At one of the oldest gay taverns in the city’s Boystown neighborhood, the regulars were sharing a laugh over what they had seen the night before at their watering hole: a gaggle of straight women.
“It was like they were at a gay museum,” joked James Davies, 61, who has been a regular at Little Jim’s for most of the 39 years it’s been in business. “They came to see if we fossilized.”
Call it a sign of progress, or as University of British Columbia sociologist Amin Ghaziani describes it, the “de-gaying” or “straightening” of America’s historically gay enclaves.
In the midst of 20 straight wins in federal courts for same-sex marriage and polling that demonstrates Americans’ growing acceptance of LGBT people, scholars and demographers say there are signs that the draw of the so-called gayborhood is fading away.