Queer individuals have been battling for their own spaces seemingly forever. Molly Houses in 18th-century London are a prime example and were subject to police raids and the arrest of patrons. Sound familiar? It’s hard to imagine that, 200 years later, police were still raiding gay bars.
Unfortunately, while we have made progress, we are still facing the challenge of fewer and fewer queer spaces. This year, we left Key West and bid adieu to one more queer space. After many years as a gay-only guesthouse, The Equator Resort—our haunt for every visit to Key West—is changing over to a straight-centric guesthouse this month. New investors decided that fighting for a share of the straight market was what was needed to make a profit.
Queer individuals visiting Key West for the first time probably won’t notice. However, we travel with someone who was vacationing there long before the cruise ships hit town, back when the city was more queer-centric. As we were walking down Duval Street this year, he was pointing out where the bygone gay bars were located—not to mention the X-rated movie house strategically positioned between two of the locations.
Back in the day, the boys had La Te Da, The Oasis, and other gay-only resorts to inhabit. In the ’80s and ’90s, close to 30 gay guesthouses existed in Key West. We are now down to two. The Equator itself is located directly across the street from The Oasis’s former location. It’s kind of funny, I suppose, that after all this time post-Oasis, Equator is succumbing to the same fate.
The lesbian community has been experiencing this as well. In the ’80s, around 200 lesbian bars existed in the U.S. That number is now down to 34, with only two in all of Texas. Sue Ellen’s in Dallas is one of those two.
Some attribute the decline to millennials not feeling the need for safe spaces as much as the older queer community. Hence, the demand for fewer queer-only bars and guesthouses. However, with the incoming administration’s anti-queer positioning, we may find ourselves in dire need of places where we can again safely gather. I don’t foresee Trump’s team or the Republican-led Congress making any of our lives easier.
But we will persevere—at least our group of six that travel to Key West. We had several conversations at lunch and dinner about how to plan for 2025/26. And a lot of conversations in the pool at Equator centered around that as well. If you talk to the owner/managers, they seem convinced half of the regulars will return.
They should spend more time talking to their guests and gaining a better understanding of the importance of queer spaces. We didn’t have a single conversation where someone said they were coming back next year. Some are even opting to spend post-Christmas in another city. So while we are losing another space, the owners may be losing their business.
