How many times have you heard people say that there are not enough gay venues in Perth, and that some of our gay venues are becoming too straight? Perth’s gay community, like all communities, always changes and evolves; people come and go, every now and then a new club comes along then closes, new community groups pop up and the Pride Parade shrinks and expands.

The last couple of Pride Parades have been relatively small with only a few float entries and the parade seems to be drawing fewer onlookers. Maybe the parade is a litmus test for the so-called decline in the Perth gay community. Have you known guys to leave our sunny shores and head elsewhere in the pursuit of an apparently more flourishing gay scene?  Well, it seems Perth is not alone in this phenomenon. It is happening all over the globe.

In 2007, researchers from the University of Minnesota in the U.S. asked the question “Are gay communities dying or just in transition?” They consulted with members of gay communities in 14 different countries – France, Denmark, Sweden, England, the Netherlands, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, United States and Canada – and published some interesting results.  The following is a summary of their findings:

• In all the above countries the online gay community was larger than the physical community.
• Generally the gay community appeared to be declining (except for in London and New York), but at the same time participants described the size of their gay populations as stable or growing (especially in Eastern European cities).
• Gay neighbourhoods were described as disappearing with straight people moving into gay areas and vice versa.
• There was generally a decrease in the number of gay bars/clubs with more mixed (gay and straight) spaces appearing.  This was linked to more online meeting sites and changes in drug use.  The big exception to this trend was in New York, London and in East European countries, where more and more gay bars were opening up and staying open.

Of particular interest is the very popular online cruising site in London which opened up a bar with computers so guys can cruise and drink at the same time, and Copenhagen saunas now have computers so they can cruise the internet in the comfort of a hot tub!

Another common trend noted in all the countries which took part in the research was that the focus of gay events was more commercial rather than socially activist. This was described in terms of more corporate sponsorship, a greater focus on pop culture and music, and marketing campaigns targeted at gay people at gay community events.

Many of the people surveyed in the research said that there seemed to be less political debates, less volunteerism in gay or HIV/AIDS organisations, fewer protests about laws and discrimination and a growing apathy toward equal rights movements in current gay communities throughout the world.

From what the report is saying, it seems that the physical community is giving way to the virtual one, that “gayness” is becoming much more acceptable in polite society, that many of the rights for which we have worked so hard are being met and that straight people are happy to follow gay people in style and “cutting edginess”. Well, that last one has always been the case.

Decline or transition, either way there is change afoot. The question remains, what incarnation the Perth gay community will take on. We encourage you to write to us with your thoughts on where our community is headed – the highs, the lows, the challenges, the opportunities. Tell us what you think we will look like as we move into the next decade of this new millennium.

By Luke Kitchens and Steve Fragomeni

Taken from “Are Gay Communities Dying or Just in Transition?  Results from an international consultation examining possible structural change in gay communities” B.R. Simon Rosser; William West; Richard Weinmeyer  Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA Online Publication Date 01 May 2008.