Findings also raise the possible necessity for ‘time-space strategies’ of ephemeral placemaking practices even in erstwhile lesbian spaces due to the erasure faced by lesbians in straight-integrated spaces. Posted Feb 7 2020: Club San Diego has been in the news after renovation and reopening following the May 2019. They underscore the dramatic shift towards all-gender mixed LGBTQ spaces and the decline of gender-segregated socializing. They shed light on the contested decline of women-only spaces, including the congruence between all-gender straight-integrated business philosophies and places that have survived the ‘great lesbian bar die-off’. These findings have three implications for our understandings of the spatial organization of lesbian and LGBTQ socializing. Women’s ownership of LGBTQ spaces thus does not produce women’s-only spaces, even in self-described lesbian bars.
Many nevertheless reported practices to prioritize women in their spaces. Whether they owned a lesbian bar in a big city with a gayborhood or an ‘everybody’ gay bar serving a rural region, no owners prioritized women’s-only places, and all actively refused them. This study interviewed 15 women owners of lesbian and LGBTQ bars to understand how they conceptualize the queer social spaces they control. One longstanding explanation for the scarcity of lesbian bars in the United States is the lack of women’s ownership of durable spaces.