[THEGUARDIAN] When Cleve Jones, a longtime gay activist who led the creation of the Aids Memorial Quilt, went to his local gay bar in the Castro district, he saw something that shocked him."The tech bros had taken over The Mix. They commanded the pool table and the patio. These big, loud, butch guys. It was scary," he said. "I'm not heterophobic, but I don't want to go to a gay bar and buy some guy a drink and have him smirk and tell me he's straight. They can go anywhere. We can't."
Residents of the Socialist paradise of San Francisco
...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964...
's historically gay Castro district are worried that it's changing, as speculators come in to flip the few remaining ramshackle old Victorians and the old-timer gay bars shutter. In a recent small survey, 77% of people who have lived in the neighborhood for 10 or more years identified as gay, while only 55% of those who moved in the past year did.
When an iconic building was on the market earlier this year, it was between two potential tenants: a gay strip club and a SoulCycle. The SoulCycle won. This winter, The Gangway, the oldest gay bar in town, is closing down.
"When you lose the geographic concentration, you lose a lot," Jones said. "We lose the cultural vitality, the political power -- you also lose the specialized social services."
Let's be clear: San Francisco is still extremely gay, with 6.2% of the population identifying as LGBT, according to a recent Gallup poll that puts the Bay Area as the gayest region in America. Portland follows with their gay population at 5.4% of the region.
But the gay community is changing -- and traditional LGBT institutions are rapidly disappearing.
"The neighborhood is more professional gay now. Not that it's less gay, but you gotta have money to move in," said Hank Cancél, who lives on the corner of 19th and Castro streets, where he keeps a collection of gay erotic dolls in the window. "So now it's Apple gay. Airbnb gay."