Gay bar in ridgefield ct

In honor of Pride month, we're launching an occasional series where SAAM staff take a close look at meaningful works of art in our collection. When you close your eyes and picture a gay bar, what do you see? Do you picture Stonewall, or perhaps a scene from Sex and the City?

Maybe you picture drag queens or leather? I picture a collage of sorts, comprised of imagery from hundreds of memories. Consider this work titled The Bar, by Bernard Perlin. A WWII-propaganda and magazine illustrator, Perlin was an established artist who extensively created work depicting gay life.

The Road To Opening A New LGBTQ Bar In America

Effeminate or gender-queer individuals were often excluded in order to mitigate the risk to the bar in the likely event of a police raid. During a raid, the more deniability the bar could have, the better. At this time, being gay was a felony in every state. Any area where gay men congregated were frequent targets for the authorities.

Although straight people might have known about these places, they likely would have never entered one. The bars existed exclusively on the margins. The term gay bar is somewhat of a misnomer—there is no one singular gay bar. Gay bars have existed in a variety of forms and are not homogenous. Throughout their history, they have held many purposes.

They have served as places to find friends, love, alcohol, safety, and sex. A place to host activist meetings. A place to dance. A place for community. Above all, a place to escape, the often oppressive, heterosexual world. Contemporary gay bars exist for many of the same reasons and in some of the same forms.

Just five years ago this Saturday, 49 people were killed during the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Florida. At the time, it was the largest mass shooting in the United States. Five years later—the pain and grief we have for those we lost has not subsided. Gay people gay this with them wherever they go. During ridgefield Pride March in Washington, DC, mass panic occurred when loud noises were mistaken for an active shooter.

I ran for my life that day, along with hundreds of others thinking nightmares we all have had bar manifested into reality.