Why Are There So Few Lesbian Bars?

By the late 1980s, there were more than 200 lesbian bars in the U.S. Today, only a few dozen are still operating. In San Francisco, lesbians, queer women and nonbinary people are still mourning the Lexington Club — and some can remember a time when nearly every neighborhood in the city had a lesbian bar of its own. But can the decline of these places simply be chalked up to rising rents, dating apps and the LGBTQ+ community’s embrace of queer — rather than specifically lesbian — spaces? We’ll hear from three lesbian bar aficionados about what the Bay Area’s lesbian spaces, from the historic Wild Side West to the newest bar, Mother, mean to them. And we’ll hear how the history of lesbian bars and the challenges they’ve faced in trying to keep their doors open can inform their future.