Best time go to gay bar alone

I found home. Going to a gay bar at least once is a queer rite of passage. Returning again and again, though, isn't always in the cards. The club scene can be alienating for those who don't drink or otherwise aren't the partying kind. You can find 10 bars for gay men within a three-block radius in practically every major American city, but lesbian bars are dying out across the country.

And while drag queens have always been essential players in gay nightlife, trans and gender-nonconforming people aren't always welcomed with similarly open arms. Many — though not all — queer bars are infamous for centering on and celebrating only certain kinds of LGBT people: namely, fit cis white guys. These spaces aren't perfect.

But for so many of us, they're the best we've got: sanctuaries of queerness keeping the crushing waves of heteronormativity at bay; places to gender-bend without fear of rebuke, to kiss without objectification or shame. They are, for so many of us, a kind of home. Early Sunday morning, when a gunman stormed into the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and injuring 53 others, the illusion of a queer sanctuary came into terrifyingly stark relief: Even our supposed safe spaces aren't really safe.

But really, we all knew that already. A Latin night headlined by trans women and drag queens of color ended in the deadliest mass shooting in U. A year after the Supreme Court's marriage decision, safety — particularly for queer and trans people of color — is still all too far from guaranteed. Gay bars aren't enough.

Not to assure the perfect union of every corner of our communities; not to keep us safe. But even after they're brutally, horrifically invaded — whether it's Stonewall in or Pulse in — they can be built back up. They can maybe even be home again. Here's what they had to say.

How to Pick Up a Girl In a Gay Bar When You’re By Yourself (Without Seeming Like a Serial Killer)

I turned 21 three days before embarking on a four-month study-abroad trip to London. I had come out as bisexual a year before then, but had never been to a particularly queer space. I was pretty much the only out queer person in my friend group in the suburbs of New Jerseyand could only get to the queer community that I so desperately needed from the internet.

I probably watched every single television show, film, and YouTube video that had a queer woman in it just to feel like myself. Fast-forward a few months, to when I was living in London. My friend, who happened to be gay, mentioned wanting to go to a gay club. I had only come out to a handful of people on the study-abroad trip — as the story goes, you never just come out once.

I was immediately filled with so much excitement and nervous energy. We made it to the Gaybourhood, adorned by rainbows and neon signs, and walked up to a bar called G-A-Y.