LGBTQ Assimilation into American Public Life & The Decline of Lesbian Bars

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Shelby Goodwin

     In The Civil Sphere, Jeffrey Alexander argues that the assimilative mode of incorporation involves a split between the public and private spheres. During time periods when assimilation was the dominant mode of incorporation, marginalized groups were only conditionally included in the civil sphere. Alexander writes that individuals who possessed polluted, “non-American” qualities could only take part in “... the discourse and institutions of American civil society insofar as they completely shed these identities upon entering the public domain” (Alexander 2006: 429). Assimilation – rather than challenging the negative attitudes attached to outsiders’ identities – reinforces the belief in primordial American qualities as superior and others as inferior. If assimilation requires that the identities, cultures, and practices of minority groups become “invisible to the public eye,” can minority groups achieve meaningful participation in the civil sphere? (Alexander 2006: 429). I would argue that the assimilative mode of incorporation has prevented a number of marginalized groups from having a meaningful role in the public sphere.

The image I have selected reflects the effects of assimilation on the LGBTQ community. This map of the United States reveals that there are only 21 remaining lesbian bars in the country. According to the Lesbian Bar Project, “In the late 1980s, there were an estimated 200 Lesbian Bars across the country. Now there are thought to be just 21” (Lesbian Bar Project 2021). The loss of spaces which cultivate and preserve lesbian culture (and queer culture, more generally) is, in part, the result of the LGBTQ community’s gradual incorporation into the public and civil spheres. If this indicates LGBTQ inclusion in the civil sphere, then it could be said to be a sign of progress. But at what cost? Are all LGBTQ people permitted the full expression of their stigmatized identities in public life, or must they conform to the heteronormative “primordial qualities” of American identity?

 

Works Cited

Drasky, Kathy and Gonzalez, Efrain. “Untitled.” From lesbianbarproject.com. Retrieved March 

31, 2022 (https://www.lesbianbarproject.com/). 

Jeffrey, Alexander. 2006. The Civil Sphere. New York: Oxford University Press. 

 


Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 31, 2022 at 4:09 PM

    Based on some of the things we discussed in class, it would seem far to argue that some groups (and often LGBTQA+ groups in particular) are still within the assimilation phase of incorporation into America's civil sphere. The graphic you've provided also seems to point to this, which is something I would not have expected. I'm curious though as to whether or not the decrease in lesbian-specific bars is due to conformity, or something else. Is it possible that more generally inclusive bars have become popularized instead?

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