companies, together with bars. After the pandemic, the expansion within the variety of homosexual bars accelerated. “I feel that’s sort of simply usually after COVID, persons are prepared to take a danger on one thing new,” Czapary defined when discussing the influence of the pandemic on the homosexual bar group.
Ed Bailey, a well known DJ and co-owner of homosexual bars Commerce and Quantity 9, positioned across the nook from one another in Logan Circle, agrees in regards to the financial alternatives COVID was in a position to present however says that homosexual bar success boils all the way down to the economics of actual property.
“I’ve a really boring and never very attractive reply to why I feel this stuff occur,” Bailey mentioned when explaining the historical past of the distinguished areas of homosexual bars in D.C. “On the finish of the day, it’s all about actual property. Over time the homosexual group’s bars, eating places, and nightclubs that catered particularly to, or had been owned by, homosexual individuals had been in underdeveloped neighborhoods… It wasn’t obtainable to us to be within the high-priced areas. All of the golf equipment and the bars had been sort of on the ‘different aspect of city,’ no matter that meant.”
Bailey mentioned the COVID-19 pandemic helped create a path for the present sprouting of homosexual bars throughout D.C., particularly in what are the mainstream, fashionable areas. “I feel fortunately the pandemic, a minimum of in D.C., did open up a possibility for plenty of entrepreneurs to say ‘Hey! I’ve an choice right here.’ A few of these companies are on the lookout for individuals to purchase them out or to maneuver in, and so a bunch of individuals took benefit of that.”
The LGBTQ group has all the time had a presence within the metropolis. It has been recorded that as early because the Fifties, Washington had grow to be an area acknowledged for its capacity to carry LGBTQ individuals collectively.
“I really feel like each time I take two steps, I run into one other homosexual particular person,” Etienne mentioned about residing in Logan Circle and the queerness of town. “I find it irresistible. I additionally take into consideration the character of what goes on in D.C. Traditionally, the federal government has all the time had a major variety of homosexual individuals working for it. Trying again to the Lavender Scare and even earlier than then it’s all the time been a spot the place homosexual males have both come professionally or personally.”
Mark Meinke, a 76-year-old self-described homosexual historian based The Rainbow Historical past Undertaking, a corporation that works to “acquire, protect and promote the historical past and tradition of the various LGBTQ communities in metropolitan Washington, D.C.” His analysis helps precisely what Etienne described.
“Between the [19]20s via the [19]60s, many of the homosexual areas had been owned by straight individuals,” Meinke mentioned. A consequence of this, he explains, is that there was much less of an outward recognition of those areas as being LGBTQ pleasant, holding the group a secret. “Tolerance comes and tolerance goes,” he mentioned as he defined why the variety of accepting areas elevated and decreased throughout that point.
This fluctuation of accepting bar house owners started to vary within the Sixties, as locations that provided a protected house for LGBTQ individuals to fulfill, dance, drink, rejoice, and politically manage turned extra frequent and owned by extra LGBTQ individuals. Meinke was in a position to observe the rise of acceptance for the LGBTQ group by accumulating ads from previous problems with the Washington Blade (initially known as the Homosexual Blade) from the ‘60s on as extra gay-owned or extra publicly gay-friendly institutions started to distribute the newspaper. Meinke additionally tracked extra homosexual literature in these homosexual bars, like that of Franklin Kameny’s Mattachine Society literature and their “Homosexual Is Good” buttons. The literature Kameny distributed was among the first documented types of LGBTQ activism within the U.S. and inspired LGBTQ individuals to mobilize.
Meinke seen that in this time, one homosexual bar known as JoAnna’s on Eighth Avenue in Southeast D.C. turned a preferred designation for homosexual individuals after the proprietor put in a dance flooring.
“In 1968, in Capitol Hill with JoAnna’s, a brand new social choice had emerged for girls, one with a dance flooring,” Meinke mentioned. In his presentation for the 2002 Washington Historic Convention titled “The Social Geography of Washington, D.C.’s Homosexual, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Neighborhood,” Meinke mentioned that the homosexual group needed extra homosexual dance flooring.
This impressed others within the gayborhood to create extra dance areas. “Johnnie’s (throughout the road [from JoAnna’s]) noticed the long run and put in a postage stamp-sized dance flooring, and commenced getting plenty of prospects…Similar-sex dancing within the golf equipment was maybe one of many best improvements on the social scene within the Sixties,” Meinke wrote.
Not solely did the increasing homosexual bar scene influence who was visiting town, however the presence of the federal authorities and the variety of universities positioned within the space additionally helped entice the homosexual group, Meinke defined.
As extra LGBTQ individuals moved to D.C. to pursue careers associated to the federal authorities, a backlash was brewing and created a time we now name the McCarthy period. This period, which prolonged from the early Fifties into the 60s, introduced in political repression of left-leaning people in D.C.
This repression and eventual prosecution of individuals based mostly on the concern of communism was led by Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy and have become a serious a part of the Republican Occasion’s platform. This concern additionally heightened political tensions, finally resulting in Republicans accusing homosexuals of espionage. This era was referred to as the “Lavender Scare.”
Robert Connelly, an adjunct senior professorial lecturer for American College’s Important Race Gender and Tradition Research Division, defined that this scare was actual for a lot of LGBTQ individuals working within the authorities. “In [McCarthy’s] thoughts, homosexuals’ perceived duplicity and emotional instability made them inclined to overseas espionage and blackmail, , which meant that the gays had been giving freely our secrets and techniques,” Connelly mentioned.
This concern prompted the thirty fourth president to take extra authorized motion towards the LGBTQ individuals working in authorities. “When Eisenhower took workplace in 1953, one in every of his first government orders that he signed was Government Order 10450,” Connelly defined. “This codified the exclusion of perverts from authorities employment and 1000’s of lives had been ruined due to this within the early Fifties.” This homophobia finally led to the firing of 1000’s of LGBTQ individuals inside the federal authorities through the ‘50s and ‘60s.
This systematic injustice triggered many LGBTQ individuals to adapt strategies different marginalized communities had been utilizing, principally impressed by the more and more profitable Civil Rights motion, to politically mobilize and reclaim their energy. The homophile motion, one of many earliest precursors to the trendy homosexual rights motion, had main gamers positioned in Washington to assist push for homosexual rights. The activism ignited by LGBTQ individuals throughout this time endured for many years, addressing a mess of points, together with anti-war protests and the combat for expanded civil rights.
Some, like Chadd Dowding, 35, an everyday patron of homosexual bars throughout Washington mentioned that Washington’s homosexual bar scene has been profitable as a result of excessive variety of LGBTQ residents and their want to really feel related to their group.
“I feel D.C. has the biggest homosexual inhabitants per capita of any metropolis within the nation, so that attracts a bigger viewers of queer of us right here,” he mentioned. In accordance with the Williams Institute, D.C. nonetheless holds the best proportion within the U.S. “I feel there’s additionally a necessity for areas for group, principally as a result of lots of people in D.C. are transplants from different components of the nation.”
Others, Like Bombshell Monroe, a drag queen from the Home of Mulan (a selected household, that works to assist and mentor queens in Balls and past) mentioned that contrarian attitudes are baked into the character of town.
As Bombshell slipped on her flower-adorned flared denims and orange tank high, on the brink of make her first look on the dance flooring of Commerce for Deep Cvnt, matching the spring bling theme of the night time, she defined why she felt D.C.’s homosexual nightlife has been in a position to develop.
“I really feel like D.C. has all the time been a spot of independence and the place individuals, even when we’re not accepted, will combat to be accepted,” Bombshell mentioned whereas pulling on a fuzzy white and orange bucket hat. “I’m D.C. born and raised and might attest personally. I feel that it’s so loopy as a result of it’s political, but it surely’s not political. I really feel like as soon as we get the pushback from different states, we’re those that take it and say, ‘Nicely, bitch! We received one thing for y’all. You don’t need the homosexual bars right here, we’re gonna put one other one right here!’”
And put one other one they did. Throughout the previous three years, a minimum of six new homosexual bars have opened up with very totally different kinds and targets. Some bars cater to explicit teams inside the LGBTQ group, like that of Thurst Lounge on 14th Avenue N.W., which is a predominantly Black homosexual house. As You Are Bar, at 500 eighth St., S.E., seeks to make an accessible and comfy house for all within the LGBTQ group, specializing in usually ignored feminine and non-binary members of the group. Others give attention to creating distinctive nightlife experiences, like that of the craft cocktails in Logan Circle’s Little Homosexual Pub with its Instagram (and Grindr) well-known selfie mirror, or like that of the freshly opened Crush bar, specializing in making a dance bar for LGBTQ individuals.
Whatever the particular purpose individuals go to homosexual bars, It’s clear that they provide platforms to authentically specific queer id in a world that doesn’t all the time deem this acceptable.
“If we get to a degree the place we’ve got to begin sacrificing extra bodily areas for on-line ones, these areas might be simply invaded by individuals who could not have the most effective intentions,” Etienne mentioned, getting ready to move up the scuffed stairs to Beyonce’s Jolene. “There’s something very precious about having a bodily house with a bodily location as a result of, on the finish of the day, that’s what we’ve got fought for.”
Because the lights dimmed the Commerce dance flooring started to hush. A path opened up in entrance of the stage as the gang of floral sporting ballroom followers stepped again, accommodating Etienne’s entrance. With the glittery inexperienced gown, knee-high go-go boots, and outsized sun shades it’s clear he’s answerable for the night time.
“Since that is Deep Cvnt I would like everybody to lift their hand up,” Etienne mentioned with a smile. “And now put it beneath your waist. Test how deep your motherfucking cunt is.” The group roared with laughter and cheers. “Alright let’s get into it!” Deep Cvnt has begun.
