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Beyond “the death of the gay bar”: Linking research with practice in Queer Space Project

  • Diana Raiselis
  • Jan 12
  • 12 min read

(1) Diana Raiselis

(1) Initiator, Queer Space Project / independent researcher, Berlin DE - Corresponding author: dianaraiselis.com  (ORCID)


Abstract:

Part personal narrative, part academic paper, this piece takes a queer approach to documenting and fostering queer space. Against the backdrop of the “closure epidemic” of LGBTQ+ spaces, the paper documents the initial prototype of Queer Space Project (QSP), an education initiative supporting aspiring LGBTQ+ venue operators across Europe. Through combined research and practice methods, QSP identified both structural and knowledge barriers to creating new space: accessing capital, identity-specific concerns, and finding suitable space ranked even higher than need for more knowledge or mentorship, suggesting that structural change is as crucial as education. The cohort program demonstrated measurable impact on knowledge and motivation, with all respondents reporting improved understanding of venue operations. QSP offers one vision of how reciprocal research methodologies can benefit participants – and a roadmap for how cities can support emerging entrepreneurs in culture and nightlife.


Keywords: nightlife, LGBTQ+, urban planning, participatory research, engagement


Acknowledgments: The project documented here was supported by a 2024 fellowship from Creative Impact Research Centre Europe (CIRCE). 

The author wishes to thank CIRCE, the participants of the 2024 QSP Program Cohort and Virtual Roundtable, and the many presenters, contributors and supporters who made the project possible. Portions of this work draw upon findings originally presented in the Queer Space Project 2024 Program Report, available at https://creativeimpact.eu/en/fellowship/diana-raiselis/ and https://dianaraiselis.com/queerspaceproject. This paper extends that work by situating the findings within academic discourse and providing additional insights for both academic and practitioner audiences.


Preface


Though Queer Space Project launched in Europe in 2024, its origins trace back more than a decade to a Chicago neighborhood gay bar. Inspired by scholars investigating methodologies for queer/ing knowledge (Browne & Nash, 2016) and the provocation that “queer things cannot have straight histories” (Marshall et al, 2014: 1), this work is an experiment, moving between scholarly and personal, autoethnography and academia, from that gay bar to the project it inspired.


Origins


Mornings, three Art Deco storefronts in Chicago’s Uptown hold brunch restaurant Tweet. Nights, the tables are stacked, the music turned up, and it becomes Big Chicks: gay bar and neighborhood “place for everybody.” I found it at 22, newly living down the street, not quite out as queer, and looking for a server job to fund creative work. I have never forgotten how owner Michelle Fire started our interview: What’s your star sign? 


Fire, an artist and gallerist also working in local gay bars, had bought the place in 1986. Then, it housed a run-down neighborhood joint, frequented mostly by seniors, veterans and SRO [1] residents. She didn’t initially envision it as a gay bar. Opening in the height of the AIDS pandemic, Fire described not knowing “if there is gonna be a gay community.” To reassure the existing regulars “their” place remained, Fire began offering “a nice family moment”: a free Sunday buffet. And unexpectedly, her own identity sowed the seeds of community. The two bartenders Fire “inherited” quietly came out to her as gay – followed by a number of the regulars. [2] (Lumpen Radio 2025) 


That free Sunday buffet continued for nearly 35 years (ibid). And that kind of lived-in, gracious abundance characterizes the place. Portions are enormous. Fire’s “honest-to-god art collection” (Obejas 1994), including works by Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Dawoud Bey (Hinkel 2025) watches over poetry nights, dance parties, and Drag Race showings (Big Chicks, n.d.). Many staff and regulars have been there for decades; some have met housemates or spouses there. To them, it’s “the land of misfit gays,” “the warmest place I’ve ever been,” or simply “family” (Hinkel 2025). And for me, slowly coming out, generations after those first two bartenders, it was the first place I felt part of LGBTQ+ community: local, intergenerational, and part of a larger story.


It wasn’t all utopian. Fire tells brutal stories of the early years – preventing theft, shooing out drug dealers, dispersing fights (“I was like, okay, I’m an art major, this was not my vision!” [3]) – and sacrifices she’s made for its survival. I have come to see how fully Big Chicks and places like it rely on owners’ persistence, passion, and sheer force of will, and how rare these places of community are. And I find myself asking: how might it be easier for more of these places to exist?


Background


As Big Chicks demonstrates, nightlife spaces have long acted as vital social infrastructure for LGBTQ+ communities (Campkin & Marshall 2018; Campkin 2023). They can serve as ‘safer space’ as well as incubators for cultural innovation, grassroots public health initiatives, alternative modes of sociality, even political organizing (Hanhardt 2013). They are also imperfect mirrors of LGBTQ+ community. Disproportionately few venues cater to women, trans and QTIPOC [4] people (O’Connor & Lysik, 2025), given systemic factors like historical barriers to ownership for Black entrepreneurs, and marginalization of women and lesbians in public life (Adeyemi 2022: 11).


Beginning in the mid-2000s and amplified by Covid-19, a “closure epidemic” of gay bars and LGBTQ+ spaces was reported on in European, Australian, and North American cities (Ghaziani, 2024: 2-3; Mattson, 2023; Walters, 2015; Savage et al, 2020). The closures emphasized existing imbalances. 58% of London’s LGBTQ+ venues shuttered between 2006–2017, disproportionately affecting spaces by and for women, trans and QTIPOC communities (Campkin & Marshall, 2018). The US lost 50% of its gay bars 2012–2021, with under 7% of those remaining found to center BIPOC communities (Mattson, 2023: 4). Now, the US has only an estimated 36 lesbian bars (Lesbian Bar Project, 2025).


Some scholars urge a broader focus beyond this closure narrative. Indeed, queer nightlife has always existed in locations beyond gay bars (Adeyemi et al, 2021), and the promise of the “gayborhood” – long-term, fixed property ownership – has largely been limited to a small, privileged subset of LGBTQ+ community. Queer geographer Gieseking (2020: xvi-xvii) instead theorizes how women and tgnc [5] people produce space as celestial constellations: often shifting, fleeting, and “visible only when you know where and when to look.” Similarly, sociologist Ghaziani (2024) argues that pop-up events like queer club nights can enact more radical, inclusive politics than gay bars, which in some cases enact a subtle – or overt – form of exclusion.


Yet pop-up event culture lacks elements of social infrastructure that permanent venues provide. Thriving queer culture needs both: events and permanent spaces, constellations and consistency. At best, permanent venues can provide more employment stability than event-based work, offer space for community fundraisers, nonprofits and local initiatives [6], and serve as community anchors and “third places” (Oldenburg, 1989). It would be incomplete to focus solely on preserving existing spaces in a changing landscape, or to wholly dismiss permanent space in favor of event-based culture. Rather, I argue for another approach: encouraging the development of new, permanent LGBTQ+-run spaces, by and for a more diverse public. 


Designing QUEER SPACE PROJECT


While venue closures have been well covered in journalism and academia, new venue creation and related barriers have been much less discussed. Queer Space Project (QSP) was launched in 2024 to serve research and practice goals: to understand what knowledge and resources queer nightlife makers feel they lack to start new spaces, and to connect participants to knowledge, tools, and networks to clarify an often-opaque process. We hypothesized that while some barriers are structural and systematic, like rising rents or challenges of accessing startup funds, others relate to knowledge gaps that could be directly addressed through community-centered programming. Supported by a five-month grant from a European think tank focused on putting research into practice, a “prototype” format was developed to test this concept.


That prototype took a mixed-methods approach with a public Virtual Roundtable, and an application-based, four-session virtual Program Cohort. Over 100 individuals engaged in some way with the prototype's offerings, with project support from a network of 50+ additional individuals. 


The Virtual Roundtable served as both data-gathering mechanism and community-building event, exploring: "Do queer-run spaces (still) matter? And if so—why not start one?" Two established venue operators shared their experiences, while participants identified motivations and barriers through snap surveys and discussion. 

The Program Cohort used an interview-and-discussion format across four weekly sessions. 16 participants, all with multiple roles in nightlife as event organizers, promoters, DJs, musicians, and community organizers, represented 13 cities in 10 European countries. A pre-survey assessed cohort members’ learning goals, which then informed session design. Sessions focused on specific tools or topics, with content and discussion led by four presenters, each operators of different venue concepts. To facilitate accessibility, QSP incorporated multiple platforms and formats for various learning styles, included awareness staff and a safer space policy, and provided honoraria for presenters plus stipends for cohort members.


Outcomes & Learnings [7]


Barriers to Venue Operation


Roundtable surveying revealed a disconnect: while 87% of respondents expressed interest in launching venues, only 20% felt confident they knew how.




Participants raised knowledge gaps like licensing processes and costs, funding sources, strategies for finding space, staff hiring practices, and realistic expense planning. Discussion highlighted how traditional mentorship often runs along identity lines, with one participant noting: "For so many cis [white] men, their pathway into…running spaces is mentorship from other cis [white] men …that's what we're lacking..."


Barriers identified by participants were later coded into thematic categories. Financial concerns topped the list (48%), followed by identity-specific concerns around safety, discrimination, or lack of funding for queer culture (27%); finding suitable space (24%); and need for more knowledge, mentorship, or collaborators (21%). Additional barriers included navigating permitting and bureaucracy (15%) and balancing other work commitments (12%). This data suggests that while education is a significant need, structural concerns and lack of resources are felt even more strongly – requiring systematic solutions alongside education.


Building Knowledge and Motivation


The cohort program measurably impacted both knowledge and motivation. In post-surveys, respondents all reported improved knowledge of venue operations: 80% knew "significantly more" and 20% "somewhat more" by program completion. 


73% felt more motivated to start or run spaces, particularly due to presenters' experiences and concrete tools offered. Participants praised the "pragmatic" tools and opportunities for direct questions about real-life situations. Respondents who felt “somewhat less motivated” cited practical concerns like high property costs, or, after learning more about the logistics, were “content with organising queer events” for now. 



While this prototype demonstrated that much could be accomplished in a short timeframe, feedback also showed that a future iteration would benefit greatly from a longer duration to build genuinely sustainable networks.


Changing Visions — and Business Models — of Queer Nightlife Space 


What was perhaps most striking in the sessions was the variety of business concepts. Participants’ mood boards depicted highly multifunctional spaces: Coworking hubs. Venues hosting weeknight screenings, workshops and panels alongside weekend club nights. Café tables and bookstore shelves juxtaposed with glittering drag and burlesque performance. Descriptors like “neighborhood” and “people feeling safe and comfortable.” These visions map onto other seeming shifts for nightlife: one survey notes that 39% of Gen Z do not drink at all (Woodham & Hemmati, 2025), and emerging discussions of “soft clubbing” describe a renaissance of listening bars and day events (Ntahilaja, 2025; Trabattoni, 2025).


As presenters laid out varied revenue models for their spaces – often with bar sales as a central feature – participants grappled with respective advantages and disadvantages. Some felt strongly about deemphasizing alcohol as a primary revenue stream and default feature of LGBTQ+ social space. Others recognized the limitations of relying on state funding. Participants’ concerns about finance were echoed by presenters. One presenter whose venue launched in the late 2000s acknowledged bluntly that an aspiring entrepreneur would simply not be able to start a similar venture in the same city today, given gentrification and skyrocketing rental prices. These discussions within the cohort seemed to reflect others industry-wide – not just about the future of the gay bar, but of the future of nightlife more broadly.


Looking Ahead


Big Chicks is preparing to celebrate its fortieth year in 2026. The bar, opened amidst fears about the survival of the gay community, is now a thriving LGBTQ+ community fixture. The next generations of would-be venue operators still face barriers. But they have promising, expansive visions of queer space – multifunctional, committed to community wellbeing – that hint at an alternative vision of nightlife. While this prototype was limited in scale, it offers a template and a proof of concept for peer learning and knowledge exchange around venue creation. In a journal dedicated to proposals for radical, sustainable transformation of cultural systems, QSP offers learnings on multiple levels.


Within nightlife culture, QSP demonstrates that while education, mentorship and peer learning for aspiring venue operators are essential, the burden of structural barriers are felt even more acutely – and must be addressed creatively. In recent years, nightlife offices and commissions have proliferated (Seijas & Gelders, 2020). These offices are ideal catalysts for discussion and action, but other urban actors also have roles to play. Commoning practices like cooperatively-owned venues (Sister Midnight, n.d.; FOTJA, n.d.), cultural land trusts (WCCF 2025), and community banking (Abello 2025) offer alternative approaches to traditional frameworks of venue ownership and financing.


And, for culture beyond nightlife: QSP’s ‘research and practice’ approach offers one proposal for ethical co-production of cultural knowledge. One way to counter research extractivity is through reciprocity: a research/practice approach asks for participants’ knowledge, but offers “direct and immediate benefit” in return (Gorman, 2024). Given the urgent need for more data about nightlife – a still-underresearched aspect of the cultural sector – and for more legible career paths in the field, such a program can be replicated locally or regionally to great benefit. Whether specifically focused on LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs or broader audiences, such programs have been recommended in recent music and nightlife strategies for cities from Nashville (PennPraxis 2024: 108) to Sydney (VibeLab, 2023: 83). Made locally, this type of investment might seed not just new venues, but entire ecosystems of culture, community, and care.


Footnotes

  1. Single Room Occupancy: low-cost residential hotels often housing people with limited income (Chicago Tribune 2011)

  2. Personal interview with Michelle Fire, 21 July 2016

  3. Personal interview with Michelle Fire, 21 July 2016

  4. Queer, Trans and Intersex People of Color

  5. Trans and gender non-conforming

  6. London’s Dalston Superstore is one example of a venue committed to community support (Dalston Superstore, n.d.).

  7. An initial Program Report was published in 2024 (Raiselis, 2024); this section summarizes lead findings from that report and extends those findings.


References:

Comment 1

Beyond “the death of the gay bar” (Diana Raiselis)The research method is clear and accessible to a wider audience. The objective and outcome are also well-explained. The Queer Space Project's theme is a mix of proposals and research.

I appreciate the description of the information shared about the research method and think it can inspire a similar approach to cultural projects. A proactive approach.

I believe the contribution is in line with the ethos of Radical Creativities, particularly the observation of the extension of the value of a place behind economic activity. It suggests looking at an entire ecosystem of culture, community, and care.  No additional suggestions regarding research.


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