scene is a little bit different,’” Bertges says. When 23-year-old Isabelle Bertges moved here from New York last summer, she was disappointed by the dearth of spaces where she could meet and socialize with other women. But in L.A., the absence of these spaces is disheartening, especially for young women making a home in the city. From San Francisco to New Orleans, lesbian bars across the country have closed their doors in recent years. The decline of hangouts for gay women is not an L.A.-specific phenomenon. When it shuttered in 2017, Los Angeles County was left without a single lesbian bar. The Oxwood Inn, a Van Nuys lesbian joint, followed not long after. While there are 20 bars for gay men in West Hollywood alone, the last lesbian bar in WeHo, the Palms, ended its historic 56-year run in 2013. is a much different place-especially when it comes to nightlife.
“Here we are in numbers, starting to recognize each other quite visibly in a way that I don’t think had been done before.” “It was the first time I remember thinking, ‘Wow, we can be out, and we might be OK,’” Gordon says.
It was the ’90s, and lesbian life in Los Angeles was at its peak: women proudly marched through the streets for Lesbian Visibility Week, celebrities were coming out, and lesbian bars thrived as places for women to meet up, hook up, and find community. When Adriana Gordon first came out as a lesbian, she was 21 years old and living in West Hollywood.