Lesbian bar

A lesbian bar (sometimes called a "women's bar") is a drinking establishment that caters exclusively or predominantly to lesbian women. While often conflated, the lesbian bar has a history distinct from that of the gay bar in the United States.

Lesbian bars predate current LGBT offerings such as queer community centers, health care centers, bookstores, and coffeeshops. While few lesbian-specific bars exist today, lesbian bars have long been sites of refuge, validation, community, and resistance for women whose sexual preferences are considered "deviant" or non-normative. They have been spaces for intergenerational community building, where women had the opportunity to come out without being "outed", which can result in the loss of jobs, family, and social status. They could, however, also be sites of intense isolation.

While women have historically been barred from public spaces promoting alcohol consumption, women's saloon presence rose in the 1920s. Prohibition's speakeasies allowed women to drink publicly more freely. San Francisco's Mona's 440 Club, opened in 1936, is widely cited as the first lesbian bar in the United States. In the 1950s, bars began to emerge for working-class lesbians, white and black. Very characteristic of these (often referred to as "Old Gay") bars was binary heterosexist models of coupling and an enforcement of a (white) butch/femme or (black) stud/femme binary. Because of a lack of economic capital and segregation, house parties were popular among black lesbians. Lesbians who changed roles were looked down upon and sometimes referred to as "KiKi" or "AC/DC". There were not, however, alternatives available at this time. Out of this early organizing of lesbians came the Homophile movement and the Daughters of Bilitis.

Lesbian and gay identification and bar culture expanded exponentially with the migration and passing through of people in big cities during and after World War II.

In the 1960s, with the rise of the gay liberation movement and an increasing identification with the term and identity "lesbian", women's bars increased in popularity. The 1970s saw the rise of Lesbian Feminism, and bars became important community activist spaces.

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