That was also the year the first gay bar opened in Orlando.
In 1969, a police raid at the Stonewall Inn rallied the gay community of New York and marked the birth of the gay rights movement. On New Year’s Eve 1967, undercover police at the Black Cat Tavern in Los Angeles beat several patrons and arrested them for “lewd” kissing. Many states had laws prohibiting touching and kissing, and police often raided gay bars on various pretexts. But they were targets as well, at times officially. Gay bars have historically been sanctuaries, places where gay people didn’t have to hide, where they could meet and love.
The symbolism of an attack at a gay bar is potent, considering the central role such spaces have played in the history of the LGBT community.
One of the members of the drag ensemble, Magic Mushroom & Company, which would appear regularly at The Place Club in 1969, from the LGBT Museum of Central FloridaĪs the cable-news noise around the Orlando shooting tumbles through discussions of ISIS, LGBT rights, and gun control, the gay community in Orlando is left with a once safe space made terrifying.
