LONG LIVE QUEER NIGHTLIFE

A sociology professor examines why gay bars are shuttering in major cities around the world.

In recent years, writes Ghaziani, author of Sex Cultures and There Goes the Gayborhood?, a “global epidemic of [gay bar] closures” has occurred. Drawing on research, interviews, and his own work as “an urban ethnographer of nightlife,” the author explores the possible reasons behind this phenomenon as well as emergent trends in the world of LGBTQ+ venues. These closures, he argues, are “disruptive event[s]” that “have forced us to think about the significance of place.” Like the recessions, pandemics, and terrorist attacks that have characterized the early 21st century, they have altered routines and ways of thinking. Economic forces, such as skyrocketing urban land values and taxes, along with increasing income inequality, have catalyzed such closures. What’s taken the place of gay bars are pop-up clubs that happen wherever there’s (affordable) space, even if only for short periods of time. Symbiotic relationships have also emerged between remaining party venues and event-based nightlife. As one LGBTQ+ event habitué puts it, queer nightlife is far from dying; rather, it’s “thriving” through a period of rapid change. Ghaziani suggests that changes in the nightclub scene may also be generational. Traditional gay bars, for example, have tended to be bastions of whiteness that haven’t always provided a refuge for nonwhite people. Like the young people who tend to frequent pop-up events, in contrast, the new queer nightlife scene enthusiastically embraces “intersectional lives” lived at the crossroads of race, gender, ethnicity, and other identifiers. Thoughtful and well researched, Ghaziani’s book looks beyond the binaries and prejudices within LGBTQ+ communities to celebrate a more inclusive space of queerness that actively identifies and accepts difference in all its forms.

A wonderfully lively and open-minded intellectual inquiry.