The Changing Mix of Gay Bar Subtypes after COVID-19 Restrictions in the United States, 2017 to 2023

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic marked a dramatic change in the gendered composition of gay bars and a slowing rate of overall decline. Trends are drawn from historic data from printed business guides supplemented with two national censuses of online business listings for LGBTQ+ bars. An online census shows a rebound from a nadir of 730 gay bars in spring 2021 to 803 in 2023. Bars serving mostly or only cisgender men plummeted in their share from 44.6 percent of all gay bars to only 24.2 percent. Bars serving men’s kink communities also declined, from 8.5 percent to 6.6 percent of all gay bars. Bars serving men and women together increased from 44.2 percent to 65.6 percent of all gay bars. Lesbian bars nearly doubled from 15 to 29 establishments to 3.6 percent of the total. Bars serving people of color experienced a small decline in their share from 2019 to 2023.

Gay bars have been declining. Between 2002 and 2019, gay bar business listings declined by 41 percent (Mattson 2019). This decline is concerning because gay bars are by far the most common LGBTQ+ places and are iconic sites of activism, rites of passage, and community development (Anderson and Knee 2021). Explanations have cited rising social equality that freed LGBTQ+ people to socialize elsewhere, the rise of geolocating smartphone apps that permit LGBTQ+ people to meet each other virtually, and coastal gentrification in neighborhoods gay bars helped make hip (Mattson 2023).

Since the last published measurements, however, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic occurred. Between March 2020 and early 2021, nearly all U.S. states implemented a variety of public health restrictions for bars and restaurants. These included shuttering them or sharply reducing occupancy, policies which fluctuated over time and across jurisdictions through 2021.

How Have Gay Bars Fared Given These Intersecting Trends?

Data come from two sources. Historic data from 2017 and 2019 come from the Damron Travel Guide, the only national and most complete listings of LGBTQ+ places that indicate the specific subcommunities they served (Knopp and Brown 2021). Data for 2021 and 2023 come from censuses of gay bars taken from February to May of those years. A research team verified each of the hundreds of previous listings using online business directories and social media activity, also looking for new LGBTQ+ bars that had opened (see Supplement).

Figure 1 shows that there was a 15.9 percent decline in bar listings during the COVID-19 shutdown period (2019–2021) but a 10.0 percent rebound in the two years afterward. The mix of gay bar subtypes changed dramatically from 2019 to 2023. The share of bars that served primarily cisgender men plummeted from 44.6 percent to 24.2 percent, and the small number of cruisy/leather bars that also serve primarily men declined by 28.4 percent. The share of bars serving LGBTQ+ women and men together increased markedly from 44.2 percent to 65.6 percent, making them by far the most common type of LGBTQ+ bar. Bars for people of color were largely stable, from 6.8 percent to 6.6 percent. The number of lesbian bars nearly doubled (from 15 to 29), from 1.7 percent to 3.6 percent of all gay bars.

Figure 1.

Mix of gay bar subtypes as a percentage of total with sample sizes, 2017 to 2023.

Note: The figure displays the mix of gay bar subtypes as a percentage of the total number of gay bars, with sample sizes indicated for each sampled year on the x-axis. Bar counts and subtype classifications for 2017 and 2019 come from the Damron Travel Guide, a legacy printed guidebook. Data from 2021 and 2023 come from a February to April census of gay bars using online business guides supplemented by social media activity. The y-axis (percentage of total) is on a log scale to display changes in bar subtypes across different scales. The approximate period of coronavirus occupancy restrictions for bars and restaurants is shaded (restrictions varied dramatically by jurisdiction).

Results should be interpreted with caution. The 2021 to 2023 methodology was different than that used by the Damron Travel Guide (see Supplement). Rates of change in listings may not reflect actual changes in the number of establishments. Until further data become available, however, this study suggests that the rate of decline in gay bar listings rebounded after COVID-19 public health orders, with their decline slowing overall.

Author Biography

Greggor Mattson is Professor and Chair of sociology at Oberlin College & Conservatory and is a member of the Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies Program. He is the author of Who Needs Gay Bars: Bar-Hopping through America’s Endangered LGBTQ+ Places (Redwood 2023) and articles about gay bars in the United States, including in Urban Studies; Gender, Place and Culture; and Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World.