Since 2015 I have been researching and writing on the role of gay bars in urban processes including gentrification, LGBTQ+ community development, and social inequality. This forms the basis of my forthcoming book with Redwood Press, Who Needs Gay Bars? It is based on interviews with more than 130 gay bar owners and managers, site visits to over 250 gay bars in 38 states, and a vast database of gay bar business listings from 1972 to 2021. Who Needs Gay Bars? explores the changing role of physical places in LGBTQ+ life given rising social equality, geolocating smartphone apps, local economic pressures, and responses to two global pandemics.
Selected public writings on gay bars:
- “Another mass killing in a gay bar.” Contexts. Nov 25, 2022
- “Shuttered by the coronavirus, many gay bars—already struggling—are now on life support.” Slate. May 1, 2020
- “The Stonewall Riots didn’t start the gay rights movement.” JSTOR Daily. Jun. 12, 2019
- “‘We have a gay bar here.’ You don’t need a coast to be cosmopolitan.” With Tory Sparks. Lit Hub. Jul. 19, 2018
- Reprinted in Red State Blues, Ed. by Martha Bynes
- “Post-Orlando truth for you: Gay bars aren’t ‘safe spaces.’ Daily Beast Jun. 18, 2016
- “Before it was Hingetown.” Belt Magazine. Jun. 15, 2016
- Best Writing From and About Northeast Ohio, Cleveland Scene
- Reprinted in Cleveland Neighborhood Guidebook ed. by Anne Trubek
- “This queer artist’s latest work shows public art’s complicated link to gentrification.” them. Aug. 1, 2018
Scientific research on gay bars (publicly available copies):
- “Gay bars and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.” under review, preprint available here
- “The impact of lesbian bar ownership on USA lesbian bar geographies: all-gender/straight-integrated LGBTQ+ places by design.” published in Gender Place & Culture 2022
- “Small-city gay bars, big-city urbanism.” City & Community 2020
- Fourth most downloaded article of 2021
- “Are gay bars closing? Using business listings to infer rates of gay bar closure in the United States, 1977-2019.” Socius 2019
- “Style and the value of gay nightlife.” Urban Studies 2015
- Reprinted with updates in The Gayborhood: From Sexual Liberation to Cosmopolitan Spectacle 2021
- “Bar districts as subcultural amenities.” City, Culture and Society 2015
Selected media interviews:
- “The importance of queer spaces in the wake of a fatal shooting at a Colorado gay bar.” Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Nov. 22, 2022
- “Why gay bars matter,” National Public Radio KERA Think. Aug. 16, 2021
- “The number of gay bars has dwindled. A new generation plans to bring them back.” Washington Post. Dec. 10, 2021
- “How America’s last lesbian bars survived the pandemic.” Bloomberg CityLab
- “21 lesbian bars remain in America. Owners share why they must be protected. PBS News Hour. Jun. 10, 2021
- “Where did all the lesbian bars go? Increasingly, they’re on TV.” The New York Times. May 7, 2020
- “Loss of LGBT+ Bars, Clubs & Nightlife Venues.” Sociable Cities Summit Expert Interviews. Apr. 19, 2021
Greggor Mattson 