Washington, D.C.— Over the last 20 years, D.C. residents have noticed a significant change in their neighborhood nightlife. While some may see the boom in new restaurants and bars as evidence that nightlife is thriving, those who have lived here longer know better. Ebone Bell, founder and editor of Tagg magazine, grew up in the D.C. area and has lived in Southeast, D.C. for the last few years.

“What’s sad is we barely have any bars,” said Bell in an interview. “I talk to neighbors and we’re all like ‘it would be nice to have something,’ I don’t even care if its gay or not. I just want to be able to walk into something instead of having to go down to H St, and nothing on H St is a gay bar- they may have a gay owner or people that go in there that are gay but there is not a designated gay bar on H St. I literally have to go downtown to Northwest.”

This trend is indicative of a larger problem in the District- over the last 20 years, gentrification of D.C. neighborhoods has led to an overall increase in the opening of bars and clubs, but it has simultaneously lead to an increase in the closure of many of the District’s traditionally lesbian and gay bars. Some attribute it to the popularity of online dating apps and queer pop-up parties, and others say it shows progress. More and more non-LGBTQ nightlife venues are opening up their spaces to the LGBTQ community for queer events. However, others believe in the importance of queer-centered spaces and their rich histories in the District that are being destroyed as neighborhoods become whiter.

Although the issue received wider attention last month with the unexpected closing of Cobalt, a mainstay of gay D.C. nightlife since 1999, and Town DanceBoutique last year, this problem is not new.

“D.C. historically has had so many places that served and were spaces for the black queer community,” said Kate Rabinowitz, a reporter for the Washington Post.

In her article “A Timeline of LGBTQ places and spaces in D.C,” she notes how in the 1970s, DuPont Circle, Barracks Row and South Capitol Street became known for their gay and lesbian nightlife. These places were not just important spaces to drink and party, but they were centers of grassroots organizing and activism. But from the 1970s, the number of new gay bars opening steadily declined. Since 2000, these closures have rapidly increased.

Phase One, one of the oldest lesbian bars in the country, opened in 1970 on Barracks Row and closed in February of 2016. It is now a gym, next to a Cava. In 1957, Nob Hill, the Districts first gay bar for African Americans, opened in Columbia Heights. It was a space for gay, black men excluded from D.C. queer nightlife at the time, and it remained that way until it closed in 2004. The space was repurposed into the Wonderland Ballroom, which is not an LGBTQ bar, although every first Thursday of the month they throw a gay dance party. Most other spaces were torn down and became either restaurants, bars, or apartments.

Of the 47 gay and lesbian bars and clubs that closed since 2000, 23% were repurposed into non-LGBTQ bars and 21% became apartments.

Many new bar and restaurant owners see this as a good thing in terms of the city’s economic development.

“Navy Yard didn’t even exist 10 years ago or even really the Shaw area wasn’t incredibly built up,” said Heidi Minora, general manager of LGBTQ friendly restaurant Commissary in Logan Circle. “There were parts of 14th St that people didn’t even go to or walk down. There was a broke down laundromat that was there for like 10 years that never had anyone in it…yes it is sad that older buildings that have been there for a long time are getting torn down and turned into other spaces, but abandoned buildings are not good for the neighborhood.”

However, the truth is that these places did exist and people did go there. Gentrification took away spaces for the original communities that had lived in these neighborhoods for a while, largely spaces for people of color, places they could afford, they could hang out, and spaces they were safe in.

While writing another article on D.C. nightlife, Rabinowitz noticed the data didn’t tell the full story. Some areas, especially Navy Yard, looked entirely new to the nightlife scene but that was because the starting point of the data did not go back far enough. Specifically, in 2006, a number of historic gay and lesbian establishments in Southeast were destroyed to build that Nationals Ballpark Stadium. Many don’t know this history.

From 2010 to 2017, Navy Yard saw a 33.46 percent point difference in its white population, the second highest percent point difference out of all tracts. That means its white population grew significantly in five years. This year, Navy Yard was listed as D.C.’s most gentrified neighborhood.

Comparing the percent point difference in white people with the number of gay or lesbian bars that have closed since 2000 per neighborhood, the data shows that the Navy Yard tract was the area with the most closures. This number becomes even larger when the neighborhoods directly surrounding it are included in the count.

The tracts that make up DuPont Circle showed an increase in their white population and a total of twelve gay bars closures since 2000. Overall, there was a high concentration of closures in the DuPont Circle, Logan Circle, and U St. neighborhoods.

Gay spaces that are not taken over by the government like the ones in Navy Yard in 2006 are still subject to closure as increasing prices in gentrified neighborhoods make rent prices for some bar and club owners unaffordable, or increasing drink prices make the bars and clubs unaffordable to the populations they once depended on.

Town DanceBoutique, the largest gay club in the District, sold last year for $25 million. In the past 10 years, the Shaw/U St. area where it was located has turned into a millennial nightlife mecca. Millennials now make up 35% of D.C.’s population, and white millennials have grown 15% in DC since 1980, despite decreasing nationwide. D.C. is getting younger, whiter, and wealthier, meaning nightlife is really only growing for those who fall into those categories.

Gentrification is affecting these spaces in another way too- not just displacement, but replacement. An increasing number of straight millennials are taking over gay bars. Nellie’s Sports Bar on U St, for example, is listed as a gay bar but it has simply become another U St. bar for any drunk person, regardless of sexuality, to bar hop too.

“We can still call 16th or 17th and R, that area, a gayborhood but we really don’t have gayborhoods anymore and that’s because of the mainstream acceptance and a little bit of the gentrification,” said Bell.

For queer womxn of color especially, the lack of nightlife spaces that cater specifically to them has always been an issue. None of the lesbian bars that have opened after 2000 have stayed open for more than a couple of years. To adapt to this, in 2016 a number of queer womxn party promoters began throwing monthly pop-up parties and events in non-LGBTQ spaces.

“I think gentrification in our own community made us have to create something that’s ours because we are surrounded by everybody that doesn’t look like us,” said Bell. “We go into mainstream bars and sometimes we get harassed, but it’s great to be able to walk into any establishment. However, its comfortable, wonderful, freeing, and safe to walk into a place that is your own where you are surrounded by people who get you and who share the same experiences.”

Bell is hopeful for the future of the two queer womxn bars that opened last year- A League of Her Own in Adams Morgan and XX+ on U St. According to her, spaces like these specifically for queer womxn and queer womxn of color are important because most of D.C.’s gay bars cater to white, cisgender men.

In 2014, D.C. was listed as the “Gayest City in America,” but this year it’s made number one on another list: the U.S. city with the “highest intensity” of gentrification. An influx of white people, among other signifiers of gentrification, correlates with the destruction and replacement of so many historical lesbian and gay spaces, it seems unlikely the District will continue to exist on both of these lists.