Presented by Jack Jen Gieseking.

In 2019, the mainstream press began to amplify an extinction narrative of lesbian identities and spaces when there were only 16 lesbian+ bars left in the U.S. and another handful throughout the rest of the world. Beyond a narrative of "lesbian death" (Sullivan 2023), the unique role and import of lesbian bars, queer parties, and trans hangouts to lesbian, bi, queer, trans, and sapphic (LBQT*S) people--as well as to US cultural geographies--remains to be written. Drawing from my new book project, Dyke Bars*: Queer-Trans Spaces for the Ends Times, I ask: Why do we care that so few of these spaces exist now, and why are dyke bars* (a term I use to embrace all of these spaces) implied to still be necessary for revolutionary futures? What can an analysis of lesbian bar death, disappearance, and reappearance reveal that these mainstream narratives obscure? And, most importantly, in these seeming "end times" of climate collapse, digital manipulation and surveillance, pandemic sprawl, and ever-rising authoritarianism and fascism, why do we need dyke bars* more than ever?

About Jack Jen Gieseking:

Jack Jen Gieseking, PhD, is an environmental psychologist, researcher, writer, and academic coach and book development editor. His research examines how marginalized groups produce, sustain, survive, and thrive in urban and digital environments. He is a Research Fellow at the City Institute of York University and uses he/him/his and they/them/their pronouns.