Gayborhoods, a thing of the past?

Sitting over drinks one evening I was having conversation with friends about the extinction of the Gayborhood. I witness this phenomenon in my home town, and as I have traveled around the country I’ve seen more and more of this.

When I was coming out in the 80’s and 90’s, I discovered the “gay” area of town, the part of town where gays and lesbians alike could feel at home in their own skin. These neighborhoods were generally filled with homes that were once run down that actively being renovated by gays, a park where you could, on most occasions, chat with your friends or enjoy a little cruising to find your next conquest. Also you could find a gay owned business or two, like a card shop and bookstore along with a gay bar in the general vicinity. These areas seemed to have a personality of their own.

As the years of past these once visibly prominent neighborhoods have slowly disappeared such as the “Highland” area of Birmingham and Montrose in Houston. While visiting these areas some remnants of their former selves can be seen, they are merely shadows of what they once were.

You can even visit semi legendary areas such as Dupont Circle in DC and realize that not many gay people actually live in the area. The same can be said for Boys Town in Chicago and even Chelsea in New York has seen a bit of a “face lift”.

We have to ask ourselves “why?” I often long for the feeling and the comfort I found in those places. This slow demise is what we are beginning to experience in our local gay bars as well.

We have been asking for equal rights and acceptance by those outside our communities for a long time and we have had great inroads in this journey, but is this the reason our communities are disappearing? Now that we are more and more accepted there is no need for us to retreat to our “private worlds” of parks, gay bars, restaurants and coffee shops. These days you visit an eatery once known as a “gay restaurant, chances are you will look around the room and spot one, maybe 2 gay couples. The rest will be the gay friendly / accepting crowd with their strollers, or their metrosexual outfits.

In essence we have given up something to gain something, but are we loosing are culture and identity along the way?