Earlier this month I was mailed Amin Ghaziani’s book, There Goes the Gayborhood, which you can purchase on Amazon (although I would prefer you buy it from a local LGBT bookstore) like Boston’s Calamus Bookstore.
Ghaziani asserts that gay neighborhoods, enclaves, ghettoes (whatever you want to call them) are ‘straightening’ in what he refers to as a post-gay era. He points out the painful fact that in 1994 there were 16 gay bars in Boston and Cambridge but by 2007 less than a handful remained. However it isn’t just bars that are closing, LGBT bookstores, shops and even newspapers are shuttering to make way for other businesses as our community evolves.
I’m only about 80 pages into the book so this isn’t a review as much as it is a notice that the book will no doubt influence future posts. I couldn’t be more happy to live in this ‘post-gay’ world, but I’m of a generation that experienced a less ‘open-minded’ society and that too shapes my perceptions, attitude and makes me more protective of the concept of a gayborhood than my younger counterparts.
BosGuy 