Did The L Word kill the lesbian bar? In the second part of our ’90s and ’00s series, Jack Gieseking is joined by Mairead Sullivan, Katherine Griffiths, and Trish Bendix to discuss this and many other complicated questions. Lesbian bars began declining in the 1990s, but the episode looks beyond the easy story of changing sexuality or television culture. Racism, gentrification, rising rents, restaurant groups, globalization, changing drinking habits, smoking bans, and the growing fragility of nightlife all transformed queer space.

Race and gender are central to this story. Trish discusses Chicago’s Black lesbian spaces and the emergence of Nobody’s Darling and Dorothy’s, while Katherine describes the role of Black music and Black women’s organizing in London nightlife—and the racism that could still determine who was allowed through  ...