Gay bars in el paso

Best Gay Bars in El Paso, TX - CockTales, Touch Bar El Paso, Chiquita's Bar, The Tool Box, Epic, Briar Patch, Whatever Lounge, 8 1/2. Find the best gay bars and popular LGBT dance clubs and hotels in El Paso. Reviews, photos, gay map. Guide to the best El Paso gay bars, clubs, parties and festivals. Complete, up-to-date, ranked list of all LGBT events and venues in El Paso.

Gay Bars In El Paso The Briar Patch (89 Ratings) Trendy cocktail bar Relax outside or enjoy karaoke indoors at this high energy club in the heart of Pride Square. N Stanton St, El Paso, TX , USA outdoor seating mixed LGBTQ+ cocktail lounge. Representing the family of LGBTQ people on the west and east sides of El Paso. A grant funded organization that provides education, resources, and testing for HIV and STI’s for men who have sex with men (MSM).

They provide free social events and a safe space for young gay and bisexual men. Publication Note: I will continually update this article as I remember more about these bars or I hear more from others. If you know of other bars not listed here, tell me about them in the comments or in Chat! El Paso has changed a lot since I first came here in the late s.

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It was full of life and commerce, much of which we have the people of Juarez to thank for pumping life and money directly into our civic veins with their massive cross border traffic. And there were gay bars; perhaps more than one would expect a city of this size to support. At that time and probably still, Juarez was twice as big as El Paso and much younger.

A large number of bar patrons came from there. They came over legally and illegally. They came to patronize and to socialize. Above all, they came in large numbers. They occupied a huge place in the early scene. Like in other cities, they disappeared for many reasons. However, the biggest reason our downtown declined when it did and the gay bars in particular became fewer with many disappearing all together likely has to do with Operation Hold the Line.

Operation Hold the Line was a policy put in place in late by the-then sector chief of the Border Patrol and later congressman , Sylvester Reyes. In effect, he established a system that prevented people from casually crossing without papers. In place of the cat-and-mouse system of border policing that prevailed for decades, the new approach was all about prevention.

The BP flooded the zone with officers and placed them every quarter mile or so along the border to catch and deter at the point of entry. Up until then, thousands crossed daily to shop, eat, drink, work in the informal domestic and farming sectors, and basically enjoy the things not available in Juarez due to restrictive trade policies and other reasons.

Some waded across the Rio Grande under the bridges that connected downtown with Juarez. Some crossed upstream or downstream before there were fences or barriers of any kind. Some crossed por American wherein younger Mexicans simply declared themselves American citizens and were waived through by bored and seemingly disinterested INS officers. Perhaps this permissive attitude to enforcement was because then as now the peoples of El Paso and Juarez were far more alike than different even down to the dominant language they spoke.

And so with that introduction, here are some of the bars, in no particular order, that are gone but deserve to be remembered. A German and his Mexican boyfriend owned and operated this bar as late as the early s. Bliss, and stayed after he met his boyfriend. The bar looked rather different when it was open with a beige exterior and no windows as I recall.

The Diamond Lil Bar, S. Florence Street, Magoffin Avenue, other locations over the years. Don Ward opened it after working as a bartender at another bar. The bar moved several times, having been located at Five Points, out on Dyer almost to the end of the street at that time, and eventually on South Florence the photo on the left.

The place burned and was closed for the next two years before it reopened with the help of a UTEP college professor named Howard Applegate, who loaned or gave Don the money to reopen.

Cliff was from Santa Fe. His family ran liquor stores.