“Gay Carnival”: Lesbian pop-up bar in New Orleans born after Hurricane Katrina | Hurricane Katrina |

one A few months after Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana in August 2005, Jenna Jordan searched for other queer women. She is looking for friendship with people like her who have returned to New Orleans after the storm. Some communities with a considerable gay population, e.g. French Quarter yes To a large extent From the flood, but with people of color and lesbians (such as Midtown) Not very lucky.

On a Tuesday night in February 2006, Jordan and some other graduate students from Loyola University and Tulane University held a party at a diving bar called St Joe’s, near Uptown. The party was passed down by word of mouth, with only about 20 people appearing, but within five years it joined a large ball with hundreds of people. grrrlspotThis is a monthly pop-up event for Queer Women in New Orleans today and it still exists today.

“It’s trying to find out who’s back, catch up with people, and maybe meet new people,” Jordan said. “I don’t think it would have happened without Hurricane Katrina. There’s no reason that would have happened.”

Lesbian bars are rapidly declining across the United States. After the heyday of the 1980s More than 200 according to Lesbian Bar Projectan initiative that records and highlights the nightlife spaces of lesbians nationwide. The last lesbian bar in New Orleans, Ruby Jungle, Closed in 2012. After Hurricane Katrina hit the hurricane and many lacked financial resources to return to the city and rebuild, queer women gathered less space as the community passed. Grrlspot fills this gap in various bars throughout the city with four annual gatherings (Mardi Gras, Pride, Southern Decadence and Alloween), where 600 queer women gather and celebrate each game.

For New Orleans resident Charlotte D’Ooge, GrrlSpot is so popular because there is not enough population or financial support to support the existence of the new lesbian bar. “After Hurricane Katrina, there was a real housing problem…it became very expensive,” D’Ooge said. Research The impact of the storm on queer women in 2008 by Tulane University. “Wages in New Orleans are not rising here, but the expenses are. So, it’s certainly a deterrent for many people to even be able to return home and return to their communities.”

Jordan is trying to create a safe space where lesbians and trans women feel they can express their joy. The pop-up event is like a big celebration, and Jordan said, “It’s really great.”

She expects the citywide event to be in New Orleans every year Southern decadence abandonedan LGBTQ+ festival started in 1972 by several people. Since then, it has grown into a multi-day festival that includes parades, street parties and drag shows, attracting hundreds of thousands of participants from around the world. “The best way to describe it is like a gay carnival,” Jordan said of the celebration. GrrlSpot will hold its next event during the Southern Decade abandonment August 30 at the Theatre of Toulouse In New Orleans.

after Carnival Parade Last February, customers applied for the Toulouse Theatre to watch the burlesque and Grrlspot’s Carnival Party. A group of women in colorful costumes radiated their limbs under the strobe lights as DJ spun 40 hits and hip-hop music. The acrobat twists his body in the floor routine and then goes to the dancer to fly across the space.

Jordan said everyone except for the unselected cis-man, was invited to the celebration. “When I saw trans women there, it was so uplifting because I think trans women feel comfortable in many ‘lesbian spaces’,” Jordan said. “This is a space where I didn’t know there were a lot of things before.”

She promotes events on Instagram, Eventbrite, Facebook, Gambit and local publications. Jordan says that while other lesbian pop-ups have already appeared, they ended up in a dilemma and GrrlSpot is the only one who runs through New Orleans to gradually rebuild New Orleans Hurricane Katrina.

After the storm, many lesbians began to hold more parties in their homes. New Orleans For twenty years. Until last year, Gaither and her wife had held an annual fundraiser for 14 years and hosted an event called Winter Wonderland, where they will raise funds for two nonprofits. They have performers and have awards distributed to lesbians who have made positive contributions to the local community.

“New Orleans may not have real lesbian bars, but that doesn’t mean there are no lesbians there. We still care about the community, and there are still lesbians raising funds to help the cause,” Gaither said. “Just because there is no central location, it doesn’t make people’s desires in sports dull.”

While the bar scene is a big aspect of the queer network, she said there is no one in New Orleans who should not stop lesbian gatherings. GrrlSpot is the way queer women do this, she said. Gaither said lesbians should not “lose that desire to make things better” and “maybe one day, lesbian bars will be revived.”