While there are many watering holes to choose from, it's also true that many iconic heritage spaces have closed their doors: Roosterfish, the only gay bar in Venice Beach, shut down after nearly forty years of business Los Angeles’s Jewel’s Catch One catered to the city’s LGBT African Americans for decades but is now gone for almost twenty years, Escuelita was a space for NYC’s LGBT Latinos but it wrapped up in March London’s Richard Arms closed after thirty years of service Santa Fe’s only gay bar no longer exists and San Francisco’s oldest gay bar - The Gangway - is on the brink of shuttering. This might mean you’ll be attending a Pride parade or heading to a gay bar to grab a drink with friends to celebrate equality. With June being Pride Month, issues impacting the LGBT community and LGBT celebrations are both in the spotlight. This story was written, edited and filed prior to Sunday morning's events.] Prior to the Orlando shooting, ATTN: had begun reporting on the gradual loss of these sanctuaries. In the wake of the shooting, Richard Kim wrote for the Nation about the horrific fact of the shooter targeting a gay bar, an institution that, among other things, serves as a "sanctuary against aggression." The massacre was a tragic reminder of the sometimes intense hatred still directed at gay Americans, even as the country makes gradual strides toward LGBT equality.
In total, 50 people were killed and 53 more were injured. [Editor's Note: Early Sunday morning, the largest mass shooting in American history took place at the gay nightclub, Pulse, in Orlando.