Gay bars are on the decline nationwide according to new study

[Behind the Aegis]

The number of queer bars is declining nationwide according to a new study examining the effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns on U.S. LGBTQ spaces. The study’s author, Greggor Mattson, a professor of Sociology at Oberlin College who also curates the Who Needs Gay Bars project on Twitter, found that between 2019 and Spring 2021, the number of gay bars in the U.S. dropped by about 15%.

Compared with the similar decline between 2017 and 2019, Mattson writes, this indicates a steady rate of decline in recent years.

Mattson and his researchers compared historical from the Damron Travel Guide and compared it to an online census of gay bars taken from February to May of 2021.

“36.6% of gay bar listings disappeared between 2007 and 2019,” Mattson tells Chicago’s ABC7 News. “So more than a third of gay bars closed in a 12-year period.”

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