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When Cleve Jones, a longtime gay activist who led the creation of the Aids Memorial Quiltwent to his local gay bar in the Castro district, he saw something that shocked him. They commanded the pool table and the patio. These big, loud, butch guys. They can go anywhere. When an iconic building was on the market earlier this year, it was between two potential tenants: a gay strip club and a SoulCycle.

The SoulCycle won. This winter, The Gangway, the oldest gay bar in town, is closing down. Portland follows with their gay population at 5. But the gay community is changing — and traditional LGBT institutions are rapidly disappearing. Airbnb gay. Asked how he felt about SoulCycle winning the key real estate over a male strip joint, he balked and said something half a dozen others interviewed for this story echoed:.

Not gays. Bachelorettes will come. Others worry, though, that as the gay community becomes less concentrated or visible, those who do stand out will feel less safe. Amy Sueyoshi, 45, associate dean of the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University, says she now feels less safe as a genderqueer person walking around San Francisco and faces more street harassment.

The 18 best gay bars in San Francisco

Good Lord. Charlie Ballard, a longtime drag queen and comedian in San Francisco, said he now has to contend with straighter crowds that are less enthusiastic about LGBT topics. Bar manager Joe Mattheisen, 66, who has worked at the hole-in-the-wall bar sincesaid the bar has attracted younger, straighter crowds in recent years.

Part of the reason that so many gay bars have closed or turned straight, he said, is that LGBT people have become increasingly comfortable spending time at mainstream bars. They just go to their neighborhood bar. But he said the owners have no plans to sell the business and plan to maintain it as a gay bar — even if the crowd is getting straighter.

If it closed, the drag performers would lose one of their best performance spaces. At Tenderloin gay bar Gangway, which recently acquired new owners and is expected to soon close and transform into a new establishment, longtime manager Bob Ames, 58, said he hoped the gay community would continue to patronize the bar in its new form.

The Gangway, a longtime neighborhood gay bar in San Francisco that is due to close. This article is more than 9 years old. View image in fullscreen. The 'gaytrification' effect: why gay neighbourhoods are being priced out. Read more. Reuse this content.