For a time, until 2019, I collected lost women's spaces, including lesbian bars. If you're interested in looking at the various spaces that have been lost over the years, check it out: http://lostwomynsspace.blogspot.com/
I'm not a lesbian but I get what you mean. I see the erasure of lesbians in our culture. I see that everyone is gay or queer now. And that women-only spaces are now "phobic." I miss the liberal, progressive thinking that brought about acceptance of lesbians. I also miss the culture that largely ignored you if you didn't embrace queerness. I miss diversity of thought.
The Bavaria in Bradford, run by two gay men, had a women's night every Thursday which was really a lesbian night with a few straight friends. It ran for about 6 years but stopped when the pub closed in 2001.
Great essay. While Canada is such a widely spread out country - if we travelled, we had a lesbian bar to go to in every city of a certain size. I'd be pleased if someone corrected me with some good news, but I believe there are no lesbian bars left in Canada.
The Northgate Hall on St Michael’s Street, Oxford on a Friday night in the 1990s, women only. So good. I found my old, defunct OLGC membership card recently (Oxford Lesbian and Gay Club).
The very word itself, Lesbian, has been consumed and subsumed by 'queer' and 'gay'.
Even most articles on the subject of the loss of lesbian only spaces express it in terms of 'LGBTQIA...', never just on its own.
Words matter; hold the sapphic line.
"It’s a beautiful thing, the Destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well.
It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word, which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself.
Take ‘good,’ for instance. If you have a word like ‘good,’ what need is there for a word like ‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do just as well – better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not."
Thank you, Julie. We’re going to have to create a secret speak easy at this rate to have an actual lesbian bar
For a time, until 2019, I collected lost women's spaces, including lesbian bars. If you're interested in looking at the various spaces that have been lost over the years, check it out: http://lostwomynsspace.blogspot.com/
I'm not a lesbian but I get what you mean. I see the erasure of lesbians in our culture. I see that everyone is gay or queer now. And that women-only spaces are now "phobic." I miss the liberal, progressive thinking that brought about acceptance of lesbians. I also miss the culture that largely ignored you if you didn't embrace queerness. I miss diversity of thought.
At the time I moaned copiously about them all for different reasons - bloody miss them now of course, really feels like a lost world 😢.
The Bavaria in Bradford, run by two gay men, had a women's night every Thursday which was really a lesbian night with a few straight friends. It ran for about 6 years but stopped when the pub closed in 2001.
Lovely description of lesbian bar scene.
Great essay. While Canada is such a widely spread out country - if we travelled, we had a lesbian bar to go to in every city of a certain size. I'd be pleased if someone corrected me with some good news, but I believe there are no lesbian bars left in Canada.
The Northgate Hall on St Michael’s Street, Oxford on a Friday night in the 1990s, women only. So good. I found my old, defunct OLGC membership card recently (Oxford Lesbian and Gay Club).
Brilliant article. We used to go the She Club on Victoria Street, Liverpool in the early 80's.
Great night out in a safe place.
Great to hear this side of the story.
The very word itself, Lesbian, has been consumed and subsumed by 'queer' and 'gay'.
Even most articles on the subject of the loss of lesbian only spaces express it in terms of 'LGBTQIA...', never just on its own.
Words matter; hold the sapphic line.
"It’s a beautiful thing, the Destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well.
It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word, which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself.
Take ‘good,’ for instance. If you have a word like ‘good,’ what need is there for a word like ‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do just as well – better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not."
ORWELL