Where are the girls and the gays? Suddenly, S.F. is full of lesbian bars.

"But in the last six years, the number of bars with a significantly lesbian clientele has begun to rise again. There's Jolene's (2019), Mother (2023), Scarlet Fox (2023) and Rikki's, a women's sports bar which opened this past June. It's not just bars. Parties, raves and events like Lesbeaux (at Beaux), Out and About, Queen Out (at The Cafe) and Sapphic Pride are having a resurgence too, joining long-time mainstays like Mango and UHaul."

"The difference? For a start, they don't call themselves lesbian bars anymore. The love that once dared not speak its name now has an almost endless number of I.D.s. Jolene's defines itself as both a "lesbian/queer bar" and "SF's queer destination," as a way to balance the desire for lesbian spaces with the realization that culture, and labels, don't stay fixed. Mother calls itself "dyke of center." Scarlet Fox and Rikki's describe themselves as a queer-owned wine bar and a women's sports bar, respectively."

"Lesbian bars and other lesbian spaces had been on the decline for decades across the country. In the '80s there were an estimated 200 lesbian bars across the country, by 2020 that number had dwindled to just around 20, according to the Lesbian Bar Project. Many factors contributed to the decline: Women, on average, earn less than men. They also, on average, drink less alcohol. And while lesbian bars were one of the few places where lesbians could reliably find each other, today there are apps for that."

The Lexington Club closed in 2015 after 18 years, once mourned as the last lesbian bar in San Francisco. New venues since 2019 — Jolene's, Mother, Scarlet Fox and Rikki's — and revived parties and events have expanded spaces for lesbians and queer women. New venues embrace broader queer, dyke, women's and queer-owned identities rather than strict "lesbian bar" labels. Nationwide decline reduced roughly 200 lesbian bars in the 1980s to around 20 by 2020, driven by economic disparities, lower average alcohol consumption among women, and dating apps that changed how lesbians meet.

Read at Mission Local