Gay bar santa fe

A relatively lesser-known downtown Santa Fe bar called The Matador (at the corner of San Francisco and Galisteo Sts.) also has something of a gay scene. It’s a tiny basement space with a funky, dive-y, un-touristy vibe, and the scene seems to be especially on the gay side on Friday nights. Top 10 Best Gay Bars in Santa Fe, NM - June - Yelp - The Matador, Effex Nightclub, The Cowgirl BBQ, The Dirty Bourbon Dance Hall and Saloon, Albuquerque Social Club, Slate Street Cafe.

A very proud city that is not only very gay-friendly, but America’s oldest capital city, established in The city’s rich history is most visually apparent in Santa Fe’s distinctive adobe buildings- a genuine manifestation of the confluence of Spanish and Native American cultures. Gay Santa Fe bars, clubs, parties, hotels, saunas, massages and more. Queer-centric information. Your complete directory to LGBT life in Santa Fe, USA!.

1. Effex Nightclub (68 reviews) Downtown$$Closed until Thursday “This bar is labeled as a Gay bar but the thing I love about this place is everyone goes here to ” more Gay Bars Dance Clubs. In the s, Mike was a reporter for a Hollywood entertainment show, and his moment at the periphery of the spotlight had left its mark. He dressed somewhat like Elton John, with blue-tinted glasses and flashy shoes, and kept his gray hair spiked up in a wild cloud.

He was fond of saying, "I have a certain lifestyle to maintain. In his hours at the gallery, where he was a part-time sales associate, Mike spent most of his time writing an erotic novel that was actually a thinly veiled memoir of his time in Hollywood.

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Inspired by the success of Fifty Shades of Grey , he planned to self-publish it as an e-book and rake in millions of dollars from bored housewives. It seemed like a fine scheme, except that the novel opened in a gay bathhouse with a "crusty carpet" and only got less heterosexual from there. I was a broke something, but occasionally joined him if he offered to pick up the tab.

There, he bitched about Santa Fe's dating scene—"everyone moves here as a couple"—and told me tales of Los Angeles. Mike had a very Angels in America anecdote in which, while driving his convertible through LA traffic, he had a vision of a deceased friend's face in the glare of the windshield. As Mike witnessed most of his friends die, he was deeply embedded in LA's gay club scene.

His stories of this time—when he was closeted to his high-powered Hollywood bosses but able to show his true self in dark, pulsating places—made me newly aware of a gulf between my generation of gay men and our forefathers. Due to the fact that more of us—though hardly all of us—can live openly without risking near-universal social censure, we often have a limited understanding of the past significance of public spaces that were specifically coded gay.

Gay bars were safe harbors in a violently heteronormative world, but they were much more than that—they cultivated a complex and vibrant subculture that had inherent value outside of its protective function. As Mike chatted away at Geronimo, sometimes I felt like he was a refugee from a baroque alien planet that had turned to glittering space dust.

There was longing in his eyes as he reminisced about the days when you networked on a barstool instead of the Grindr grid. In certain corners of the nation we've gained some measure of safety, tolerance and even acceptance—and that's inarguably great—but we accidentally left behind something important in the process. In Santa Fe, there is no gay bar. I was here for the supposed last gasps of a local gay night life: When the Rouge Cat closed in , drag queen bee Bella Gigante told The Santa Fe New Mexican that it was "the end of an era.

They join a long line of queer spaces that once dotted the city—like the Cargo Club, the Drama Club and the Paramount from the city's gay clubbing heyday of the '80s and '90s, or Claude's Bar on Canyon Road from the late s to the s. I have a hunch that, in our current political situation, we're approaching an era where such sanctuaries will swing back into mode. Gay bars of the past were exclusive for a good reason, but they were majority gay male spaces that often shunned other groups, like lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people.

Let's call it a queer club. Seriously, let's anoint someplace in Santa Fe the intersectional, nonbinary, QAF spot, and collectively discover the profound cultural value of such a space. Perhaps, in time, the queer club will multiply from coast to coast like the gay bar did.

By then, like the trendsetters we are, queers will have moved on to something even better. Skip to main content. Donate Advertising Best of Santa Fe Shelby Criswell. Back to Search Results. Contact Advertising Contests. News Cover Stories Elections. Food The Fork Restaurant Reviews.