Much of this scene was clustered into three communities: Capitol Hill, DuPont Circle, and South Capitol Street. More importantly, Washington’s queer nightlife scene in the 1970s and 1980s offered patrons a relatively safe space to act on their emotional and erotic desires openly and without fear of judgement. Entrepreneurs – many of them gay men – opened nightlife businesses that proudly catered to queer clienteles, permitting and even encouraging drag, same-sex dancing, and same-sex sexual encounters.
But this era of visibility brought new venues for queer socializing, including nightclubs, adult film theaters, and bath houses, to nearly every quadrant of the District. Queer Washingtonians continued to frequent the outdoor cruising spots and neighborhood bars that had defined the LGBTQ social experiences in the first half of the century. In the post-World War II period, Washington, DC developed a thriving queer nightlife scene unlike anything the District had witnessed before. The DC Boundary overlaid with the rainbow pride flag.