Abstract
Gay bars historically functioned as the only space where LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, queer) people could escape intolerance and persecution. From drag shows to dancing to counterculture, gay bars are symbols of expression and hope for those misunderstood. In many ways, they are LGBTQ+ institutions that have withstood time. However, the rapid closing of gay bars coupled with Big D discourses of “post-gay,” “mainstream,” and “death of the gay bar” have threatened their existence. Much of these gay culture discourses stem from research on metropolitan cities (New York and San Francisco) with larger gay populations. Yet very few have examined how this experience affects gay bars in smaller cities with fewer LGBTQ+ spaces. Drawing on the communicative theory of resilience, I examined two gay bars in a small Midwestern city to understand how they (a) construct and negotiate their identity, and (b) manage organizational resilience in discursive and material ways. Findings and implications are discussed.
Gay bars are safe havens for the LGBTQ+ community. Historically, they provided one of the few spaces where LGBTQ+ individuals could escape intolerance and persecution (Kazyak, 2011). Gay bars were not only a means of escape but served as sites of community and political engagement in the fight for civil rights (Brown & Knopp, 2016; Mattson, 2015b). Similarly, gay bars provided social and culture capital especially for gay men. Even today, drag shows, dancing, go-go boys, and counterculture are prominent features of gay bars, functioning as hubs of social interaction and sexual expression. Despite this historical significance, gay bars existence has been called into question (Mattson, 2015b). Farber (2017) argues that gay bars are closing at an exponential rate with an average of 15 bars closing their doors every year since 2008; yet gay bars in smaller cities have also struggled despite limited options (Croff et al., 2017).
Debate continues over the cause of such a rapid decline. Some researchers posit that it is due to technological advances of location-based mobile dating apps such as Grindr, Tinder, and Scruff (Renninger, 2019); whereas, other studies point to the increased gentrification of neighborhoods surrounding gay bars, which face economic and political restrictions (Kanai & Kenttamaa-Squires, 2015). Others view gay bar declines as a latent function of queer acceptance and visibility with more safe spaces to navigate (Nash, 2013). In contrast, other researchers suggest that gay bars historically functioned as inclusive spaces for sexual minorities, especially gay white males, but were exclusive spaces for lesbians, gay men of color, and the trans community, and even heterosexual men and women (Croff et al., 2017; Mattson, 2015b). Mattson (2015b) explains that there is no single cause in the decline of gay bars. Instead, he argues that essentialist discourses suffer from oversimplification and generalization, which “obscures their diverse stylistic practices” (p. 3156). In other words, the survival or demise of a gay bar is not universal, but highly contextual.
As a means of survival, an increasing number of gay bars are changing this perception to appeal to mainstream and diverse audiences. In fact, one of the more salient narratives surrounding this phenomenon relates to the recent heterogeneity of gay bar culture. The mainstreaming of gay culture coupled with an influx of straight-identified patrons illustrate the shifting landscape of traditionally “gay” spaces (Nash, 2013). Scholars argue that some gay bars reflect the larger community’s division between homonormative values and the younger generation’s rejection of fixed sexualities and genders (Podmore, 2013). In this way, gay bars are experiencing an identity crisis as they struggle to represent their history while navigating a changing social and economic landscape. In addition, growing tensions among gay community members have questioned the meaning and function of gay bars in modern culture (Farber, 2017). It is between this organizational struggle identity and the emerging tensions that the current study is located.
This study addresses two gaps in the current understanding of gay bars. First, urban studies and geography disciplines have primarily analyzed gay villages and neighborhoods in large prominent metropolitan areas (i.e., San Francisco and New York) with greater access to queer communal spaces (Mattson, 2015a, 2015b). However, gay bars in smaller cities have rarely been discussed even though they experience similar societal changes (Lewis, 2013); yet their ability to survive is not uncommon. Second, while discourses (see Alvesson & Kärreman, 2011) have partially accompanied the literature on gay space and materiality, the interplay of Small d and Big D discourses in conjunction with organizational resilience has loosely been addressed (Buzzanell, 2010; Lewis, 2013; Nash, 2013).
The current study examined how two gay bars located in a small metropolitan city communicatively constructed resilience amidst Big D discourses and organizational change. Moreover, this study advances three central arguments: First, gay bars are sites of ongoing discursive and material resilience. Second, gay bars are atypical organizations in which space and place are co-constructed by organizational members and patrons. Last, Small d and Big D discourses interplay to situate gay bars as both formal and informal organizations. Through a case study analysis, I first discuss relevant literature on gay space, gay bars and organizing, resilience, and the discourses surrounding them, before explaining the current multisite case study and its methodological assumptions and frameworks. Finally, I offer findings and discussions.
Literature Review
Gay Bars, Space, and Organizing
Anteby and Anderson (2014) identified distinctions of gay organizations that straddle formal and informal characteristics. They argue that gay organizations tend to be strong in resiliency and intimacy, which suggests an organizational flexibility. Similarly, gay bars are not typical organizations that clearly demarcate between organizational members and patrons. Instead, they are historically informal businesses where lines are often blurred between organizational members and patrons (Johnson & Samdahl, 2005). Research suggests that gay bars are collective communities coproduced and reproduced over time by owners, managers, staff, and patrons. For instance, Brown and Knopp (2016) highlighted how Seattle gay bar owners, managers, and patrons collectively engaged in self-governance to avoid sanctions and disciplining by authorities. In many ways, patrons were intertwined with the bars’ past and future existence. Furthermore, gay bars have operated as more than social sites, but have been paragons of support doubling as resources and health centers, convenience stores, and financial helpers of those in need (Anteby & Anderson, 2014).
The notion of bars or public houses as places of community is not conceptually novel. Cabras and Mount (2017) explored how rural pubs in Ireland functioned as “third places” of community mobilization and political engagement. Based on Oldenburg (1997), the term “third place” has relational characteristics: (a) a presumed neutral and physical site, (b) accessibility and accommodation, (c) built on conversation between regulars and newcomers, and (d) represents an escape from the realities of society. Third places offer a co-construction of culture and organizing between owners, managers, and patrons. For this reason, gay bars are often seen as physical and visible third places residing between home and work and serving as a retreat from the outside world.
While third place research illustrates the material and physical aspect of place, it marginally addresses the ongoing and discursive nature of gay bars. I draw on Edward Soja’s (1996) work on spatiality to understand how “thirdspace,” or the area between “firstspace” and “secondspace” is a dialectically shifting space of social and political negotiation. Thirdspace describes the “othering” of communities that struggle to carve out safe spaces for commune because of legal and cultural persecution. Thirdspaces represent spaces with a constant influx of people coming and going. Gay bars have historically served as these nomadic and changing spaces. Still, Huddleston (2013) asserts that spatiality is insufficient for understanding the entire situation of spaces. Instead, recognizing materiality along with the spatiality provides researchers with a more robust picture of the political and discursive “struggle” (p. 115).
Communication and Resilience
Resilience has been broadly defined as the capacity and capability to endure disruption and adapt to difficult challenges (Doerfel et al., 2013; Buzzanell, 2018). The notion of resilience has been theorized to explain how individuals, families, communities, organizations, and nations work to survive, adapt, and transform amidst major life disruptions and adversity (Waldron et al., 2018; Ishak & Williams, 2018). Much of this conceptualization has centered on resilience as residing in individuals or families, or where overcoming tragedy is associated with an intractable characteristic or trait (Wilson et al., 2014). Disruptions such as disasters, sickness, job loss, and organizational change are instances where resilience is enacted. Framing resilience in this way precludes us from understanding this process in organizations and communities.
Research on resilience as a process of communication has emerged as a necessary starting point. Buzzanell (2010) theorized communication as central to the ways in which individuals and even organizations construct the meaning of resilience. Through communication, resilience is constructed in the enactment of “storytelling, messages, routines, rituals, slogans, networks, and other means” (Buzzanell, 2018, p. 16). These enactments are reactions to “triggering” events where strategies are used to mitigate disruption. In this way, resilience is not temporally situated, but evolves and changes through communicative processes. Based on this assertion, Buzzanell (2010) outlines five processes of communication that foster resilience: crafting normalcy, maintaining communication networks, affirming identity anchors, utilizing alternative logics, and foregrounding productive action while backgrounding negative feelings.
First, as organizations and individuals experience disruptive life events, they are often discursively and materially displaced such that a return to normalcy is necessary. This is likened to (Giddens, 1984) notion of ontological security where individuals’ identity is constrained because routinization is disrupted. While Giddens’ work was focused on individual understandings of ontological security, organizations similarly experience the emotions of hanging by a thread or having the rug repeatedly pull out from under “them” (the organization). These feelings of insecurity demonstrate why crafting normalcy is necessary for fostering organizational resilience. Normalcy is enjoined by materiality and discursive interaction, as individuals and organizations make sense of the disruption through stories and narratives.
Second, organizations foster and maintain communicative ties by relying on networks to adapt and survive. Networks are brought together through resource and knowledge sharing between organizations and communities. Networks provide connection to stakeholders who can help with the sensemaking process. Moreover, a diversity of networks also provides a stabilizing capacity for organizational resilience. Relying on different networks speaks to the adaptability and resource capacity of the organization.
Third, affirming identity anchors illustrates how individuals and organization draw on discourses to uphold and reframe their identities. In this way, organizations can unify a collection of identities to engage in self-reflection with themselves and others (Doerfel et al., 2013). Discourses such as teacher, mother, brother, and provider help organizations to reaffirm their identity prior to the disruption or cultivate new anchors. Moreover, identity anchors can also serve to exclude marginalized groups and symbolize power.
Fourth, putting alternative logics embraces notions of irrationality, contradiction, and paradox. In using alternative logics, organizations reframe contexts to navigate situations that defy rules and regulations. Moreover, these logics are enacted through sensemaking practices. Engaging in alternative logics calls for an embracing, reshaping, and revision of contextual logic. Moreover, alternative logics circumvent reasoning and logical associations (Buzzanell, 2010).
Finally, the foregrounding of productive action and the backgrounding of negative feelings highlights how organizations can validate their emotions to the “triggering event,” but prioritize productive action. In other words, finding ways to constrain those emotions for appropriate times bolsters resilience and encourages individuals and organization. In acknowledging the emotional bonds, individuals can be productive for the organization, while privileging their individual feelings.
While these communicative processes foster resilience, their implementation is highly complex where tensions across the five processes are common (Buzzanell, 2018). Additionally, resilience is typically tied to “triggering events” as the starting point. However, resilience is also constructed in response to changing environments, especially for organizations. Many of the changes are gradual and carry on for months and years. Thus, resilience becomes an ongoing communicative process with no end. This speaks to Ishak and Williams (2018) theorizing that resilience can also function as an identity anchor. Thus, organizations draw on resilience to communicatively construct resilience. Furthermore, the enactment of these communicative processes informs, shapes, and influences other processes. This study argues that resilience is a complex process that emboldens ongoing tensions. Furthermore, organizational resilience has typically been explored in corporate organizations rather than alternative establishments such as gay bars. To further understand the resilience of gay bars, it is necessary to understand the discourses surrounding this change.
Discourses of the Metropolitan Gay Bar
Alvesson and Kärreman (2011) divide discourses into four levels: micro, meso, and macro, and mega or the simplified version of Small d discourse and Big D discourse. They explain Big D discourse as the larger societal ideological systems of knowledge that have endured over time and space. Furthermore, Big D discourses are “institutionalized and authoritative ways of addressing a topic” (p. 1129). Small d discourses, on the other hand, are focused on talk and text through interaction and conversations. Moreover, rather than viewing these binaries as oppositional, this study values the role of both Small d and Big D discourses in the production of meaning. For example, Watson and Watson (2012) explored both small and big narratives about UK pubs in conjunction with societal discourses to understand the interplay between narratives, societal discourses and identity. This study is concerned with those Big D discourses that have emerged from gay culture and the media. Similarly, much of the Big D discourses surrounding gayborhoods are also present in gay bar discourses; the difference is that social scientists have extensively studied these discourses. Thus, it is necessary to address three primary discourses: death of the gay bar, gay bar as a post-gay safe space, mainstreaming of gay bars.
Death of the Gay Bar
An evolutionary discourse follows the biological life course where all things will end over time once there is no longer a purpose. Gay bars have become synonymous with this evolutionary Big D discourse of gay bar extinction. While the origin of the discourse is shaky, several articles point to a 2007 article in Entrepreneur Magazine titled “10 Businesses facing extinction in 10 years,” which references the Orlando Sentinel as validation to claim that “As with many industries, the very best of them will endure; the rest won’t” (Williams, 2007, para. 7). Moreover, Slate writer June Thomas (2011) conducted a two-part series, “The Gay bar: is it dying,” and found that gay bars have decreased significantly, especially in large metropolitan cities. Thomas fully endorsed this evolutionary belief in the first portion, but also discussed its survival in the second half. Although these commentaries are almost a decade old, their discourses have endured. A recent Psychology Today article entitled “Is it last call for the gay bar” points to the closing of a 40-year-old gay bar in Australia (Gerace, 2017). Mattson (2019) argues that this glorification of gay bars is based on data in a few major metropolitan cities. In other words, such discourses are premature and ignore the queer experiences in less populated cities.
“Post-Gay” Bar Safe Space
Embedded in this discourse, the advent of marriage equality and increased visibility suggests that queer people have found a comfort in spaces that aren’t exclusively queer (Nash, 2013). As such, they don’t rely on gay bars to authentically be themselves or feel safe. A 2015 Punch article reinforces this discourse citing the “The increased social acceptance of same-sex attraction has made it less necessary for the LGBT community to cluster […]in limited spaces” (Kane, 2015). The article then advanced this argument further to ask, “are gay spaces even necessary anymore?” (para. 8). This is especially interesting in light of the attack on a gay space largely inhabited by queer people of color at Pulse Nightclub. Furthermore, these arguments illustrate the generational divide between older LGBT people and millennials’ conceptions of sexual identity (Nash, 2013). Sexual identity is not the defining characteristic; instead, they are more sexually and gender-fluid. In fact, a 2016 The Economist article cites this as the central issue plaguing gay bars where gay people are equally comfortable in “straight” bars, and some even prefer this experience over the collectively exclusive model found in gay culture (Thomas, 2011). However, Gerace (2017) argues that this Big D discourse is insufficient and reductionist for two reasons. First, it privileges those who are able to navigate multiple spaces such as gay white men and ignores those intersections that are less accepted. Second, the idea that one is “beyond gay” is highly contextual. For those in smaller cities with very few queer safe spaces, the experience is much different (Lewis, 2013).
Gay Bars as Too Mainstream
The final discourse involves the mainstreaming of gay nightlife. The mainstream discourses come in the form of spaces that have been “taken over by heterosexuals.” A recent Boston Magazine article entitled “When did Boston’s gay scene get so straight?” perfectly espouses this system of thought (Kearnan, 2017). They point to “straight girl squads” who infiltrated gay bars treating gays as commodities and drag queens as strippers. Because gays don’t frequent gay bars anymore, bars have had to appeal to wider groups of people. This has led to tension between the queer patrons and “straight” people. Similarly, Farber’s (2017) commentary in a New York Times article “How gay should a gay bar be?” described how popular bars such as The Abbey have become so mainstream that owners had to open an adjacent bar that catered more to gay men. These tensions have become synonymous with gay bars in large metro areas without addressing how these Big D discourse affect gays in smaller cities.
In short, these Big D discourses continue to be salient in gay culture. However, the reduction of gay lives to metropolitan areas ignores the contextual and unique experiences of those in smaller and rural areas. As such, this study follows the work of geography scholars to challenge the urban hierarchy as a monolith for the LGBTQ+ experience in favor of a dialectical approach that views urban and rural/small binary as intertwined and constitutive of each other (McGlynn, 2018; Myrdahl, 2013). In this study, I explore how the Big D discourses and Small d discourses work with the materiality of place and space to constitute small-city gay bars identity and culture. Therefore, I ask the following research questions:
How do small-city gay bars communicatively construct resilience in the face of difficult times?
How do small-city gay bars communicatively negotiate organizatioinal identity amidst discourses ?
Methods
A case analysis refers to a single case or multiple cases contained in a bounded system. A bounded system refers to the parameters of time or place used to describe the case under investigation (Creswell, 2017). Merriam (2014) argues that the most important part of a case study is its bounded nature and “the unit of analysis, not the topic of investigation” (p. 41).
This study focused on two gay bars located in a small Midwestern city of 120,000 residents. While the city is considered a small metropolitan area, its location is fairly isolated from the nearest major metropolitan city. In addition, the city is unique because a large percentage of the residents are students who attend one of the three academic institutions. This city is an ideal context for analysis because the city’s oldest gay bar, The Metro, closed down in 2015 after 15 years of serving the gay community and surrounding counties. Its closing signified the end of an era in a city with limited options for LGBT people. Newspaper coverage of The Metro’s closing pointed to the rising costs of rent in the downtown area location as a contributing factor. Prior to moving downtown 3 years ago, The Metro was located on the southside of town in a smaller venue for 12 years. The previous location served as a meeting place for LGBT people to connect and have a good time. When it relocated downtown, the atmosphere was constrained by its layout, which limited conversation and drag performances. According to one newspaper source, The Metro was the victim of a full-scale downtown renovation and the influx of trendy bars that caused it to “underperform.” This struggle to stay in business happened despite The Metro’s reputation as a “everything for everyone” type of bar. For many, The Metro was a community institution that served as a safe space for LGBTQ+ people to feel comfortable expressing themselves freely and openly. As one newspaper interview with a longtime patron echoed, “The Metro was where I learned how to be a gay person […] When all else in my life had failed me, The Metro was there.” The bar was known for its trendy club music and exciting drag shows that drew a diverse and lively crowd. For this reason, The Metro’s closing left a major void in the LGBT community. In the wake of this absence, two gay bars filled its place: Foundations Public House and The Quarry Nightclub.
Foundations Public House
Foundations Public House has existed almost as long as The Metro. Its doors first opened in 2002 during a time when the city experienced a wave of gay bar openings and closings. As such, owner Kitt Carter jumped at the chance to open a bar with a welcoming, laidback atmosphere for the gay community. Rather than finding a new space, Foundations opened at the location of a previously closed gay bar. The bar was intentionally opened up in a “familiar” gay space with strong ties to the gay community. The bar is located near the edge of the downtown. In an older and historic part of the city, Foundations is placed within a residential and small business community. It shares a parking lot with a pawn shop and an auto shop. Foundations is open 6 days a week from 5 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. and is touted as a Cheers-like atmosphere where the locals are friendly and “everybody knows your name.”
The Quarry Nightclub
The Quarry Nightclub first opened in the summer of 2015 on the south side of town in a fairly new shopping complex. In the absence of The Metro’s closing, The Quarry Nightclub opened about 6 months later at The Metro’s original location. The owner, Tim Miller, considers the original location to be a more sustainable and comfortable environment. In fact, he views it as a destination spot for patrons to “stay awhile and party the night away.” The surrounding community is filled with newer businesses with normal daytime hours such as a bagel shop. While The Quarry resides at The Metro’s original location, the space is drastically different. For instance, the dance floor and performance stage were expanded to be conducive to large crowds. The Quarry offers “some of the best drag queens in the Midwest […] combined with the friendliest staff in the city’s night life scene.” It also offers recurring drag show performances on Thursdays and Saturdays, as well as events, and dancing five nights a week from 5 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.
Because the community is small and tightly knit, the relationship between the bars is one of collaboration and accommodation rather than competition, where patrons are encouraged to even visit both in one night depending on what events are taking place. As a result, the bars provide a unique case analysis because of their uniquely collaborative relationship, yet distinctive atmospheres. Recently, both bar owners were interviewed by the local newspaper to discuss how they are dealing with some of societal changes affecting gay bars writ large.
Data Collection
Creswell (2017) explains that case study analysis requires the use of multiple forms of data collection to signify the robustness and rigor of the case. More importantly, this provides a layered and rich depiction of the cases bounded nature. In this study, four levels of data collection were conducted: participant observation, ethnographic interviews, semistructured interviews, published material, and online organizational documents. The present study was based on the first phase of a larger study surrounding gay bars. I conducted 60 hours of participant observation resulting in 95 pages of field notes between the two bars. In conducting participant observation, I served as a complete participant who was fully immersed in the organization (Tracy, 2013). While at both sites, I functioned as a “regular” who engaged with bar owners and patrons in varying degrees. Tracy (2013) calls this specific form of participant observation the “ardent activist,” because I adopted the values of the culture. For example, during karaoke night at Foundations, I was asked to run the karaoke station for the entire night because the regular person in charge, Brenda, was out of town. As a result, I was able to immerse myself into the culture of the bars so much that I was on a first name basis with owners and several patrons. To further immersion, field notes were taken on my phone so that I blended in with environment. Next, I conducted ethnographic interviews and 14 semistructured interviews resulting in 400 pages of transcripts with bar owners and several patrons at both bars. Ethnographic interviews emerge in informal conversations during observations (Tracy, 2013). Interviews were typically conducted during slow periods of the nights. It should be noted that ethnographic interviews at Foundations were easier to conduct because its atmosphere was more relaxed. The Quarry, on the other hand, was a much less conducive to conducting interviewing. Therefore, I often had to spend time on the patio where most people spent smoking. In addition to interviews, published material included any news articles that featured the bars were examined beginning in 2015 through the completion of the study. Finally, online websites and social media pages were considered extensions of the bars’ public image construction, which provided a backdrop of each establishment over the last 3 years.
Data Analysis
Following Tracy (2013), an iterative approach was employed that “visits and revisits the data, connect them to emerging [theoretical] insights, and progressively refines” the data reflexively (p. 184). To note, the bars were coded separately in order to contextualize their case distinctions. Therefore, I first engaged the data by reading and rereading my field notes, documents, and published materials thoroughly from each bar. The first phase of analysis used primary-cycle coding to make sense of my field notes. Throughout the data collection process, a memo book was used to provide an ongoing description of ideas. Thus, selective coding was used over line-by-line analysis to provide interpretation and description. For instance, codes such as “drag culture is gay culture” and “drag culture is mainstream” offer examples of this first level of analysis. After the first round of primary cycle coding, I compared data sources to see how field notes codes fit with each bar’s document codes. During this process, I was able to winnow down categories for each bar. At this point, I conducted what Tracy (2013) calls “fracturing” where codes were placed into small batch categories (p. 190). Because I engaged the bars individually and together, a second-level “lumping” of codes with similar characteristics such as “family metaphor” and “welcoming” were batched into categories. For each bar, the lumping mirrored axial coding as I systematically placed codes into larger thematic categories.
Findings
The data analysis revealed how small-town gay bars utilized three of Buzzanell’s (2010) communication sub-processes of crafting normalcy, affirming identity anchors, and fostering alternative logics to construct a culture of resilience during difficult times, and how this construction of resilience is negotiated amidst gay bar discourses. Although both bars employed similar sub-processes, they were enacted in diverging ways. Within these three sub-processes, metaphors, discourses, stories, and rituals created a space for owners, employees, and patrons to collective engage in resilience. As such, the following themes helped to orient and stabilize the bars during ongoing adversity. The findings begin with a description of the sub-process used by each bar and the themes that emerged.
Discursive Normalization
When organizations experience disruptions marked by triggering events, they often construct resilience by enacting a sense of normalcy. Normalcy guides and facilitates the sensemaking process through talk and interaction. This process uses routines, rituals, and discourses to connect and ground members in the ordinary. The bars communicated normalcy through discourses of relationality, viability, and entertainment.
Foundations
Relational discourses typically involved connecting members to the bar and each other in a way that reflected feelings of home, family, and community. Foundations exclusively drew on these discourses to construct a sense of normalcy during the year and a half in which it closed its doors but continued to recultivate this normalcy long after. First, the sense of home discursively and materially fostered feelings of normalcy. For patrons, Foundations served as meeting place to relax, unwind, and have a drink. It is a no-frills atmosphere enclosed in a hodgepodge yet rustic interior that feels almost like a home converted into a bar. There is an expansive back patio for social gatherings with tea lights that line the fence. Brett perfectly captured the home feeling:
You smell a lot of smells when you walk in. And it is a tad bit dirty. But in a good way. I mean, it’s not totally crazy. Like it puts you at ease and is more of a comfort thing.
You walk in and…I’m very partial to this particular bar because I help start it. So it makes me feel at home. And they like to say its a dive bar. When you want to identify it from a different angle. But with me, I call it my home. My second home.
Not only does Brett talk about Foundations as a home, but he draws on his senses to position the different smells one would “experience” as normal and expected, much like actual homes. In fact, Foundations is routinely known for having very few areas of the bar that are off-limits to patrons. For instance, Tony discusses Brett’s ritual of taking new patrons on a tour of the pub:
He introduces everybody new that comes in to other patrons and patrons that he knows, tries to give people tours of the bar. It’s not a big bar. So the tour is not, you know, it’s not like a real tour. But it’s funny that he does that part because it’s not a very big place. Obviously, you could, you know, just do one loop around the bar, and you could see everything, but it’s more meaningful if you get a tour from Brett.
This discourse of home collectively united the “regulars” with the newcomers in a way that made attending Foundations for the first time surreal. The tours functioned to eliminate feelings of uncertainty for newcomers in the hopes that they will return. Thus, enactments of home reflect Foundations’ willingness to cultivate normalcy for future resiliency. The second relational discourse , coincided with the notion of home. In the discourse of family and community, the lines between patron and employee were virtually nonexistent at Foundations. This was especially true for the large group of regulars who frequently engaged in tasks around the pub to keep it in working order and the overhead low. Kitt, the owner of Foundations, frequently described the bar as a community:
If I ever think I need help I just say the word and people land in. It’s been an amazing amount of stuff that’s been done here by the community. And it’s mostly because it is their community center. Nobody’s getting Uber rich on the backs of their efforts to keep this place together. I mean, it is, it is that close to what… a nonprofit.
In relating to the pub as a community center, Kitt shared the responsibilities and concerns involving the pub with patrons so that they would invest in its future. In fact, several participants identified as patrons with benefits because they often worked at the pub when Kitt was sick or simply needed help. For instance, Jeff, 29, explained how he served as backup employee because
Someone might be working and say “oh my back hurts. I can’t carry these buckets of Ice.” Can you run and grab ice for me? Or, “I gotta step away for a few minutes. Can you watch things?” and I’m there. And I’m capable. I don’t necessarily get anything out of it. I’m happy to do anything I can to support an establishment that I feel treats people the right way.
Here, Jeff functioned as a reliable helper whenever the foundations was in need. As a helper, he served as a buffer to cultivate a sense of community and to keep the bar running smoothly. At the same time, Foundations also worked to invest in the patrons as well. When Jeff unexpectedly lost his job, Kitt allowed him to bartend part time as way to make money. Efforts such as this characterized the collective culture of normalcy at Foundations where Kitt “makes you feel like you’re doing something for family. And that’s what it is. That’s another word I can describe. Family. It feels like a big, dysfunctional bunch of family.” Along these lines, normalcy was enacted through discourses of family to describe the diversity of characters and roles they took on to constitute the bar. Rather than uphold problematic versions of this discourse, Foundations embraced the constantly changing nature of patrons, roles, and situations. For instance, Mitchell demonstrated this variation and relation to family:
If you go over your families, sometimes you go over expecting one thing and you get something completely different. You go over and try to have a good time when you’re put to work. Sometimes it’s you going to work for a little bit, and then you end up having a good time. Yeah, I think that’s a pretty good analogy. You never know exactly what you’re going to get when you go in there.
Similar to the discourses of home and community, Foundations embodied a sense of family that was unexpected and dysfunctional. This enactment of resilience situates change as a normal process that produces and reproduces connections. In short, Foundations cultivates the discourse of normalcy to promote collective resilience.
The Quarry
The Quarry, on the other hand, cultivated normalcy through its focus on entertainment and image rather than exclusively attend to the niche markets in the LGBTQ+ community. After two of the four owners abandoned the bar during the first year it was opened, Tom and Gayle, were left with a bar that was “failing.” First, entertainment became the focal point of The Quarry’s vision as a gay bar. Prior to this focus, the bar had a reputation for trying to appease every sector of the gay community. As Zeke, a longtime patron, explained the bar’s initial focus as trying “to reach all the niche markets that you have within a gay community. Particularly with bears, twinks, jocks. Just like the different subcultures that the gay society has on top of also supporting the local drag queens.” When this model began to fail, The Quarry almost exclusively focused their goals on becoming a prominent drag bar. First, the owners gave more power to the drag queens to help construct a sense of normalcy. In fact, they reached out to Ritchie, a prominent local drag queen, who worked previously at the historic Metro bar to help manage and serve as the bar director. In many ways, the shift to drag enabled the bar to survive during a difficult time. Ritchie perfectly espoused how the shift to drag created a new normalcy at The Quarry:
Like I’m doing everything I know what to do. And week after week after week, we’re watching numbers Drop, drop, drop, drop. And Tom was always very, we gotta change shows. The show’s going to change. So, we changed everything that we could possibly change that I had control over. And it finally kind of leveled out. And then I mean, I found Prada Tarthaus and Prada came up real quick. And like she’s the new role of Savior.
Here, a new normalcy was taken up as the drag queens ran the shows and found a system that brought in patrons and provided financial stability to the bar. In addition to assigning power to drag queens, The Quarry also changed the physical space of the bar to centrally locate and focus on entertainment. For example, the stage and bar were moved to different locations to better suit the drag performers. To do this, The Quarry consulted with the owner of the Metro bar, Jesse:
I told the guys when we were looking at that space, I’ve always wanted to tear out the old bar and move it to the back of the room and put the stage behind the bar. So, they followed my idea and they changed the look of what SoCo was to what The Quarry is now.
Interactions such as consulting with the previous bar owner to centralize and prominently highlight the entertainers enabled The Quarry to normalize operations as the bar continued to experience financial struggles. In addition, The Quarry crafted normalcy through the maintenance of its image. This normalcy started with a physical space that was based on clean lines, a sleek look, and modern lighting to attract a wide range of patrons. Inside, the lighting is low, to direct your focus to a bar that spans the width of the building or at the equally impressive performance stage. At opposite ends of the bar, both areas incorporate modern lighting. Throughout my observation, there were no signs or inclinations that the bar was experiencing extreme financial struggles. During my first few months, the focus was primarily on local drag. Over time, the bar visibility increased and high-profile drag queens from the popular show RuPaul’s Drag Race were brought in as featured entertainers. The attention to image demonstrated how The Quarry’s normalcy was rooted in providing customers with a good product. Not only did the bar emphasize a sense of normalcy, but the entertainers also adopted a maintenance of image. For example, during my interview with Ritchie, he discussed the heart attack he suffered a year earlier as result of the grueling nature of managing a gay bar. However, he did not inform the community about his health problems and continued to invest his heart and soul into the bar. This determination was fueled by The Quarry’s desired to promote an image of success to the community. As he stated:
I figured the like [the previous owners] wrote us off. Like they wrote us off for dead. So, I wanted to be here and make this successful, to be a thorn in their side. Every time that they saw an advertisement for the bar every time they saw it was something they gave up on. And we were still here fighting the fire. And so a little of it was retribution for feeling abandoned by these people.
Ritchie’s description of why he worked so hard to keep the bar open illustrates the resolve by The Quarry. Moreover, it also explained why an image of success was promoted so heavily to establish normalcy and foster a culture of resilience in the face of difficult times.
Discursive Anchoring
Discursive anchoring referred to Discourses and ways of describing that individuals, collectives, and organizations draw on to positions themselves and others (Buzzanell, 2018). Discursive anchors help to reframe organizations during times when the collective identity is challenged or forgotten. In other words, anchors work to stabilize organizational existence by connecting members to discursive resources. Both Foundations and The Quarry drew on similar discourses of safe space, welcoming, and sexual empowerment as stabilizing mechanisms to endure difficult times and combat metropolitan discourses.
We are a “Safe Space”
Safe spaces are often defined as a space where an individual’s sense of threat is minimized. References to safe spaces typically involve marginalized groups such as women, LGBTQ+, and people of color who seek a place where they can simply be themselves. Historically, gay bars functioned as safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people to authentically express their sexuality without stigmatization. However, post-gay discourses have challenged the designation of gay bars as safe spaces. In both instances, the need for gay bars as safe spaces was reinforced by patrons and owners. For instance, Ritchie articulated his devotion to gay bars and the importance of keeping The Quarry around:
For me, it’s keeping the gay bar relevant, keeping them in keeping people coming here and feeling like it’s a safe space, a safe place. And that’s been my mantra for the past 2 years, is making sure that we have safe places and that we’re still here when everybody realizes that we still need to have those places.
Ritchie drew on safe space discourse to anchor The Quarry and gay bars writ large. In doing so, he demonstrated how The Quarry is not about the money, but more about cultivating an intersection of community and physical location for everyone including LGBTQ+ people. The enactment of the safe space was further affirmed by Jesse, who illustrated the depth of cultivating a queer safe space beyond putting up a flag:
More than just putting up a gay pride flag. That’s obviously going to be like signaling to the queer community “you guys can come here.” But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be great. By being an accepting and supportive establishment. Just saying, you know, you don’t have to not wear your pride flag. You don’t have to, you know, put on a button down and a pair of Sperry’s to be accepted here. I can wear my glitter boots. I can wear my jockstrap like, I’ve gone to that bar in a jockstrap and nobody said a goddamn thing to me which is against the law.
For Jesse, the safe space discourse extended beyond the building; it was the people who fostered a sense of safety and community at The Quarry. For him, the ability to express his sexuality in a flamboyant way was not only protected at The Quarry, but also nurtured—even if it meant legal ramifications. Furthermore, adopting a safe space discourse provided a sense of unification for a host of identities to feel safe outside of the gay community. This was especially present at Foundations, where several patrons explained how the pub identified as a safe space for various identities and backgrounds. Although queer people have found acceptance in other spaces, groups such as transgender people are still fighting for those same privileges. Thus, Foundations provided a safe space for transgender individuals to feel a semblance of safety:
At Foundations, I know someone who is a transgender man, identifies as a man, and he will come into Foundations, and you know, presents as a man and you know, it’s someone who hasn’t had surgery or anything. And I’ve, witnessed them leaving Foundations and wanting to go somewhere else and saying, “I have to stop by home first, so I can fix something with my presentation, because I think I’m gonna attract unwanted attention somewhere else.”
During my interviews, every participant mentioned how Foundations served as a meeting place, a safe space for members of the trans community. This story, unfortunately, showcased how detrimental it could be to this individual’s identity formation if they did not have this space. In my own experiences at Foundations, I witnessed several trans-identified men feel comfortable asking me about my presentation and how they might better understand portions of masculinity. Based on my experiences at other places, that conversation would not have played out. Ultimately, Foundations anchors itself as a safe space for everyone regardless of background, to cultivate a culture of resilience. This anchoring broadened the safe space distinction to combat privileged discourses that deemphasize the necessity for gay bars. For instance, Tony described how Foundations functioned as a space for other identities:
I think that was last week at Foundations and there was a woman there, who is straight, and she’s a stripper. She was saying that she and her friends who are also strippers come to Foundations so that they can have a place where they know that they’re not going to be harassed by men because they get touched all the time. It’s part of their job, and it’s good for them to get away. A gay bar can provide a place where they don’t necessarily have to experience what some might term hegemonic masculinity of, you know, constantly having to worry about being touched or being an object of someone else’s sexual fantasies.
Again, the designation as a safe space served to bolster Foundations’ ability to attract diverse clientele. In this case, the identity of straight women who also work in a stigmatized industry aligns with Foundations’ safe space designation in way that further supported a cultivation of resilience.
Welcoming to Everyone
Another discursive anchor exercised by both bars was a sense of being welcoming to everyone. In this way, Foundations and The Quarry identified as gay bars, but rarely relied on this identity discourse. Instead, they operated as an establishment that welcomed everyone. They strategically diverged from niche markets specific to the gay community to appeal to a wide variety of patrons. As Vince, a previous gay bar owner, stated:
Based on the size of the city, you have to be everything for everybody. And that’s one thing that we learned Metro. This town is not big enough where Foundations or The Quarry can be niche bars where they can only do this and they can only do that. They have to be there for everybody.
Conversations such as these with owners, employees, and patrons emphasized that embracing a welcoming identity was an essential strategy for survival. In fact, this communicative strategy aided establishments in reinforcing and remaining open during difficult times. This welcoming discourse was especially pertinent in a small town that served many of the surrounding rural counties. In the case of The Quarry, such an identification was publicly espoused as an inclusive space that welcomed everyone and anyone. On their website, The Quarry stated “We pride ourselves on being a place for everyone. We mean it.” Based on my experience, The Quarry offered an inclusive experience that appealed to a diverse clientele based on age, orientation, gender, and, to a lesser extent, race. Although gay men were a large majority of the patrons, I found there existed a consistent lesbian presence. On any given night, the crowd offered a mix bag. Ritchie, the manager at The Quarry, furthered how this anchoring was necessary:
You know, it’s LGBTQ plus, but that plus is so much more than you will ever realize. And the fight to keep the gay bar open, you got to not be the gay bar anymore. You got to be the bar that people come to who just happens to do drag shows. So the diversity is a lot bigger. The fight to keep people in here is a lot bigger and the fight to keep them coming back. It’s a lot. It’s a lot harder than what it has been the past. And a lot of that, fight for survival is you got to make it welcome to whoever wants to come here.
Here, Ritchie pointed to the complexity of the current gay bar landscape where identifying as strictly a gay bar potentially stifled the appeal to diverse audiences. At that same time, appealing to more diverse audiences meant understanding the pulse of varying communities and finding ways to communicate to them that they are welcome. However, The Quarry’s difficulty stemmed from its design and atmosphere, which was less conducive to communicating a sense of welcoming. In contrast, Foundations similarly positioned itself as a welcoming place for everyone. While it identified as a gay bar, Foundations frequently changed from night to night in terms of clientele and activities. The only weekly constants were karaoke nights. Besides this, as Kitt noted in an interview: “It started mostly with the gay community. They still sustain it, but times have changed, so we get everybody in here.” Foundations had the capacity to engage and nurture a welcoming identity because it boasted a more laidback space. Thus, when a patron entered the bar, everyone including the owner noticed and enacted this discourse. Brett explained this process of welcoming everyone when he’s at the pub:
We know we welcome all people. Yeah, we welcome our family of trans. Our family of everybody. I hope when people come in they feel a part of and we don’t want a stranger. When a stranger walks in the first step is going to meet that stranger and showing them around and saying that you’re welcome.
Brett literally engaged in welcoming strangers who come to Foundations. The enactment of welcoming served to cultivate an atmosphere that appealed to anyone who ventured into the establishment. In my observations, I have even seen individuals experiencing homelessness welcomed at the Foundations and given a place to hang out on rainy or cold nights. In short, both bars drew on welcoming discourses to instantiate their identity as everybody bars.
Sexual Empowerment
Finally, The Quarry and Foundations identified and cultivated spaces anchored by the empowerment of individuals, particularly for heterosexual women. In this instance, sexual empowerment referred to instances where patrons could engage in practices that were otherwise stigmatized. These spaces started out as monetary opportunities for each bar. However, these opportunities have emerged to position these establishments as sites of empowerment. For starters, Foundations offered a monthly pole dancing opportunity where women from all walks of life are invited to practice their skills in front of an audience. The performers are able perform without judgment or touching and the experience is fascinating to watch. Kitt offered this description:
The girls are all very wonderful. They really are strong, talented and physically amazing. And so there’s an admiration for it. We see it as an art form. Which traditionally, the gay community is more cognizant of. They pick up the artistry of something going on
Kitt’s appreciation for these performances was unmatched because he has been nurturing this opportunity for several years. The performers feel a strong sense of empowerment when they dance because the atmosphere is entirely different than stereotypical depictions. These events were known bring in incredibly diverse crowds an any given time. At Foundations, this event took place during the first weekend of each month. The Quarry, on the other hand, adopted formulated a burlesque night on Friday nights. Similarly, this started as a trial experience. However, it has since evolved into one of the most popular nights based on attendance and profits for The Quarry. On the nights when burlesque takes place, there is a diversity of patrons who come support these women. Ritchie elucidated how the experience initially made him feel discomfort because of his own body issues:
I’m mortified and in the DJ booth thinking, “Oh, my God, this what we have to do to keep a gay bar open.” But people are spending money and the other part of me wishes I had the confidence to do stuff like that. Like, I wish I felt comfortable with myself to do that. And so honoring this to be able to give these girls a place that they can come and be the empowered women that they want to be.
Ritchie’s response to the burlesque seemed initially problematic because the burlesque show does not fit the identity of a gay bar. However, he framed this experience as something that is beyond financial, it was about cultivating a space for people to feel safe and empowered. In short, Foundations and The Quarry draw on discourses of empowerment, safe space, and welcoming to cultivate a culture of resilience.
Discursive dis/Logics
The final theme of discursive dis/logics emerged at both bars as they sought to communicatively construct a culture of resilience. Utilizing dis/logics involves embracing irrationality and contradiction as a strategy for survival. The use of dis/logics demonstrates a willingness to engage in efforts that are precarious and changing. Moreover, dis/logics challenge existing ways of doing and knowing. In this case, Foundations and The Quarry enacted and cultivated co-sexual spaces that embraced tensions involving sexuality as productive and progressive. Compton (2020) describes co-sexuality as a communicative process of organizing around sexuality. In this way, co-sexuality assumes that all iterations of sexuality are equal. It is through our organizing that we begin to privilege certain sexualities over others and further constitute normative assumptions. In crafting spaces that appeal to diverse audiences, Foundations and The Quarry had to embrace the contradictions residing in these strategies. For instance, Foundations’ pole dancing night offered a perfect example of organizing around sexuality. During these nights, sexuality and sexual expression are on full display as gay, lesbian, straight, male, female, trans, and bisexual intersect in a space that enables, rather than constrains sexuality. Brett offered a unique description of this experience:
On pole dancing nights, it’s a different a different group of people. Yeah, a lot of straight identifying people. Come into the pub. The dancer or the performers are great. But the men that come in just looking for the pole dancer. They all sit back and in a weird, horny little funk. It’s like they’re looking through a window or something into a space. As a gay man going into nights you can feel the testosterone and the sexual atmosphere. Yeah, but something like the pole fitness events. Really get the heat. It’s strange because a lot of gay men get attracted to the straight men. And many girls are watching the lesbian girls that are up there.
Here, Brett explained how the space was “different” when straight men came to watch the women perform. During these interactions, straight men were constrained from enacting normal rituals associated with pole dancing. Instead, they were forced to watch in a way that did not garner unwanted attention from other patrons. As such, sexuality diverged and converged in various ways. For example, while the men stare off, gay men, who find the testosterone attractive, are equally entranced. At the same time, the men watching the women are aware of the gay men as well. Mitchell denoted the tensions expressed by the heterosexual men as “a little nervous about not wanting to make eye contact with a possible gay person or are they focused on the dancers.” Because the space functioned as a safe space where gay men were a large majority of patrons, normal reactions to these situations are challenged in a way that defies how sexuality is expressed outside of the bar. At the same time, these spaces often served as a warning to many of the gay patrons who ventured to the patio or other areas of the bar until the show was finished.
The Quarry’s construction of co-sexual spaces offered a different experience where the spaces were not exclusive to LGBTQ+ but encouraged the inclusion of women during bachelorette parties. The Quarry even addressed tension explicitly by inviting patrons to “Celebrate your birthday, bachelorette parties, or any special occasion at The Quarry Nightclub.” This mention of bachelorette parties challenged and supported the mainstreaming discourse. For many of my participants, the inclusion of sexual diversity in gay bars was a vibrant and needed perspective. However, the inclusion of bachelorette parties at times create a tension with patrons because of their disregard for sexual norms. For instance, Zeke worked as a performer at the bar from time to time. He was a sexually expressive person, but his identity as a dancer resulted in conflict:
I’ve had bachelorette parties. Like, come up to me and be like, Hey, I saw you stripping here like two months ago. Will you come give my friend a lap dance at her bachelorette party? I was like, I charge $150 for private show. Like, if that’s what you want. If you want a lap dance, it’s going to be $20 for three songs. Like, Wait, you charge for it? I work for it. And I’m also not prepared in this moment. So you’re going to have a premium price. Well, what do you mean? I think you just did this for fun. I was like, they pay me to do this. This is not a charity that I run out. Well, can you just like rub up on her?
Here, Zeke was expected to perform for the party because the bar cultivated a space of sexual expression and intersecting identities. While sexual expression is embraced, Zeke’s choice to say no is called into question by the patron as she expects him to not only perform but without compensation. As such, The Quarry’s co-sexual space invited everyone to feel comfortable enacting their sexuality, but the sexual norms are reimagined in the spaces where women are given the freedom to engage in, what percieved by gay men as unfortunate behavior. Nevertheless, Zeke was able to inform the bar manager who addressed the norms surrounding consent at the bar.
Discussion
This study explored how small-city gay bars drew on Big D metro gay bar discourses to communicatively construct a culture of resilience in the face of difficult times. Both bars engaged in organizational flexibility to survive. This study offers contributions to the literature on organizational resilience, discourse, and sexuality.
First, this study extended the organizational resilience literature by demonstrating how communicative construction of resilience should attend to the inherent tensions among the processes. Foundations’ and The Quarry’s anchoring of identity as a place for everyone influenced the alternative logic of co-sexual spaces. While participants expressed enjoyment in sharing spaces with a diversity of patrons, their experiences with straight identified patrons were not always pleasant. Rather than trying to manage these tensions, Foundations embraces the tensions and allows patrons to resolve conflicts. Buzzanell (2018) argues that the tensions inherent to the communicative process of resilience can be overcome by engaging in cultivation and transformation. While both bars constructed a culture of resilience, Foundations’ enactments were “cultivated interactively for the present and for the future, for self and for others” (p. 15). On the other hand, The Quarry remained in a construction of resilience loop. While The Quarry refrained from publicly affirming an identity anchor of resilience, behind closed doors this anchor kept the bar going despite constant setbacks. On the surface, Foundations and The Quarry communicatively constructed resilience. However, resilience was enacted similarly, but from different motivations and perspectives. Additionally, organizational resilience literature has tangentially touched on how resilience is constructed across micro, meso, and macro levels (Buzzanell, 2018; Brandhorst, 2018). At both gay bars, patrons’ resilience was often intertwined with the bars’ resilience, illustrating that gay bars offer felt experiences that transcend across generation and identities. Often when these establishments experienced difficulties, the patron’s resilience often translated to the organization’s resilience.
Second, small-town gay bars frequently pulled on Big D metro gay bar discourses to construct and negotiate organizational resilience. This was especially salient when the historic Metro bar closed. Thus, The Quarry and Foundations engaged in their own form of “rebranding” to avoid the pitfalls of The Metro. Based on their interviews and participant observation, each bar attended to specific Big D discourses that could have positively or negatively affected their organizational identity. Foundations drew on discourses of mainstreaming and post-gay space to construct a community-based bar for everyone. For The Quarry, an emphasis on drag culture and addressing the tension between LGBTQ+ and “straight” seemed to be influenced by mainstreaming discourses associated with RuPaul’s Drag Race and bachelorettes parties. This study contributed to criticism of overemphasizing outcomes as “discursive effects” (p. 1132) when associating d/D discourses. Although Big D discourses played a role in each bar’s organizational resilience, I also argue that Metropolitan gay bar discourses routinely excluded areas that lack a diversity of queer spaces and other members of the LGBTQ+ community. While gays and lesbians may experience more acceptance, other members such as trans women of color desperately need spaces and places that affirm and support them. Rather than succumb to these discourses, Foundations and The Quarry cultivated new safe spaces for other marginalized identities.
Finally, the co-construction of small-city gay bar organizational identities illustrated the dialectical push and pull of co-sexual spatiality. At Foundations and The Quarry, sexual expression was nurtured in a way that embraced the tensions inherent to co-sexuality. For instance, by transforming the bar into a pole dancing venue, heteronormativity was mitigated and neutralized by the sexual norms of the bar. The straight men entering the bar were aware of these norms so that the tension between gay men, straight identifying men and women, lesbian women, and so on, could flourish, if only for a brief period. At The Quarry, sexual norms of demonstrated the push and pull of sexual norms where the bachelorette party attendance stemmed from a willingness to escape harassment, yet this understanding was ignored at The Quarry where sexual expression was highly encouraged such that patrons were expected to express that sexuality regardless of consent. This contributed to the literature on co-sexuality by illustrating how we communicatively organize around the sexual norms of a gay bar. In organizing, “normal” sexuality changed such that power was not fixed to a particular identity or person but resided in the space.
In short, this study succeeds in creating descriptive inroads for gay bars as organizations, but it is not without limitations. First, this study was constrained by the multisite focus, which limited my ability to devote equal attention to both bars. I found myself attending Foundations more often because of its convenience. Additionally, while I engaged in semistructured interviews, they were easier to come by at Foundations. More interviews need to be conducted at The Quarry to understand the full scope of their resilience. Finally, more observation during different times would provide more of holistic picture. I was limited in the hours I could spend at either bar. Overall, small-city gay bars represent a unique lens to view how organizations draw on Big D discourses to negotiate identity. The resiliency of these two small-city gay bars was remarkable given the constraints and limited resources. Still, both bars used different strategies for survival and viability. However, they are doing more than surviving, they are living.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Author Biography