The Death of the Lesbian Bar

While getting my hair cut last week I lamented the loss of the lesbian bar. I do this often –– when people tell me that it must be nice being a lesbian in Montreal, I have to tell them that while there is certainly no shortage of dykes around here, I sometimes feel as if I’m haunted by the ghost of what used to be Montreal’s lesbian nightlife. I read Michelle Tea’s The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America in 2020, while flirting with a friend from my brief time at Royal Holloway.¹ In it, Tea describes a weekend trip to Montreal like a vacation in lesbian paradise. She visits a slew of lesbian bars, all of which are now, of course, defunct. When I tell Montrealers about all of these dead lesbian bars, and how sad I am that we used to have so many and now we have none, they sometimes ask me “what about Champs,” or say “they do dyke nights at Ping Pong Club now,”² or “ElleLui does lots of events every month.” I have nothing against Champs or Ping Pong Club³ (never been to either) and I have attended many an ElleLui event, but my problem with these responses is this: none of those are Lesbian Bars, for Lesbians to Go To and Meet Other Lesbians Any Day Of The Week.⁴

Dyke Nights and lesbian events are good. But when I go to a “sapphic night” I can’t help but feel the shadow of lesbian bars past haunting the entire night. At the end of the night we all go home and the spell is broken. I don’t want to go to a different bar every time I want to hang out with other dykes. I don’t want to buy tickets to a bar weeks in advance just because I want to be at the bar at the same time as a bunch of other lesbians. I want to have a bar where I can take my girlfriend on a Tuesday night if that’s what we’re feeling, and we can get drunk in a place where it doesn’t feel weird to kiss a little. I want to go somewhere with my other lesbian friends and get on a first-name basis with the bartenders and have a spot, one single spot, where people can host their lesbian events. I also –– this is a big one –– want something distinctly Lesbian.

I did not expect to have to talk about labels in this essay, especially since I originally took out my laptop to do edits on my thesis, but that’s a necessary part of this that I have to talk about at least a little bit if I want to do my argument any kind of justice. I love “sapphic” and “queer” as identity labels. I have identified as both at one time or another. They are not labels I like to use for myself anymore.⁵ I saw a tweet once that was like “people will see a lesbian and her girlfriend and say ‘that’s a queer person and their partner,’” which sums up a fair number of my personal gripes with the term. I prefer to be called a “lesbian” and only that –– not sapphic or queer. Everyone feels differently about that, which is cool. Something so wonderful about queerness is that it defies modes of definition, so I think people should keep doing that. Something I think we’ve lost, though, is the inclusivity of the word “lesbian.” I read Dykes to Watch Out For last year, and something that may shock modern-day readers is that Sparrow, who has a kid with and is romantically partnered with a man, is one of the eponymous dykes for whom to watch out. When she’s participating in lesbian community –– without her partner, and without discussing her attraction to men –– she is doing lesbian shit (that’s the technical term). I refer to anything “sapphic” as “lesbian” in this spirit –– defining it by its relation to lesbianism instead of its potential for a relationship with men. When I dated a girl who identified as bi, we called ourself lesbians, because we were two women dating each other. That’s lesbian!

My girlfriend Rose talks about the definition of lesbianism here, and in addition to advocating for a political definition of lesbianism that defines it by “its rejection of norms for women and turning romantic, emotional, and sexual energies toward women” and inclusivity of non-binary lesbians, she also says this, which I think is very beautiful:

So, how are you a lesbian? Why do you use that label? Why enjoy looking like a lesbian? I’ll answer for myself: because I am a lesbian. Because I love being a lesbian, and even if some people hate me, I’d die before I stopped being a lesbian, because I found out who I am, and I’ll never go back.

She’s also talked about defining lesbianism this way, which I much prefer as it avoids giving it any definition that can exclude any group: you know it when you feel it. If you feel like a lesbian, then you are one. I like that.

I hope this tangent about the definition of “lesbian” conveys what I am trying to say (and maybe could have just said in the first place): I want a bar for lesbian activity. By lesbian activity I mean partaking in a community that is defined by its homosexuality as opposed to any potential for attraction towards men. Now that I’m done doing lesbian theory…

In Dublin my best friend and I tried to go out to a gay bar. The first one we went to was very clearly for gay men and their hags. We went down the street to a much more women-friendly bar and had a great time and made friends with a girl called Nicola. It was fun, but I wanted something that was, as Arie put it, “for us.” Honestly, we don’t even have a “queer” bar like that in Montreal. Only gay bars specifically targeted to gay men. Which is fine, but –– can we have just one for the lesbians? I love a queer gathering –– drag performances at Cagibi (RIP), dance parties at Le Ritz –– I love getting together with all my queer friends and going out and dancing. But I want a physical place for lesbian community. Where are the lesbian bars and bookstores that Alison Bechdel and Michelle Tea talk about? Where I can walk in and talk to a stranger with the knowledge that, at the very least, we have one very important thing in common? Not to mention that bars are an important place for potential romantic and sexual encounters –– where can the baby dykes go to flirt with girls without the fear of being a “predatory lesbian” accidentally hitting on a straight girl?

I think a big part of it is this –– we’ve moved online. Which is great –– hell, I would have been way behind on my self-discovery were it not for queer resources I encountered on the internet (mostly tumblr). Online queer spaces are good, and important, especially for people who can’t be out but still need a sense of community. But as we slowly emerge from the coming-up-on-three-year pandemic period, I’m realising more than ever how important physical community is. During the heyday of the lesbian bar, that was all they had.⁶ It makes sense that we would move to online queer spaces that are more accessible, easier to manage, and, for the most part, free. But I’m hoping that we can make a return to physical community building. There’s lots to say here about queer spatiality and the importance of being in physical proximity with other lesbians that I don’t have space for –– to be honest, I started writing this with the intent of mostly just complaining that there isn’t a place where I can get a beer and hang out with other dykes. Maybe this is something I can explore more in-depth sometime in a more formal, academic essay (I definitely want to now). So I’ll end my long rant about lesbian identity and queer spatiality with a picture of the kind of place I hope returns to Montreal: there is a bar around the corner with a corny fluorescent sign and creaky wooden floors. The bartenders are all dykes and, by now, they know you by name. You can sit at a corner table with your girlfriend, being mushy and kissing across the table before going to the bathroom to make out, or you can grab a seat at the bar and talk to the strangers there like you’re all friends. You all have something in common. And you all love being lesbians.

1. She recommended it to me, which is why I have chosen to mention this flirtation. I have also done so because this was a very weird period of my life (then again, who didn’t have a weird time in the summer of 2020), and this book and our weird long-distance flirtation are both very intertwined in the beginning of my open identification as a lesbian in my mind.

2. I’m not sure this is true, I might have made it up by accident.

3. Unless I should?

4. Technically, we have NDQ. But honestly, the combo-bowling-alley-dance-floor thing it has going on doesn’t make it a very sexy hangout. Not to mention that it’s kind of lost its status as a lesbian bar due to the fact that lesbians don’t really go there. Sorry.

5. I had an interview two weeks ago where I called myself a “queer woman,” then immediately corrected myself and said “lesbian.”

6. Barring phone lines and lesbian phone sex –– a topic that could benefit from further academic exploration (I call dibs). I know that lesbian bars and the internet have temporally coexisted, but even with forum and messaging websites that no doubt were in use when lesbian bars were still quite prevalent, I think it’s safe to say that it’s much easier to connect with other lesbians online now than it used to be.