Who Needs Gay Bars?: Bar-Hopping Through Americas Endangered LGBTQ+ Places Mattson Greggor

Gay bars have been closing by the hundreds. Beyond that, rampant gentrification in big cities has pushed gay bars out of the neighborhoods they helped make hip. The story goes that increasing mainstream acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, plus dating apps like Grindr and Tinder, have rendered these spaces obsolete.

considers these narratives, accepting that the answer for some might be: maybe nobody. Who Needs Gay Bars? And yet...Jarred by the closing of his favorite local watering hole in Cleveland, Ohio, Greggor Mattson embarks on a journey across the country to paint a much more complex picture of the cultural significance of these spaces, inside big four gay cities, but also beyond them.

No longer the only places for their patrons to socialize openly, Mattson finds in them instead a continuously evolving symbol; a physical place for feeling and challenging the beating