Gay clubs were supposed to be safe spaces where lives were transformed. They were never meant to be newsworthy. The Orlando shooting changed that. Plus: how gay disco shaped pop
The first time I went to a gay club, a stranger looked over his shoulder and said: Arent you hot in that? It was a Thursday night at the Number One, a small underground box tucked behind Bootle Street police station, Manchester, with a ludicrous corner VIP area where you would occasionally see Coronation Street actors. It was run by a chirpy, resilient fellow named Bubbles. It was 1987, the summer before Clause 28. I was 16, at sixth-form college a couple of miles down the road in Rusholme. That night, I begged, borrowed and eventually stole a chunky Ralph Lauren pullover from my big brother, not thinking that in a city that frequently entertained entire dancefloors of men wearing cagoules, it would be any reason for concern. In front of the bar, I flinched, said no (a lie) and carried on taking in every detail of this new life.
Collectively, we know the familiar mundanity of being in a workplace, on public transport, at school. We know first hand the significant communion of attending a gig and the sanctity of being in church. When the severity of the bloodbath at Pulse in Orlando emerged, many could have imagined what clubbing on a Saturday night feels like, too. But not everyone is privy to the triumph of the neighbourhood gay disco. Maybe thats why news bulletins about the dead and wounded, our spiritual allies, hit LGBT viewers as a personal affront, and provoked a militant anger.


The neighbourhood gay disco is the foot-soldier that puts in the groundwork for these marquee events to exist. Bennets in Glasgow, Cruz 101 in Manchester, Flamingos in Blackpool, Garlands in Liverpool, small, significant strips in Cardiff, Brighton and Newcastle. There is a Pulse around every corner. The reason you dont know them is because you arent supposed to. They are part of the latticework of personal experiences that moves nations toward acceptance. Omar Mateens gun is pointed directly at the experiences that make us us. You go to an unheralded place such as Pulse not to change the world, but to change your own, in incremental steps. Slowly, that feeling of being yourself fans out and becomes infectious. Slowly, word travels. Slowly, change emerges.

Because it is a minority rite of passage, the unsung gay disco is a special space, furnished with magic beyond the lighting rig and the drinks specials. It is not just about learning the real name of a drag queen or who remixed what; neither is it how to politely bat off the lad with the wandering hands and invite the one you really want to wander somewhere with. The local gay disco is the place where you stop being the odd one out. It is a halfway house, a leap towards building the home that you calls you, a little but not much different from the one you came from. A home built on love.
It is the first place you recognise someone at the back of the room and pretend you havent seen them, as they pretend they havent seen you, until you share the absurdity of keeping something as essential as your sexuality secret, then laugh about both being in the same place. It only takes one.
The gay disco has its own ecosystem, a pyramid structure that begins with the owner and waterfalls down through the DJs, security staff, the barman who will give you a free can for a smile, the promoter who chose the picture for the flyer. There is a shared vocabulary, built partly around disposition but also the raw necessity to pass on the things that school couldnt teach you and that church refuses to. Suddenly, there is a body of people that understand shallow preoccupations such as a new TV pinup, and important ones such as the availability of PreP.