I don’t go to gay bars
And neither do the rest of my generation.
“You t******s never go to any of the bars! How can you represent the community when you don’t participate in it? You’re only interested in your kind.”
This accusation — laced with far more colorful language and more than a few hateful words — was hurled at the top of someone’s lungs at myself and another young trans* community leader.
At the time, I was taken aback — was I inadvertently failing to participate in (and therefore properly represent, I guess?) my community by not going to the bars? I bristled. Of course I wasn’t! I wrinkled my nose.
The implication seemed to be that in order to be a “real” community member, I was required to participate in the age-old ritual of regularly heading to the local bar on a Friday night.
But I — a young trans* person on the cusp of Generation Z — simply don’t drink very much. Nor do I like loud, bright, overwhelming spaces. And don’t even get me started on trying to have social interactions at a club of all places.
Honestly, I was truly saddened to hear of the closure of IMAGES Night Club in Chattanooga this month. I know what role the bars have played for our community across the country throughout our history.
And IMAGES isn’t the first gay bar to shutter in recent years — there have been a flurry of them across the South and even around the country. San Francisco itself’s oldest gay bar closed earlier this year. Most of these closures were due to, quite simply, a lack of business.
This brings us to the central question: Why? Why are such bastions of the LGBTQ+ community dying en masse in a time when the queer community is larger, more vibrant, and more diverse than ever?
It’s really quite simple: I didn’t go to IMAGES. And neither did my peers.
Generation Z. You may not have heard of them (us? It depends on who you ask about where the line gets drawn). But we’re the generation after millenials — roughly speaking, folks born from the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s.
We’re a unique generation. We share more in common with the silent generation of the 1920s than we do with our older millennial siblings. Coming of age in a time of war and economic ruin, we are pragmatic, thrifty, and prematurely world-weary. We avoid large crowds and unplanned social interaction, preferring the internet and less intense interactions (like the kind you might find at a couch in the corner of a WiFi-laden coffee shop, for instance, not fueled by alcohol at a bar or club). Perhaps most importantly for the future of bars, we make up 25% of the population — and we don’t drink.
We just don’t drink.
And that’s disaster to a bar’s business model. It’s not just gay bars — it’s why many chain restaurants and pubs that rely on alcohol sales to make it are beginning to struggle, both in Chattanooga and across the country.
So, what’s the solution? What we really want out of our bars is community, not alcohol, right? Why would we want to create a situation where we were pressuring a generation of queer folks to drink more alcohol just to maintain an institution for the institution’s sake?
Let’s open more coffee shops. More community centers and hangout spots. More queer-owned, diverse, inclusive businesses of all types.
And let’s evolve our existing bars into more diverse offerings, so we can honor our history while preserving it, too.
In order to survive and thrive, our community has to change with the times just like everyone else — and our community’s business hubs are no exception.
I’m sure this will be a controversial perspective, but if you need more proof, just watch for the next bar closure somewhere in the country. I’m sure it’s right around the corner.
