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Gay neighborhoods, like the legendary Castro District in San Francisco and New York's Greenwich Village, have long provided sexual minorities with safe havens in an often unsafe world. But as our society increasingly accepts gays and lesbians into the mainstream, are \"gayborhoods\" destined to disappear? Amin Ghaziani provides an incisive look at the origins of these unique cultural enclaves, the reasons why they are changing today, and their prospects for the future. Drawing on a wealth of evidence--including census data, opinion polls, hundreds of newspaper reports from across the United States, and more than one hundred original interviews with residents in Chicago, one of the most paradigmatic cities in America--There Goes the Gayborhood?argues that political gains and societal acceptance are allowing gays and lesbians to imagine expansive possibilities for a life beyond the gayborhood. The dawn of a new post-gay era is altering the character and composition of existing enclaves across the country, but the spirit of integration can coexist alongside the celebration of differences in subtle and sometimes surprising ways. Exploring the intimate relationship between sexuality and the city, this cutting-edge book reveals how gayborhoods, like the cities that surround them, are organic and continually evolving places. Gayborhoods have nurtured sexual minorities throughout the twentieth century and, despite the unstoppable forces of flux, will remain resonant and revelatory features of urban life.

Vivacious, unconventional, candid, and straight, Helen Branson operated a gay bar in Los Angeles in the 1950s—America’s most anti-gay decade. After years of fending off drunken passes as an entertainer in cocktail bars, this divorced grandmother preferred the wit, variety, and fun she found among homosexual men. Enjoying their companionship and deploring their plight, she gave her gay friends a place to socialize. Though at the time California statutes prohibited homosexuals from gathering in bars, Helen’s place was relaxed, suave, and remarkably safe from police raids and other anti-homosexual hazards. In 1957 she published her extraordinary memoir Gay Bar, the first book by a heterosexual to depict the lives of homosexuals with admiration, respect, and love. In this new edition of Gay Bar, Will Fellows interweaves Branson’s chapters with historical perspective provided through his own insightful commentary and excerpts gleaned from letters and essays appearing in gay publications of the period. Also included is the original introduction to the book by maverick 1950s psychiatrist Blanche Baker. The eclectic selection of voices gives the flavor of American life in that extraordinary age of anxiety, revealing how gay men saw themselves and their circumstances, and how others perceived them.

Until the 1980s, the limited research on alcohol and other drug (AOD) use among sexual minority women (SMW) focused on alcohol and used samples recruited from gay bars, resulting in inflated estimates of hazardous drinking. Over the past several decades the number of AOD studies with SMW has increased dramatically. To characterize this literature, we conducted a scoping review to answer the following questions: What do we know, and what are the gaps in research about AOD use among SMW? We searched multiple electronic databases (Medline [PubMed], CINAHL, PsycInfo, and Web of Science) for peer-reviewed research articles about AOD use among adult SMW published between January 1, 2000 and May 31, 2017. After duplicates were removed the search identified 4,204 articles. We reviewed the titles and abstracts and removed articles that did not meet inclusion criteria. We used full-text review of the remaining 229 articles to make a final determination regarding inclusion and we retained 181 articles for review. Although the quantity of AOD research with SMW has grown substantially, the great majority of studies have been conducted in the United States (US) and most focus on hazardous drinking; relatively little research has focused on other drugs. In addition, although there has been marked improvement in theories and methods used in this research, many gaps and limitations remain. Examples are the lack of longitudinal research; reliance on samples that tend to over-represent white, well-educated, and relatively young women; sparse attention to mechanisms underlying the disproportionately high rates of AOD use among SMW; and the absence of intervention research. In general, more high-quality research on SMW's use of AODs is needed, but gaps and limitations are particularly large in non-western countries. Addressing these research gaps and limitations is essential for providing information that can be used to develop more effective prevention and early intervention strategies, as well as for informing policies that can help to reduce risky drinking and drug misuse among SMW.

Until the 1980s, the limited research on alcohol and other drug (AOD) use among sexual minority women (SMW) focused on alcohol and used samples recruited from gay bars, resulting in inflated estimates of hazardous drinking. Over the past several decades the number of AOD studies with SMW has increased dramatically. To characterize this literature, we conducted a scoping review to answer the following questions: What do we know, and what are the gaps in research about AOD use among SMW? We searched multiple electronic databases (Medline [PubMed], CINAHL, PsycInfo, and Web of Science) for peer-reviewed research articles about AOD use among adult SMW published between January 1, 2000 and May 31, 2017. After duplicates were removed the search identified 4,204 articles. We reviewed the titles and abstracts and removed articles that did not meet inclusion criteria. We used full-text review of the remaining 229 articles to make a final determination regarding inclusion and we retained 181 articles for review. Although the quantity of AOD research with SMW has grown substantially, the great majority of studies have been conducted in the United States (US) and most focus on hazardous drinking; relatively little research has focused on other drugs. In addition, although there has been marked improvement in theories and methods used in this research, many gaps and limitations remain. Examples are the lack of longitudinal research; reliance on samples that tend to over-represent white, well-educated, and relatively young women; sparse attention to mechanisms underlying the disproportionately high rates of AOD use among SMW; and the absence of intervention research. In general, more high-quality research on SMW's use of AODs is needed, but gaps and limitations are particularly large in non-western countries. Addressing these research gaps and limitations is essential for providing information that can be used to develop more effective prevention and early intervention strategies, as well as for informing policies that can help to reduce risky drinking and drug misuse among SMW.

Wide-Open Towntraces the history of gay men and lesbians in San Francisco from the turn of the century, when queer bars emerged in San Francisco's tourist districts, to 1965, when a raid on a drag ball changed the course of queer history. Bringing to life the striking personalities and vibrant milieu that fueled this era, Nan Alamilla Boyd examines the culture that developed around the bar scene and homophile activism. She argues that the communities forged inside bars and taverns functioned politically and, ultimately, offered practical and ideological responses to the policing of San Francisco's queer and transgender communities. Using police and court records, oral histories, tourist literature, and manuscript collections from local and state archives, Nan Alamilla Boyd explains the phenomenal growth of San Francisco as a \"wide-open town\"-a town where anything goes. She also relates the early history of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement that took place in San Francisco prior to 1965.Wide-Open Townargues that police persecution forged debates about rights and justice that transformed San Francisco's queer communities into the identity-based groups we see today. In its vivid re-creation of bar and drag life, its absorbing portrait of central figures in the communities, and its provocative chronicling of this period in the country's most transgressive city,Wide-Open Townoffers a fascinating and lively new chapter of American queer history.

How are boundaries between sexual identities constructed and maintained through interaction? I draw on ethnographic observation in Philadelphia gay bars popular among heterosexual patrons and supplemental interviews with young gay-identifying club-goers to illuminate how men make situational claims to gay space by drawing distinctions between who ‘belongs’ in gay bars and who does not through interaction. Conceptualizing gay space as a collectively accomplished ‘mesh’ of particular interaction rituals, I find that men activated membership boundaries when presumably straight women’s nightlife rituals were perceived to threaten the continued production of gay space by ‘straightening’ it. Men did not enact boundaries when straight women energized men’s rituals with positive emotional energy and contributed to a bar’s collective ‘gay’ feeling. Broadly, these findings suggest that the generation of shared emotions across groups in spaces with contested meaning or function helps determine the salience of boundaries.

Gay and lesbian bars are considered a safe haven. Safe havens exist because of the larger cultural environment that makes safe places necessary. Some communities have noted reductions in the need for gay and lesbian bars due to growing acceptance within the community. However, many states and communities within the South and Bible Belt continue to propose and pass bills which target or restrict the freedoms of LGBT persons. These cultural overtones may support or encourage targeted violence, including the Pulse Nightclub Massacre which was the deadliest incidence of violence targeted at LGBT persons in the USA. This manuscript presents two studies: one at gay bars in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a socially conservative city/state, and the other examines four US communities following the Pulse Nightclub Massacre. Study 1 included interviews at entrance to the bar, exit from the bar, and within a week of leaving the bar in order to identify feelings of safety and comfort. Study 2 seeks to compare gay bar attendance and feelings of comfort and safety in gay bars in regions of the USA with varying structural stigma. Results of study 1 suggest that the participants felt safe (82.4%, n  = 42) and comfortable (72.5%, n  = 37). In study 2, individuals from Tulsa, Oklahoma were compared to individuals in New York and the DC metro area and were significantly less likely to attend gay bars after the Pulse shooting ( t  = 2.53 and 3.66, p  ≤ 0.01 and p  ≤ 0.001, respectively). Moreover, compared to individuals living in the DC metro area and Philadelphia, participants residing in the city in a conservative state felt significantly less safe attending gay bars ( t  = −2.03 and −2.30, respectively; p  ≤ 0.05). No differences across the communities were noted by comfort within the gay bar space. In light of a changing political landscape, additional programming efforts may be necessary at gay bars in communities with high structural stigma. These efforts may include supporting the naturally occurring feelings of community connectedness and facilitating community building.

Reductionist conceptions of gay nightlife and the neighbourhoods they anchor have obscured their diversity amid claims of gentrification or displacement. The divergent trajectories of San Francisco's three gay bar districts present a natural experiment to specify the relationship between gay placemaking and urban processes. In 1999, each neighbourhood anchored distinct stylistic practices but by 2004, one had collapsed, another became stylistically mixed, while the youngest expanded and became homogenous. In that neighbourhood a particular gay style and mainstream cosmopolitanism converged, spatially institutionalising what queer theorists call 'the new homonormativity' comprising sexual discretion, mainstream political assimilation and boutique consumerism. Adherence to this particular gay style conferred spatial capital, allowing cosmopolitans, gay and straight, to literally 'take place' anywhere, while nonconformist gays lost their places. Contrary to popular and academic claims, not all gay places are associated with gentrification: homonormativity fostered gentrification from within, nonconformist gay nightlife fell victim to gentrification from without. This study thus contributes to a clearer relationship between gay men and urban revitalisation, nightlife economies, and the valuation of some forms of urban creativity and placemaking over others.